Dear Committee Secretary,
The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on the Environment and Communications (the Committee) regarding the newly released Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 (the bill).
The IPA notes that the introduction of the bill follows the original Exposure Draft Communication Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023. In a submission (attached) to the federal government’s public consultation into the Exposure Draft, the IPA observed:
- The meaning of the terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ in the Exposure Draft were so broad and subjective that it would be impossible for a person to know how the rules would be enforced over time, and truth would not be a defence.
- ACMA would be given extraordinary new powers to interpret and apply standards of ‘misinformation’, and through their enforcement powers turn big tech companies into the censorship enforcement arms of the state.
- The scope of the Exposure Draft excluded government authorised content, as well as professional media entities and academia, which are among the most powerful institutions and therefore most likely to cause harm through false information.
- The structure of the Exposure Draft and the potential penalties would incentivise big tech companies to over-comply with their obligations to censor content.
The concerns expressed in the IPA’s 2023 submission have not been addressed in the new bill, and the revisions made to the bill have potentially broadened censorship concerns. IPA analysis of the bill finds:
- The definition of ‘misinformation’ as content that is ‘verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive’ will empower politically and ideologically biased fact checking organisations to decide which opinions are allowed on social media.
- The definition of ‘serious harms’ in the bill has been made even broader.
- The excluded content provisions remain incoherent and retain two-tier treatment of content.
- The Australian Communications and Media Authority (AMCA) will be empowered to launch investigations and hearings to ensure compliance with censorship guidelines that can target mainstream Australians.
- The federal government has acknowledged that big tech companies will over-comply with their obligations under the bill.
