Will the proposed Anti-Trolling Bill regulate the cowards palace online?

In December 2021, the Australian Government released an Exposure Draft of its Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill (the Bill), promoting it as offering "some of the strongest powers to tackle online trolls in the world".

The Bill purports to protect Australians who administer and maintain social media pages and provide for the 'unmasking' of anonymous online trolls. Unfortunately, if enacted in its current form, it is our view that the Bill will not assist in combatting online trolls and may in fact undermine aspects of defamation law which already go some way towards achieving this aim.

Even the title of the Bill is a misnomer, focusing solely on defamation law rather than the wider issue of 'trolling' - which often takes the form of abuse, bullying and harassment but which, whilst hurtful, may not be defamatory.