These two articles appeared last week.
First, we have:
Facebook whistleblower ‘deeply sceptical’ of Australia’s online safety laws
Joseph Brookes
Senior Reporter
American data scientist Frances Haugen disclosed tens of thousands of Facebook’s internal documents to US regulators last year, alleging the company was putting profits and growth ahead of user safety.
On Thursday she appeared before the Parliament’s current online safety inquiry, detailing the company’s inner workings and warning against Australia’s co-regulation model, saying it would do little to curb the amplification of harmful content.
“If we allow Facebook to write its own regulations, if we allow them to operate in the dark, they will continue to mislead us and under invest in the most basic safety systems,” Ms Haugen told the inquiry.
Australia has recently introduced several reforms to promote online safety, with many relying on industry codes and minimum standards to remove misinformation and other harmful content, while the online regulator focuses on content takedowns.
The biggest platform companies have told the same inquiry they are making progress on content removal and user safety, pointing to their own reports and automated tools, and plans to give users more control over newsfeed rankings.
I reckon when you have the Government e-Safety Commissioner and a will known global tech whistle blower say there are major issues we need to listen and have a major rethink!
Lots more here:
Second, we had this!
eSafety Commissioner ‘worried’ about govt’s defamation reforms
Denham SadlerNational Affairs Editor
Appearing before the Select Committee on Social Media and Online Safety on Thursday afternoon, Ms Inman Grant agreed with other witnesses that the government’s anti-trolling bill is not about trolls at all, but rather defamation.
The legislation would enable those who have been defamed to identify anonymous posters of defamatory material and reverse the High Court’s decision that administrators of social media pages are liable for defamatory comments posted by third parties.
Despite it being named the Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill, the word “trolling” or “troll” does not appear in it once, and Department representatives last week confirmed it is about defamation only.
Ms Inman Grant said she is concerned that the new powers would lead people to take matters into their own hands.
“The one thing I’m worried about the anti-trolling bill…is that I think it can lend itself to a lot of retaliation, a lot of vigilante-style justice,” Ms Inman Grant told the committee.
“I do worry about what that would mean in terms of giving individuals that kind of information, and that might be an IP address that the everyday person can’t do much with.”
The eSafety Commission, who was recently reappointed for a further five years, said she heard about the proposed bill and raised these concerns with the government last year.
“I got wind of it and we did have a couple of conversations and I expressed some of our concerns. Most of it was around deconfliction, expectations and confusion. Unfortunately I think that’s what we’ve seen a bit,” she said.
“What you’ve heard people say – which I believe to be true – is you can troll somebody incessantly and it might never be defamation or serious cyber abuse. A good lesson here is that lexicon matters and what we’re communicated to people matters.”
Ms Inman Grant agreed with shadow cybersecurity minister Tim Watts that the government’s legislation is not to do with combatting trolls.
“I don’t think it’s ideal,” she said.
More here:
https://www.innovationaus.com/esafety-commissioner-worried-about-govts-defamation-reforms/
Amazing stuff, when the Government Commissioner comes out and says that the Government is being deceptive I am inclined to listen!
This all needs a fundamental to deliver what the public has been promised – a simple way to stop trolls!
David.
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