'Can't censor stupidity': some embrace conspiracies

Censoring conspiracy theories and misinformation could have the opposite effect and spark a viral trend, the electoral commission has warned.

"We can't regulate or censor our way out of stupidity," electoral commissioner Tom Rogers told a parliamentary hearing examining proposed laws to crackdown on misinformation and disinformation online.

Mr Rogers referred to a conspiracy theory at a previous election where voters were told if they crossed out all names on the ballot and wrote no suitable candidate, it was a vote of no confidence that would topple the government.

The theory gained further traction the more the commission tried to intervene, he told the inquiry on Thursday, saying he preferred to tackle disinformation by countering the lies and adding context.

"Some of the misinformation, no matter how tinfoil hat-wearing insane I think it might be, there are people that believe it," he said.

"We just need to move very carefully when we deal with some of those issues."

Labor's bill has run into multiple hurdles, with the coalition, religious groups and human rights bodies worried it goes too far and will impact freedom of speech.

Types of harm span electoral processes, public health, vilification, incitement of violence and imminent harm to the economy with some exemptions for satire, professional news and academic, artistic, scientific or religious purposes.

The threshold of such information being "reasonably likely to cause or contribute" to harm was opaque and too low, Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay said.

Criticising human rights and environmental policies of major companies could be caught up in the vague definition, Ms Finlay said.

Guardrails were needed on technology such as AI as it was harder to correct the record when disinformation was being spread at scale by a manipulative chatbot or fake images and videos, eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.

Disinformation was often used against women and people from diverse backgrounds "to discredit and create rumours and undermine the credibility and the confidence of the person", she said.

"Grey areas" outside of more targeted threshold of imminent harm where no harm arose and information was open to interpretation shouldn't be tackled through regulation but by combating the misinformation, Ms Finlay said.

Prevention was better than cure when it came to having laws to shutdown malicious actors based in foreign countries "perpetuating inauthentic activity at a scale and speed that is unprecedented", Cyber CX's Jordan Newnham said.

Political communication should be added to the crackdown, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties argued. It said misinformation and disinformation during elections could harm democracy.

Asked about covering truth in political advertising, Mr Rogers said it wasn't a bad idea per se, but it wasn't a role for the commission as it would damage "our perceived neutrality" and therefore, trust in elections.