Refer to the linked article. Are you content with political talking points being published with no factual evidence? If the legislation is defeated it will allow the falsehoods of some political parties and media organisations to continue into the future.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/2023/07/18/far-right-challenge-disinformation/
You tell me. Both of those types of entities are quasi-exempted by this draft legislation. So it really isnât clear whether it will impact on them. (The actual target would appear to be Joe and Jo Public.)
Conversely
You tell me. Will publishing something with factual evidence be enough to avoid being impacted by this draft legislation? I suspect not.
The lack of clarity in the whole thing is absolutely a problem in my opinion. If you support it, you really donât know what kind of âmisinformationâ regime you are supporting. You might get something that you personally support. You might not. Itâs a blank cheque.
I would be more content with undercensorship rather than overcensorship. Thatâs ideology and I donât expect you to agree.
Are you content with organised attempts to derail vaccination campaigns and recommending toxic alternative treatments instead, whether done through ignorance and stupidity or for political gain?
Are you content for lies to be told on a grand scale to inflame extremism and false political dichotomy in this country as has been achieved overseas? By lies I donât mean unverifiable political opinions or expressions of personal values but deliberate factual errors that can be and routinely are disproved through fact checking.
If you answer yes to either I can see why you donât want this bill to pass. If you answer no then what is to be done?
Rewrite the bill. Itâs completely unsuitable in its current form. No, I do not want this bill to pass.
Apparently the government thinks that it is OK for it to tell lies but not for others. That by itself should be a warning sign.
Can you tell me definitively who will be determining what is âtrueâ and what is âfalseâ?
Can you tell me definitely that due process will be available? That is, if you are accused of telling a âlieâ, that you will get an opportunity to defend yourself against that accusation, to argue your case, preferably before your âlieâ is disappeared?
Another situation where the remedy is more toxic than the malady. Have we become so stultified and incapable of reason that we cannot determine for ourselves truth from fiction. Letâs be clear here about the ACTUAL concern that they wish to legislate against. âMisinformationâ and âDisinformationâ are elaborate terms for the eternal propensity for human beings to tell lies, wilfully or accidentally. There is no law on the planet which will stop this most common fallibility of our species. Perhaps Governments might do better to encourage us NOT to believe everything fed to us by journalists, politicians and activists, and to do our own research and make up our own minds. If someone is selling you a car, you will be dubious of their claims of mechanical perfection and absence of flaws. We have learned that people in these circumstances bend the truth and adjust our perception accordingly. We need to adopt the same sensibility to those that belong to the industry of telling us WHAT and HOW to think. Politicians, all news media, academics and activists of ANY type will always lieâŠeven if they donât know it. No law will stop them. You cannot believe any of them, and you cannot ever take as gospel what you read in social media. We need to stop being wilfully stupid and apathetic.
Many have. âRare insightâ is the term now used to describe the concept formerly known as âcommon senseâ.
I doubt whether behaviour like this requires common sense, rare insights, or vigorous prosecution. The report tags a number of âcommunications errorsâ but once 20,000 people have received it does it matter if the perp gets a slap on the wrist? The target audience will be reinforced, a few might change their minds, the rest?
There lies one of the issues - prosecution in a democracy is usually after the fact and in Australia the focus has always been on educating the miscreant not punishing them, so the concept of deterrence is weak.
You assume that at some time past this ability was universal. It wasnât then and it isnât now. The difference is today the lies spread faster and wider.
Look at some of the pile-on topics on social media (and here now and then) such as anti-vaccs propaganda. These things donât run riot of their own accord. It takes a very small group or one person to start it off but then thousands agree, copy or repeat it. Are they all mischievous Lokis who are just doing it for a lark? Too many people cannot or will not do fact checking.
Some people are gullible and have a lot of trouble working out the truth even when to others it is fairly obvious. On the other hand there are some situations when it takes much research to find the truth and even the intelligent and aware can be fooled. How many threads here are about phone or internet scams that just go on and on?
I wish it were so that all adults could nearly always tell truth from falsehood when a plausible story is given but it is not.
My point is how will legislation in Australia improve things?
It doesnât seem to ban anything. It gives no powers to ACMA to stop any source of misinformation or disinformation, and it exempts many sources of such behaviour.
No doubt as it specifically exempts political and commercial news sources of this stuff it will sail through parliament almost unopposed.
If you mean how will Australian legislation influence what international organisations do - the plan is to fine them if they donât comply. Just how that would be implemented isnât clear to me at all. I am looking forward to some legal eagle going through the 64 page bill and explaining that but so far I donât see it.
So this Bill, if passed, will allow the ACMA to check and censor anything I say? Really?
Indeed. Thereâs a reason for the old saying: donât believe everything you read on the internet.
Not just social media.
Maybe the following would be a cheaper and easier solution. 
Just persuade the main browser (i.e. Google Chrome i.e. Google) to put a red border around the browser window containing the text âdonât believe everything you read on the internetâ.
Yeah, I know that wonât work for people who use an app to access social media and, yeah, I know that wonât work for people using a browser on a mobile phone.
I donât think it is the governmentâs intention (at the current time) to prosecute anybody. âmisinformationâ will simply disappear. 20,000 people wonât receive it. Noone will (although an insidious service provider might hide from you the fact that your post disappeared by showing you your own post).
Say what now? The text that you quoted from me was a question for a start.
Let me be absolutely clear:
This bill says nothing about what service providers must do.
This bill says nothing about what service providers must not do.
