Australia shifts online safety debate from age checks to platform accountability

The first country to put age checks on social media sites is now the first to propose a digital duty of care. Draft legislation circulated by the government would force social platforms to allow users to turn off algorithm-driven content, and put legal obligations on the companies running them to protect users, especially children, from specific harms.

Put simply, a digital duty of care makes it the law that platforms must take care not to hurt their users.

Headlining the legislation, the “My Feed, My Way” initiative would require platforms to send a notification to new users, asking if they want their default feed to remove content recommended algorithmically and show only content from accounts they follow. (Older social media users may remember this as “the original model.”)

In a statement, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the measure “will give Australians greater choice over their platforms and what they see.”

No potentially lethal stunts, no online bullying, big fines

The digital duty of care would also require services including online games, apps and AI chatbots to protect children from harms associated with pornography; content that “promotes, encourages or accelerates” eating disorders; misogynistic content; content that glorifies crime or dangerous stunts; and any “content that causes serious mental health distress, including abuse and bullying.”

All users must be protected from illegal content, such as that relating to child sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse, grooming, promoting or inciting sexual violence, acts of terrorism, encouraging criminal offences, illicit drug use and “abhorrent violent conduct.”

Australia’s eSafety commissioner will handle enforcement, with powers including the ability to issue removal notices, specifically to websites or apps that perform “nudification.”  Per the government’s release, failure to comply with the Duty of Care could attract penalties of up to $109.2 million (US$78.8 million).

A report in The Conversation notes that the draft bill also gives “approved” academic researchers access to digital service providers’ data for the purposes of conducting online safety research.

Communications Minister Anika Wells says the move is part of “a global reckoning coming for big tech.”

“Just as we have basic safety standards for cars, toys or food, the duty of care applies basic standards for the online products we use every day,” she says. “The digital duty of care will ensure online service providers – including some of the most powerful companies in the world – step up and do more to keep Australians safe from harm on their platforms.”

Legal obligations only work when companies follow laws

As debates over how to make the internet safer for kids continue to rage globally, Australia is once again at the forefront of a potential strategic shift.

For many digital rights and privacy campaigners, the main problem with biometric age checks is that they put the onus on the user to prove they’re old enough to access potentially harmful content – when the onus should be on the platforms not to harm users.

As The Conversation’s argument puts it, “technologies evolve quickly, raising known and potential future harms for people of all ages. Technology companies must be required – by law – to have a duty of care for all users. This is the only way to ensure we can benefit from online services while being protected from the harms they can present.”

This way of thinking has now evolved into concrete legislative efforts in Australia.

However, a digital duty of care – especially if it is framed as a potential replacement for age assurance technology – must proceed realistically, and recognize that the largest social media companies have a habit of ignoring the law.

The argument that says age assurance doesn’t work because a majority of Australian kids still have access to social media ignores how noncompliance is feeding this so-called failure. Data has shown that many users still encounter self-declaration prompts, which do not qualify as effective age assurance.

As such, although the structure and target of the law is changing, enforcement remains the key to reining in companies that operate as though they are beyond governance.

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