Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

This year we passed the Online Safety Act, which will take effect in January. These are very serious issues, and it's quite disappointing to see the trivialisation we're seeing from the member opposite. We have now announced a bill which will give the victims of defamatory online comments the power to proceed against the person who made the comments, through a complaints scheme, operated by the social media platform, or through a federal court setting the power to issue an end user information disclosure order, requiring the platform to disclose details of the person who posted that comment so that defamation actually can be pursued. Central to what we are setting out is giving the social media platforms a very strong incentive to disclose this information by granting them a conditional defence against being liable in defamation if they have a complaints scheme in place and if they share the information. But, if they don't, they will be held liable as a publisher. So we've been very clear on the principles and we've got a clear mechanism to deal with this problem.

The Australian people are sick of anonymous trolls online conducting themselves with impunity, and we expect the platforms to do something about this. That is why we have now come forward with this detailed and well-thought-through regulatory framework. It's been widely welcomed. For example, the managing director of publishing at Nine Entertainment, James Chessell, said:

Nine welcomes the government's announcement today, which will put responsibility for third-party comments made on social media pages with the person who made the comment, or with the platforms if the platforms cannot identify the person.

This government has delivered a series of effective reforms to make the online environment a safe place in which to operate, and with this very significant announcement over the weekend we are continuing our work in this area.

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