‘Inevitable next stage’: Australia knocks back Trump warning
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has knocked back criticism from the Trump administration after it weighed in on domestic politics as he pushes his digital agenda to world leaders.
The US government on Tuesday raised “serious concerns” about Labor’s proposed digital duty of care, which would force social media companies to provide an opt-out measure to users, accusing it of “facilitating censorship”.
The Trump administration has weighed in on Australian politics. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson
Asked about the remarks on the sidelines of the United Nations meeting in New York, Albanese pushed back on the concerns raised and called it the “inevitable next stage”.
“I will always stand up for Australia’s national interests and the digital duty of care is something we’ve foreshadowed for some period of time,” he said on Wednesday.
“It’s not about giving government control; it’s about giving people back control over what they receive on their devices, which is why it’s framed in that way.”
The prime minister also refused to say whether he was disappointed in President Donald Trump’s rejection of a push from Australia and 21 other middle countries to introduce global guardrails on artificial intelligence.
He also denied that the White House had undermined his tech push on the world stage.
“We have put forward a strong position,” he said.
“We’ll wait and see what comes out of the meeting between President Trump and (Chinese President Xi Jinping). It’s good that they’re meeting and it’s good that this is on the agenda.”
Trump and Xi will be meeting to discuss artificial intelligence and whether to slow down the race between their two countries following warnings from the bosses of Anthropic, OpenAI and Grok to forgo accelerated progress for increased safety measures.
Albanese has also secured a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the UN.
He posted a photo of the pair together to his social media, saying “always good to catch up”.
Donald Trump and Anthony Albanese meet on the sidelines at the UN. Instagram
Albanese has been trumpeting his attempts to rein in big tech and protect Australian children on a visit to the US this week for the United Nations meeting.
He has echoed his domestic calls for safety measures around artificial intelligence, arguing it should remain in human control, as Australia forges ahead as a leading destination for data centres.
His government is also consulting on its digital duty of care package that will target social media companies, most of which are based in the US.
It would force giants such as Meta and TikTok to allow Australian users to opt out of algorithms while putting the onus on companies to prevent risks and harmful content such as misogyny, pornography and eating disorders.
Companies that fail to do so could face fines of almost $110 million.
It would also empower the eSafety Commissioner to issue removal notices for nudify apps or websites, and streamline the child cyber-bullying and adult cyber abuse schemes and require platforms to document measures taken to address harm to Australian users.
The US warned Australian laws could have impacts internationally/ Getty
In a note published by the US embassy in Canberra, the US raised concerns about the opt-out measures and questions about who would be responsible for defining what is and is not allowed.
“The United States has serious concerns about the Australian government’s stated goal of mandating broad duty of care requirements that dictate how platforms manage content and users’ feeds,” it said, in a rare intervention into domestic politics from a foreign government.
“Concerns include: 1) how the Australian government, or the communications minister, would designate what constitutes ‘foreseeable harm’;
“And 2) any resulting requirement that platforms alter their algorithmic systems to suppress expression that should be protected in order to avoid liability, or, if not an explicit requirement, any approach that would likely result in platforms defaulting to pre-emptive censorship to avoid the risk of liability.”
The US warned changes imposed in Australia could also have impacts in the US and the rest of the world, particularly if other countries followed suit and brought in similar but conflicting guidelines.
“If Australia compels platforms to aggressively filter content in algorithmic feeds to satisfy a government mandate, and such filtering draws in protected speech, the effect on a disfavoured speaker or media source’s reach would not be meaningfully different than outright removal,” the submission to consultation on the draft bill stated.
“The US government would likely consider such a measure as facilitating censorship.”
Social media giants like Meta and TikTok will be forced to allow Australian users to opt out of algorithms under a new proposal by the federal government. 9News
The Albanese government has argued that the digital duty of care package would give users more choice and force companies to take ownership of the harms that may happen on their platforms.
“You will have a choice about whether you want the algorithm or whether you want the following feed,” Communications Minister Anika Wells said earlier in September.
“And the reality is lots of people are going to want to choose the algorithm. Lots of people follow it for entertainment, lots of people follow it because they like supporting small local business in their suburb.”
The Liberals, Nationals and One Nation have raised their own concerns that clamping down on algorithms would result in government censorship.
“Your digital duty of care bill is all about censoring online content,” Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson said on Tuesday night.
“That’s one of the reasons your draconian laws have been so condemned by the US administration.”
Shadow Communications Minister Sarah Henderson said the bill was “all about censoring online content”. Alex Ellinghausen
Albanese on Wednesday reiterated that the digital duty of care would not give governments control and would rather give that control back to Australians.
He said he hoped to gain support from parliament.
“The fact is that we have released an exposure draft of legislation. We haven’t even introduced the legislation before the parliament. We’ll engage constructively,” he said.
“I hope the whole of parliament supports it. This should not be a partisan issue.”
Individual submissions to the consultation on the draft bill have not been made publicly available but a summary published by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts described broad support among stakeholders.
Online safety advocates and groups representing vulnerable communities were particularly positive, while those in the industry focused on reducing their regulatory burden and some submissions raised concerns about free speech.
Algorithms can be used to prioritise content based on user information and online activity.
Social media companies have come under increasing criticism for serving young boys harmful and misogynistic content online, and exposing women to content related to disordered eating.
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