It simple gives ACMA the power to keep refusing a document from service providers saying what service providers will do until service providers say they will do what ACMA wants them to do or, failing that, for ACMA to write a document themselves and impose it upon service providers.
It is a blank cheque.
It gives ACMA enormous power. Almost anything is possible. In principle what you suggest is within the reach of this law (nothing in the bill rules it out, and it is one possible implementation) but your suggestion is clearly impractical.
Iâve actually read the bill. Have you?
This whole thing is very Chinese style, but without the âinfiniteâ human resources necessary to do what you suggest.
Let me paint a picture of what could eventuate: Big Tech says that all service providers will run AI that examines every post to social media or a forum as the post is made and determines whether the post is an authorised thought process. If âcomputer says noâ then your post disappears. Unauthorised thoughts would be determined by complaints, including complaints from the government.
No correspondence would be entered into. No right to due process. No right to appeal or complain. (Thatâs too inconvenient and expensive.)
There will be no operational transparency to the public.
This of course means zero response time to âmisinformationâ (your post never makes it onto the internet) and it is mostly proactive rather than reactive. Occasionally, unauthorised thought process will slip through - and then the AI will be retrained.
Why do I see things moving in that direction? Because it costs too much money (in the West) to employ an army of human censors. We know that Twitter already sacked a substantial number of its censors. Governments didnât like that. Big Tech doesnât have the cojones to stand up to the government (we saw how quickly Big Tech caved in on the ânews fightâ) - so Big Tech will look at the least cost solution.
Exactly where that would leave small-time forums like this one is unclear.
As you and I both know rhetorical questions are a way of making a statement.
So why did you refer to me an individual who is clearly not a provider (as you put it) or any of the organisations specified?
Why did you speak of having to defend myself against accusations of lying when the bill makes no provisions at all of making accusations of anybody or any organisation about specific content?
As I read it the bill is about forcing standard and policies on organisations not about moderating particular statements. This confusion has been well spread about in some parts of the press already and here you are repeating it.
If you agree the bill is not about individuals and their particular statements then this:
That is, if you are accused of telling a âlieâ, that you will get an opportunity to defend yourself against that accusation,
which is about an individual and a particular statement is muddying the waters without apology.
You the individual are the one making a post to a forum or on social media.
Your post is disappeared because it is determined by the forum or social media provider to be âmisinformationâ. That is, in effect, accusing you of lying.
In fact, it is more complex than that. If the post really just disappears then no-one will know that, except perhaps you, and so your reputation is not damaged - but you still might care. The real damage will come from having your post labelled as âmisinformationâ, rather than being disappeared, which we know is something (labelling) that social media companies already do on an informal basis.
So thatâs why you might want due process - to be able to refute the determination that your post is âmisinformationâ.
Which has nothing at all to do with the bill in question.
Separating fact from fiction.
The principle objectors to the draft legislation are DIGI, (Digital Industry Group Inc). The members - Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Redbubble, TikTok and Twitter.
When looking for informed opinions, the first responses raised dated from the last weeks of June.
The media responses vary. The Australian and SkyNews were quick to jump on the announcement. The ABC had two bites at it. Depending on paywalls not all is freely available. The least impassioned and open media response IMO.
For balance the original ACMA report to Govt which requested a legislated response is worth a read to understand better the needs for change.
Ultimately what is legislated is going to be up to the Parliament in Canberra to decide. For much of the prior debate concerns have ranged from impingement on personal freedoms through to effectiveness of regulation of foreign based digital services/platforms.
Missing has been observation Australia is playing catch up here. At least compared to the EU which is ahead in regulation.
âPress corner | European Commission
Digital Services Act: inside the EUâs ambitious bid to clean up social media | Social media | The Guardian
Does one leave it to the eight members of DIGI to voluntarily self regulate? Consider they are all foreign entities, and are not the only enterprises/platforms subject to the proposed regulation. IE they have no influence over alternatives outside their group of 8. Will all 8 always agree or competitive differences lead to adverse behaviour? What penalty disagreement - being thrown out? Not even a wet feather to be seen.
The alternative is to trust the parliamentary process. One where difference is public and on the record. Something all Australians get to influence absolutely on a regular basis.
In comparison what happens within corporate board rooms and meetings of DIGI is not so open to scrutiny. As a market Australianâs are a mere pimple on the back end of the greasy digital pig. Our personal influence on the digital pigs behaviour minimal.
To follow the EU or to be more like the USA?
Is it really about personal freedoms of Australianâs (as The Australian might have us believe),
or
is it as the draft legislation sets out giving the ACMA greater ability to inform the behaviour and standards of truthfulness of content provide through DIGIâs members?
A proper parliamentary debate to come later in the year.
The crux of my scepticism is that I am not aware of government departments beyond the ATO and in cases Medicare that seems to have a regular working day. ACMA, ASIC and others are low key, reactive, possibly impotent by design or action, and seemingly on the back foot if they wake at all.
As another has posted many times the current legislation for lots of things should be enough if the legislation was actioned and prosecution and penalties enough to be deterrents.
When information has become subjective opinion (as it has led by certain partisan movements) rather than objective evidence based just the concept of adjudicating what is or is not misinformation or outright lies compared to spin boggles the mind how it might work through a legal system. The concept of puffery comes to mind where the litmus test is a âreasonable personâ who I may have never nor will ever meet although I know many of them.
As it is also for the ACCC, TIO and several others that serve more to apply Band-Aidâs and a half hearted healing kiss than a preventative.
