Labor Opposes Controversial Anti Trolling Bill As It May Make Online Trolling Worse
Labor Senator Kim Carr said his party would block the Bill as it does not actually address online trolling and may exacerbate its effects. “Evidence from multiple witnesses appearing before this Committee, including the government department that drafted the bill, conclusively establishes that the bill is no such thing,” Labor Senators Kim Carr wrote in a report [PDF] published by the Senate committee tasked with reviewing the laws. “To the contrary, not only does this Bill fail to provide any practical means to combat the scrouge of online trolling, in providing blanket protection from liability to those hosting defamatory comments on the web pages they own and administer, as well as the extensive legal safe harbor it provides to social media companies hosting defamatory material, the bill is likely to make the problem of online trolling worse....