Presented by the Social Innovation Research Institute at Swinburne.

Facebook gained worldwide media attention for banning Australians from accessing news on its platform in response to the Australian Federal Government’s news media code legislation, which requires digital platforms to pay news media companies whose content they host. Facebook’s hardball approach to legislation is perhaps a signal of their concern about a legislative precedent being set for regulation of Facebook worldwide. Australia’s Digital Platform Inquiry promises more legislation to come, and other countries are actively debating how best to regulate big platforms.

This panel of media tech and policy experts discusses the opportunities and pitfalls of platform regulation and potential impacts on users, chaired by Dr Diana Bossio.
 

• Professor Flew will discuss the relationship between regulation and governance, and what it means for digital platforms to become objects of media regulation.
   
• Dr Barnet will discuss platform responses to introduction of legislation and broader relationships between platforms and government in Australia.
   
• Professor Leaver will discuss who won the ‘PR’ battle during the Facebook-imposed news blackout.
   
• Dr Meese will discuss the limited scope of news-oriented regulation like Australia’s NMBC and advocate for alternative regulatory interventions.
  
  

Speakers

Associate Professor Diana Bossio
Dr Bossio's research focusses on social media and online journalism and practices for digital participation. She is the author of Journalism and Social Media: Practitioners, Organisations, Institutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and co-editor of Social Media and the Politics of Reportage: The Arab Spring (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 

Professor Terry Flew
Terry Flew is Professor of Digital Communication and Culture at The University of Sydney. He is the author of 14 books including Understanding Global Media, Politics, Media and Democracy in Australia, Media Economics and Global Creative Industries. His newest book, Regulating Platforms will be out through Polity in October 2021.

Dr Belinda Barnet
Dr Belinda Barnet is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Swinburne University, with research interests in digital cultures, social media, the app economy, data analytics, AI, data privacy, cyberstalking, and the history of digital media.

Professor Tama Leaver
Professor Leaver is a Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. He is the Vice-President of the (international) Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Dr James Meese
Dr Meese is senior lecturer in Media and Communication at RMIT University. Dr Meese researches media law and policy. He currently holds an early career research fellowship from the Australian Research Council to study the algorithmic distribution of news.



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