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Speaker 1: Legislation before Parliament at the moment. You may have heard

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Speaker 1: about this, a Misinformation Bill that is currently making its

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Speaker 1: way through the parliament. The government keen to get this in.

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Speaker 1: Let's find out what it does, and I know my

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Speaker 1: next guest has misgivings about it. Professor Antwumit, constitutional law

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Speaker 1: expert on the line firstly, and good morning, thank you

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Speaker 1: for your time. What does the bill aing to do?

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Speaker 2: Well, what it does is that pushes the burden onto

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Speaker 2: the digital platforms. So you know, you're Googles and metas

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Speaker 2: and twitters and all those sorts of bodies to deal

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Speaker 2: with misleading and deceptives and false information. So what they

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Speaker 2: call misinformation and they have to create codes to do that,

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Speaker 2: and if they breach the code then there is an offense.

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Speaker 2: So in the first instance, they decide what's misinformation or disinformation.

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Speaker 2: But if the government back here in Australia through AKMA,

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Speaker 2: decide that the code is deficient and they're not dealing

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Speaker 2: adequately with misinformation or disinformation, then the AKMA can make

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Speaker 2: what it's called standards which basically require these platforms to

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Speaker 2: deal with misinformation and disinformation in particular ways.

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Speaker 1: Okay, AKMA being the communication media authority, they'll have the

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Speaker 1: final SAT. Now the opposition's concerned about this because it

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Speaker 1: takes away freedom of expression. Do you share those views?

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Speaker 2: What my concern is is how they actually define what's misinformation.

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Speaker 2: So the words that they put on the bill, they

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Speaker 2: say that it's information that reasonably they verifiable as false, misleading,

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Speaker 2: or accept it. And I don't know concerns about them

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Speaker 2: getting rid of the you know, the deceptive stuff to

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Speaker 2: all the bots, for example, that manipulate things that's absolutely

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Speaker 2: fine or things that are just flat out factually wrong.

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Speaker 2: So you know, you see all those scam ads that

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Speaker 2: say to you Forest or David kash is supporting something right.

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Speaker 2: If they don't, then that's proved, then that should be

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Speaker 2: got rid of. So getting rid of things that are

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Speaker 2: factually wrong, no problem with that at all. Where the

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Speaker 2: problems arise is where it extends into things that are contestable.

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Speaker 2: So say there's an issue and people have different views

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Speaker 2: on it. The problem here is that this extends beyond

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Speaker 2: fact to what they describe as comment and opinion, and

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Speaker 2: so somebody has to decide whether or not that is

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Speaker 2: false or misleading or accept it. So how does the

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Speaker 2: platform overseas in America make those decisions about what's going

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Speaker 2: on here in Australia, they really can't, and their algorithms

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Speaker 2: can't make those kinds of decisions either. So what they

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Speaker 2: do is that they employ fact checkers in Australia to

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Speaker 2: do it. When the fact checkers go out and they

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Speaker 2: get some advice from experts and then they report one

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Speaker 2: way or another and they say whether it's falseful or not.

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Speaker 2: The problem there is, however, it depends on which experts

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Speaker 2: you choose. Might be that you choose, you know two

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Speaker 2: when they say a particular thing, that there might be

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Speaker 2: five over there that says something else. Just because there's

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Speaker 2: even a consensus amongst experts that something is true doesn't

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Speaker 2: necessarily mean that it is. Sometimes, you know, things come

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Speaker 2: along and they change and we learn by the people

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Speaker 2: who challenge things. So where there is concern is in

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Speaker 2: this more contestable sort of policy zone that we will

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Speaker 2: have people just making decisions about what's fulse and what's not,

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Speaker 2: and that goes across to a social media platform and

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Speaker 2: that results in potentially a whole lot of stuff being

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Speaker 2: wiped off the Internet.

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Speaker 1: That's the problem, and the issue is of course, for

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Speaker 1: Joe blow online, is it actually censorship. I suppose to

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Speaker 1: some degree it is.

