Australia’s ‘digital duty of care’ was just introduced to parliament. So what’s in the bill?

Communications Minister Anika Wells has introduced Labor’s digital duty of care bill into parliament.

The legislation amends the Online Safety Act, designed to protect Australians from online harm.

At the core of the digital duty of care is the principle that online service providers – everything from social media platforms to websites, online games and messaging apps – have a duty to provide a safe environment online.

Under the bill, platforms must take appropriate action to protect Australians from seriously harmful material and conduct.

They must also protect Australian children from harmful material and conduct, such as bullying, and material promoting disordered eating or encouraging dangerous stunts.

Children would also need to be protected from some harmful algorithmic design features.

In addition, the legislation would enable the minister to require tech platforms to give users tools to “manage the design features of their service”, such as providing controls over what content is recommended.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has described this “my feed, my way” initiative as a way for Australians to gain control over their social media algorithms.

Read more: ‘Digital duty of care’ laws will force tech platforms to look after users The journey so far The government released the exposure draft of the digital duty of care bill on September 8, opening it up to written feedback for two weeks.

Several organisations and research groups across Australia made submissions, but the government has not provided a summary of the feedback.

Experts generally welcomed the overall proactive approach: putting responsibility on online service providers to make the online environment safer for Australians.

Submissions also highlighted the importance of provisions to protect researchers, give them access to data about the platforms and people’s experience, and to allow them to use made-up “ sock puppet ” accounts to enable independent scrutiny of the online environment.

On the other hand, experts called for changes to make the duty more meaningful and effective.

Some pointed out that enforcing it shouldn’t just fall to the eSafety Commissioner.