An Australian industry association backed by Facebook, Google, and Twitter said Monday that it is creating a new independent oversight committee to help address complaints about misinformation, just a day after the Australian government threatened to pass tougher laws over false and misleading content online.
Social media posts deemed to be dangerous have become an important issue between the Big Tech companies and the Australian government, which last year passed a controversial law that forced platforms including Facebook to pay license fees for content in order to help news outlets.
The Digital Industry Group Inc., or DIGI, which represents the Australian units of Facebook, Google, and Twitter, said its new misinformation oversight panel would help the social media industry to self-regulate harmful online posts and implement a government-approved code of conduct against misinformation.
“Especially in a pandemic, we can increasingly all agree that combating misinformation to protect public health and democracy is essential,” Sunita Bose, the group’s managing director, said in a statement.
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The oversight panel will be made up of a three-person committee of misinformation experts who will try to resolve complaints about possible false information that spreads on the platforms, but they will not accept complaints about individual posts.
Last week, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said social media was “a coward’s palace,” and the government on Sunday said it wanted to find ways to make the Big Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter more responsible for content published on their websites, including by making the platforms liable for user content.
The Australian government expressed support for the new misinformation initiative.
“I’m pleased that DIGI is announcing an important development to strengthen the way the code will protect Australians from misinformation and disinformation,” Australian Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said in a statement.
However, Reset Australia, an organization focused on the intersection of tech and democracy, said the new oversight panel was “laughable” because there are no specific punishments or penalties imposed by the panel and the misinformation code of conduct was optional.
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“DIGI’s code is not much more than a PR stunt given the negative PR surrounding Facebook in recent weeks,” said Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran, Reset Australia’s director of tech policy, in a statement to Reuters, calling for new laws and regulations for the social media industry.
