CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Ms CHANEY (Curtin) (09:36): This week, the government unveiled a draft of its digital-duty-of-care legislation. Before this came out, I surveyed more than 1,200 people in my community of Curtin about social media and the digital duty of care, and people know that social media is a problem. When asked about social media's impact on their friends and family, respondents were five times more likely to say its impact was negative than positive.

More than 90 per cent thought social media companies should take more responsibility for the long-term harms they cause. When asked what the most important issues on social media were, the top two were algorithms and addictive design. The community of Curtin gets it.

We understand that there is a need for a digital duty of care for social media companies and other digital platforms to proactively make their platforms safe. The draft legislation is far from perfect, and I'll be working constructively with government and across the parliament to progress a series of improvements. But I'm very concerned about the unhinged scare campaign from the coalition, One Nation and some in the media.

They're trying to argue that this is about government controlling what you see and curtailing free speech. There are so many problems with this. Firstly, if there is anyone controlling what you see, it's the social media companies.

Their algorithms fully control what you see online, and these algorithms are driven by a single motive: profit. That means keeping you online, engaged and emotional for as long as possible. Secondly, for anyone over 18—as drafted, the only thing this bill proposes to do is give you, the user, more control.

It can give you the choice of opting in or out of the algorithm. If anything, we need greater protections for adults. Thirdly, there are so many aspects of this policy that have nothing to do with free speech but could be derailed by this scare campaign.

As part of this legislation, social media companies will have to make their product less addictive for under-18s. As part of this legislation, digital platforms will have to publish transparency reports to show what they're doing to make their products less harmful for children. Free speech is a fundamental tenet of our liberal democracy, and it must be protected.

There are some reasonable concerns about this legislation that are worth raising. The significant ministerial powers should be restricted or safeguarded, but I'm concerned that some are more interested in scoring political points than engaging constructively. Some would prefer to destroy the whole policy so that overseas billionaires continue to dictate what we see online.

But Curtin gets it, and Australia gets it, so now is the time for parliament to come together to make our online spaces safer.