Australia to bring laws to force media platforms to unmask online trolls
Australia will
introduce legislation to make social media giants
provide details of users who post defamatory comments, Prime Minister Scott
Morrison said on Sunday.
The government has been looking at the extent of the
responsibility of platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, for defamatory
material published on their sites and comes after the country's highest court
ruled that publishers can be held liable for public comments on online forums.
The ruling caused some news companies like
CNN to deny Australians access to their Facebook pages.
"The online world should not be a wild west where bots and
bigots and trolls and others are anonymously going around and can harm
people," Morrison said at a televised press briefing.
"That is not what can happen in the real world, and there is
no case for it to be able to be happening in the digital world." The new
legislation will introduce a complaints mechanism, so that if somebody thinks
they are being defamed, bullied or attacked on social media, they will be able
to require the platform to take the material down.
If the content is not withdrawn, a court process could force a social media platform
to provide details of the commenter.
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