“The Prime Minister wants to determine what all Australians can do, see, and say on the internet, and shut down political debate, through the proposed Digital Duty of Care. Australians should be wary of trading the algorithm for the ‘Alborithm,” said Dr Andrew Bushnell, Director of the Law and Freedom Program at the Institute of Public Affairs.
In November 2024, the federal government committed to introducing a Digital Duty of Care. Under the proposed law, all online service providers – not just social media platforms, but also AI tools like ChatGPT, messaging apps, app stores and everything else – will have an overarching duty to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable “serious harms”.
“The Digital Duty of Care is not just about social media, and it is not just about the kids – it applies across all services on the internet,” said Dr Bushnell.
“The Prime Minister is using legitimate claims about child safety as a cudgel to engage in sweeping censorship of political speech and criticism of his failing government.”
“The extraordinary scope of this law makes it inherently dangerous to freedom of speech and political participation online.”
The duty will apply not only to content on the internet but also to the design of the platforms, including the algorithms used to select content to show to users.
“Social media platforms and other online services are all built on algorithms. The choice is only about who selects their settings – users or the government.”
A new IPA research note, authored by Dr Bushnell and released today, analyses the Digital Duty of Care concept and identifies five reasons it will enable government censorship of the internet:
- The meaning of “serious harms” is vague, subjective, and will expand over time.
- The duty to eliminate intangible harms will allow the government to smuggle its abandoned misinformation laws in through the backdoor.
- The wide and uncertain scope of the duty will incentivise over-compliance from regulated companies.
- Compliance with the digital duty of care will require increased surveillance of internet users.
- The duty will be enforced by an unaccountable Office of the eSafety Commissioner.
“The Duty is built around a vague idea of harm, which is clearly intended to go beyond violent and illegal content to capture legitimate speech that the government just does not like,” said Dr Bushnell.
The misinformation laws would have given the government the power to restrict access to false, misleading, or deceptive information. The Digital Duty of Care captures even more kinds of communication, including true statements that have been deemed harmful by government.
“The exact same month the government ditched its censorious misinformation laws, it committed to the digital duty of care. This is stealthy and steroidal version of the same law, smuggled in under the guise of preventing harm.”
The Duty is likely to be administered by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, who will, together with the Minister for Communications, have the power to identify new “harms” to be regulated, creating an ever-broadening restriction on information.
“The idea of a single duty extending across the whole internet will grant the regulator extraordinary levels of discretion in how the law is applied. This is opaque and undemocratic, and Australians need to ask themselves whether they trust the government with this kind of power,” said Dr Bushnell.
Download the research here.
