New risks to a deftly managed personal relationship with Donald Trump have not slowed the Australian prime minister’s plans for a showdown with America’s all-conquering social media companies.

Anthony Albanese, who will rub shoulders with the US president and other world leaders in New York later this month at the UN general assembly, is pushing ahead with changes that would impose fines on big tech firms under a newly created “digital duty of care”.

“Just as we have basic safety standards for cars, toys or food, the duty of care applies basic standards for the online products we use every day,” said the minister for communications, Anika Wells, while releasing the draft legislation.

The change would also require social media platforms to provide users a guaranteed “opt-out” facility from the opaque algorithms that funnel polarising and harmful content to subscribers and expose them to carefully targeted advertising.

The government is calling it “empowering” for users, while critics are reaching for comparisons with communist China and using words like “Orwellian”.

Australia’s digital foray is being watched in Washington and Silicon Valley amid expectations it will stiffen the resolve of other countries to insulate their own polities from the........

© The Guardian