A rapid parliamentary inquiry into social media has endorsed a continued expansion of the responsibilities and resources of Australia’s internet regulator, the eSafety commissioner, and recommended several future investigations and reviews of online harms.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the inquiry at the end of last year and the House of Representatives Select Committee on Social Media and Online Safety has published the results of an inquiry into online harms faced by Australians on social media.
The report makes 26 recommendations. Many recommend further reviews and research, including the permanent establishment of a House standing committee on internet, online safety and technological matters.
Most recommendations focus on the Office of the eSafety commissioner. Established in 2015 as the children’s eSafety commissioner, the role has grown over the years as successive governments have expanded its remit to include adults and, increasingly, more powers to remove online content. The inaugural eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, was recently reappointed for a second five-year term.
Of the 13 recommendations involving the eSafety commissioner, most suggested changes include creating a one-stop shop for victims of online abuse and asking the eSafety commissioner to suggest penalties for platforms that fail to prevent social media piles-ons, cross-platform harms and bad actors continuing to use their platforms.
The committee also recommended that the eSafety commissioner develop an awareness campaign for marginalised adults’ groups and collaborate with the Department of Education to create a strategy of online safety education for children.
Reviews by the eSafety commissioner into algorithms, standards of abuse, end-to-end encryption and more were also recommended. Further, the report said the government should consider increasing the office of the eSafety commissioner’s funding, citing the expanded responsibilities and activities.
Noting the cacophony of laws regulating social media and the internet, the committee also recommended launching a “digital safety review” within a year and a half. Such a review would consider whether it’s possible to bring the different powers and requirements under the Online Safety Act which recently came into force.
Another recommendation suggests that this digital safety review would consider potential proposals for mandating platform transparency. A similar bipartisan bill proposed late last year in the US was welcomed by misinformation researchers as being the groundwork for keeping social media companies accountable.
Both Labor members of the committee made additional comments, as did United Australia’s Craig Kelly. Tim Watts and Sharon Claydon called for further scrutiny of platforms’ efforts on misinformation and establishing a body that brings together Australia’s technology regulators. Kelly reiterated calls for legislation that would see social media executives jailed for censoring him and other political figures and called on them to unban him.
