It’s hard to overstate the damage done by misinformation and disinformation. This damage can be direct and deadly, such as when it convinces people to avoid vaccines. Or it can be indirect and subtle, picking away at the trust that is the foundation of our society. As philosopher Hannah Arendt said in 1974, ‘If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.’
Last week, the government released a report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) into ‘the adequacy of digital platforms’ disinformation and news quality measures’. The report found that four in five Australian adults have seen misinformation about COVID-19 and that such misinformation is mostly experienced on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. It also found that three quarters of Australians believe that platforms should be doing more to reduce the amount of false or misleading information that appears online. The report followed the launch of a voluntary, industry-developed code of practice on disinformation and misinformation in February 2021.
On releasing the ACMA’s report, the government acknowledged the positive steps taken by industry, but said Australians needed more protection. To this end, the government announced it will (assuming it wins the election) introduce legislation later this year to give the ACMA new regulatory powers. New information-gathering powers will force digital platforms to give the ACMA access to Australia-specific data on the measures platforms are taking to address disinformation and misinformation. The ACMA will also be given reserve powers to register and enforce industry codes or make industry standards. ‘ Digital platforms must take responsibility for what is on their sites and take action when harmful or misleading content appears,’ said Communications Minister Paul Fletcher.
We need to see what the draft law looks like when it’s released later this year, but these sound like sensible proposals. And one key point here is that such an approach does not threaten our freedom of speech. Rather, sensible measures to tackle misinformation increase our freedom of speech. All our freedoms, including freedom of speech, are so precious and valuable precisely because they are limited, not absolute. Freedom of speech does not include the freedom to incite violence against an ethnic group. It does not include the freedom to share intimate images of someone without their consent. And just as a person’s ethical and legal right to freedom of speech should not include the right to incite violence or commit image-based abuse, nor should it include the right to spread dangerous falsehoods. The law in Australia has an important role to play in curbing misinformation and disinformation. That said, the law could also do much better at protecting freedom of speech in Australia, given the glaring absence of an explicit constitutional safeguard or Human Rights Act.
Sacha Molitorisz - Senior Law Lecturer, UTS and CMT
This article was first published in our newsletter on 1 April - read it here.
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