Prime Minister Scott Morrison will announce today the launch of a parliamentary inquiry into the behavior of the world’s major internet corporations, as well as the necessity for new laws. Australia has led worldwide attempts to limit the dominance of companies such as Alphabet and Facebook, enacting legislation lauded as a model for countries to follow.
Morrison will declare on Wednesday that the new probe would have a broad scope but will include asking committee legislators to look into the algorithms used by social media platforms, how the businesses verify identity and age, and the extent to which limits on all these are implemented. “Enormous tech has big issues to answer,” Morrison would say. “Big tech built these platforms; it’s their obligation to keep them safe.”
The launch of a fresh probe is expected to exacerbate tensions between Australia’s government and Facebook, which just rebranded as Meta and Google. Earlier this year, Australia enacted strict new regulations requiring both tech giants to pay local media for material, and Canberra has proposed legislation requiring them to divulge the identities of those who use anonymous accounts if another person accuses them of defamation.
When Australia proposed laws requiring both businesses to pay local media for news material, Google threatened to quit its Australian search engine, and Facebook suspended all third-party content from Australian accounts for more than a week. Both finally reached agreements with Australian media businesses after a series of legislative reforms were proposed.
The committee in charge of the new investigation will provide its findings by February 15, 2022.