Anika Wells

[gentle music] Also this week, the federal government finally unveiled legislation two years in the making, a digital duty of care for online platforms.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells fronted the media on Tuesday to release the exposure draft for the Online Safety Amendment, which would force social media platforms, AI services, messaging apps, and other online services to proactively protect Australians from harm, rather than governments reacting after the fact.

Albanese said the changes would call on platforms to protect users, particularly children, from content that promotes eating disorders, misogynistic content, pornography, and content that glorifies crime.

One of the headline changes, Australians would get the chance to switch off their algorithms.

And here's an example of what's making people suspicious.

Communications Minister Anika Wells has suggested the crackdown may impact news websites, too.

Here she is on News 24 with Laura Geys.

[whooshing sound] The duty of care legislation is so broad it could capture more than social media, though.

Now we're being told that it includes news websites.

News websites are captured, too.

But later, Anika Wells claimed that news websites are not captured by the legislation.

Which one is it, Minister? This isn't a tiny technical detail.

The quote, right, of the week for me was, "There is a global reckoning coming for big tech.

There is a global reckoning coming from big tech." And that came from Anika Wells, the, uh, communications minister.

And I actually feel really bad saying that this is a dodgy promise because I think it is an admirable thing to do.

Yes.

It is...

A- and, and Australia's actually leading the way in that, and I think that's something to be proud of, really, uh, on a, at a national sense, that we are doing this and, and risking, and, and, and at, not just risking but accepting the fact that we are going to just cop it from the tech giants, and it's potentially going to damage the relationship with the US as well, but doing it anyway.

Uh, this was the PM and Anika Wells announcing the digital duty of care laws through the week.

Basically, you can turn off the algorithm, turn off the algorithm and just get stuff on social media from people that you follow.

Under the proposed laws, social media platforms will be required to send a notification to users asking if they want to opt in or out of content recommended by the algorithm, and the platforms will need to protect children from harmful content, including stuff that glorifies crime, pornography, and eating disorders.

Communication Minister Anika Wells says tech companies must take responsibility for the harms they cause Aussie children.

Girls getting advice from chatbots on how to exist on only 600 calories a day, boys being cyberbullied by strangers on online games.

It comes after advocacy group Teachers Consent had been calling on the government to introduce a opt-in model for algorithms.

Eva saying, "This does absolutely nothing.

The companies still pay such little tax while workers cover the bill." Another person says, "I feel like you could a- already do this to an extent." And someone else: "Who cares? Fix the country's economy.

This is a distraction." Look, we did ask to speak with the Communications Minister Anika Wells.

She wasn't available to come on Hack this afternoon, but we'll keep trying to get her on for a chat.

...

the government, P- Albanese, Anika Wells, who's the communications minister, and the eSafety commissioner, it's amazing how they're spinning this.

Oh, yeah.

And on the surface, it seems like, oh, yeah, let's go back to the old days of Facebook.

Yeah.

Where Anika ...

So Anika Wells is the communications minister.

Correct.

The Trump administration has criticised the Albanese government over this new social media crackdown on algorithms.

We know that Anthony Albanese and Anika Wells announced the government will be forcing social media companies to... offer the opt-in or opt-out of algorithms.

Now, the White House economic spokesperson said that Trump has warned trading partners against imposing digital services, taxes, fines and other forms of extortion on America's leading technology sector.

It's interesting, this statement comes ahead of this possible meeting between Trump and Albanese.

Mm.

Yeah, this was something that came out on Tuesday from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells.

And like we said, the headline change in their duty of care reforms is to make the algorithm a sort of opt-in system.

So to talk you through how this would work, anyone who signs up for a new social media account in Australia or anyone who is already on social media will get a pop-up in their feed, basically asking them if they wanna stay on the recommendation algorithm system or if they wanna move over to a more sort of chronological feed like what we talked about earlier.

Yeah, and opt into this, uh, more chronological version.

So the issue with that is you're kind of constantly being switched back onto the algorithm almost every time that you leave the app.

And Anika Wells, she said that we'll have a slightly different approach, being when you get that pop-up, you'll choose once, and then you'll be set onto whichever path you wanna take, but then you can go into your settings and switch again.

So it'll be a little less toggling, but the idea being you have a more enduring commitment to how you want your feed to be.