Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM.
Australia's plan to ban teenagers from social media has been
called world leading.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well well first in Australia, where Parliament there has given
a green light to a bill banning social media for
users under the age of sixteen.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
And we introduced.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
The new legislation could see tech companies like TikTok, Facebook
and Instagram find up to fifty million Australian dollars that's
almost thirty one million euros if they fail to comply.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
But as we get closer to its introduction, questions are
being raised about what it actually means to verify age
on social media and the implications for online privacy for
all Internet users.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Today.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Digital rights Advocatesmanta Floriani on the risks of the ban
amid a global regulatory arms race. It's Thursday, July thirty one,
So Samantha will get into the details of the social
(01:12):
media ban in a moment. But first it seems like
YouTube will now be included in this ban. Originally it
was not going to be.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
So what's changed. Yeah, So, initially YouTube was excluded from
the teen social media ban, which made a lot of
the other social media giants really upset. They were really
angry about this. But in June, the e Safety Commissioner
made a speech to the National Press Club where she
revealed that she had advised the Minister for Communications, Annika Wells,
(01:43):
that the government should not exempt YouTube from the ban.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
YouTube was the only one exempted. Our recommendation was that
no specific platform be exempted because, as I said, their
relative risks and homes can change at any moment.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And this was off the back of research that her
office had conducted which revealed that YouTube was one of
the most used platforms by children under sixteen years of age.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
YouTube was the most frequently cited platform in our research,
with almost four and ten children reporting exposure retiremful content.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
There, and the research also included some findings about a
younger cohort of users so ages ten to twelve, who
were more likely to be exposed to harmful content on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
This also comes as The New York Times reported earlier
this month that YouTube surreptitiously ruled back its content moderation
processes to keep more harmful content on its platform.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
So it seems that essentially the backflip has come off.
The back of advice from the E Safety Commissioner based
on this research. Okay, and so what.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Do we know that's meant about how YouTube and zona Google,
how they're likely to respond.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Well, we could already see that have been quite aggressive
in their response to the potential to be included.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
YouTube is galvanizing Aussie creators. Though, to respond, you're worried
about them?
Speaker 6 (03:12):
YouTube did send the Wiggles to try and persuade me
to their positions, did they?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
They did?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
They sent Big Wiggle, and Google, which owns YouTube, threatened
legal action in a letter to the Communications Minister if
it was to be included. Look you worried about legal action?
Speaker 6 (03:30):
I mean, we have had threats come in, but look,
you know I've got sharp elbows. This is too important
for us not to have a crack.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So it'll be interesting to see if they make good
on that threat. They've been arguing pretty strongly that YouTube
is not a social media platform. Basically, what they're saying
is that it lacks some of the features designed to
facilitate social connections in the same way that many other
social media platforms. Do you know whether or not you
agree with that, that's sort of the stants that they've
(04:03):
been really trying to push. They've also been pushing this
idea that you know, YouTube is home to a lot
of educational content. You know, it's regularly used in Australian
classrooms and so on. I imagine that they will be
very frustrated with the news from Wednesday, So it will
be interesting to see whether there's fall out off the
(04:24):
back of this.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
And so the Australian government, they're really relying on this
argument that YouTube contains all of the same harms to
young people, like algorithms, AutoPlay, both sorts of things, and
that's why it should be included. What does the evidence
say about the harm or otherwise of YouTube on young people?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
You know, in general, there is a lot of conflicting
research and evidence on all social media fronts. You can
find research that suggests that social media is overwhelmingly beneficial.
You can find research that suggests it's you know, absolutely terrible.
I think in reality it's always going to be more
(05:05):
complicated than that. There are plenty of positives that come
with something like YouTube. You know, plenty of teachers use
it in classrooms, plenty of parents use it with their children.
So I think where we get into trouble as if
we start to try to categorize these things as all
good or all bad. But you know, as the research
shows from the e Safety Commissioner, there there are harms
(05:28):
that are occurring on YouTube, and you know, I think
it is reasonable to demand social media giants to be
taking more proactive steps to ensure that their products are
you know, safer experiences for children and young people, but
people of all ages as well. To be honest, there
is I guess an outstanding question as to whether age
(05:50):
verification is the best option for that, but this is
the one that we're currently entertaining. Okay, well, let's talk.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
About the nuts and of the social media then how
would it or does it actually work in practice?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah, So from December, the social media platforms that are
captured by Part four A of the Online Safety Act
will have to take reasonable steps to prevent people under
the age of sixteen from having accounts on their platforms.
So most social media platforms already have a minimum age
requirement of thirteen, but the way that they enforce this
(06:27):
is really sort of lackluster and quite ineffective. You know,
it's usually just asking people to put in their date
of birth, Obviously this is not working, so from December
they'll be expected to do much more to verify that
their users are actually over the age of sixteen.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
Come ten December, it means that if your kid has
a YouTube log in or another social media platform log in,
the platform needs to deactivate it, and the platform needs
to take reasonable steps to make sure that kids don't
activate new logins and where they find their way around this.
