The Morrison government has announced it will introduce legislation this week to crack down on abuse and bullying on social media platforms.
Under the so-called ‘social media anti-trolling legislation’, social media platforms will be forced to expose the identity of individuals who post defamatory or damaging material anonymously.
“The online world should not be a Wild West where bots and bigots and trolls and others are anonymously going around and can harm people and hurt people, harass them and bully them and sledge them,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday.
“That is not Australia. That is not what can happen in the real world, and there is no case for it to be able to be happening in the digital world.”
Mr Morrison said the government will be looking for test cases to reinforce these new laws and will back people who have been wronged if they are someone of little means.
"We will back them in the courts and we will take them on. We will take them on in the parliament, and we will take them on in the courts because I want to ensure our kids are safe," Mr Morrison said.
The government hopes to launch a complaints mechanism where if somebody thinks they are being defamed, bullied or attacked on social media, they will have an opportunity to demand the platform take it down.
The social media platform will be required to notify the abusive or defaming identity of the complaint and must ask them to remove the online material.
Attorney-General Michaelia Cash says if the platform fails to comply, a court process would allow that person to require the platform to provide details of the identity of the abusive or defaming person.
“You should not be able to use the cloak of online anonymity to spread your vile defamatory comments,” Ms Cash said.
Attorney general Michaelia Cash. Source: AAP
"This legislation is going to empower Australians to unmask these trolls."
The bill will also confront the High Court’s decision in the Fairfax Media case, which holds all online pages liable for comments made by third-party users under their social media posts that are considered abusive or defamatory.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese has criticised the government's priorities in tackling misinformation online in a new law while his own parliamentarians are posting anti-vaccine content on their social media pages.
"If the prime minister wants to crack down on misinformation on social media, he should start with people in his own government."
He says Mr Morrison should instead be focusing his efforts on condemning his Liberal members, namely George Christensen, for his involvement in anti-vaccine protests that took place last week.
Minister for Families and Social Services Anne Ruston says the proposed processes are critical in ensuring social media platforms uphold their responsibility in preventing online bullying.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that a platform can shirk its responsibility," Senator Ruston told ABC's Insiders program on Sunday.
"I would really like to see any of these platforms stand up and say that they think it's acceptable that they hide behind the anonymity of bots and bullies and bigots online."
Additional reporting by AAP.
