Australia: Opened consultation on draft Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 including content moderation authority governance

On 24 June 2023, the Australian Government opened a consultation until 6 August 2023 concerning new powers of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to combat misinformation and disinformation under the draft Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023. In particular, the draft bill provides the ACMA with powers to gather information from digital platform providers or require them to keep certain records about matters regarding misinformation and disinformation. The bill also enables the ACMA to request industries to develop a code of practice covering measures to combat misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms. Further, the ACMA would be enabled to create and enforce an industry standard should a code of practice be deemed ineffective in combatting misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms. Notably, the spreading of misinformation and disinformation by bots and other artificial intelligence services on a digital platform service is within scope of the powers. However, the ACMA will not have powers to request digital platform services to remove specific content or posts.