Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / URGENT "AUSTRALIA: Banning Misinformation... or Suppressing Speech?" with Professor Daniel Angus

Transcript

URGENT "AUSTRALIA: Banning Misinformation... or Suppressing Speech?" with Professor Daniel Angus · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and just how dangerous should
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  an idea have to be in order for a government to be able to penalize a social media company
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  for allowing it to be posted.
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  That is the question that the Australian government is trying to wrestle with and oh boy, it
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  is causing a bit of a hoo ha in Australian politics.
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  This gets to fundamental questions of free speech and dissent and how to wrestle with
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  social media companies and this grand universe of algorithms that has been unleashed on
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  us in recent years.
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  The bill that has been passed by the Australian House of Representatives is called the combating
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  misinformation and disinformation bill.
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  Talk about an all-wellian title, the combating misinformation and disinformation bill.
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  And it has a lot of civil libertarians worried.
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  It has a lot of constitutional law experts worried.
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  It seeks to, in the words of the bill, impose obligations on digital communications platform
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  providers, that is social media companies, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube.
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  In relation to the dissemination of content on a digital communications platform that contains
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  information that is reasonably verifiable as false misleading or deceptive and is reasonably
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  likely to cause or contribute to serious harm.
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  So a lot of people are saying, well, how do you define and who decides what information
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  is false misleading or deceptive and what is or is not a serious harm?
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  I was terrified, frankly, by this potential law and was afraid that shows like mine and
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  people who have dissenting opinions about a whole range of different things, whether
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  that is the vilification of minorities, you know, because they have a different idea
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  about, for example, biological sex or whether that is some dissenting opinion about a public
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  health concern that those people could be subject to prosecution by the Australian government.
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  That is sort of the rumor that's going around and it is an unfounded one, which doesn't
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  mean that this bill is not bad in many ways and we're about to unpack how it is, but those
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  ways are more subtle and nuanced than the civil libertarian slash right wing headlines
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  that are screaming that the Australian government is trying to impose all-willian speech
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  codes on social media.
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  I want to speak to someone who basically disagrees with me about the primacy of free speech
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  and has a much more pragmatic, frankly, much more Aussie attitude towards speech online
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  than I do, inflected as my opinion is with the precepts of both journalism and United States
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  ideas about free speech.
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  Daniel Angus is a professor of digital communications at Queensland University of Technology.
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  He runs their digital media research centre.
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  He's very active in researching and advising governments on information and disinformation.
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  He's worked on projects like evaluating the challenge of fake news and other malinformation
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  as he calls it.
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  Now it's worth knowing that this bill has passed the House of Representatives, but it is
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  stalled in the Senate where the governing centre left Labour Party, which has written this
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  bill, and I believe has the support of the Greens, is struggling to find the additional
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  votes that it needs to get it through to Senate.
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  In the Australian Senate, there are independent senators.
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  Yes, to the American ear, it sounds crazy that you would have anything other than a Democrat
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  or a Republican, but we have a half dozen or so independence in the Senate.
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  So the opposition party, which is the centre-right party, is against this, and it does not currently
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  look knock on wood like the government is going to be able to persuade enough of the
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  independence.
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  I think they need three of the independence to get it through the Senate and to make this
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  a law.
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  Today, I'm speaking on Thursday, was an inquiry at the Senate in which senators were questioning
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  experts about this particular bill.
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  It is on a raises edge.
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  There are only two weeks left in the parliamentary term before the end of the year.
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  The government very much wants to get this done.
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  I'm sure it is cajoling and bribing those independent senators in every legal, of course,
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  every legal way they possibly can to secure their votes.
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  I hope that this conversation not only shed some light on this particular bill, but on
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  the bigger questions that we face regarding misinformation, disinformation and transparency
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  from social media companies.
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  Please enjoy it as much as I did.
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  Don't want to know me.
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  Daniel Angus.
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  Good.
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  What does this bill do with what does it not do, Daniel?
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  So the misinformation bill, you mean?
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  Yeah.
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  So what it does is primarily it is about transparency.
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  And I feel that this has kind of run away from the government in a little bit in some of
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  the media speculation around it and other community concern is that a lot of people see
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  this as essentially the, like, Akamata, the Australian Communication Media Authority being
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  able to directly censor or change, you know, or take down content from social media platforms.
