Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention
Neil Breen: Earlier this week, the federal government announced landmark privacy reforms aimed at protecting Australians online. In their sights, and have been in their sights for some time, social media giants like Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok, and they've been ramping up the war on Big Tech trying to get them in line with the way that other media is regulated. Now, the government is hoping to implement new legislation to protect Australians online, particularly our vulnerable kids. David Coleman is the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. He's on the line. Good morning, Minister.
David Coleman: Good morning, Neil.
Neil Breen: Okay. I've read all about this and I want to break it down to practical terms. So I've got teenage daughters, so say my 14 year old daughter - how are these new laws going to protect my 14 year old daughter who's been shoved a computer in front of her by her high school and told only do school on the computer. Internet access and everything, you can't take it out of your kid's life. How are these laws going to protect her?
David Coleman: Well, a couple of things, Neil. I mean, first thing is we know we can't trust social media to act in the best interests of kids. So what this legislation is about is forcing them to do that. So the first principle under this legislation is, in the future social media companies will have to act in the best interests of children and I'll give you an example. So you know how you sometimes hear about social media companies linking kids to dangerous content, like it might be about eating disorders or self-harm or extreme dieting or things like that, that will be unlawful in the future. If they do that, they will face very substantial fines up to 10 per cent for their entire Australian revenue, which for some of these companies is literally tens of millions of dollars. So that's the first key point, they have to act in the best interests of the child. And the second point is they have to take all reasonable steps to verify the age of kids. And if a child is under 16, they can't use their data or effectively set up an account for that child unless they have parental consent. If they don't follow that process and they don't get the parental consent, then once again they can face fines of up to 10 per cent of their entire Australian revenue. So very serious changes because this is a very serious issue. And the reason those penalties are so strong is because these are huge companies and it's really important that they understand that we're very serious about this. And if they don't follow these new laws after they come into parliament, passed by parliament, they will face massive fines.
Neil Breen: You know, I think this stance the Australian government took against Facebook earlier in the year when they took all the news off their website and the government won in the end. I think they understand the government is serious when they do these things. So you spoke to us now about the walls have been put up, so my wife, Elizabeth and I, we would have to approve my daughter, who's 14, for her to set up a Tik Tok account or Facebook or whatever. So once we've done that, and once Matilda is in there and using her computer all day, every day for school and having access to the internet, what protections are there for her once she's inside the system, because parents can't sit there and watch every key stroke?
David Coleman: Absolutely. And that's where the best interest duty comes in. So basically in the future they will have to act in the best interests of the child. So what happens now often is a child might show an interest in things like, you know, body image issues. You know, a lot of young girls in particular are very concerned about body image. And what happens sometimes is the social media platforms then send that child in the direction of dangerous content like extreme dieting content or content about eating disorders and things like that. Now that's not in the best interest of the child, obviously. If they do that in the future, they'll be breaking the law of Australia and they'll face big fines. So there is an overall duty to act in the best interests of the child. There's a government appointee called the information commissioner, and the information commissioner will be responsible for enforcing this. And if the information commissioner thinks that the rules haven't been followed, they'll take the social media companies to court. And the information commissioner under the law has the power to go into those social media companies to get all the documents that they need to check whether or not they're complying. So internal emails, research reports, company documents, all of that. So there's nowhere to hide for these social media companies in the future, so it's a very significant change.
Neil Breen: One of the vexed areas, if you like, is comments, you know, social media thrives on user generated content and comments. So I work for 4BC, which is owned by Channel Nine and we're regulated heavily over what we can do and the content we can do. The newspapers are kind of self-regulated anyway, but they can be regulated through defamation, everything. Online when people start ripping into teenage girls because they're ugly and they've got braces and they were fat in their swimming costume, when there was the sports carnival and they came last in their heat, what can the government do about that with social media?
David Coleman: Yeah, you probably heard there was a High Court case recently about this issue, about online comments and effectively defamation and so on. And the PM and Barnaby Joyce have made some comments about this issue recently, and it's a somewhat separate issue to the issue I'm focussed on today around kids mental health, but the government has indicated there's more work being done on that at the moment. But if in the context of kids online, the key issue will be is the social media company acting in the best interest of the child? And it's really broad. And so if a social media company is following policies and business practises that expose a child to very damaging or dangerous content, then they'll be in breach of the law and the information commissioner will be the cop on the beat to enforce it.
Neil Breen: OK, any pushback or response from Facebook or early days on this?
David Coleman: Yeah early days. We've got a six week consultation process at the moment, so we'll no doubt get submissions from those companies. I mean, the truth is Neil that these companies have had more than a decade to sort out these issues. It's not like they just started yesterday, they've been around for a long time. They haven't sorted them out. They are very good at making the right noises, and saying we take child safety seriously. They say that all the time, right. But history tells us that we can't trust them. History tells us that they don't actually put the best interests of children first. So we'll see what they say in response to this bill. But the bottom line is we are committed to protecting kids. We're committed to holding these social media companies to account. That's what we're going to do. And this legislation, after we go through the consultation period, will come to parliament early next year.
Neil Breen: OK early next year. That was going to be my final question. David Coleman, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. Thanks for your time on 4BC Breakfast.
David Coleman: Thanks a lot, Neil.
