‘The power of the algorithm’: Communications Minister Anika Wells blames social media as voters no longer believe her

Communications Minister Anika Wells has linked Labor’s push to overhaul internet laws to a dramatic fall in trust of her government, conceding people no longer believe her when she knocks on their door.

Ms Wells said the “power of the algorithm” was “overwhelming our public institutions” and creating a “decline of trust” in the government.

It comes as the Albanese government prepares to introduce sweeping laws governing social media, including $100 million fines for algorithms directing users to “harmful content”.

Speaking to The Saturday Paper, Ms Wells described a recent encounter where a constituent raised a series of grievances with her.

“A lady came to talk to me about her various grievances and I was struck by how I could say to her, ‘I’m a member of the cabinet, that’s not true, we’re not doing that, that is a scare campaign from online’,” Ms Wells said.

“I look you in the eye and I tell you that will never happen in this government and she didn’t believe me.”

Ms Wells said she had previously thought that politicians could rebuild trust by speaking directly to voters, but that people no longer believed her.

“I’ve always found until this year even that the way to solve that malaise and that sense of distrust in the establishment was to go and knock on people’s doors,” she said.

“I’d look them in the eye … and human to human they’ll believe you … and what I’m noticing now is that they don’t.

“The power of the algorithm is so strong that it is overwhelming our public institutions and the decline of trust is problematic for everybody.”

Her comments come amid a broader political debate over trust in the Albanese government following a series of broken election promises.

The government has faced criticism over broken promises on power prices, tax cuts, superannuation, mortgage costs, negative gearing and capital gains tax.

Ms Wells’ office declined to respond to questions about whether she believed algorithms should be able to bury negative commentary of the government. 

“This isn’t about censorship. This is about identifying risks or making big tech identify the risks on their own platform,” Ms Wells told Nine.

“This is about making sure they do safety by design, basic safety standards that every other industry has to apply to their own products.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was confronted over the issue at News24’s Economic Outlook in June and asked: “Why can’t you win an election by telling the truth?”

Mr Albanese did not deny Labor had changed its position on a number of issues, instead arguing the government had been required to respond to changing circumstances.

“We’ve changed our position. That’s a difficult thing to do. And we understood that there would be criticism of that,” he said.

“But what we couldn’t afford to do is to sit back and say, well, you know, we’re in a position to do something about this… but we’re going to just stand still.”

The government has now sought to place greater responsibility on technology giants for the risks created by social media through its proposed Digital Duty of Care.

Under the proposed regime, social media companies could face penalties of more than $100m if their systems direct people to harmful content.

Australians could also be given greater control over algorithmic feeds, including the ability to opt out of recommended content.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor warned the proposal could give the government excessive control over what Australians see online.

“Look, we haven’t seen this legislation… We’ll wait and see the legislation,” Mr Taylor told News24.com.au.

“I’m deeply sceptical. I fear that this is just going to be an attempt by the government to censor social media.

“But as I say, we haven’t seen it. There’s lots of talk about it. And let’s see what the government comes forward with.”

Mr Taylor said the proposal “risks being censorship of the internet” and could give “enormous ministerial discretion”.

“We’re sceptical, I think there’s good reason to be sceptical about that,” the Opposition Leader said.

The Coalition and One Nation have indicated they will oppose the broader reforms, while the Greens could provide the votes needed to pass the legislation.