Washington Objects to Australia's Digital Duty of Care for Under-18s
The Trump administration has lodged a formal objection to Australia's Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. The document was published on the US Embassy in Canberra's website on 22 September 2026. Guardian
Filings from Washington are rare in Canberra consultations. This submission is titled "U.S. Government Response to the Australian Consultation on the Online Safety Amendment Digital Duty of Care Bill 2026." US Embassy
The publication coincided with a leaders' meeting. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was due to meet US President Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, 22 September, New York time. Former congressman David Brat, Trump's envoy to Australia, had arrived in Canberra days earlier to take up his post.
Washington's core claim is the duty would allow "viewpoint-based censorship". It called for American platforms to be exempted from the requirements outright. It expressed serious concerns about giving the communications minister legal power to declare what counts as "foreseeable harm". It also said the proposed protection model for users under 18 would unfairly affect users in the US.
On method, the submission focuses on algorithmic feeds and recommender systems, the automated systems that decide what posts you see next. It argues that if Australia compels platforms to aggressively filter those feeds, and that filtering catches protected speech, cutting reach is not meaningfully different from outright removal. The US government said it would likely consider such a government-mandated filtering obligation as facilitating censorship. It requested that Australia withdraw any plans to mandate algorithmic suppression of content based on ambiguous government-defined safety criteria. In its view, legally required design features for recommender systems could affect what users see, say and hear globally.
The Bill Washington is objecting to is still an exposure draft, a public draft released for comment rather than final law. The Department of Infrastructure published an issues paper on a Digital Duty of Care framework in May, following a public survey that closed at 11.59pm AEDT on 7 December 2025 to inform design under the Online Safety Act 2021. Department of Infrastructure The government released the exposure draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 on 8 September. Department of Infrastructure
As outlined in September 2026, the Australian plan would impose a digital duty of care for internet users under 18. It would cover platforms, online games, apps and AI chatbots. The duty would require protection from pornography, content promoting eating disorders, misogynistic content, content glorifying crime or life-endangering stunts, and content causing serious mental health distress including abuse and bullying.
Enforcement would sit with the existing system plus new obligations. The eSafety commissioner would have power to issue removal notices to social media companies. Operators would be required to document measures taken to address online harms. Platforms would also have to allow account holders to opt out of algorithms pushing content into their feed, with the user-choice model framed as allowing users to opt in to having their default feed include personalised content recommended by an algorithm. Reuters That opt-out element would apply across major recommender-driven services including TikTok. New York Times
Australia said it saw no threat to US ties after White House criticism of its social media proposals. Reuters
The broader context here is a clash of starting principles. Australia leans on an idea already used in work health and safety and product law. Make the provider spot foreseeable risks early and design them out, instead of chasing individual posts after harm is done. Washington leans on a different idea. Once a duty touches feed ranking, recommender design and default settings, it cannot be fenced off at the border.
In my view, three pressure points will matter for practitioners. First, the ministerial power to declare foreseeable harm. That shifts key scope decisions from the statute and regulator guidance to executive discretion. It is the passage the Americans have zeroed in on, and it will be the passage the Senate, the crossbench and the platforms' lawyers probe hardest. Second, documentation plus removal notices. Together they create an enforceable compliance trail, not just a best-endeavours statement. Third, the opt-in versus opt-out design for personalised feeds. It sounds procedural. In practice it resets the default for every recommender operating in Australia.
For the gallery, the signal is plain even though none of this is settled law. This is a consultation submission on an exposure draft, and the government insists the alliance can absorb the disagreement. When the US Embassy publishes a detailed regulatory objection on the day of a UNGA bilateral, this stops being only an eSafety debate. It is a bilateral irritant, and it will shape how the final Bill is drafted, justified and defended.