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Speaker 2: All of it is. So there's different things that the

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Speaker 2: platforms can fuse. So the most extreme end is just

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Speaker 2: wiping out your posts, just making it go away, and look,

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Speaker 2: that already happened. By the way, I should say, these

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Speaker 2: platforms already have policies to do that I'm watching this

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Speaker 2: bill is to try and make it more transparent about

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Speaker 2: how they're doing it and that that part of the

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Speaker 2: still is good. Okay, So they can remove it. That

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Speaker 2: is censorship, but they can do other things. Sometimes they

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Speaker 2: demote it so that it doesn't come up in your

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Speaker 2: feed and find. That's one way they do with that.

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Speaker 2: But the other way they deal with it, which I

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Speaker 2: think is a much better way, is that they'll put

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Speaker 2: a note on it, and so they'll say, you know,

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Speaker 2: there's a post it says something rather and it'll add

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Speaker 2: what's sometimes called a community note. They'll say, well, actually

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Speaker 2: this is out of context, or that video is really

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Speaker 2: of something else, or experts that said this is wrong.

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Speaker 2: Here's a link to their advice as to why it's wrong.

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Speaker 2: And that gives power to the reader to then say, okay, look,

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Speaker 2: maybe there is something dodging here. I'll have a look

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Speaker 2: at about it, I'll think about it, I'll make a decision

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Speaker 2: for myself. But it doesn't sort of wipe out the

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Speaker 2: ability to know things. So if I had my choice,

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Speaker 2: I'd say that that kind of response, where you just

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Speaker 2: give people more information and context about the relevant thing,

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Speaker 2: is sort of a better way to go.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. The only issue with that, With millions upon millions

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Speaker 1: of uploads every single day, if not every hour, how

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Speaker 1: can they keep on top of it?

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Speaker 2: Well, exactly, And that's where you get a big problem

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Speaker 2: because in the end they can only do this by

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Speaker 2: applying algorithms. Okay, so our computer has to decide, and

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Speaker 2: the thing is you can't make sort of nuanced type

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Speaker 2: decisions in relations to things. So it might well be

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Speaker 2: that in the end the platforms say, okay, there's controversy

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Speaker 2: about this particular issue, so instead of having to make

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Speaker 2: decisions in every post, we're just going to wipe out

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Speaker 2: everything that deals with whatever it is, you know, the

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Speaker 2: Voice referendum or Middle East or whatever. So you could

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Speaker 2: end up with sort of massive censorship simply because they're

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Speaker 2: just trying to avoid getting into trouble In relation to

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Speaker 2: small things, so they just wipe out the whole lot,

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Speaker 2: and that's a real risk.

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Speaker 1: It's a mess, no doubt about it. Well, potentially will be.

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Speaker 2: Well yeah, Look, the other side of it, by the way,

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Speaker 2: is that Donald Trump has said that when he becomes president,

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Speaker 2: assuming he has control of both houses, they're going to

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Speaker 2: pass legislation in the US that prevents the platforms from

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Speaker 2: removing any misinformation or disinformation. So it may all turn

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Speaker 2: out that our law's completely useful, even if they're part.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed, we'll wait and see. Appreciate your insights, So

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Speaker 1: very very interesting in food for thought. Do you think

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Speaker 1: the government will pay attention to your report, your suggestions

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Speaker 1: that this potentially is going to be censorship?

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Speaker 2: Ah? Look, possibly. I mean the good thing is that

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Speaker 2: they did put out an exposure draft in the past,

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Speaker 2: I along with others, did make suggestions for changes, and

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Speaker 2: they did take up changes, so they did a meand

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Speaker 2: it before this bill went in. Problem is with some

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Speaker 2: of their amendments created more problems, so more people are complaining,

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Speaker 2: so maybe they'll respond to it, and particularly if there's

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Speaker 2: going to be difficulty getting it through the Senate. So

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Speaker 2: it might well be that a version gets through later on,

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Speaker 2: that's changed. I mean there is good stuff in there.

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Speaker 2: It's not just you know, the dodgy stuff. There is

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Speaker 2: good stuff about transparency, there's good stuff about getting rid

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Speaker 2: of you know, the box, all that stuff. It's just

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Speaker 2: some areas where we get into contestable stuff, where there's dangers.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your time, Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Professor Antumi or Constitutional Law Expert to the UNI of Sydney,