Academics are welcoming the Australian government’s proposed digital duty of care legislation; however, the new laws have already drawn the ire of the Trump White House.
“President Trump has unequivocally warned trading partners against imposing digital services taxes, fines, and other forms of extortion on America’s leading technology sector,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told The Guardian.
“The administration remains committed to raising these issues with our trading partners.”
Communications Minister Anika Wells has downplayed the warning, telling News24 that she had not received any such communication from the Trump administration.
“In this particular piece of work, I wouldn’t say that I have had that piece of feedback communicated to me,” Wells said.
“And, like the Prime Minister said, we’re a sovereign nation. We have the right to defend Australian parents and kids, and we’ll do that.”
Nonetheless, despite potential tensions between Australia and the US regarding the legislation, academics have largely come out in favour of the move to protect Australians from harmful online algorithms.
“The Digital Duty of Care is a great and much-needed initiative that is long overdue. For years, social media companies have controlled what users see on their feeds. It’s about time we had some control back on our social media feeds and online experience in general,” Professor Rashina Hoda of Monash University’s department of software systems and cyber security, faculty of information technology, said.
“Different platforms have different recommender systems, and they can cause harm, especially for vulnerable populations, by reinforcing negative beliefs, ‘hooking’ people into doomscrolling and creating echo chambers.”
Hoda has expressed some concerns over how the legislation will actually work.
“The PM’s announcement refers to both opting in and opting out of algorithms. These are vastly different control settings,” Hoda said.
“With the opt-out option, users will have the default recommender system running as it is and will have to make a conscious choice to opt out of it. The ‘opt-in’ is a higher control setting where no recommender system decides the feeds by default. Inertia means people tend to continue with default settings, so some education will be in order.”
Hoda also believes that the government’s focus on protecting children, while laudable, doesn’t go far enough.
“I am happy to see the PM’s announcement makes mention of online games, apps and AI chatbots. While under-18s may be at particular risk and should be protected, I think this should extend to all users,” Hoda said.
“As an example, people with mental health conditions are known to reach out to AI chatbots for quasi-therapy purposes, with some very drastic outcomes. And our latest research into how the general public and clinicians are engaging with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude shows some level of dependence on these systems for healthcare information and advice that may be problematic in light of known AI errors, hallucinations and AI sycophancy.”
Hoda’s colleague, Professor Steven Roberts of Monash University’s School of Social Sciences, added that offering a genuine choice in how they engage with social media algorithms matters because they are far from neutral. He said that such platforms “are designed to hold our attention, and too often that means privileging provocative and extreme content because outrage drives engagement, and engagement drives profit”.
“When these systems lead young people from seemingly harmless material towards misogynistic content, their choices are being shaped by a commercial business model,” Roberts said.
“An opt-out would return some control to users and disrupt that pathway without censoring content.”
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