Communications Minister Anika Wells says gender “debates”, including about transgender rights, will not be policed under Labor’s digital reforms, but could not provide more clarity on how the government would determine what constituted a hostile attitude towards women.
Asked whether public figures such as author J. K. Rowling – who has used her platform to promote anti-trans views – would be subject to hostile attitude restrictions, Wells said:
“No, a hostile attitude example that I used at the National Press Club is material that says to young boys that consent doesn’t matter,” the minister told ABC’s 7.30 last night.
She could not provide further clarity on the scope of the definition, and said the eSafety Commissioner would produce and publish regulatory guidance that would determine whether the intent of online content was hostile.
“The reason that that provision is in the bill is because we had more than 20 women’s groups and teachers, teachers’ coalitions from across the country ask us to incorporate that because they’ve noticed that young boys coming through the education system have these hostile attitudes,” Wells said.
“The regulatory guidance that was published around what reasonable steps were for the social media minimum age, that’s similarly going to be instructive for how big tech has to assess the risks on its platform against that detail.”
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