Thu 3 Oct 2024 at 7:21am A consequence-free social media environment — where the most dangerous, damaging or illegal content gets promoted in the name of freedom is speech — is a false premise. (Photo by Matt Cardy / Getty Images) Share X (formerly Twitter) Freedom of speech does not exist in Australia — at least not in the way Americans refer to it, the way it’s been popularised on social media. As the government looks to regulate harmful misinformation and disinformation, this frequently misunderstood phrase once again enters the public debate. Free speech has never been absolute, and free speech absolutists will attempt to force a zero-sum choice: either we have it or we don’t. But this issue, like the concept of freedom of speech itself, is more nuanced. The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 looks to grant the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) powers to hold social media platforms to account, compelling them to disclose their policies and plans to combat mis/disinformation, publish media literacy plans, provide reports, and comply with codes. It is important to note, however, that the Bill does not give ACMA take down powers. There are concerns that this will make the media regulator an “arbiter of truth” and grant ACMA carte blanche to censor whomever they want — presumably people or organisations with whom they disagree. But this is a mischaracterisation of both the Bill and its intent. Elon Musk speaks with members of the media during the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, England, on 1 November 2023. (Photo by Leon Neal / Getty Images) Social media has for too long been an unregulated, undermoderated, consequence-free environment. We all know the issues and harms that result. Take the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, which today has become a cesspool of extreme propaganda, conspiracy theories, outright hate speech and bald-faced lies. Empowered from the top by its unhinged CEO, Elon Musk, it has become the perfect disinformation spreading machine. Or consider TikTok, the immensely popular social video platform, that because of its clout-chasing creators’ penchant for turning their lives into “content”, sees many of them providing unsolicited, sometimes illegal advice into topics on which they have no expertise, and really, no business providing advice on — health, pharmaceuticals, taxation, finance and investing. They’re even going after sunscreen. The real issue with social media platforms is that their algorithms promote, amplify and spread mis/disinformation. It is less about the individual posters and more that their ill-informed content gets shared with far too many people than it would otherwise had it not been posted on social platforms. As the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, once tweeted, “freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach”. Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, perhaps the most influential and controversial force behind recent advances in artificial intelligence. (Photo by Jaap Arriens / NurPhoto via Getty Images) Now inject into these already problematic platforms the transformative, magnifying power of artificial intelligence. Deepfakes — AI-generated content that impersonates real people and places them in fabricated scenarios — are one of the potentially dangerous applications of AI. So far, mostly politicians seem to have been in the firing line, but anyone could be a victim. The government is also considering AI risk thresholds in order to better delineate what is harmful and what’s fine to leave alone. One of the only options on the table for regulating deepfakes is to label them. We know from social media that mere exposure to false information is enough to do damage. Would a label really be enough to prevent people from being fooled? Many may choose to simply ignore it. What is the label meant to signify? Is it meant to signal that a piece of content should be avoided, that it lacks credibility or is inaccurate? Then why not just remove it instead of going through the extra effort of identification and labelling? This also begs the question of whether we find it acceptable to allow a tsunami of deepfakes into the social media ecosystem simply because they’ve been labelled accordingly. In this environment, we could have dead politicians “coming back to life” to endorse current candidates, fake climate scientists claiming that global heating is a hoax, or public officials caught in scandals claiming footage are doctored deepfakes. In fact, these things have already happened. Deepfakes are clearly a disinformation issue, a problem some of our own politicians tried to draw attention to by creating deepfakes of their own. Want the best of Religion & Ethics delivered to your mailbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Your information is being handled in accordance with the ABC Privacy Collection Statement. Email address