Nadia Maxwell: documentary maker voices concerns over social media following new experiment

A Christchurch documentary maker is throwing her support behind a bill aiming to ban under-16s from social media after completing a 'distressing' social media experiment.

Nadia Maxwell set up pages on TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat posing as a 13-year-old - and was quickly bombarded with content related to eating disorders and mental health issues. 

She says she attempted the experiment before and after new safeguards for teens were introduced, but didn't notice much of a difference.

"The only positive difference that I saw was that in part one there was a lot of oversexualised content - and so that's dropped down. But in terms of the sort of content you'd want your average 13-year-old sitting down in front of every day, there's so much heavy and distressing stuff." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ether dupla. See, Ellen, you let me know what you think.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Nine two nine who is the text number?

Speaker 3 (00:08):
As I said, we'll talk to the NATS about what
their big thinking is on this after five o'clock.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Now on social media.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
If you didn't already think that it's a bit of
a grim place for teenagers, he has a little bit
more proof. There's a documentary maker who set out to
find what an imaginary thirteen year old girl would get served.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Up by the algorithm. None of it's good news.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
She only liked stuff like funny cat videos and Taylor
Swift content, but was really quickly confronted by content about
eating disorders and other mental health issues. And that documentary maker,
Nadia Maxwell is with us. Hey Nadia, Hey, hey doing
I'm very well, thank you?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
So what did you see?

Speaker 1 (00:42):
So there was two parts to the experiment.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
I first started as before the your teen settings came in,
and like you said, I was searching.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
For you know, Taileswift, exercise cats.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
But really quickly the algorithm let me down a pipeline
from exercise videos to what I eaten the day videos
to wait us tips and then within four days really
heavy eating disorder content.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
And then Instagram announced, you know, good news where we're
bringing in team settings, you know, peace of mind for parents.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
We've got your backs.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
So I waited for those to come in, and I
revisited the account. So you know, not only was distressing
content still prevalent, but even when I reported specific content
which clearly breached eating disorder standards by any normal person's standard,
it wasn't taken down.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
So did it get better when they brought in the
new safeguards.

Speaker 4 (01:34):
The only positive difference that I saw was that in
part one there was a lot of really over sexualized content,
and so that's dropped down. But in terms of kind
of the sort of content that you'd want your average
thirteen year olds sitting down in front of for hours
a day, you know, there's.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Just still so much heavy distressing stuff, Nadia.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Is it stuff that that is you know you can
see that would have a negative effect real eating disorder,
like you might be able to see it or was
it absolutely heard out?

Speaker 2 (02:06):
No, this is really bad for a thirteen you know
what I mean? Is there any great area?

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Yeah, before the settings came, and definitely there was some
really hard out content and of course, you know, the
irony is you know, when I was putting together that video,
I had to kind of be careful about what clips
that I selected because I was hoping that, you know,
that the media would pick it up and help me,
help me get the story out. And of course we've
got broadcasting standards you know, in the real world, but

(02:31):
online be can stumble upon this anytime. And part two
of the experiment, some of the more heavy eating just
sort of content didn't come up straight away, but there
was still a lot of like are areta recovery content,
which you know, you know, arguably could help somebody in recovery.
But this was a thirteen year old who was never

(02:52):
looking for this content. I was searching points and liking it.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Do you think that the social media companies are actually
good guys here, really want to protect the children, or
are they just like, actually I don't care, or worse,
actually actively sending it to the kids and just trying
to pretend that they're doing good things here.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
Look, I think the problem, you know, is that there's
a huge incentive to serve up this distressing content. You know,
their model, their model is engagement, and you know this
is not really new to us, right, you know, films
like Social Dilemma came out in twenty twenty, so we've
kind of known this for five years. The whole business
model is based on keeping newss on for as long
as possible.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
And maybe it's not that they're evil.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
But their algorithm, which you know is a soul loess algorithm,
has figured out that actually, you know what, emotionally charged
content keeps kids on long longer.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
So I know, yeah, so what.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Is your problem? What do you reckon? What do you
reckon we should do here? Having had a good old
look at it, do you reckon we take you?

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Look, I absolutely think we need to follow Australia's lead
and raise the minimum age to sixteen. You know, it's
about empowering parents and we need to reset the social
norms on this, and I think I do. I really
feel strongly that the appetite is different parents. You know,
we're all tired of having to have these kind of
individual battles in our own homes. Yeah you got kids,

(04:10):
I've got two girls, yes to day?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yes, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (04:17):
I My girls aren't on social media.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
But I would just like to say that, you know,
like I've been researching this for eighteen months, so when
you're kind of in it every day.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's really it's why you're a lot easier to hold
your nerve.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
You do it, yeah, why you shouldn't apologize for it.
You're doing the right thing.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yes, But I but I appreciate that that it's you know,
it's kind of against what is the normal at the
moment right there. It's really hard because everyone's everyone's yeah everyone,
while everyone's kids thrown it right, So it's really hard
to yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
But like I said, because I'm living and breathing that
every day, it's easy to hold my move.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yes, and thank you for talking us. I really appreciate us.
Nadia Maxwell documentary Makeup For more.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
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