media regulation

With Facebook and Google revolutionising news consumption and advertising, the debate over media ownership rules is stopping a far more important consideration of how Australia should think about news in the digital era.

Even intelligent people can disagree on the “facts”, so should government try to regulate fake news? Media stalwart Tom Burton breaks down the issues for government.

The challenge of what to do about fake news reveals a paucity of policy and regulatory smarts across the wider digital economy.

Instead of an all-controlling comms regulator, cyber cop and revenue collector, a departmental review proposes breaking up ACMA’s functions. In its place, a new tech-agnostic commission for applications, devices and networks.