Title page
Contents
Chair's Foreword 7
Members 11
Terms of Reference 13
Abbreviations 14
List of Recommendations 16
1. Introduction 24
Recent inquiries 25
Other government-led reviews 27
Scope of the inquiry 27
Definition of 'online safety' and 'social media' 28
Parliamentary oversight of online matters 30
Conduct of the inquiry 31
2. You Have A New Notification 33
Overview 33
The digital world as a medium for mixed experiences 34
Definition of 'online safety' and 'online harm' 35
Typology of online harm 36
Individual harm 36
Community harm 44
Economic harm 49
Prevalence of online harm 49
Who is most at risk online? 51
Children and young people 51
Women 58
Culturally and linguistically diverse people 63
People living with disability or medical conditions 64
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 66
Other vulnerable groups 67
Repercussions of harms experienced online 67
Range of impacts caused by online harm 67
Impact of COVID-19 on online safety 73
Committee comment 75
3. I'm Concerned About This Post 80
Overview 80
Overview of social media companies' online safety responses 81
How does social media technology create harm? 87
Social media systems' design 88
Lack of effective detection practices for harmful content 93
Algorithms on social media and other digital services 107
End-to-end encryption 116
Privacy, anonymity and online harm 121
Anonymity and pseudonymity of online abusers 121
Privacy protection and data storage practices 125
Age verification technology 128
Parental control features 131
Limited reporting requirements 133
Committee comment 135
System design 135
Identifying and removing harmful content 136
Algorithms 139
Algorithmic transparency 141
Protection of children 142
4. Policing the Trolls 144
Introduction 144
Legislative framework governing online safety 144
Legislative powers pre-2021 145
Online Safety Act 2021 145
Additional industry codes or standards 151
Other legislative measures 154
Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill 2021 and defamation reform 156
Online privacy law reform 158
Online safety policy and programs 160
eSafety programs 160
Online Safety Charter 161
Additional measures across multiple portfolios 161
International jurisdictions and online safety 162
The United Kingdom 163
The European Union 165
New Zealand 166
United States of America 168
Further change to consolidate legislative powers 170
Voluntary v. mandatory requirements 173
Committee comment 175
5. Online Safety 2.0 177
Introduction 177
Balancing freedom online with harm prevention 178
Protecting freedom of speech 178
Improving online culture 179
Industry's limited emphasis on harm prevention 181
A statutory duty of care 184
The UK model of a statutory duty of care 184
The best interests of the child as a guiding principle 186
Implementation of National Principles for Child Safe Organisations 188
Education and support 190
Developing appropriate and relevant educational programs 192
Youth engagement in educational programs 194
Parental and community education of online risks 197
Education is not the 'silver bullet' in addressing online harm 199
Government leadership in addressing online safety 200
Committee comment 201
Improving online discourse 202
A statutory duty of care framework 202
Education 204
Engagement with young people 207
Appendix 208
A. Submissions 208
B. Exhibits 212
C. Public Hearings 214
Labor members' additional comments 221
Additional comments by Craig Kelly 236
Table 1.1. Parliamentary inquiries considering online safety from 2015 to 2022 25
Table 4.1. Basic Online Safety Expectations - breakdown of expectations by category 150
Figure 4.1. Regulation of Class 1 and Class 2 Material under the Online Safety Act 2021 153
Figure 4.2. Comparative approaches to types addressing harms through regulation 163
Figure 5.1. eSafety's proposed model of the burden of responsibility 182
Boxes
Box 2.1. Case study: YouTube videos of young girls 56
Box 2.2. Case Study: Ms Tayla Harris 62