A Digital Duty of Care could reshape how Australia regulates online platforms
Author ADM+S Centre
Date 17 September 2026
As Australia considers new legislation to introduce a digital duty of care, researchers are examining what the proposed approach could mean for online platforms, users and the regulation of digital services.
As Australia considers new legislation to introduce a digital duty of care, researchers are examining what the proposed approach could mean for online platforms, users and the regulation of digital services.
In a new episode of the Automated Societies podcast, Dr Jake Goldenfien speaks with, Professor Kimberlee Weatherall, Professor Daniel Angus and Professor Nicholas Carah from ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society to discuss the Australian Government’s proposed digital duty of care and how it could change the way online harms are addressed.
The discussion draws on a recent policy brief from the ADM+S, The Digital Duty of Care, which explores how a duty of care could require digital platforms and online service providers to identify risks associated with their services and take reasonable steps to prevent or reduce serious harm.
Professor Weatherall said the approach represented an evolution from existing online safety regulation, which has traditionally focused on identifying and removing specific types of harmful content.
“A digital duty of care is a broader duty designed to encourage platforms, online service providers to identify harms and risks that are happening in the environments they provide and address those ahead of time,” she said.
From content removal to safer digital environments
The researchers say a digital duty of care could represent a broader shift in how society understands the responsibilities of online platforms.
Professor Carah said digital platforms had increasingly become important spaces for accessing information, participating in communities and engaging with media.
“The Digital Duty of Care marks a moment where we start to seriously think about platforms as having broader public responsibilities or being a kind of public infrastructure or institution in our societies,” he said.
Professor Angus said many digital platforms were designed around business models that prioritise audience attention and engagement, creating potential tensions between commercial objectives and user safety.
The proposed duty of care could establish a baseline expectation that platforms take reasonable steps to make their services safer, rather than placing the responsibility primarily on individual users to protect themselves.
Professor Weatherall said platforms were often in a better position than individual users to identify and address potential risks.
“They can also take action to mitigate those risks before they happen,” she said.
A flexible approach to emerging risks
One of the challenges for policymakers is determining which services should be covered by a digital duty of care.
The proposed framework could apply broadly across digital services, including social media and messaging services, search engines, hosting services, internet service providers and app stores.
The researchers said a flexible approach would be important because new technologies and forms of harm can emerge quickly.
Professor Weatherall said a general duty could allow regulators to respond to risks as they developed, rather than attempting to anticipate every possible harm in legislation.
The researchers also discussed whether obligations should vary according to the size, reach and risk profile of different platforms.
While larger platforms may have greater resources and reach, Professor Weatherall said smaller services should not necessarily be exempt from responsibilities where they presented significant risks.
“A duty of care can be interpreted along the way in terms of things like reasonable steps, reasonable precautions, which can be proportionate to the extent of the harm,” she said.
Beyond transparency: making platforms observable
The researchers argue that the success of a digital duty of care will depend not only on the rules themselves, but also on whether governments, researchers and communities can determine whether platforms are complying with them.
Professor Weatherall said platform transparency reports could provide useful information, but did not necessarily show how services were operating in practice.
“What you really want to do is kind of see how things are operating in practice,” she said.
This is where the researchers see a role for independent research and what they describe as greater observability of digital platforms.
Researchers describe the Australian Internet Observatory (AIO), a national research infrastructure project that enables participating users to donate data about their experiences of digital platforms and services.
This can include information about the advertisements users see, the content recommended to them and the data platforms generate about their interactions.
“This type of research helps to build a broader understanding of how digital platforms operate for different groups of Australians,” said Professor Carah.
Rather than relying solely on information provided by platforms, the observatory provides independent evidence about people’s experiences and helps researchers identify emerging risks and harms.
Supporting independent scrutiny
Professor Angus said researchers, journalists and civil society organisations need access to appropriate data and protections to conduct independent investigations of digital platforms.
He said platform-controlled research environments limit the questions researchers are able to ask and the data they are able to examine.
“When you engage users directly to donate their data you see a very different kind of flow of experience of the platform than what you get from the platforms research tools” said Professor Angus.
Determining whether a digital duty of care is actually working requires more than measuring how many pieces of content have been removed or how many policies a platform has introduced.
It requires evidence about how people are actually experiencing digital services and whether risks and harms are being reduced.
The researchers argue that greater understanding of digital platforms can help people make more informed choices about the services they use.
Professor Weatherall said transparency on its own had limitations.
“Transparency without any kind of accountability or any kind of scrutiny or the ability to act on that information … can actually have a negative effect,” she said.
The researchers say an effective digital duty of care therefore needs to be supported by appropriate accountability mechanisms, independent research and ongoing monitoring.
As Australia develops its approach to digital safety, the discussion highlights a broader question about the responsibilities of platforms that have become embedded in everyday life: how can society ensure these services are safe, accountable and responsive to the public interest?
Listen to the Automated Societies podcast episode Challenging the power of digital platforms
Read the policy brief, The Digital Duty of Care
