The Government has dumped its controversial misinformation and disinformation bill as Communications Minister Michelle Rowland recognises it has no support in the Senate.
The legislation would have required social media companies to have systems in place for dealing with false information and bad actors seeking to spread it on their platforms.
It would have also given users more power to make complaints and challenge content moderation decisions by tech companies.
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But the move sparked widespread fears that the Government was seeking to censor the internet and social media posts.
“This bill is not about misinformation and disinformation. This bill is about the Albanese government silencing the Australian people,” shadow minister Michaelia Cash told Sky News on Sunday.
The Coalition has long opposed the legislation and late last week the Greens also said they would not support it.
Nor did Labor find backing from Senate crossbenchers.
“Based on public statements and engagements with senators, it is clear that there is no pathway to legislate this proposal through the Senate,” Ms Rowland said in a statement.
Her cabinet colleague Don Farrell was blunter, telling Sky News, “There will be no legislation.”
“The opportunity to support that legislation was going to be this week. The Coalition and the Greens have joined forces to block it. That’s the end of it,” he said.
Ms Rowland urged all parliamentarians to work on other proposals to keep Australians safe online and strengthen democratic institutions while safeguarding free speech.
“It is incumbent on democracies to grapple with these challenges in a way that puts the interests of citizens first,” she said.
The minister pointed to other actions in the same space the Government will focus on, including making tougher offences for sharing non-consensual deep fake porn, enforcing truth in political advertising in elections and regulating artificial intelligence.
“Mis- and disinformation is an evolving threat and no single action is a perfect solution, but we must continue to improve safeguards to ensure digital platforms offer better protections for Australians,” Ms Rowland said.
Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said mis- and disinformation was a problem around the world but that the Government’s proposition was a “half-baked option … trying to be all things to all people” that effectively asked the tech companies to self-regulate.
“You have to tackle the algorithms, and you’ve got to tackle the sponsorship of these posts that go viral,” she said.
“Putting Elon Musk in charge of truth, I don’t think is going to make the world safer.”
The Government has also jettisoned plans to put a ban on gambling ads to Parliament this week.
However, it still hopes to get a new age limit on social media established with support from the Coalition.