Victoria, Australia, would force social media to identify anonymous accounts in vilification cases

Victoria wants to give a state civil tribunal the power to order social media and AI platforms to identify anonymous account holders accused of vilification, the first such mechanism in any Australian state.

The proposed power would sit with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), a quasi-judicial body that already handles rent disputes, discrimination claims, and small-scale civil matters across the state. Under a reform package announced Sunday by Premier Jacinta Allan, VCAT could compel platforms to unmask users in cases where someone is accused of directing hateful speech at a protected group, on grounds such as race, religion, sexuality, or disability. "Vilification" in this context means targeted hateful speech against a protected group, not general online abuse.

The package includes a second, separate change with arguably more material consequences for platform liability. The bar for children to sue social media and AI platforms for negligence causing psychiatric harm would drop well below the current test of proving at least 10% permanent impairment, a medical threshold for serious, lasting damage assessed by doctors. Allan framed the reforms as a response to concerns that families currently have no practical route to compensation when a child is harmed by content or by algorithm-driven engagement on these platforms.

Marilyn Bromberg, an associate professor of law at the University of Western Australia who studies social media regulation, described the reforms as a step in the right direction but said they should go further, according to the Guardian. "Demasking" powers in some overseas jurisdictions have been shown to discourage harmful online behavior, she said, a framing that doubles as the package's strongest answer to critics who argue the mechanism will chill legitimate anonymous speech.

The reforms are proposals, not law. The Victorian opposition has said neither bill is likely to pass before the November 2026 state election, framing the announcement as an early campaign move. Allan has said the legislation will be introduced as a priority, per ABC News.

The threshold change for adult victims is flagged for future consideration, the ABC reported, leaving open whether the children's evidentiary shift is the leading edge of a broader lowering of the bar to sue platforms in the state. Neither reform reaches the level of a national online safety regime. Victoria is moving unilaterally within its state jurisdiction, and the demasking power would apply only to matters before VCAT, a body with limited punitive capacity compared with a court.

The children's threshold change, by contrast, lowers an evidentiary bar that has practical effect in any future civil suit, not just those routed through the tribunal. That is the part of the package that materially shifts how platforms operating in the state can be held to account for harm to children, regardless of how the demasking mechanism fares legislatively.

The reform is also narrower than the federal social media laws passed in 2021 in response to the so-called "troll" debate, which focused on online abuse of journalists and basic platform accountability expectations, per ABC News. Victoria's package instead centres on identity disclosure in vilification cases and on lowering the bar to sue for psychiatric injury.

Whether the package passes, and which pillar survives legislative negotiation, will be tested in the months between announcement and the November election. The opposition has not committed to keeping either reform alive if it forms government, and Allan's government holds a minority position in the state's upper house, leaving the political path to enactment narrow.