{"id":9189,"date":"2021-11-29T10:56:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T10:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1374369"},"modified":"2021-11-29T10:56:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T10:56:45","slug":"sorry-australia-anti-troll-laws-wont-protect-anyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=9189","title":{"rendered":"Sorry Australia, \u2018anti-troll\u2019 laws won\u2019t protect anyone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Yesterday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash announced<\/a> proposed new legislation aimed at making online \u201ctrolls\u201d accountable for their actions.<\/p>\n

Over the past few weeks, we\u2019ve heard Morrison decry trolls as \u201ccowardly\u201d and \u201cun-Australian\u201d, language that made it into the talking points at yesterday\u2019s media conference. But is his new-found concern about trolling all it\u2019s cracked up to be?<\/p>\n

The proposed new legislation would give courts the power to force social media companies to pass on to people the details of their trolls, so they can pursue defamation action against them.<\/p>\n

This decision is largely a reaction to the High Court\u2019s upholding<\/a> of the ruling in the Dylan Voller case, which now holds media companies responsible for defamatory comments posted on their social media pages. But there are some things that we need to be wary of in this legislation.<\/p>\n

Defamation isn\u2019t the same as trolling<\/h2>\n

Speaking to the media yesterday, Morrison argued this legislation is a necessary means to curb online trolling. But the policy proposal largely deals with issues of defamation, which isn\u2019t necessarily the same thing.<\/p>\n

As I have previously pointed out<\/a>, trolling is a grossly overused term that encompasses a range of activities. Defamation, meanwhile, is far more specific and legally defined. To prove defamation, one has to prove the content posted has damaged the victim\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n

Framing this announcement in the context of the very real harms of targeted online bullying and harassment is, I believe, disingenuous. I say this because those who suffer this kind of harassment aren\u2019t likely to be bringing defamation suits. In short, this legislation won\u2019t necessarily help them.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, a version of the newly announced powers already exists anyway. The recent Online Safety Act 2021<\/a> allows the e-Safety Commissioner to order social media companies to remove bullying or harassing content within 24 hours or face a A$555,000 fine. Crucially, it also gives the commissioner powers to demand information about the owners of anonymous accounts who engage in online abuse.<\/p>\n

Where social media companies fail to provide information about the offending poster, the newly announced laws would see them held accountable for the defamatory content. But that assumes they know this information in the first place.<\/p>\n

Social media companies already collect users\u2019 details on sign-up, including their name, email address, country of residence, and, increasingly, telephone number. But for many social media platforms, there is nothing to stop users from setting up an account with a fake name, using a throwaway email address or a \u201cburner\u201d phone, and then ditching all of that but maintaining the account once the information has been initially verified.<\/p>\n

Even if the information provided is correct, it doesn\u2019t mean the person will necessarily answer their phone or respond to an email. As one journalist asked yesterday, should social media companies be held accountable in that instance? The standard \u201creasonable person\u201d assessment in law<\/a> would likely find not, meaning any defamation action brought against the company itself would likely fail.<\/p>\n

Social media ID laws by stealth<\/h2>\n

My main concern with this proposed legislation is that it will prompt social media companies to collect enough information on their users so they become readily identifiable upon request. This seems a very similar concept to the government\u2019s suggestion earlier this year that Australians who set up social media accounts should have to provide 100 points of identification.<\/p>\n

That proposal was met with a barrage of criticism<\/a>, both for reasons of simple privacy, and because some experts, including myself, believe removing anonymity won\u2019t fix online toxicity anyway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The other real issue, ironically enough, is one of user safety. Yes, online anonymity gives trolls a mask to hide behind, but it also allows people to access support for addiction or mental health issues, or for a young LGBTQI+ person in fear of real-world violence or disapproval to find a community online. Online anonymity can be a crucial shield for victims of domestic violence who want to avoid being found by their abusers.<\/p>\n

Forcing social media companies to provide users\u2019 details to a court also opens up the possibility of \u201cabuse of process\u201d. This is where the legal process itself is used as a form of intimidation and bullying or, worse, for an abuser to gain access to their victim. The government has assured us the policy will contain safeguards against this but has provided no detail so far on how this will be achieved.<\/p>\n

Finally, it\u2019s worth noting that several of the highest-profile current plaintiffs in Australian defamation cases involving social media defamation are to be found among the government itself. So while it might sound cynical, we\u2019re entitled to wonder whom this policy is really designed to help?<\/p>\n

Article by Jennifer Beckett<\/a>, Lecturer in Media and Communications, The University of Melbourne<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash announced proposed new legislation aimed at making online \u201ctrolls\u201d accountable for their actions. Over the past few weeks, we\u2019ve heard Morrison decry trolls…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}