The Australian Government has recently released a draft piece of legislation referred to as the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. If passed as currently drafted, the Bill would completely overhaul Australia’s online safety regime and introduce a new statutory digital duty of care. Although the target of these reforms are the larger social media platforms the legislation broadly captures “online services” including messaging, designated internet services, hosting providers, search engines, app stores and equipment providers tied to those services.
So, what is it that the Australian Government is aiming to achieve? One of the key initiatives is called “My Feed, My Way,” which supports user control over algorithmically curated content. But the proposed new laws will also put the onus on digital service providers to provide a safe online environment, setting minimum standards for the features and tools they use. They will also be required to protect those under the age of 18 from:
- content that promotes, encourages or accelerates eating disorders;
- content that promotes hostile ideas about women and gender equality;
- pornography;
- content that glorifies crime or life-endangering stunts; and
- content that causes serious mental health distress, including abuse and bullying.
Although all of this sounds overwhelmingly positive, the breadth of the proposed legislation means the regime could apply to a much wider range of institutions than traditional online safety laws. This is what has immediately sparked concern amongst those who advocate for religious freedom and freedom of speech.
In fact, the proposed laws are considered so Orwellian that they have caught the attention of the US Government, which, in a statement dated 22 September 2026, said: “The United States has serious concerns about the Australian government’s stated goal of mandating broad duty of care requirements that dictate how platforms manage content and users’ feeds.”
It is that word, “censorship,” that also has Australians concerned. In fact, along with the US Government, many are asking what safeguards will be written into the legislation to ensure that the biases and preferences of Australian government officials and regulators do not influence the censorship architecture in a way which disadvantages independent or minority views.
This concern was heightened after recent statements by the Communications Minister. When asked about the definition of “harm” in the legislation and who ultimately decides how the definition is interpreted, she responded by saying, “The test for what would constitute a new serious harm would ultimately be, I guess, made by me on the expert technical advice of the eSafety Commissioner” (emphasis added).
Within Australia, reactions to the draft legislation have been swift and negative. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has called the draft “a blank cheque for political censorship to the minister and to the government.” Andrew Bushnell of the Institute of Public Affairs wrote, “The proposed digital duty of care is an undemocratic and draconian government power grab that would crush freedom of speech on the internet.” Leader of the One Nation party, Pauline Hanson, accused the government of “copying the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship playbook” and warned that Australia “should be moving away from government censorship, not building the Orwellian machinery for it.”
To be clear, the draft does not ban Christian teaching. But it does fail to provide an objective legal limit to the government’s power to determine what is unlawful content. Additionally, because the laws would require online service providers to take proactive, reasonable steps to prevent reasonably foreseeable serious harm to their users, the terminology is so broad that it will likely encourage platforms to engage in pre-emptive censorship to avoid the risk of liability. As a result, lawful religious, political and conscience-based speech could become collateral damage if platforms consider them too controversial or risky.
Public debate over the draft legislation will no doubt intensify as the government considers individual submissions. What is already becoming clear is that there are significant concerns over the ability for Christians to maintain freedom of belief in the face of digital architecture that is no longer targeting crimes; it is targeting viewpoints.
