Social media companies including Facebook and Twitter, as well as their users, may have to register as agents of “foreign influence” on Australian politics, Labor has warned.
Acting shadow attorney general Brendan O’Connor has highlighted the potential unintended consequences of the foreign influence transparency scheme bill as bipartisanship breaks down on the foreign donation ban, another plank of the Coalition’s foreign interference package.
The bill would require people who undertake political, campaigning or lobbying activities “on behalf of foreign principals” to sign up to a public register.
Foreign principals include not only foreign governments but also businesses, political organisations and any individual who is not a resident or citizen of Australia.
Labor is concerned that because “communications activity” is defined as distributing information in any form – including social media – that tweets or Facebook posts about Australian policy issues may trigger a requirement to register.
The bill contains exemptions for carriage service providers, but at a January hearing of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, witnesses from the Law Council said this did not appear to exempt Facebook, Twitter or Google.
The deputy director of policy Natasha Molt said that communications was “defined very broadly” and the exemptions are “narrowly confined and do not appear on their face to capture” conduct such as discussions on social media.
Law Council president-elect, Arthur Moses, said it was “certainly arguable” the social media platforms themselves would have to register.
A strict interpretation of the legislation could leave Australian employees of foreign companies who tweet about company tax cuts or an academic receiving a foreign scholarship who retweets a petition vulnerable to criminal prosecution and prison sentences for failing to register.
O’Connor told Guardian Australia that Labor agrees with “the concept of a registration scheme for those who represent foreign actors in Australia – but the government’s scheme won’t work properly, so Labor will work with them to fix it”.
“Several submitters have pointed out the lack of clarity created by the rushed production of this bill,” he said.
“The result is many stakeholders – including social media companies, and potentially their users – may be unaware as to whether they could be liable to register as foreign agents under this bill.
“It is imperative that major legislative changes like this are clear in terms of who they impact and how. More work needs to be done on this bill.”
A spokesperson for the acting attorney-general Greg Hunt noted the exemption for carriage service providers and said to “the extent that social media companies fall outside the definition they would not be required to register for providing the service which hosts material produced by foreign users”.
Only activities “within Australia on behalf of a foreign principal for the purpose of political or governmental influence” trigger a requirement to register, the spokesperson said.
“As such, social media users located outside Australia would also fall outside the scope of the scheme.”
The Turnbull government has already offered an amendment to its proposed foreign espionage bill and amendments to fix the foreign donation bill are also under consideration.
On Monday Bill Shorten demanded that charities’ advocacy work be exempted from the proposed foreign donation ban, increasing Labor demands after a bipartisan report suggested the opposition and government could agree on amendments.
The special minister of state, Mathias Cormann, said Shorten was being “dishonest”, citing the fact that an earlier Labor bill would have banned foreign gifts to charities.
“Bill Shorten is being shifty and using weasel words to try and create an impression that somehow he is proposing to be more generous to charities than the government and that is just not true,” he said.
At a press conference in Brisbane Shorten accused the Coalition of using “a sledgehammer to crack a walnut”.
“Part of me wonders if the reason that the government is going after charities is because they’re not fair dinkum about foreign donations because their own party has so much of it,” he said.
Earlier, Malcolm Turnbull said the government’s foreign interference package was designed “to ensure that our laws are fit-for-purpose, they’re up-to-date and they serve to ensure that Australian politics and Australian public administration is not interfered with or improperly influenced by foreign interests”.
“We are an open democracy and we welcome people having their say as long as it’s open and disclosed,” he told reporters in Canberra.
Guardian Australia has contacted Twitter and Facebook for comment.
