The Greens are set to push Labor to dramatically toughen new laws designed to rein in big tech, with the minor party demanding changes that would give people more control over their social media feeds and take platforms to court directly.
What we know:
- Labor is preparing to introduce its planned digital duty of care laws into parliament this week, but the Greens say they will drive a tough bargain in exchange for support, with the Coalition opposed to the plan (The Guardian).
- The Greens want the maximum penalty lifted from about $100m to a set percentage of a platform’s global revenue, and for the laws to be amended so individual Australians could sue big tech corporations for the harm they had fostered online (The Age).
- “These huge tech companies make billions of dollars trapping Australians on their addictive platforms. To change their behaviour, they will only respond to one thing: penalties that really hit their bottom line,” said Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young (The Age).
- The negotiations will be the first under the new Greens leader, David Shoebridge, who is also expected to introduce a bill to stop the importation of camera-enabled smart glasses this week (The Guardian).
Read more: Labor stands up to Trump on Digital Duty of Care (The Saturday Paper)