NARELDA JACOBS:
Now, for the first time, tech giants like Google, TikTok and Facebook will be made responsible for scammers operating on their platforms, along with banks and telcos. If they don’t do enough to prevent, detect and report scams, they could face a $50 million fine. It’s the latest in a big week of social media and tech announcements for the government, which has been labelled fascist by Elon Musk. Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones joins us now. All right, Minister, are you a fascist?
STEPHEN JONES:
Well, this is really crackpot stuff, to be frank. The things that they’re complaining about, frankly, have no basis. It’s about sovereignty, it’s about the role of the Australian Government, or any other government around the world, frankly, to make laws to keep their citizens safe. And you can’t tell me that protecting scammers and criminal content online is free speech. You can’t tell me that protecting child porn and other horrific stuff online is free speech. You can’t tell me that, you know, livestreaming a murder scene is free speech. It’s not. It’s offensive, it’s criminal, it’s ripping Australians off to the tunes of billions of dollars, and we’ve had enough and we’re not going to stand for it. We have laws that apply to every other area of Australian life. You can’t say they apply everywhere, but not on the internet. That’s just not going to wash.
JACOBS:
Well, let’s look at this raft of laws that are proposed, starting with the scam laws. The banks are happy the burden isn’t all theirs. But what do social media platforms need to do to avoid fines?
JONES:
Well, everyone within the ecosystem, everyone who’s operating across the system, needs to lift the standards. They’ll have obligations to put in place prevention measures, detection measures, reporting measures, disruption measures, and to ensure that they’re sharing information with other businesses within the ecosystem about what they’re seeing around scams and attempted scams in their services. The reason we’re starting with telecommunications, social media and the banks is that is where the scams are being transmitted. They’re being published online, they’re coming to us via our SMS messages and our phone calls, and they’re after our money and our banks. So, those 3 places within the economy are critical. Once we lock that down, we’ll move to other areas as well, because we know once we make one area safe, the scammers will try and move somewhere else. Our objective: to make Australia the hardest place in the world for scammers to make a coin.
JACOBS:
Now, Minister, if you can wave a big stick at social media platforms over scams, can you do the same to keep children safe and force tech giants to end harmful practices?
JONES:
You know, everyone’s got a responsibility here, and first and foremost, it’s parents responsibility to ensure that their kids are safe and that they’re raising them in the way the kids – that their family values represent. But I’ve got to say, publishers at the moment have responsibilities, broadcasters have responsibilities, and so should social media networks have responsibilities to ensure that age‑appropriate content is only accessed by, you know, the people who it’s appropriate to. So, I think we do need an uplift in standards in this area and I guess it does tap – sorry –
JACOBS:
So, if all of those people – if all those people – you know, parents, you know – if we have to teach our kids how to deal with social media, are bans the answer?
JONES:
Look, I think, you know, having better regulation is part of the answer. It’s not the whole answer. Don’t want to pretend that everything goes away if we ban something. We know in so many other areas of health and public life, that doesn’t work. But I think it’s lifting the standards and having appropriate, sensible regulation in this area is a part of the answer. We do it with television, we do it with all other forms of media. No reason why we shouldn’t be looking at the same thing in social media.
JACOBS:
Well, one way the government is looking to keep children safe online is to protect their data as part of the Attorney‑General’s privacy bills. How would the guardrails proposed for tech giants work when it comes to storing and using children’s data?
JONES:
Well, 2 things there. Firstly, ensuring that they’re only collecting the information that is needed to be collected and that is authorised to be collected. That’s the first thing. So, if the answer to whether they should be collecting that sort of information and data is no, then they shouldn’t, and it’ll be unlawful and fines and penalties will apply. If there is a legitimate course to reason to collect and store that data, then there’ll be strong laws around how it’s stored, being kept safe from hackers, and how it’s used to ensure that it’s not misappropriated for a purpose other than which it was collected. All of these really basic principles in privacy law are just – the law hasn’t kept pace with the way technology and business has operated over the last decade, so it needs an uplift.
JACOBS:
Well, from protecting children, our privacy, to protecting the truth, what kind of mis‑ and dis‑information would be caught by new laws to tackle the spread of lies?
JONES:
Look, there are some things that – clearly we’re not after the stuff which is about things that can be a matter of honest opinion and difference of views and values, that’s all fine. But things that are blatantly untrue, like using deepfake technology to appropriate somebody’s image, to say something that they never said and they don’t think is clearly an instance of mis‑ and dis‑information and should not be allowed to be published online and it should be removed. Again, a broadcaster couldn’t do that. Your business couldn’t do that at Channel Ten. But it is happening online. And as all of these different platforms are starting to emerge and technologies are emerging, we’ve got to ensure that the regulation is appropriate for the tech platforms as well.
JACOBS:
I wonder if Elon Musk has heard that. Thank you very much, Minister Stephen Jones.
JONES:
Good to be with you.