Strong Public Support for Proposal to Let Online Harm Victims Sue Tech Platforms

Proposal to Set Up Dedicated Government Agency to Help Victims Also Receives Backing

- Osmond Chia

A proposal to let victims of online harms take social media platforms as well as perpetrators to court to seek compensation has received support from most of the respondents in a recent public consultation, paving the way for a new Bill.

More than 95 of over 100 respondents backed this proposal to have specified online harms heard in local courts, said the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) and Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) on March 6 in their findings.

These harms include online harassment (such as cyber bullying and sexual harassment), intimate image abuse, child abuse material, impersonation, deepfakes and hate speech.

"There was also broad agreement that communicators, administrators and platforms should be subject to the duties not to commit online harms or to act on online harms that are brought to their notice, and may be sued for damages if they breach those duties," said the ministries, publishing the results of their one-month public consultation that had concluded on Dec 22, 2024.

The respondents included members of the public, community groups, academics and major social media companies.

Their support for the proposal was primarily driven by demands to hold perpetrators accountable and deter harmful behaviour, the ministries said in a report of their key findings.

Respondents were also motivated by the need to provide compensation for victims and the importance of compelling platforms to be accountable to their users, the ministries added.

However, there was some push-back against the policies to take tech platforms to court, with some industry respondents raising concerns over the blurring of lines between the responsibility of content creators and that of the platforms that host the content.

The industry partners, which were not named, were cited as saying that such policies could lead to overly defensive behaviour, cause too much content to be taken down, and affect free speech.