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  It's nothing of the sort.
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  What it is is a set of powers that enable them to actually force greater transparency
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  from platforms about how they are already moderating much of the online space.
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  So just to clarify, if the, if the platforms are not doing adequate moderation according
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  to the Australian government, doesn't the bill give the make it incumbent on those companies
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  to come up with a code that the Australian government regards as being adequate to deal
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  with misinformation?
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  In other words, it just, you know, it may not be quite as polyanner as you are suggesting
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  in the sense that although it doesn't give the Australian government the ability to clamp
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  down on misinformation itself, it does give the Australian government the ability to outsource
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  that clamping down to social media companies.
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  Yeah.
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  To demand the platforms.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  So it does give Akamata some powers indeed to try to force the platforms to do more, perhaps
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  in terms of the kind of what they're doing to curb the spread of misinformation and disinformation
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  on the platforms to do so.
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  There is a fairly high threshold in terms of the manner in which they would go about
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  doing that.
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  And so those harms that they refer to are pretty specific in terms of the ways in which
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  they would expect that to happen.
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  And indeed, I think in practice, it would be a process that would involve a lot of back
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  and forth between Akma and the platforms in terms of opening up about the technical mechanisms
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  that they can use, the ways in which they are trying to comply with this.
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  I don't see this as something that individuals should be concerned about that Akma or the
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  platforms are going to be coming for them, right?
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  Unless they are, indeed, those who are already spreading huge amounts of hate speech in,
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  you know, largely, um, fatally inaccurate information, which is, um, you know, cause
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  for harm.
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  I mean, maybe.
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  But the bill doesn't specify that you have to be producing vast quantities of misinformation
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  or disinformation.
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  Like the kind of reasonable threshold, right?
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  So the point here is that threshold, right?
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  And that's a question.
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  Where that language doesn't really suggest that a single post is going to meet a reasonable
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  threshold.
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  Um, I mean, I'm perfectly willing to believe that in reality and practice, it would pan
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  out that way.
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  But part of the thing, one of the things about fundamental human rights is you don't want
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  to outsource them to governments on the assurance that it's probably going to be fine.
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  And like, it reminds me a little bit of people in authoritarian regimes saying, like,
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  if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear, you know, you, but you
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  just don't worry about your own private, the government, you know, is, is, is on your
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  side.
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  Well, okay.
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  But let's just make sure that it's actually codified that way as well, because some of
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  those, I mean, just to, so people understand what we're talking about when we talk about
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  the kinds of harms, right?
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  Should we just look at what they actually are?
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  So the, we're talking about content, this is the wording of the bill content that contains
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  information that is reasonably verifiable as false misleading or deceptive.
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  And that, that content is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm.
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  And the meaning of serious harm is harm to the operational integrity of a Commonwealth
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  State, territory or local government, electoral or referendum process, or harm to public
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  health, including to the efficacy of preventative health measures, or vilification of a group
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  in Australian society, distinguished by race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender
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  identity, intersex status, disability, nationality, or national or ethnic origin, or vilification
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  of an individual because of a belief that the individual is a member of such a group.
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  Imminent harm to the Australian economy is another, including harm to public confidence
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  in the banking system or financial markets.
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  I mean, you can imagine things that a dissident economist could say about an impending banking
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  collapse or housing collapse that could cause imminent harm to the Australian economy,
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  such as harm to public confidence in financial markets.
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  You can imagine a dispute between a transgender activist and a radical feminist over whether
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  or not biological males should be able to compete in girls' sports that would seem to
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  be vilification of a group in Australian society.
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  You could imagine an argument about, you know, whether or not a pathogen is airborne,
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  whether or not masks or efficacious at a particular point in a pandemic that could constitute
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  a harm to public health in Australia.
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  And burden of proof is still on government to prove that, right?
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  And so that's it.
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  I think there is wiggle room in this to kind of that it needs to be established, right?
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  Beyond reasonable doubt that that has the potential and it's reasonable, right?
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  But what is the court, like what is the judicial oversight by which the reasonable doubt
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  threshold is met?
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  All right.
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  Let's back away from this for a second because I don't think this is going in a productive
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  direction.
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  Okay.
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  Remember we're not talking about Akmar policing individual piece of content, right?
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  So it's a small constellation that they're requiring someone in Silicon Valley to do it
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  for them.
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  How is someone in Silicon Valley going to understand enough about Australian democracy
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  in markets?
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  They're already doing it though, right?
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  And this is, I think, something that's really missing from this is that platforms moderate
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  content and they have done four years, right?
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  But they do so in a way where we have no transparency or no insight into how they do that.
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  I mean, this is why the Facebook oversight board was established, right?
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  To be able to look into those situations away from the platform to make sense of what
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  had transpired and whether the platform was right to say, take down content or not take
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  it down and apply principles to those decisions.
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  Now, that exists for meta, right?
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  But that doesn't exist for any of the other platforms.
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  And so what I feel here is an attempt to try and take some of those principles and apply
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  them at a national level to kind of force that transparency around for how are you moderating
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  and tell us how you're going about doing this as a first step.
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  Now, as part of that, they have tried to define the kind of content that they are most concerned
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  with, right, which is missing disinformation.
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  And that's become the focus of debate and indeed the heart of the bill.
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  I do have some reservations in how this whole thing has come to pass, right?
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  I don't agree with the way in which they have defined missing and disinformation.
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  I think it's immaterial to try to define a difference between them.
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  In our submission, we said as much, right, we made a submission to this from the centre
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  that I lead.
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  And we said, look, intent actually doesn't change the fact of whether this does harm or
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  not.
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  And is the salient difference for the government between disinformation and disinformation?
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  And disinformation, you're saying that doesn't matter if it's bullshit at the bullshit.
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  We're talking about, so let's use examples, say, you know, like vaccine misinformation
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  or something like that.
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  If we have a feeling that that's doing harm to Australian society and public health,
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  then it makes a little difference about whether the person is willingly doing that or somehow
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  just inadvertently doing that.
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  It's still going to do harm.
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  And so the point is the platform should do something about not allowing that to spread
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  or spread widely within its platform environment.
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  And so that needs to be at the core of this, right?
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  The discussion around, okay, there is problematic information that is spreading on these platforms.
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  We study it day in, day out, here we see it.
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  What we don't see are transparency around what platforms are doing about that, how they
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  are deciding what content to leave up, the mechanisms through which they're doing that.
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  And they're essentially operating under a voluntary code right now, which clearly is
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  not working, right?
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  Misinformation is still rife in our communities through these platforms.
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  And so the government is really just stepping in and saying, look, you tried to do it voluntarily.
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  It's really not working out.
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  We're going to force you hand a little bit through a legislative process now.
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  That sounds understandable, but it makes me wonder why not do it in two stages because
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  there is stuff that I like in this bill.
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  I think the transparency component is critical.
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  I mean, I've called for a long time for extremely aggressive attempts to understand what's going
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  on under the hood of social media companies because I think it's completely untenable that
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  our information ecosystem is being dictated by algorithms whose provenance we don't
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  understand what they're doing.
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  We don't understand the exact ways in which they're prioritizing certain information over
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  other information.
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  We don't understand.
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  It's completely inscrutable and it's driving us all insane.
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  So I do like the section of the bill and I'll just read it for the listener.
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  The digital platform rules are made for purposes of the subcourse that may require digital
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  communications platform providers to give approved independent researchers access to data
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  in relation to the extent to which misinformation or disinformation may be amplified on digital
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  communications platforms provided by the providers.
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  So yes, let's see, I mean, I'm not crazy about the government being able to compel a social
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  media platform to hand over misinformation and disinformation that it has regulated.
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  I mean, like, are you okay with this from a, well, just from a civil libertarian point
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  of view.
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  So there's a clause that says that the government has, if the government has reasonable
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  grounds to believe that the provider, that is the social media platform, has information
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  or a document that is relevant to misinformation or disinformation on the platform, and it
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  may, meaning the government, require the provider to give it any such information or produce
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  any such documents.
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  Now, there's some caveats here that are important to note to you.
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  So there is restrictions on what can be handed over.
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  So they can't hand over private information.
