American questions about Australian online safety

The US Embassy in Canberra has raised a few concerns about Australia's Online Safety Amendment (Duty of Care) Bill. 

The same concerns will apply to any NZ equivalent. 

A few choice bits:

Speech & Platform Design Concerns – The United States has serious concerns about the Australian government’s stated goal of mandating broad duty of care requirements that dictate how platforms manage content and users’ feeds.  Concerns include:

1. how the Australian government, or the Communications Minister, would designate what constitutes “foreseeable harm”; 
2. any resulting requirement that platforms alter their algorithmic systems to suppress expression that should be protected in order to avoid liability, or, if not an explicit requirement, any approach that would likely result in platforms defaulting to pre-emptive censorship to avoid the risk of liability.

• We are particularly concerned by potential mandates that would allow regulators to impose rigid, one-size-fits-all platform design requirements – such as forced chronological feeds or opt-in recommendation systems.
• A framework that empowers governments to enforce vague definitions of “harm” risks becoming a mechanism for viewpoint-based censorship, as platforms will be incentivized to over-moderate speech that should be protected to avoid regulatory penalties.
• Such a framework also risks reducing the reach of independent journalists or other voices whose content touches on sensitive or controversial topics that platforms may preemptively demote to comply with overbroad safety mandates.
• We ask that Australia clarify how exactly “harm” and “risks” shall be determined, if there are any standard definitions that will be utilized, and by whom in the context of the proposed plans, ensuring these definitions do not encroach on protected speech.
• If Australia compels platforms to aggressively filter content in algorithmic feeds to satisfy a government mandate, and such filtering draws in protected speech, the effect on a disfavored speaker or media source’s reach would not be meaningfully different than outright removal.  The U.S. government would likely consider such a measure as facilitating censorship.

The Embassy also notes the extraterritorial reach of Australia's policy, and the American government's clear "opposition to foreign measures that result in extraterritorial censorship of protected speech by Americans online."