Social media companies will have to take action in Australia to protect users from danger when they are online.

According to a government announcement on Thursday, Australia intends to mandate that social media companies take action to stop online damages to users, including bullying, predatory conduct, and algorithms that promote harmful content.

In a statement, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said, “The Digital Duty of Care will place the onus on digital platforms to proactively keep Australians safe and better prevent online harms.”

Before the government presents the world’s first bill to Parliament next week that would prohibit children under the age of sixteen from using social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X, the proposed amendments to the Online Safety Act were made public.

Critics have argued that removing children from social media reduced incentives for platforms to provide safer online environments.

Social media has been blamed for an increase in children taking their own lives and developing eating disorders due to bulling and exposures to negative body images.

According to Rowland, the European Union and Britain have already embraced the idea of holding digital corporations legally accountable for protecting Australians.

Digital companies would have to take reasonable precautions to keep their platforms and services safe against predictable dangers. According to the minister, the duty of care framework would be guided by safety-by-design principles and supported by risk assessment and mitigation.

By enacting a duty of care, services would be unable to “set and forget.” As technology and service offerings develop and expand, they would instead have to continuously identify and mitigate possible risks as part of their responsibility, she said.

“While we wait for further details about this announcement, DIGI’s members will continue to deliver safety-by-design on their services and work constructively with the government to keep Australians safe online,” Bose added.

Swinburne University digital media expert Belinda Barnet described the duty of care as a “great idea.”

“It’s quite pioneering to expect that platforms that host Australian users would have a duty of care responsibility in terms of the content they show and the experiences they offer,” Barnet said.

“It’s making the platforms take responsibility and that just simply doesn’t happen at the moment. There’s an assumption that they’re a neutral third party. They’re not responsible for the impact of that content,” Barnet added.