This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.
Quote Of The Year
Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"
or
H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
Friday, January 27, 2023
You Have To Wonder If Legislating Like This Will Really Work!
The
federal government will give the media regulator new legislative powers in an
attempt to reduce the spread of misinformation and disinformation on global
technology platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is
planning to introduce laws that will give Australia’s media watchdog the
ability to retract information from the world’s most powerful tech companies if
they fail to meet standards of a voluntary misinformation and disinformation
code of practice.
The previous government, under then
communications minister Paul Fletcher, attempted to introduce the same laws but
did not do so before the 2022 federal election.
“Misinformation and disinformation poses a
threat to the safety and wellbeing of Australians, as well as to our democracy,
society and economy,” Rowland said. “A new and graduated set of powers will
enable the [Australian Communications and Media Authority] to monitor efforts
and compel digital platforms to do more, placing Australia at the forefront in
tackling harmful online misinformation and disinformation.”
Under
the proposed laws, which are expected to be legislated by the end of this year,
the ACMA will have the power legally to request information from tech platforms
such as Meta, Google and Twitter such as data on complaints handling and how
they manage the spread of harmful content.
The
ACMA will also be able to register and enforce new codes or industry standards,
should voluntary efforts prove inadequate. This
could include measures such as stronger tools to empower users to identify and
report harmful content online.
Plans
to give the media regulator more power come almost two years after the lobby
group of the tech sector, DIGI, introduced a voluntary code of practice on
disinformation and misinformation. Under the code, misinformation is defined as
false or misleading information that is likely to cause harm, while
disinformation is false or misleading information that is distributed by users
via spam and bots.
The
voluntary code was established at the request of the federal government
following the release of an inquiry into the market power of digital platforms
and was signed by tech companies including Google, Meta, Twitter, Microsoft and
viral video site TikTok. In 2021, after the code was introduced, a report by
the ACMA found 82 per cent of Australians had experienced misinformation about
COVID-19 in the previous 18 months. This was exacerbated again with the
proliferation of harmful content when Russia invaded Ukraine.
DIGI
reviewed its voluntary code in December 2022 and has since implemented measures
to improve it, such as modifying transparency reporting requirements for
smaller tech platforms and redefining the definition of “harm”.
Sunita
Bose, managing director of DIGI, welcomed the government’s plans.
“DIGI
is committed to driving improvements in the management of mis- and
disinformation in Australia, demonstrated through our track record of work with
signatory companies to develop and strengthen the industry code,” Bose said.
Plans
to give the media regulator more power in the fight against tech platforms is
just one of several initiatives that Rowland has under way. She is also
reviewing Australia’s broadcasting services act and the anti-siphoning
scheme – which determines which major cultural and sports
events should be available to the public on free-to-air television – and media diversity laws.
If major digital platforms don’t deal with
harmful online disinformation, they will be made subject to regulation and a
mandatory industry code, the federal government has warned.
The government said an exposure draft of
legislation giving the Australian Communications and Media Authority regulatory
power over platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok will be released during
the first half of this year.
Authorised electoral content and what the
government calls “professional news” will be exempt from the code.
The ACMA will be given the power to gather
information and keep records of platforms’ efforts to combat disinformation, to
make the platforms’ response to disinformation more transparent.
If
the regulator decides those efforts – such as the voluntary code put together
by the Digital Industry Group (DIGI) – are inadequate, it will have the power
to create a mandatory code, communications minister Michelle Rowland said in a media statement.
Doctors
are fighting an uphill battle against misinformation about sexual health and
contraception – including yoghurt-based thrush remedies, “cancer-causing”
contraception, and requests for genital surgery – as young people increasingly
turn to social media for medical advice.
General practitioner and women’s health
expert Dr Magdalena Simonis said many teenagers and women in their 20s and 30s
are seeing misleading information on social media, at times resulting in
unwanted pregnancies and requests for surgery on their genitals.
“Influencers are seeing themselves as
changemakers or social commentators, but they don’t realise that the impact
they’re having is actually pretty significant,” Simonis said. “It’s so far
removed from science.”
A US study published in Health
Communication last week found that popular influencers
were promoting unreliable – and often inaccurate – health advice at an alarming
rate, triggering concerns among clinicians that more impressionable young
people would suffer adverse health events, including unwanted pregnancies, STIs
and self-esteem issues.
The
most common myth Simonis has heard at her clinic is that the oral contraceptive
pill – one of the most researched medications in Australia – causes breast
cancer. Although the pill “is associated with a small increased risk of breast
cancer while a woman is currently using it,” according
to Cancer Australia, it also reduces the risk of endometrial and ovarian
cancer.
“There
has been a whole swath of young women avoiding oral contraception on the basis
that they just want to be ‘all natural’ and don’t want to have any hormones
affecting them,” said Simonis.
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