Transcript - Interview with Craig Reucassel, ABC Radio Sydney Breakfast

CRAIG REUCASSEL, HOST: Well, as we've been discussing this week, Sydney has been confronted not only with two horrific events, but also with the videos of these violent events at Bondi Westfield and the Western Sydney church circulating online, and often with no censorship and often with misinformation attached as well. And the media hasn't always got it right as well. A young man is suing Channel Seven after they wrongly named him as the Bondi attacker. Michelle Rowland is the Federal Minister for Communications and the Member for Greenway in western Sydney, Australia. She wants to slap social media giants with multimillion-dollar fines for misinformation. Morning, Minister.
 
MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Good morning.
 
REUCASSEL: So, look, we'll get to the social media quickly, but I guess at the moment there is more regulation of mainstream news organisations. Have you referred Channel Seven to ACMA for naming the wrong person in the Bondi attacks?
 
ROWLAND: Well, the ACMA is an independent authority. It will be in receipt of complaints if they have been made directly to the ACMA. Under the current regulatory system, what happens is that people need to make complaints directly to the broadcaster in the first instance, and they can be escalated. But again, I would point out that this is one of the pretty fundamental elements of reporting under the relevant standards: accuracy is quite a standard element. Clearly it was not met, as evidenced by the apology that's been given. And just to close it off, I know that the ACMA has received a number of complaints. It's handling them in accordance with the system that's in place under this framework and it's open to them to look into this further.
 
REUCASSEL: Yeah, it's interesting, though, because you see Channel Seven obviously was rushing to keep up and across social media, their name was trending, it was going crazy. You know, they're trying to keep up with that right now. There's ACMA there that could actually punish Channel Seven. There's the defamation case that's already hit them. What do we have to actually regulate the social media organisations where most of the misinformation was coming from? Where also a lot of the most graphic footage was coming from? And what do you have at your disposal?
 
ROWLAND: That's an excellent question and it is a significant contrast in terms of public-interest journalism, there are rules around accuracy and standards. For social media, we have, in particular, when it comes to certain types of content to be taken down, we do have the eSafety regulator – the eSafety Commissioner – and they operate under the Online Safety Act. There is the ability to remove or order removal of content.
 
When it comes to mis and disinformation, in relation to specific content, there is a voluntary industry code in place. And, as many of you listeners will be aware, we are seeking to codify that in law because we know that the social media platforms need to do more in this area. There needs to be more accountability. There is a lack of enforcement, obviously, under a code that is voluntary. And X, for example, one of the key platforms in this area, is not even subject to the code anymore, after it has had repeated breaches.
 
REUCASSEL. So, you need to turn this from being a voluntary code that some people are signed up to, and some are, to an actual mandatory code that has to be followed by social media organisations. That's the plan right now?
 
ROWLAND: It is and this was recommended even so far back as 2019 by the ACCC in its wide-ranging Digital Platforms Inquiry. It's been confirmed by the ACMA, the previous Government announced that they would do it. We've been consulting very broadly on this. We produced a draft bill which was out for public consultation, which obviously engendered a high degree of interest. This is novel legislation, but it's certainly one that regulators around the world are grappling with. For Government - as far as we're concerned - doing nothing is not an option. We are consulting on that. The intention is to introduce legislation this year, and I appreciate all the effort that has gone in by various stakeholders in that process.
 
REUCASSEL: We're speaking to Michelle Rowland, who's the Federal Minister for Communications. We contacted some of the social media organisations; TikTok got back to us and said, ‘hey, you know, we're taking down all this footage that happened in the Wakeley stabbing. We're trying to regulate that kind of stuff.’ We then looked online and it was still there. You know, yesterday the eSafety Commissioner asked for people to take this stuff down. It's still there, if you go to that.
 
I mean, in some cases, it might be that it's there and you have to click on it and say, you know, this is sensitive thing. Do you still want to watch it? Is that enough? I mean, the response from social media organisations doesn't seem to be that proactive. Are they actually, do they actually have control of their own networks?
 
ROWLAND: They do have control of their own platforms. And as to your question about whether this is enough: no, they need to do more. Keeping Australians safe online, protecting – particularly children and vulnerable people – from being exposed to this content, is a collective responsibility.
Governments and regulators do that through the laws and the powers that we exercise. But the social media platforms need to do more.
 
And I would encourage all of your listeners - I appreciate this is school holidays at the moment as well – there are a lot of young people who may be exposed, including inadvertently, to this type of content. I encourage your listeners to go to eSafety.gov.au. There is a wealth of information there about how to report such content to platforms or service providers.
 
I would encourage all of your listeners, if they do come across this, don't click on it, don't forward it – report it. And the requirement under the scheme is to report it to the platforms in the first instance. But eSafety has also put out public information asking people to report it as well, and that enables them to do their job.
 
REUCASSEL: Now, you're currently, the Government is currently, battling with Facebook over previous regulation asking them to kind of fund journalism, in a sense, and Facebook's just backed out of this. Are these social media companies too big to regulate? Can you actually regulate them?
 
ROWLAND: Well, in terms of Meta, you are right, they have made this decision some weeks ago, and they made a decision in relation to the US, as well, about pulling out of basically news content and letting the agreement expire that they had pursuant to the News Media Bargaining Code.
 
To break that down and to go directly to your questions: governments need to do everything we can at our disposal, understanding that they are, in many cases, an unavoidable trading partner. They have scale and spread and wealth that exceeds some nations. But irrespective of that, where they operate in jurisdictions, they must comply with law.
 
We are fortunate in Australia that we have an Online Safety Act, we have a regulator. We have been closely following what is happening, including in jurisdictions like the EU, where the issue of mis and disinformation is one that is capable, and has been seen to be causing social harms. And these all need to be addressed. The question of governments doing nothing isn't an option. Governments do need to exercise their powers. We also need to recognise this as a collective responsibility and that we all need to do our bit here. The platforms certainly need to do more.
 
REUCASSEL: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we'll see what happens with this over the course of the year. Appreciate you talking to us, Minister.
 
ROWLAND: Pleasure.