{"id":"camfeed-135","numeric_id":135,"short_title":"US slams Australian digital care bill","seo_title":"Trump administration attacks Australia's 'opt-out' algorithm law in rare intervention - ABC News","social_title":"US says Australian digital care bill would 'facilitate censorship'","headline":"Trump administration attacks Australia's 'opt-out' algorithm law in rare intervention","teaser_title":"US says Australian digital care bill would 'facilitate censorship'","titles_source_url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/trump-administration-slams-digital-duty-of-care-bill/107182970","titles_fetched_at":"2026-09-22T09:00:52+00:00","title":"US attacks Australia's 'opt-out' algorithm law in rare intervention","canonical_url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/trump-administration-slams-digital-duty-of-care-bill/107182970","published_at":"2026-09-22T08:47:01+00:00","source":"ABC News","source_type":"abc","type":"news article","content_role":"primary","author":"Cameron Wilson","summary":"The Trump administration has made an extraordinary public intervention into Australia's debate about its proposed digital duty of care.","text":"The Trump administration has made an extraordinary public intervention into Australia's debate about its proposed digital duty of care.","has_full_text":true,"mcp_visible":true,"mcp_full_text_allowed":true,"full_text_word_count":634,"full_text_status":"ok","full_text_source_url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/trump-administration-slams-digital-duty-of-care-bill/107182970","full_text_fetched_at":"2026-09-22T09:00:52+00:00","has_transcript":false,"transcript_status":"","transcript_kind":"","transcript_char_count":0,"topics":["AI","technology policy","platforms"],"quoted_author":"","quoted_url":"","quoted_text":"","citation":"Cameron Wilson, \"US attacks Australia's 'opt-out' algorithm law in rare intervention\", ABC News, 2026-09-22, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/trump-administration-slams-digital-duty-of-care-bill/107182970","citation_markdown":"Cameron Wilson, [US attacks Australia's 'opt-out' algorithm law in rare intervention](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/trump-administration-slams-digital-duty-of-care-bill/107182970) — ABC News — 2026-09-22","attribution":"Originally published at ABC News. Link to the canonical ABC URL: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/trump-administration-slams-digital-duty-of-care-bill/107182970","related_items":[{"id":"camfeed-136","title":"NEW: The Trump administration has made an extraordinary public intervention in Australia's digital of care debate It responded to a draft o...","canonical_url":"https://mastodon.social/@camwilson/117313870544658935","public_data_url":"https://camfeed.cameronwilson.com.au/items/136.json","source_type":"mastodon","source":"Mastodon","type":"mastodon post","content_role":"promotion","published_at":"2026-09-22T09:00:04+00:00","relation":"Same story as preferred news article: US attacks Australia's 'opt-out' algorithm law in rare intervention","excerpt":"NEW: The Trump administration has made an extraordinary public intervention in Australia's digital of care debate It responded to a draft of the law saying it could lead to \"extraterritorial censorship of protected speech” and demanded Australia exclude US tech companies","has_transcript":false,"transcript_status":"","transcript_kind":""}],"full_text":"The Trump administration has made an extraordinary public intervention into Australia's debate about its proposed digital duty of care, warning the Albanese government that the policy would be \"extraterritorial censorship of protected speech\".\n\nIt called for the Australian government to exclude US social media companies from its plans to give users the option to opt into algorithmic recommendation feeds — a decision that would effectively neuter the law, removing the biggest platforms from its application.\n\nThe rare public rebuke took the form of a response to a consultation on the draft digital duty of care bill, which would force platforms to take actions to mitigate and respond to harms caused by digital platforms.\n\nThe submission, published by the US Embassy today, said Washington had \"serious concerns\" about how Australia would decide what counts as \"foreseeable harm\".\n\nThis comes with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese currently in the middle of a United States trip to promote his government's tech policy agenda at the United Nations General Assembly.\n\nHis support for international AI regulation and his government's teen social media ban have increasingly earned the ire of the Trump administration.\n\nWashington objects to harm rules and feed mandates\n\nIn the submission, the US government said it was concerned by what it described as rigid, one-size-fits-all design requirements.\n\nSuch mandates, it argued, would push platforms to demote sensitive or controversial topics to comply, reducing the reach of independent journalists and other voices.\n\n\"The US government would likely consider such a measure as facilitating censorship,\" the submission said.\n\nIt put a number of questions to the Australian government, including how Australia would define \"harm\" and \"risks\", how they would be adjudicated, by whom, and whether platforms or users could appeal. It also asked about the role of the eSafety Commissioner and impacts on privacy.\n\nWhile it is common for governments to express their views on other countries' policies, those views are usually communicated through private channels.\n\nIt is exceedingly rare for a foreign government to make a direct, public intervention into a domestic debate like this.\n\nThe US government's hostility toward the digital duty of care was signposted earlier this month in a statement from White House spokesperson Kush Desai to the Guardian Australia.\n\nHe said President Donald Trump had warned other nations against imposing \"digital services taxes, fines, and other forms of extortion on America's leading technology sector\".\n\nWarning Australia's tech policies could spread elsewhere\n\nThe submission argued forced changes to mitigate Australia-specific risks could change how users everywhere, including Americans, experienced the platforms.\n\nIf other jurisdictions adopted conflicting duty-of-care mandates, platforms could face incompatible design requirements not technically or commercially scalable in parallel, it said.\n\nAustralia's teen social media ban inspired a number of other countries to introduce, or pledge to introduce, similar restrictions.\n\nEarlier today, it was reported by Politico Australia that the American industry body representing American tech companies had joined in a High Court challenge to Australia's teen social media ban.\n\nThe group, NetChoice, described it as \"the most extensive prohibition on youth access to social media in force in any liberal democracy\".\n\n#recirculationrecommendations-107138728\n\nThe digital duty of care draft shows how the government plans to create a legal obligation for online services, including social media, gaming and other platforms, to create a safe experience for users through its design.\n\nThe Albanese government said it would use this law, if passed, to force platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to send users a pop-up offering a choice between a personalised algorithmic feed and a feed limited to accounts they follow.\n\nCommunications Minister Anika Wells last week downplayed the White House's warning as \"broad\" and said she had not directly received such a warning from a US representative.\n\nWhen asked about the US government's intervention, Ms Wells's office and the US Embassy both declined to comment.","full_text_attribution":"Full text extracted from the ABC News article at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/trump-administration-slams-digital-duty-of-care-bill/107182970. Attribute to ABC News and link to the canonical URL."}