Michelle Rowland
The Albanese Government will develop a Digital Duty of Care regulatory model to "keep users safe and help prevent online harms".
The Digital Duty of Care will legislate online platforms to be responsible for enduring categories of harm.
This will include harms to young people, harms to mental wellbeing, the instruction and promotion of harmful practices, and other illegal content, conduct and activity.
The model was birthed out of a yet-to-be released independent review of the Online Safety Act, undertaken by Delia Rickard, the former deputy chair of competition watchdog the ACCC.
The model is similar to the core features under the European and the UK's Safety Acts.
Communications minister Michelle Rowland, speaking at the Sydney Institute, said it is time for industry to show leadership, and for social media to recognise it has a social responsibility.
"The parliament now has an opportunity to lift the hood on big tech, and bring unprecedented transparency and accountability to the actions of digital platforms when it comes to seriously harmful misinformation and disinformation online," Rowland said.
"These reforms would require digital platforms to have systems and processes in place for dealing with seriously harmful information that is false, misleading or deceptive.
"These systems would include the ability for everyday Australians to challenge the content moderation decisions of digital platforms."
Last week, the Albanese Government also announced legislating a minimum age of 16 for social media access, receiving the endorsement of National Cabinet.
The legislation will include a new definition of social media that is broad and robust, and is designed to capture more services under the term “age-restricted social media” than what is currently covered under the existing Online Safety Act.
Common social media services such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X will be subject to the minimum age limit.
Messaging and gaming services will not be in scope of this definition.
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