Australian authorities have proposed new legislation aimed at combating misinformation, with critics denouncing the measures as excessive oversight and a potential crackdown on dissenting opinions.
“Misinformation legislation introduced into federal parliament today represents a chilling assault on every Australian’s right to free speech. The new Bill broadens provisions to censor speech, which even the government’s fatally flawed first draft did not include,” John Storey, the Director of Law and Policy at the Institute of Public Affairs, .
Storey characterized the proposed laws as “the single biggest attack on freedom of speech in Australia’s peacetime history.”
Michelle Rowland presented the plan on Thursday, informing parliament that the laws aimed to combat misinformation and disinformation. Rowland labeled such issues a “serious threat” to the “safety and well-being” of Australia.
The laws would impose penalties on companies for enabling misinformation, with fines of up to 5% of their global revenue for failing to prevent the spread of misinformation. The legislation mandates that tech companies establish codes of conduct specifically designed to address misinformation through an approved regulatory body.
The laws would also introduce a punishment of up to seven years in jail for doxxing someone – the term used when an individual either publicly reveals private information about another person online or uses that information for exploitation – and parents can sue for “serious invasions of privacy” related to their children, .
The government discarded a previous version of the laws after facing widespread criticism. The Free Speech Union of Australia argued that the new laws failed to address “key issues” raised from the first effort “despite the outpouring of public concern.”
The new laws have elicited similar disapproval across the media landscape, with labeling the Australian government “fascists” in a concise tweet on the subject. Labor Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones countered by calling Musk’s comment “crackpot stuff” and maintaining that the issue was a matter of “sovereignty.”
“Whether it’s the Australian government or any other government around the world, we assert our right to pass laws which will keep Australians safe – , safe from criminals,” Jones stated in response.
Storey, in a when the government made clear its intention to proceed with developing these penalties for alleged misinformation, termed the effort “disingenuous,” arguing that the government sought to “conflate the protection of Australians … with the federal government’s plan to empower bureaucrats in Canberra with the right to determine what is the official truth.”
“The federal government is cravenly using heightened concerns about current tensions in parts of our community, and the fears of parents and others about harmful online content, as a trojan horse to push forward laws that will in practice impose political censorship,” Storey stated.
Officials have argued that the country faces a foreign threat through the influence peddled through social media platforms, and they have concerns over how it will impact the upcoming federal election, due to be held within the next year, .
However, the government has softened its stance on some measures, such as narrowing the scope of what will qualify as “verifiable … false, misleading or deceptive” information and “reasonably likely to cause harm,” as well as excluding “reasonable dissemination of content for any academic, artistic, scientific or religious purpose.”
The issue came into sharp focus during the referendum on the Australian Indigenous Voice referendum, which would have altered the Australian Constitution to recognize Indigenous Australians in the document. The measure ultimately failed, but the noise around the vote included alleged spread of misinformation that posed a significant concern for officials.
One example included the claim that the body developing the referendum would be able to seize property or land, should it pass, or that people would need to pay rent to Indigenous people if the measure were to pass, .