Australia’s government will introduce legislation that tries to regulate digital services and impose a “digital duty of care.”

“For too long, tech companies have been running real-time, unregulated product testing on Australians,” Minister for Communications Anika Wells said today.

“In the same way that we have safety standards for cars, for food, and for appliances, Australia is getting basic safety standards for the online tools and online services,” she added. “Tech companies will still be allowed to move fast, but they will not be able to break things.”

Meta, in its early years when still known as Facebook, used the term “Move fast and break things” to describe its internal processes for creating and updating its services. The premise of Australia’s plans is that Meta, and other digital platforms, broke far more than they intended in pursuit of profit.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese framed the planned digital duty of care as a successor to the law that means social media companies are not allowed to provide accounts to children aged under 16.

“We would no longer let Australian children be treated as commodities,” he said. “We have the opportunity to shape tech for the better, rather than have it shape us.”

The proposed law aims to shape tech by requiring social media companies to give Australian users the chance to determine what they see in their feeds.

Some in Australia have criticized the planned law as government censorship.

Albanese tried to counter that notion by summarizing the intent of the plan as “My feed, my way.”

“This is not about giving government control,” Albanese said. “It is about giving people control.”

Wells explained those controls would be implemented with a requirement for digital platforms of offer Australian users the chance to opt into a user experience that only shows content from accounts they already follow online. She said users will be able to opt back into an algorithmic feed and change their minds about what they want to see as often as they like.

However, the law will also mean the relevant minister can seek a vote to ban certain content. Albanese said the draft bill seeks to do that for content that glorifies crime, promotes terrorism, pertains to eating disorders, pornography, sexual violence, and misogyny.

Wells explained that the process of declaring content harmful would start with the relevant minister consulting with Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner, who will be able to recommend that certain types of content be declared harmful. That recommendation would be subject to a parliamentary vote before coming into force.

Finding precedents in a bottle

The use of the term “digital duty of care” is a reference to one of the foundational cases in the law of torts – 1932’s Donoghue v Stevenson, which concerns a woman who poured a bottle of ginger beer over ice cream and watched in horror as a decomposed snail slid into her snack. Donoghue later suffered a bout of gastro-enteritis.

The landmark case found that the maker of the ginger beer – and any other provider of goods and services – has a responsibility to avoid any foreseeable harms caused by their acts or omissions.

The case made the concept of a duty of care central to the law of torts, which cover civil harms.

Australia naming its digital regulations a “digital duty of care” therefore puts the proposal firmly in the heart of western legal tradition.

At the press conference announcing the planned legislation, Albanese and Wells called on parents whose children took their own lives after using social media, and advocates for tighter regulation of social media – all of whom were unsurprisingly in favor of the law and praised the government for having the courage to advance it.

When discussing Australia’s social media ban, Albanese nearly always admits it is not perfect and would not mean all Australian children under 16 immediately vanish from social media.

“We knew it would not be perfect but would not let that be the enemy of the good,” he said today, and then said Australia’s policy “Started a global movement” that has since seen over 20 countries impose social media bans for children.

The PM suggested a digital duty of care could catch on, too, and Wells agreed.

“There is a global reckoning coming for big tech,” she said. “And it started in Australia.” ®