In the last decade, the way we consume news has changed drastically. The advent – and rapid growth – of social media has made news more accessible than ever. And while these advances have come with countless positives, they’ve also, concerningly, aided the spread of misinformation.

In 2020, for example, a rumour that 5G towers were enhancing the spread of COVID-19 quickly unfurled from the far corners of the internet to mainstream headlines. More recently, a Sydney man was wrongly accused as the perpetrator of the devastating Bondi Junction attacks — and faced a slew of hatred as a result. And a little further from home, the upcoming US election has been fraught with instances of fake news, from claims of eating dogs to illegal aliens having gender reassignment surgery in prison (to name just a few).

Now, new legislation proposed by the Federal Government aims to tackle the issue head on. But what does it all mean, and how will it impact the way we consume news? Below, everything you need to know about the proposed misinformation and disinformation laws.

 

What do the proposed misinformation and disinformation laws mean?

According to the Labor Government, the bill is designed to grant the Australian Communications and Media Authority (AMCA) greater power to ensure tech companies regulate the spread of misinformation and disinformation on their platforms. In other words, the Government won't seek to directly regulate how individuals post online, but rather, how platforms like Meta, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok control exactly what is shared to them.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland explained, "[Social media] platforms are not passive purveyors of content, they are curators of content.” She continued, "[The bill] actually goes to the systems and processes of the platforms and says they need to have methods in place to be able to identify and do something about it."

Exactly how this would look in action would differ from platform to platform. On X, for example, a feature called Community Notes has already been implemented to "empower" users to "add context to potentially misleading posts." Posts where information is contested contain an inbuilt pop-up which flags to X users that they might not be factually accurate.

 

What qualifies as misinformation and disinformation under the proposed laws?

The Federal Government defines misinformation as "false information that is spread due to ignorance, or by error or mistake, without the intent to deceive." On the other hand, disinformation is "knowingly false information designed to deliberately mislead and influence public opinion or obscure the truth for malicious or deceptive purposes."

According to Rowland, in order to be qualified as misinformation or disinformation, content in question would need to be “seriously harmful and verifiably false.”

While this definition is yet to be expanded in full, Rowland said, "It is a very high threshold for what constitutes serious harm.” She added, "We are also talking about harms to democracy and we know that disinformation in particular, when spread by rogue states or foreign actors, has the potential to undermine our democracy.”