Because we know that kids will, God bless them, the
platforms take reasonable steps to mitigate that from happening in.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
The Unfortunately, we still don't know exactly what this will
look like in practice for everyday users of social media,
and that's because there are a range of options that
platforms could take to do this. On Wednesday, Communications Minister
Anaka Wells did make assurances that platforms will not be
(07:25):
required to collect identity documents like a passport or a
driver's license.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
In order to do this, platforms have to provide an
alternative to providing your own personal identification documents to satisfy
themselves of aid.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
For instance, they might get people to put in their
credit card details, or they might use biometric face scanning
to guess the age of the person. Based on their face,
and she suggested that some platforms you might be able
to infer people's age based on the data that they
already have about them.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
These platforms with deadly accuracy who we are, what we do,
and when we do it. And they know that you've
had a Facebook account since two thousand and nine, so
they know that you're over sixteen. There's lots of ways
that this can be done.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
But something that's important to understand I think about this
is that this will change the way that everyone uses
social media, you know, not just people under the age
of sixteen. Everyone including adults, will need to verify their
age in whatever way they end up doing this, not
just children.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
After the break how the Internet is changing for everyone?
This maad that if everyone who uses the Internet is
going to end up having to provide some sort of identification,
even if we don't know exactly what that is yet,
(08:52):
how will that change the way that we all use
the Internet?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, so, again, it will depend on how it's implemented,
But there are some immediate concerns that come to mind,
one of which is privacy and data protection or digital security.
So if we are required to provide additional data to
these tech giants or to third party age assurance platforms.
That does mean handing over you know, more information to
(09:18):
companies that already have a huge amount of information about us.
I think people are more aware than ever of the
risks that come with providing things like identity documents or
other sensitive and personal information off the back of you know,
all of these large scale data breaches. I think people
are rightfully so quite scared about what that means. There
(09:41):
are also concerns about the potential to be able to
essentially link your behavior on social media or other you know,
online services and websites to your identity. Again, we don't know,
because we don't know the specifics of how it will
be implemented, whether this is likely to happen or not,
(10:01):
but there are I think genuine fears and reasonable fears
about the potential for this to essentially contribute to a
global trend towards policing online content and being able to
monitor the way that people are accessing various forms of
(10:22):
information online. And something else that I think is important
to note is that it's not just going to be
happening on social media. Search engines in December will also
be expected to verify the age of their logged in
users and what is the.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Rationale for that.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
This is kind of happening in tandem to the teen
social media there. Basically there's a set of new industry
codes that are also coming into effect in December that
would mean that search engines will also have to verify
users age Their E Safety Commissioner has basically said that
there needs to be a layered approach and that they
(10:58):
need want to come at it from all different directions,
and that the idea being that search engines are sort
of one entry point into potentially harmful material.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And the UK has just started age verification for pornography
I believe what can we learn from how that's going.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Yeah, so the UK within the last week has brought
in new stringent regulations that mean that any website offering
adult content to UK users needs to take reasonable steps
to verify the age of anyone visiting that website from
the UK. So a very similar kind of approach to
what we're doing here in Australia. So off the back
(11:39):
of this, there's been more than four hundred thousand UK
citizens have signed a parliamentary petition demanding that the Act
be repealed, which I think suggests that quite a few
people were perhaps taken by surprise about what it meant
in reality and a really upset about it. In addition
to that, a popular vs VPN product, so a VPN
(12:02):
basically enables people to bypass this he verification process by
masking their location, so they can essentially pretend to be
logging in from somewhere that isn't the UK. So a
popular VPN product said that they've seen more than an
eighteen thousand percent increase in daily signups from UK based
users since Friday. So that's a massive uptick in people
(12:24):
using VPNs to get around these restrictions. So again, that
suggests that a lot of people are actively trying to
get around it, and that it's quite easy to get
around using a VPN, which raises questions about the sort
of efficacy of the whole thing as well.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah, I mean that's something that comes up a lot, right,
whether or not you can actually then deenages from using
these platforms exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
The other thing that has been interesting to note off
the back of the UK ban is that there's been
lots of reporting about how there have been websites and
smaller online forums, many of which are completely innocuous, you know,
not harfled of children, and they've opted to just geo
block their services to the UK entirely simply because they
don't have the resources to support third party age for
(13:10):
reification and they can't risk the potential finds. So you know,
we might see a similar thing here where rather than
having to deal with age for eification or risk finds
that we might see you know, websites and forums just
completely pull out of Australia.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
And it's fair to say the rest of the world
is watching this pretty closely.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, well, I think this is part of a global
push to age gate more and more of the Internet.
There's been a lot of emphasis on online safety of late.
I think it's fair to say that there's kind of
a bit of a regulatory arms race happening between you
know here and the UK in particular. I think it's
(13:52):
entirely reasonable to demand digital platforms, social media platforms, all
of these tech giants to be doing much more when
it comes to, you know, ensuring the safety of their users.
So what's striking to me here is that there are
you know, these are really big decisions that do change
the way that everyone will use the Internet, not just
(14:14):
on social media, and you know to me this warrants
much more robust public conversation and parliamentary debate.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Well Smantha, thank you so much for your type, no worries.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Also in the news today, there have been tsunamis in Russia, Japan,
and the United States following a powerful earthquake off Russia's
east coast. The magnitude eight point eight earthquakes struck near
the far eastern Kumchuck Copeninsula yesterday at a shallow depth
of under twenty kilometers, and Prime Minister Anthony Abnezi is
facing growing pressure from his backbench to recognize a Palestinian
(15:02):
state after the United Kingdom joined France and more than
one hundred and forty nations in signaling support. Former Cabinet
Minister at Husick says Australia's cautious stance is untenable while
children in Gaza face starvation, and is urging the PM
to reconsider before the UN meets in September. Prime Minister
Albanesi maintains any recognition must advance peace, insisting the timing
(15:26):
must help not hinder a two state solution. I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Thanks for listening.