The Digital Industry Group has expressed concerns about the Labor government’s proposed misinformation bill, stating that it would burden small businesses with unnecessary regulations. Jennifer Duxbury, a director at DIG, spoke to a Senate Committee about the potential impact of the legislation on social media platforms. She highlighted the broad definitions of misinformation in the bill, which could make digital platforms the sole arbiters of truth online. Under the proposed law, social media platforms would be required to crack down on misinformation or face fines.
Duxbury emphasized that the bill would incentivize social media companies to take a conservative approach to content moderation, leading to potential censorship. She also raised concerns about the burden the legislation would place on low-risk businesses, including small companies that may not have the resources to comply with media literacy requirements. DIG suggested that the bill should focus primarily on disinformation, which is intentionally misleading information created to cause harm. Duxbury recommended that the powers granted to the communications regulator should be limited to addressing disinformation campaigns rather than misinformation in general. She explained that detecting disinformation is more objective and feasible than determining the motivations behind misinformation.
Overall, DIG believes that the bill should target high-risk services that have the potential to spread harmful misinformation, rather than imposing broad obligations on all digital platforms. Please rephrase this sentence.
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