Muslim and Jewish groups push for right to sue tech giants over online hate

Top Jewish and Muslim groups want Australians to be able to haul US tech giants into court over hate speech that flourishes on their platforms — and they're pushing Anthony Albanese to make it happen. More than 80 organisations, marshalled by the left-wing Australia Institute, are backing a private right of action, including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Islamic Council of Victoria. The Prime Minister wants his Digital Duty of Care Bill passed before the parliamentary year runs out, but he needs the Greens to get it through.

The Greens aren't signing on for free. According to theage.com.au, they want tougher rules to curb doomscrolling, fines calculated off a platform's global revenue, and a private right to sue — mirroring the US, where litigation has helped crank up pressure on the tech sector. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young tried to head off free-speech blowback early, insisting the rules aren't aimed at individual users or at stopping anyone from posting. Instead, they'd force platforms to stop amplifying content that encourages attacks on people over race, religion, sexuality or gender.

Lawyer Josh Bornstein, now the Australia Institute's director of corporate regulation, says the bill as drafted only names gendered violence. He wants racist and homophobic hate speech written in too. Pointing to the royal commission into antisemitism, he argued the worst hate speech spreads on social media because the platforms profit from it — and said that has to end. He also rejected the idea that the eSafety Commission can police this alone, noting it fielded more than 100,000 complaints last year but acted in just 2 per cent of cases, and said the commissioner backs a private right of action.

Google isn't convinced. The search giant, which presents evidence at Monday's parliamentary inquiry into the digital duty of care, argues the bill leans on the Work Health and Safety Act, a law that explicitly rules out private lawsuits. In its submission, Google said a dedicated safety regulator should handle compliance, warned against rushing changes just to win Greens support, and called for a higher bar of ''serious harm'' so courts aren't swamped by trivial disputes. It also noted Australians can already sue under existing law.

Communications Minister Anika Wells did little to cool Greens expectations. She said consultation had surfaced calls for a private right of action from digital rights, consumer and women's groups — including Chanel Contos' Teach Us Consent — and promised to keep working through it in good faith. The bill would also let users opt into algorithmic recommendations. It lands amid a suite of Australian regulations that have drawn sharp rebukes from the Trump administration and big tech, with Washington's leading tech lobby, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, warning platforms would over-police borderline content to comply.

The politics have shifted fast. Education Minister Jason Clare told News24's Sunday Agenda that the Coalition has gone hard against the digital duty since free-speech advocates burned it during a hate speech debate in January. He predicted Peter Dutton would say Labor isn't going far enough, but claimed the Liberals feel under ''some sort of hostile takeover by Pauline Hanson'' thanks to the fragmentation of Australian politics. Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg has backed the duty of care concept in his own submission to the antisemitism royal commission.