The Senate inquiry,approved unopposed on Monday,has been charged with looking into questions such as whether companies have too much influence on public debate,the success of recent efforts to rein them in and whether they have accumulated unfair market power.
Liberal senator Andrew Bragg,who has had a focus on technology since entering parliament in 2019,will chair the inquiry,which will be conducted by the economics references committee.
Labor’s Jess Walsh,the Greens’ Nick McKim,Liberal Dean Smith and the Nationals’ Matt Canavan will also be on the inquiry.
“Technology has delivered great benefits to Australians,” Bragg said. “However,we must have the policy settings to protect users and ensure that Australians are not being exploited by possibly the strongest corporations in history.”
The technology industry is into similar issues by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Regulators around the world have also probed the same points.
Earlier this monthThe Sydney Morning HeraldandThe Age revealed the Home Affairs Department was reviewing by social media video service TikTok,owned by ByteDance,and the Chinese mega-app WeChat.
For its part,major technology companies have disputed their critics’ attacks.
Some have argued their size has benefits,such as providing competition against massive state-owned enterprises from countries such as China. Others say their presence in one field,such as social networking,is not as dominant as it appears because they compete for time and advertising dollars with an array of other services. And the technology sector broadly has defended its efforts to protect children online,pointing to moderation tools and take-downs of malicious content.
The inquiry will report by the end of parliamentary sittings next year.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley..