By Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society

This report focusses on the impacts of social media and Australian society. It examines the influence of social media on users' health and wellbeing, particularly on vulnerable cohorts of people, but also how social media can provide users with positive connection, a sense of community, a place for expression and instant access to information and entertainment.

The Committee heard that balancing these conflicting realities is a wicked problem.

The report addresses both the need for immediate action, and the need for a sustained digital reform agenda. It supports protecting Australians through a statutory duty of care by digital platforms, education support and digital competency, greater protections of personal information, independent research, data gathering and reporting, and giving users greater control over what they see on social media.

This report puts Big Tech on notice—social media companies are not immune from the need to have a social licence to operate.

Recommendations for the Australian Government

1. Consider options for greater enforceability of Australian laws for social media platforms.

2. Introduce a single and overarching statutory duty of care onto digital platforms for the wellbeing of their Australian users.

3. Introduce legislative provisions to enable effective, mandatory data access for independent researchers and public interest organisations, and an auditing process by appropriate regulators.

4. As part of its regulatory framework, ensures that social media platforms introduce measures that allow users greater control over what user-generated content and paid content they see by having the ability to alter, reset, or turn off their personal algorithms and recommender systems.

5. Prioritise proposals from the Privacy Act review relating to greater protections for the personal information of Australians and children.

6. Any features of the Australian Government's regulatory framework that will affect young people be codesigned with young people.

7. Support research and data gathering regarding the impact of social media on health and wellbeing to build on the evidence base for policy development.

8. One of the roles of the previously recommended Digital Affairs Ministry should be to develop, coordinate and manage funding allocated for education to enhance digital competency and online safety skills.

9. Reports to both Houses of Parliament the results of its age assurance trial.

10. Industry be required to incorporate safety by design principles in all current and future platform technology.

11. Introduce legislative provisions requiring social media platforms to have a transparent complaints mechanism.

12. Ensures adequate resourcing for the Office of the eSafety Commissioner to discharge its evolving functions.

Parliament of Australia, 18 NOV 2024