Aus ready to fine BigTech upto $5 lakh for 'seriously harmful content

From January 23, 2022, Google, Facebook (now Meta), Twitter and other

digital platforms

could be shelling out as much $500,000 AUD in fines in Australia for not taking down "seriously harmful content". This iron-fisted move comes packaged in what's being called the Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme, which for the first time anywhere in the world, allows adults to report

content

they find seriously harmful to the Australian government's eSafety Commission.

It was in 2015 that the world’s first eSafety Commission was born and it started by protecting the most vulnerable – children -- from online harm. Its birth, however, was triggered after Charlotte Dawson, the host of Australia’s Next Top Model, killed herself due to ruthless Twitter trolling.

'Twitter suicide'," Julie Inman Grant, the world’s first eSafety commissioner, told TOI. "People protested for the government to hold BigTech accountable. The world’s first eSafety Commission was born, and we saw more complaints from adults coming through in three months than from those under 18. So, the Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme, which was four-five years in the making, has come at the right time, given the polarising content during Covid. Thirty years I have been in the industry and I have never seen online content so toxic.”

The scheme is part of sweeping reforms within the Online Safety Act 2021, which originally became law in 2015. It gives Grant "new and improved" powers -- powers that had Twitter, Meta and Google concerned about how it would be properly regulated in Senate submissions in 2020. The commission can now force platforms to take down seriously harmful content in 24 hours of it being reported. If the content is not taken down, individuals can be fined up to $111,000 AUD and enterprises $500,000 AUD for failing to comply. Platforms can also be ordered by law to give subscriber information behind fake accounts.

“We can compel take-down by a perpetrator and they can be fined if they don’t remove the content. This is useful for an ordinary person. The scheme also increases our power with our law enforcement partners. Anonymity plays a huge role in online abuse and through proper legal process we can now get subscriber information from the platforms. We can identify who the person is behind that account, especially if they are using a fake account to enforce action against them,” says Grant.

What will constitute seriously harmful content? Content that is seen as menacing, harassing or offensive to an ordinary person – such as sextortion, image-based abuse, doxing, recidivism and intense trolling, for example.

Australian adults who believe they are being bullied on the internet first need to inform the platforms. If the content is not taken down, the eCommission will step in. “The idea is that we are not designed to be content moderators -- that is the responsibility of Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. We are the safety net," Grant said.

Even though platforms can pick these "dark patterns of behaviour", as per Grant, they lack the zeal and leadership to protect their users. “I have worked at Microsoft, Twitter and Adobe. I have always worked at the intersection of social justice, cyber safety, and technology…always pushing my employers to do better for our users when harm was reported. Platforms can pick up these dark patterns that an outside government or entity can’t, but they haven’t been tackling them in our view with the vigour that they should."

Grant added, "Hi-tech companies are practically printing money. They have vast financial reservoirs, access to the best intellectual talent and the most sophisticated technological tools...but they lack the will. Nor have we seen the corporate leadership say 'this is toxic and is hurting our user base and we are going to use all our resources to address these issues'. This scheme will allow us to advocate on behalf of our " l allow us to advocate on behalf of our citizens as there is a huge power imbalance between the Facebooks of the world and everyday citizens.”