MEDIA RELEASE
08 September 2026
The Jewish Council of Australia has welcomed the Albanese Government’s Digital Duty of Care Bill, introduced to Parliament this week, describing it as a significant and overdue step towards the kind of platform accountability the Council has been calling for since the Bondi terror attack late last year.
In its submission to the Royal Commission, the Jewish Council recommended the government amend the Online Safety Act 2021 to:
- Impose a Digital Duty of Care on social media platforms requiring them to assess and mitigate risks arising from the amplification of hateful content.
- Give the eSafety Commissioner notice and takedown powers in relation to systematic online dehumanisation of groups based on protected attributes.
- Require algorithmic transparency and a genuine opt-out from recommendation systems built on profiling, in line with the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
The Jewish Council welcomes the Government’s proposal to introduce an opt-in model to social media platforms that would allow users to choose chronological (rather than algorithmically-driven) social media feeds.
Speaking in response to the introduction of the bill this week, Bart Shteinman, Executive Officer of the Jewish Council of Australia said:
“Antisemitism, like all racism, feeds on a broken online ecosystem. Social media platforms have been engineered to amplify whatever keeps people scrolling. The algorithm encourages hateful content by design – it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
“Making platforms responsible for the harms of their own algorithm is the right way to address this, which will help protect Jewish Australians and all racialised communities.
“Requiring companies that profit from online extremism to police their own platforms is about ensuring that we use all appropriate tools to fight incitement and extremist hate speech online. If those opposing this legislation such as Pauline Hanson and Matt Canavan truly cared about the Jewish community, they’d do better to throw their support behind this plan to stop the spread of online hate.
“Demanding algorithmic transparency and a genuine opportunity to opt-out provides Australians with the chance to gain back control of their feeds. By understanding how the news feed actually operates, we can take practical steps to address online hate.”
The Jewish Council said it would continue to press for Australia to adopt evidenced-based policies to combat all forms of racism and hatred, which protect political expression and avoid pitting communities against each other.
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