The biggest perpetrators of misinformation and privacy breaches will escape new laws
Bernard Keane
Social media misinformation and doxxing will be subjected to new laws while the worst offenders and privacy breachers will escape scrutiny.
The government’s sudden flurry of communications regulation, covering “anti-doxxing” laws, an anti-misinformation regime, privacy reforms and hate speech laws covered a range of legislation and portfolios — Communications, Attorney-General’s and potentially Treasury — but have a running theme: the biggest peddlers of misinformation, the biggest doxxers, the most serious threats to privacy, won’t be caught. And that’s the mainstream media.
Instead, as is the pattern with this government, the media will be given a privileged position compared to the universally vilified social media.