Will Ockenden reported this story on Thursday, February 20, 2014 12:30:00

ELEANOR HALL: The Federal Government is stepping up the pressure on the world's biggest social media companies, saying children need to be protected from cyber bullying.



The Coalition is vowing to legislate to give the Federal Government the power to force social media companies to remove content from their sites.



But the industry says it's a threat to free speech as Will Ockenden reports.



WILL OCKENDEN: The Federal Government says it's getting tough on cyber bullies and the internet sites they use.



Paul Fletcher is the parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Communications.



PAUL FLETCHER: The issue that this scheme is designed to address is that today, if you're a child who is a victim of cyber bullying or a parent or a teacher wanting to assist that child, if the site doesn't respond when you notify a concern, you really have no redress at all.



WILL OCKENDEN: The Government last month released a discussion paper on its proposal to regulate social media sites.



The large social media companies like Twitter and Google are concerned with any move to increased regulation.



Industry body the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association says social media companies already take harmful content down, and have invested heavily in tools to protect young people.



But Paul Fletcher says it's not enough for parents and teachers.



PAUL FLETCHER: So this is really an issue about protecting children against cyber bullying. So the policy that we took to the last election is to have a complaints system backed by legislation directed at getting down harmful cyber bullying material.



WILL OCKENDEN: The Government isn't specifying which companies will be included under the rules.



But parliamentary secretary Paul Fletcher says they'll be "large social media sites".



PAUL FLETCHER: Certainly the notion is a site that has a large number of Australian users and obviously the particular focus of this scheme is in relation to the protection of children and so therefore that is importantly the number of children who are users of the site. That's to say those who are under 18.



WILL OCKENDEN: The industry is worried about the lack of clarity about who'd fall under the regulations.



While Twitter, Google and Facebook are the giants of social media, many young people also use overseas-based messaging apps like Snapchat, WhatsApp or Kik Messenger.



The Australian Interactive Media Industry Association says smaller sites and apps won't be included in the regulations.



Others are worried about the restrictions it would place on free speech.



Chris Berg is from free market think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs.



CHRIS BERG: We're not totally sure what the Government has in plan with cyber bullying but what we can see from what they've released so far is that they're looking to substantially increase their censorship powers of the internet to deal with cyber bullying.



I think this is incredibly concerning. It's concerning because it's obviously opposed to the Government's professed freedom agenda and its obviously in contradiction to its proud opposition of the internet filter.



WILL OCKENDEN: The Government says that the definitions of cyber bullying is quite restrictive and it's only for people under the age of 18. What's the free speech issue then when you are just removing harmful content?



CHRIS BERG: When you give governments power to remove harmful content from the internet, however defined and however the Government decides to define, you are censoring the internet. It is an internet filter.



WILL OCKENDEN: He has problems with bureaucrats being given the power to decide what is harmful or not.



CHRIS BERG: There's no such thing as cyber bullying per se. There is just bullying. We know that people who are bullied on the internet are bullied at school as well and we need to tackle that at the level of school. Any impact on the bullying problem in Australia by imposing take down notices on internet websites is frankly absurd.



WILL OCKENDEN: But parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher rejects free speech concerns.



PAUL FLETCHER: This is confined to communication targeted at children so it has no impact at all on communications between adults. The second point is that it is narrowly applicable to material which is cyber bullying material - that's to say harmful to a child.



ELEANOR HALL: That's parliamentary secretary Paul Fletcher, ending that report from Will Ockenden.