The balancing act

With X (formerly Twitter) recently being fined $610,500 for failing to adequately respond to a probe by the Australian eSafety Commission, the spotlight has returned to Australia’s regulation of digital platforms. 

The eSafety Commissioner conducted the probe as part of the transparency powers under the Online Safety Act, which compels companies to respond to questions on how they are combating child exploitation and abuse.

The current powers under the Online Safety Act, known as the 'Basic Online Safety Expectations' (‘The Expectations’), effectively dictate the bare minimum requirements to keep Australians safe online. Under The Expectations, the Commissioner has several powers, such as requiring information and taking formal enforcement action, to monitor compliance and enforce the provisions.

The Expectations are considered the foundation of Australia’s approach to regulating digital platforms, underpinning a form of co-regulation through the development of mandatory industry codes and formal regulation via industry standards. The industry codes apply to eight industry sections and two different material classes. If the Commissioner is unhappy with the proposed industry-developed code, she can instead determine an Industry Standard that is mandatory for the applicable industry section.

It all seems rather complicated, and that is without considering the application of other regulatory instruments, such as the News Media Bargaining Code and the proposed Disinformation Bill, which Michael discusses in his piece for this week’s edition. Nevertheless, as with most things, it comes down to a question of balance. The digital realm is not just one coherent thing but a constantly evolving space encompassing new technologies, old technologies, new applications of old technologies and how they all interact. The Australian approach is trying to strike the balance between ensuring codes work in a common-sense manner and the resources available to monitor and enforce them. However, we will have to wait and see how successful this is – we are still waiting for the release of two industry standards for class 1 material and development of the class 2 material codes has not yet begun.

Kieran Lindsay - CMT Research Officer