The Queensland University of Technology's Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) has made a submission to the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society expressing concern over its direction.
The committee is examining Meta’s decision to abandon payment under the news media bargaining code, the role of Australian journalism in countering mis- and disinformation on digital platforms and social media's effects on mental health.
Director of the DMRC Dan Angus said the QUT submission aims to provide the inquiry with the latest scientific evidence.
The recommendations include protecting children within the digital environment rather than from the digital environment, greater oversight and regulation of targeted advertising on platforms, and supporting Australian media companies engaged in public-interest journalism activities with corporate tax from very large online platforms to boost their efforts.
"Even for the most well-intentioned, it’s tempting to point the finger at ‘social media’ – a term itself that is unhelpful considering the vast breadth of platforms, each with their various communities, content moderation approaches, and communicative affordances,” Angus said.
"We have deep concerns about the framing of this inquiry, the flawed assumptions inherent in the terms of reference, and some of the unintended pernicious outcomes that could result for Australian users of digital communication tools, and particularly for young and already marginalised people.
"Social media services, like all technologies, can be used for both good and ill but we have recently seen certain mainstream media outlets attempt to whip-up an engagement-driving moral panic, targeting parents with inaccurate, one-sided claims from armchair experts and divisive political voices.
"The timing of this campaign and the inquiry has followed Meta’s unsurprising decision not to enter new deals with Australian media companies and occurs in the lead-up to a federal election in 2025.
"A quick-fix ‘solution’ that assuages the purported ‘scourge’ of social media is likely to result in hastily developed and flawed digital media regulation that not only fails to address underlying societal problems, but further disadvantages the already disempowered."
The key recommendations of the DMRC submission:
- Focus on protecting children within the digital environment rather than protecting children from the digital environment. One way to do this is by incentivising and investing in free, high-quality, age-appropriate, digital products and services for young people, co-designed with young people.
- Instead of the inherently flawed and unsustainable News Media Bargaining Code model, support Australian media companies in both the public-interest and corporate sectors of the industry that demonstrably engage in public-interest journalism activities with corporate tax from very large online platforms to boost their efforts.
- Create digital media literacy programs for media workers to minimise their instrumentalisation as amplifiers and disseminators of mis- and disinformation.
- Improve democratic and social outcomes by addressing the lack of transparency and observability of targeted advertising on platforms to enable insights into its societal and cultural impacts.
- The introduction of more comprehensive platform data access provisions for critical, independent, public-interest research, similar to those created in Europe by the Digital Services Act.
- The inquiry should carefully integrate and align with ongoing policy reforms and regulatory measures to avoid undermining or duplicating existing efforts.
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