Arabic version: ألبانيزي يدافع عن قوانين واجب العناية الرقمية

According to ABC News, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected Trump administration criticism of Australia’s draft digital duty of care laws, saying he will “always stand up for Australia’s national interests”. The US embassy submitted that the proposed reforms would amount to an “extraterritorial censorship of protected speech” and urged Australia to exempt US social media companies.

Albanese said the planned laws were not about government control, but about giving people more control over what they receive on their devices. The draft legislation would require technology companies to pre-emptively address harms and would pave the way for users to choose whether to opt in to or out of algorithms. He said the government would engage constructively before finalising the legislation and hoped parliament would support it.

Coalition frontbencher Andrew Bragg echoed concerns about censorship, saying there was a risk of giving too much power to unelected bureaucrats. The opposition has previously described the proposed changes as a “blank cheque for political censorship” and warned they could threaten free speech. Albanese also told the United Nations the reforms were an inevitable next step to protect people online, citing misinformation, disinformation and political polarisation.

The dispute came as Australia joined 21 other countries in urging global guardrails to keep artificial intelligence under human control. US President Donald Trump rejected a proposal for AI safety guardrails at the United Nations, saying the United States opposed a globalist scheme to control the technology, which he said would be rebranded as “super intelligence”. Albanese said Australia had put forward a strong position and would wait to see what emerged from a planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on AI safety and governance.