Australia mandates 'safe by design', imposing new responsibilities on social media

An issues paper published by the Australian federal government on June 7, 2026, proposes introducing a “digital duty of care” for social media platforms. According to an article in The Conversation, the proposal centers on the principle that “platforms should be safe by design,” treating online harm as preventable and placing responsibility on the operating companies rather than individuals, marking a groundbreaking approach.

Australia has already established the world’s first dedicated online safety regulator, the “eSafety Commissioner,” and enforces industry codes that require platforms to address harmful content. This new proposal aims to further strengthen that trend by legally mandating preventive measures. This move aligns with the recent enactment of a law in Texas, USA, requiring app stores to implement age verification (previously reported on this site), highlighting a global trend in platform regulation.

Issues highlighted by research

The proposal is backed by research targeting female and gender-diverse users in Australia. The research team interviewed 75 female and gender-diverse social media users and 21 experts in platform safety, digital policy, and content moderation to understand the shortcomings of existing safety features. The findings reaffirmed that online abuse disproportionately affects women and gender-diverse individuals.

In Australia, one in two adults experiences some form of online abuse in their lifetime, with harassment, non-consensual image sharing, impersonation, stalking, and identity-based abuse reported at particularly high rates. However, these victim groups have rarely had the opportunity to participate in the process of envisioning what a “safe platform” should look like. This research is significant for bridging that gap and providing concrete recommendations.

Recommendation 1:

Improve the effectiveness of reporting processes

The first recommendation is to make abuse reports actually functional. Study participants pointed out that current platform reporting systems are inadequate in the following ways:

• Abuse often does not fit into a single category, and without contextual information, platforms cannot process it appropriately.
• Messages that appear harmless to a third party can be a clear threat to the victim, but that context is not conveyed.
• There is no way to track the status of a report after submission, and there are no timely updates on when and how it was processed.

The government’s proposal calls for accessible complaint handling mechanisms on platforms and suggests requiring responses to serious cases within 24 hours. This aligns with the research’s demands for “priority triage of urgent cases” and “rapid updates after reporting.”

Recommendation 2:

Prevent the spread of harmful content from the outset

The second recommendation addresses the current situation where intimate images or sensitive content, once shared without consent, spreads rapidly and uncontrollably. Study participants requested features such as:

• Prompts that pause users before sharing images or content
• Technical measures to prevent screenshots or downloads
• Real-time alerts notifying users when and where their content has been accessed

The government’s proposal leans toward requiring platforms to block uploads of serious harmful content, such as image-based abuse, or remove it immediately upon detection. Compared to the participants’ requests, the government proposal remains somewhat abstract regarding preventive measures, and the specifics of technical implementation may be left to the discretion of the platforms.

Recommendation 3:

Make it harder to bypass account bans

The third recommendation aims to improve the current situation where once-banned users can easily create new accounts and return to the platform. For victims, the same perpetrator starting harassment again from a different account causes significant psychological distress. Study participants requested measures such as:

• Robust identity verification processes to prevent re-registration
• Algorithms to detect multiple account creation by the same person
• Continuous monitoring and effectiveness measurement of bans

Details on this point are not yet clear in the government’s proposal. According to The Conversation, preventing evasion of bans may be included as a specific requirement within the “digital duty of care” framework and is expected to become a focal point in future policy discussions.

Editorial opinion

In the short term, if this proposal is realized, global platforms such as Meta, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter) will be forced to implement safe-by-design measures for the Australian market. In particular, the requirement for 24-hour emergency response and pre-upload prevention measures will increase existing moderation costs. On the other hand, such pioneering regulations may trigger a “California effect,” making it easier for other countries to adopt similar standards, potentially prompting platforms to consider making AU-specific measures a global standard.

From a long-term perspective, “safe by design” may go beyond mere compliance and become a direct competitive advantage for platforms. As this research shows, an environment where abuse and harassment are left unchecked damages user retention and engagement over time. If “safety” is recognized as a differentiator, emerging platforms, including startups, may prominently feature preventive safety as a differentiation strategy. However, ensuring the effectiveness of regulation will require strengthening the powers of the regulatory body (eSafety Commissioner) and international coordination, which remains a future challenge.

From an editorial standpoint, what is noteworthy is that this research envisioned safety design through user participation. While platform safety features have often been designed from a technical logic perspective, this bottom-up approach of extracting requirements from actual victims’ voices has the potential to lead to more effective regulation. As an unverified point, we will continue to monitor whether such participatory design is realistic in terms of cost and implementation speed, and whether regulatory authorities in other countries can adopt similar methods.

References

• The Conversation: Australia wants social media to be ‘safe by design’ — Published June 7, 2026
• Official website of the Australian eSafety Commissioner (related information)