March 16, 2022

Twitter has warned that the Australian government’s anti-trolling bill could have adverse effects on privacy.

The federal government’s anti-trolling Bill will remove the liability placed on social media companies for any defamatory post on their platform.

Instead, they will be required to submit the identities and information of people who post defamatory materials on their platforms.

Addressing a Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee hearing, Kara Hinesley, Twitter Australia’s director for public policy stated that such actions will hurt minority communities.

“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. We do think that there are potential safety concerns which would be the opposite result of the stated intention of the Bill,” Hinesley explained.

For more information, read the original story in ZDNet.