Digital industry takes a stand against proposed government ‘e-safety’ regulator

Australia’s biggest internet companies are standing together against government proposals to introduce an internet watchdog, which could see a bureaucrat given the power to decide what is harmful web content and tell sites to pull it down.

Proposals published ahead of the September election last year would see the government appoint an e-safety commissioner with the power to ban content from social media sites that it deems harmful. However the policy provoked an immediate backlash from civil liberties groups and was dumped within hours of its publication.

Members of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) including Google, Facebook and Twitter, have now raised the concerns after meeting with Communications Minister Malcolm Turbull’s parliamentary secretary Paul Fletcher yesterday, ahead of the release of a discussion paper outlining the government’s plans.

Following the meeting they have raised serious concerns about the law that would give a bureaucrat in Canberra the power to dictate what is harmful material on the web and what is not.