Top Jewish and Muslim groups are urging the Albanese government to allow citizens to sue US tech giants over failures to police online hate based on race or religion as Labor weighs US-style platform liability laws.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants to pass the Digital Duty of Care Bill by the end of the parliamentary year though he has faced conservative pushback on potential implications for free speech. The US tech industry has protested against Labor’s latest attempt to regulate digital giants.
The Greens, whose support Labor requires to pass their bill, want tougher rules to discourage doomscrolling, larger fines levied off tech firms’ global revenue, and a private right to class actions and lawsuits mirroring the US, where lawsuits have spurred momentum to regulate tech.
Labor is examining a private right to action to win Greens support, backed by more than 80 groups mobilised by the left-wing Australia Institute. They include unions, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Islamic Council of Victoria.
High-profile lawyer Josh Bornstein, now the institute’s director of corporate regulation, said the duty of care bill in its current form made explicit reference only to harm based on gendered violence.
“It needs to address other forms of hate speech including racist and homophobic hate speech,” he said.
“As the royal commission into antisemitism made clear, the most extreme forms of hate speech are propagated by social media giants because they profit from doing so. That has got to stop.”
The debate over the expansiveness of the duty of care bill mirrors ongoing friction over anti-vilification reforms, which consistently test the boundary between protecting expression and shielding minorities.
Unlike hate speech prohibitions, expanding the scope of the bill to include broader categories would not outlaw any individual piece of speech or online post. Instead, it would oblige tech companies to ensure their platforms did not amplify content that encouraged attacks on race, religion or sexuality, as well as gender.
“These rules are not about individual users at all or stopping people posting certain things,” Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said, aiming to pre-empt further free speech objections.
Google, which will provide evidence at a parliamentary inquiry into the digital duty of care on Monday, said in its submission that the bill was modelled on the Work Health and Safety Act, which “expressly precludes a private right of action”.
“Compliance with the duty should be evaluated and enforced by a dedicated safety regulator,” Google said, warning against any speedy changes Labor might make to win over the Greens in absence of Coalition support.
“It would be inappropriate to retrofit such a proposal absent further reforms to the duty of care”.
Google added that Australians could still sue under existing law. If a new avenue was created, it said a higher threshold of “serious harm” should be created to make sure “courts are not overwhelmed with minor, trivial or vexatious content disputes”.
Communications Minister Anika Wells did little to tamp down the Greens’ expectation that the government was willing to play ball.
“Through our consultation process, we heard from digital rights groups, consumer rights groups, womens groups and advocacy groups like [Chanel Contos’] Teach Us Consent seeking a private right of action,” Wells said. “We’ll keep working that through in good faith.”
Bornstein rejected Google’s argument that the eSafety Commission could have sole responsibility for pursuing social media giants.
“When it comes to enforcing the Digital Duty of Care, it can’t all be left to eSafety, which received more than 100,000 complaints in the last year but only takes action in 2 per cent of cases. The eSafety Commissioner supports a private right of action,” he said.
The bill will also give users the choice to opt into algorithmic recommendations. It’s the latest in a suite of Australian regulations that have drawn sharp rebukes from the Trump administration and big tech.
Washington’s leading tech lobby, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, has claimed the digital duty would push social media firms to over-police “borderline” content to comply with new regulations.
Labor’s education minister Jason Clare said the politics on digital regulation had changed dramatically lately. The Coalition has taken a hard line on the digital duty, a concept supported by former treasurer Josh Frydenberg in his submission to the antisemitism royal commission, since it was burned by free speech advocates over a hate speech debate in January.
“Peter Dutton would be saying we’re not going hard enough, but because of the sort of atomisation of politics and the rise of One Nation, the Libs feel like they’re subject to some sort of hostile takeover by Pauline Hanson,” Clare told News24’s Sunday Agenda.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
Paul Sakkalis Chief Political Correspondent. He previously covered Victorian politics and won a Walkley award and the 2025 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year. Contact him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14.Connect viaXoremail.
