Government reveals further details on cyberbullying laws

The Abbott Government aims to have its new laws to enhance online safety for children, including a complaints system backed by legislation to get harmful cyber-bullying material targeted at an Australian child down quickly from large social media sites, ready to introduce to Parliament by the end of the year.

Speaking at the ‘Protecting Children and Youth Online’ conference in Melbourne, Paul Fletcher MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications, gave more details of the proposed laws.

The new laws will establish the new Office of the Children’s E-Safety Commissioner, as an independent statutory office within the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Under the new laws, the Children’s E-Safety Commissioner will have the power to issue a notice to large social media services requiring them to remove cyber-bullying material targeted at an Australian child.

Mr Fletcher explained that the laws will establish a ‘two tier’ scheme: under tier 1 large social media services can work cooperatively with the Commissioner; but if they repeatedly fail to respond to notices they face being moved to tier 2, under which they will be legally required to comply with a notice issued by the Commissioner to remove cyber-bullying material, and a failure to comply will attract penalties.

“This two-tier scheme allows for light-touch regulation in circumstances where a large social media service has an effective complaints scheme; but it gives the government real teeth to require that cyber-bullying material be removed where a large social media service does not have an effective and well-resourced complaints system,” Mr Fletcher said.

The Commissioner will also have the power to issue a notice to a person who has posted cyber-bullying material targeted at an Australian child, requiring the person to remove the material.

The Government has a search process underway to select the Children’s e-Safety Commissioner, with Mr Fletcher saying that he was encouraged that a number of strong candidates had come forward.