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  They can't provide DMs, but they can provide any.
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  Yeah, and they can't provide details on a user, for example.
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  So they couldn't give us, say, the user's email address or something like that.
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  That is, that is private information.
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  But what they could provide is, for example, if there is a post that pertains to misinformation
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  or a series of posts that have been made in a generally public way, they could provide
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  that, and well, the government could compel the platform to provide that access to that
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  kind of data so that independent researchers can make determinations as to, in an independent
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  way, as to the extent of which, say, misinformation is still a problem on this platform.
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  So what this speaks to, I mean, this is an amendment that was pushed by Zoe Daniels.
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  And it's an amendment that much is a member of parliament that sits on the crossbench
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  right, so is someone not in the independent politician in this round, federal parliament
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  currently.
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  And so Zoe Daniels has put this amendment through because many of us actually have
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  done a bit of lobbying to be honest behind the scenes because the research community has
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  been calling for legislative access to platform data for a very long time.
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  And why we need that is that most of what we know in terms of the good and bad of social
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  media has come from independent research, right, academic researchers like me and others.
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  So the fact that we talk about misinformation in the way that we do is because of academic
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  researchers having research misinformation for as long as we have.
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  The fact we talk about all the other things is largely because you have a fair number
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  of communications and other digital media researchers out there doing this work.
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  Now historically, we've been able to get Scarexer platform data directly from the platforms
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  or in other ways that we've kind of be able to collect it.
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  So when you log on online on your own platforms, you have your own experience, but much of
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  that experience is not able to be seen by anyone else these days.
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  So if you're on Facebook, unless you've got access to what Facebook called their meta-content
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  library, no one has access to that data except approved researchers.
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  And only some of that data is accessed through that.
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  If you're on X still, they used to have a research data access provision.
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  Now you've got to pay a huge sum to get access to that API to get that data out.
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  So for us to do fundamental research on, and you said yourself, like these platforms are
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  baked into our society, like these are fundamental communication platforms in our society.
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  We need to be able to research them, to know what's being set on them and what's kind
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  of happening there.
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  And so this clause is critical, right?
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  You could almost, I think if, regardless of whether you like the misinformation stuff,
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  you could write a whole bill just on this bit.
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  That's what I would like.
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  I would love that.
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  Yes.
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  And let's just ask for that.
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  We've been asking for that bill for decades, right?
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  And, but look, that's part of it.
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  And you have to understand, like for me at the moment, this is almost at a fundamental
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  level, that by itself is enough to say, okay, I agree with some other points.
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  I would love to see the broader news media brought under the auspice of this bill as well,
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  because much of our research points to the fact that actually while social media bears
• 18:43
  the brunt of complaint and amongst the media, usually traditional media when it comes
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  to misinformation, it's a traditional media that's probably doing the worst sometimes
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  when it comes to misinformation and false narratives.
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  I mean, I did an interview this week on 3AW and my gosh, right?
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  Just waiting to go on air, I counted about 20 instances of absolute blatant misinformation
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  while I was waiting to come on and talk about this topic.
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  About this topic, right?
• 19:10
  Who was hosting?
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  I don't want to mention his name.
• 19:13
  I don't want to just, I don't want to give this guy more oxygen, bigger.
• 19:17
  Trust me.
• 19:18
  This is the, for listeners who are not in Australia, we're talking about the largest and
• 19:23
  most listened to radio station in the second largest metropolis.
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  So I don't think my podcast is necessarily going to platform this gentleman.
• 19:30
  But if you think about very popular conservative populist toolback radio, then that's the
• 19:38
  kind of thing we're talking about.
• 19:40
  So yeah, you must find it very frustrating, then Daniel, I mean, what is the, what are
• 19:45
  the big misconceptions here?
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  I guess the misconception is that the government's going to go after individuals for posting
• 19:50
  something online.
• 19:51
  Yeah.
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  The way that he was presenting it to his audience is that you all need to be really fearful
• 19:55
  of government now because they're coming after you.
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  The government's senses are going to be after you and that, and that somehow like Akma
• 20:01
  is going to be compelled to platforms to take down individual pieces of information.
• 20:05
  That is not the nature.
• 20:07
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