The proposal for a bill against trolls starts from Australia . Prime Minister Scott Morrison has waged a battle that aims to strengthen – with sometimes innovative profiles compared to some previous and recent jurisprudential rulings – the policy of contrasting defamation through social network . In the vision of the head of government, a responsibility of the platforms would even be configured, with the latter forced to provide more details to reconstruct the identity of those users who publish comments denigrating the reputation of others, deleting them thus online anonymity .
The regulatory package, on which Parliament will decide at the beginning of next year, takes note of the rampant phenomenon of fake profiles – whose exclusive purpose is precisely to disseminate hatred through the keyboard of a computer or in front of a touch screen of a mobile device – and of the need to bring back within the framework of legality an issue on which the President of the United States Joe Biden had recently expressed his opinion, going so far as to argue that “disinformation conveyed through social media is killing people “. Equally lapidary is the comment of the Prime Minister of Australia, who in a televised press conference stated that “the online world must not be a wild west in which bots, haters and trolls move freely and anonymously with the aim of harming people, effectively remaining unpunished “.
The draft law against online anonymity can be summarized in three words and provides for the creation of a complaint system for the benefit of people who consider themselves defamed from post on social networks: the purpose, in particular, is to encourage the victim – by simplifying the procedure – to report the incident, thus leading to the definitive removal of the offending content. The social network will legally ask the defamer for consent to the release of his personal data if the latter does not delete the comment, and in the event that the defamer's refusal continues, the digital platform could then be forced, through the so-called “end user information disclosure order” introduced by the legislative draft, to provide the Federal Court with the commentator's personal data . And this regardless of your actual consent .
The bill insists above all on another novelty: the direct responsibility of social networks, and this in accordance with the incipit according to which “the platforms that have created the virtual space must ensure respect legality, thus making it secure “. A position that, by the same admission of the Federal Attorney General Michaelia Cash, stands as reversal of a recent court case, which has established – not without perplexity – that media companies are held responsible for comments posted by third-party users, and this would apply regardless of an expression knowledge. The ruling of the High Court had in fact triggered a domino effect , leading some companies – such as CNN – to disable their personal Facebook page in Australia. “It's important to make sure everyone is sure who is responsible for third-party comments,” said Cash.
In the vision of the bill that aims to “unmask” the trolls that rage on social media, it will be the digital platforms that will be held responsible for the defamatory content hosted within their pages. Consequently, in the absence of an identification, social networks will pay for the comment of the character protected by online anonymity .
The legislative process will take effect at the beginning 2022 , the date on which the Parliament will be called to discuss the bill. At present, several clarifying details are still missing, such as the absence of clarification on the seriousness of the defamatory content and hence, the configuration of the obligation of social networks to reveal the identity of the troll. The certainty is that the regulatory package will affect only Australia , but it is not certain that the latter will become a pilot project in the future for a broader process of reviewing the laws on defamation and law enforcement. anonymity. The reform is on the other hand moved by the incipit of Prime Minister Scott Morrison: “if the defamatory contents are not allowed in the real world, in the same way they must not be admitted even in the virtual world”.
However, the bill has already attracted some comments. Professor Michael Douglas of the University of Western Australia said the law against online anonymity proposed by the government is a 'political theater'. Also echoes Twitter , that any move by the Australian government to crack down on anonymous accounts would be ineffective and fail to reduce the amount of abuse perpetrated on the same platform.
