News Corp has raised concerns the federal government’s misinformation and disinformation bill could inadvertently capture its news sites due to its comments section, despite the legislation exempting news organisations.
The misinformation and disinformation bill introduced into parliament last month extended the existing industry code on misinformation by giving the Australian Communications and Media Authority powers to create an enforceable industry code, if industry self-regulation fails to address the threat.
The law would apply to material that is “reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive and reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm”. That includes harm to individuals, such as vilification, or public health and order.
The Coalition has already vowed to oppose the bill on freedom of speech grounds. It is now before a parliamentary inquiry before potential amendments and debate on the bill.
While the News Corp’s columnists and TV show hosts are regularly criticising the bill in columns and on air – Peta Credlin this week told viewers to “say goodbye to the right of dissent” – the company’s corporate comments to the parliamentary inquiry on the bill were more circumspect.
The proposed bill excludes professional news content from being considered as potential misinformation or disinformation – including content produced on news websites.
News Corp Australia’s group executive corporate affairs, Campbell Reid, told the parliamentary committee examining the bill in a hearing on Thursday that the company’s websites host a range of content “not just pure journalism reporting”.
Reid used examples including puzzles, videos and reader comments, which the company is concerned would mean it was treated as a connected media service or a content aggregation service under definitions in the bill.
“We are anxious that by, say, allowing comments on our news coverage, we don’t therefore become a media sharing service and therefore our exemption falls by the wayside,” he said. “So we’re anxious to preserve that the entirety of what we produce under our provisional news mastheads, is exempt, not just parts of.”
Reid said despite the commentary appearing on News Corp platforms, the company supports the “original and pure intention of what the bill is trying to achieve”, although remained concerned about it in its current form. He said News Corp commentators “have strident views one way or another and as at the heart of this bill is free speech, they are entitled to their views.”
Reid said News Corp is regulated and people can make complaints to bodies like the Press Council over errors or issues. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young questioned whether there were any consequences for patterns of behaviour.
“[Sky News host] Rita Panahi seems to stuff it up all the time. And whether that’s deliberate or just stupidity, I don’t know, but she seems to get stuff wrong all the time,” Hanson-Young said.
“That’s your view. And I’m aware that there was a recent mistake made,” Reid replied, referring to Sky News recently reporting false news from X accounts twice. But Reid said the information was corrected as quickly as possible.
Reid said that “misinformation and disinformation” had become an all-in-one slogan that has “been hijacked by many people in politics” to throw a word around when they’ve read something they disagree with.
“I personally think we should start again and look at some of the evidence that you’ve heard today about the actual harmful content that is being published and disseminated with the deliberate intention of causing harm to society, not just a view that you might disagree with, or a mistake that a journalist might make in covering a story.”
The Press Council also expressed concern that the definition of news content under the bill was too narrow.
“An opinion piece about a historical event would not fall within the definition of ‘reporting’, ‘investigating’ or ‘explaining’ on a ‘current’ issue or event. A letter to the editor expressing the opinion of a reader would not fall within the definition of ‘reporting’, ‘investigating’ or ‘explaining’,” the council stated in a written submission.
“The Press Council believes the simplest means of addressing this issue is by excluding from the bill’s coverage all material published by Press Council members.”
The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties treasurer, Stephen Blanks, told the hearing it didn’t believe that news content should be exempt from the bill.
The Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, told the hearing that the definitions around what is serious harm or misinformation or disinformation in the legislation were too vague and placed too big a burden on freedom of speech.
The commission has recommended against passing the bill in its current form.
