Twitter has joined other social media companies calling out proposed anti-trolling laws as an extreme risk to privacy for Australians.
The director for public policy Australia Kara Hinesley, appeared before a legal and constitutional affairs committee hearing on Tuesday afternoon to speak on its submission against the federal government's anti-trolling social media bill.
The bill has two primary functions - the first to make owners of social media pages and groups not liable for user comments following the 2019 Voller case at the High Court and the second to require social media companies identify people behind anonymous accounts.
"Under this bill, online platforms choose between facing liability in court or turning over private sensitive information about users without a legal determination as to whether the content is in fact defamatory under the law," Ms Hinesley said.
In its submission, the social media company argued the bill would risk having a "social cost" to accounts that rely on anonymity and pseudonymity.
"We've seen a number of people both from a whistleblower space to even domestic violence situations, people that identify within the LGBTQIA community, utilising anonymous or synonymous accounts as ways and basically entry points into conversations about important matters," Ms Hinesley said.
Labor senator Kim Carr and Liberal senator Sarah Henderson both expressed doubts in Twitter's ability to protect Australians with Senator Henderson referring to her own current dispute with Twitter.
"Obviously, I've experienced this personally, where a police search warrant issued by Victorian Police has been met with a brick wall from Twitter," Senator Henderson said.
The platform's senior public policy director Kathleen Reen expressed concern over the time it would take for content to be regulated under the anti-trolling bill.
"Under the proposal of the defamation act or the defamation reforms currently on the table, there would be a significant time lag and significant cost potentially favouring those with more resources as well," Ms Reen said.
Social media company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, spoke at committee hearings last Thursday sharing views with Twitter. Meta's Australian policy director Mia Garlick said the company's ability to collate content for this bill would be extremely difficult.
"It might not actually be possible to maintain a constantly updated contact list of both email and phone numbers of all Australians and all people who might be visiting Australia," she said.
Liberal senator Hollie Hughes singled out politicians struggling to take down offensive posts while pictures of children, posted by their parents, can be taken down without warning.
Meta explained its process involved consulting with a range of stakeholders including academics, experts, policy makers and the eSafety Commissioner for Australia while it has also been working towards implementing greater protections for public figures.
"We've also recently established an oversight board so that if people are not satisfied with the decisions that we're making they can appeal to that," Ms Garlick said.
Senators Hughes and Henderson pushed Meta on its compliance with requests for data from Australian court orders. Head of public policy Josh Machin was able to give information regarding defamation but did not have data for all court order requests.
While Meta was unable to provide exact numbers on its compliance with all law enforcement requests, Mr Machin said it was "well above 80 per cent" of all requests and "for the purposes of defamation, zero".
"It's one of the highest levels of any country in the world in terms of our responsiveness in providing data in response to a valid request," he said.
The Senate has referred the anti-trolling bill to the committee for inquiry, with a report expected by March 24.
