New York: Governments around the world will hit Facebook and Google with increasingly onerous restrictions unless the tech giants drop their "outrageous" insistence they are neutral distributors of information, according to Australia's competition tsar Rod Sims.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) boss also warned there was a risk of next year's US presidential election being undermined by the same flood of "fake news" that marred the 2016 campaign unless Facebook lifts its game.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said it was "outrageous" for the big tech companies to insist they are neutral information platforms. Credit:Eamon Gallagher

"Google and Facebook are very different businesses but the thing that strikes me is how little responsibility they take for their platforms," Sims told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in an interview in New York, where he is attending a meeting of the world's top competition regulators.

"They say, ‘We’re just technology platforms so don’t blame us.’