“The online world shouldn’t be a wild west,” said Prime Minister Scott Morrison (Representative)
Sydney:
On Sunday, the Australian government said it would enact legislation to unmask online trolls and hold social media giants like Facebook and Twitter responsible for identifying them.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose conservative coalition government faces an election in the first half of 2022, said the law would protect Australians from online abuse and harassment.
Morrison told reporters: “The online world shouldn’t be a wild west where bots and bigots and trolls and other guys can go around anonymously and harm people and do hurt people, harass and bully them and fail them.
“That’s not something that can happen in the real world, and there’s no way that’s possible in the digital world.”
Attorney General Michaelia Cash said the law, which is expected to be introduced into parliament in early 2022, is needed to make it clear that social media platforms, not users, are responsible for defamatory comments by others.
Confusion was sown by a High Court ruling in September that Australian media, as users manage their pages on the social network, could be held liable for defamatory comments third-party listings on their site, Cash said.
Under Australian law, the social media companies themselves would be held responsible for such defamatory content, not the users, she said.
It also aims to prevent people from making defamatory comments without being identified, she said.
“You cannot use the shell of anonymity online to spread your malicious, defamatory comments,” the attorney general said.
“The law would require social media platforms to have a nominated organization based in Australia,” she said.
Platforms can protect themselves from being sued as publishers of defamatory comments only if they comply with the new law’s requirements to have a complaints system that can provide detailed information about who made the comment, if necessary, Cash said.
People can also apply to the Supreme Court for a “disclosure order” asking a social media service to provide details “to unmask the fraudster,” the attorney general said. .
In some cases, the troll may be asked to take down the comment, she said, which could end the matter if the other person is happy.
Australia’s Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said he would support a safer online environment for all.
But he said the government had failed to propose action to stop the spread of misinformation on social media and accused some members of the government of spreading misinformation about Covid and injections. strains.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
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