Law to Keep Kids Safe
Department of Digital Media and Copyright
Santhaan Krishnan, the President of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and an advocate at the Supreme Court of India
Deputy Commissioner of Police Rusiate Tudravu; and Ashwin Raj- Director Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission
Government’s position:
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum, while wrapping up the conference, said the objective of the Act was to promote responsible online behaviour and online safety; promote a safe online culture and environment that addresses cyberbullying, cyberstalking, internet trolling, exposure to offensive or harmful content particularly in respect to children; and to provide redress to people.
He said under the redress issue, there was ample opportunity in the Act to get the parties to communicate with each other. While giving an example of two adults in a relationship where they may have consensually exchanged nude images, but after a break-up, one of the two decides to seek revenge by posting those images online, Mr SayedKhaiyum said the victim could seek redress through this law. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum shared with the participants when the Bill was first introduced in Parliament, he received a call from a woman who told him that her family was feuding and one of the members posted up nude photographs of her grandmother.
He also shared that a camera was fitted in a child’s room and as she undressed, the live feed of it was shared online.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said these were some of the types of cases that this Act would be able to deal with and it needed to be dealt with.
What has Australia done?
Australia introduced an Online Content Scheme in 1999, and later expanded this in 2007, to deal with offensive and harmful content. They also amended their Criminal Code in 2004 to make it an offence to use a telecommunications service to menace, harass or cause offence. Mr Penprase said that in 2015, the Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner was established.
Its aim is to help protect children from cyberbullying harm and to take a leadership role in online safety for children throughout Australia.
In 2017, this role was expanded to include protection and advocacy for all Australians.
“In 2018, one in 10 Australians aged 18 years and over have had their intimate images shared online without their consent. For more vulnerable cohorts, the prevalence increases:
– one in four women between the ages of 18 and 24 are affected – one in three members of the LGBTIQ+ community
– one in two Indigenous Australians, or Australians with a disability. “On 1 September 2018, new laws came into effect to combat ‘imagebased abuse’ and new civil offence provisions prohibit the non-consensual posting, or threatening to post, an intimate image of an individual without their consent,” he said.
Their success rate:
The Commission has managed to put down images within 48 hours and imposed harsh penalties on service providers who do not assist the Commission in this.
Fiji Police Force on fake news:
Deputy Commissioner Tudravu, in his address talked about an issue they saw flared up as the country went to elections on November 14 – the emergence of fake news. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum also touched on this and the manner in which people lapped up information on social media without questioning its authenticity.
Deputy Commissioner Tudravu said: “The sheer volume of fake news on social media is high - and we are not just talking about issues that have the ability to create religious and racial intolerance, cause fear and panic about the state of national security, but attacks against individuals.”
He said they had noted a sharp increase in the number of fake profiles and a new trend emerged of fake news media pages where administrators went to great lengths to discredit political parties, political candidates and known officials involved in the election process. However, given the volume of fake news and fake profiles out there, he said countering it was a huge task. “If attempts were made to counter all fake news postings by directing resources to verifying and authenticating its sources, we fear other aspects of policing will be greatly impacted,” he said. However, this may change with the Online Safety Act. Mr Raj said that given the speed and scope of the social media, criminally punishable content was not being deleted in a timely manner or not deleted at all, let alone the possibility of a retraction.
“In a fundamental sense, we are failing in our constitutional responsibility of preventing attacks on human dignity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation and other prohibited grounds of discrimination, privacy and the right to reputation,” Mr Raj said.
“Therefore, a legislative action that strikes a careful balance between the legitimate interests of freedom of expression and the protection of the right to privacy and reputation including the prevention from attacks on dignity and hate speech with minimum legal ambiguity is necessary.”
What of hate speech? What of insidious comments?
Well known lawyer Aca Rayawa said in Fiji: “Words can turn to bullets, as seen in 1987 and 2000.” He made these remarks during the panel discussion. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum expanded further on this and showed the participants three Facebook posts, two from Munro Leys lawyer Jon Apted and one from National Federation Party Member of Parliament Lenora Qereqeretabua.
He agreed that given Fiji’s history, words can turn to bullets and shared the slides with the three Facebook posts.
In the first post, Mr Apted had taken a photograph of a FijiFirst billboard, which had a message in Hindi and stated that the Party was accusing other Parties of wrongfully appealing along ethnic lines, while their message was in Hindi. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said they had in fact printed out their message in Hindi, iTaukei and English and it was all to go up with a gap of a week.
Mr Apted did not reply to the request for comment.
The post of Ms Qereqeretabua, which Mr Sayed-Khaiyum highlighted was when a Tourism Fiji staff had incorrectly translated toilet as Vale ni Lotu. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum showed the screenshot where a person commented on the post saying that if the same message was for Islam, the person would have been jailed. Ms Qereqeretabua replied and said: “Agree”.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said three Tourism Fiji staff were fired over that incident.
The sheer volume of fake news on social media is high