Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bungelung Calcottin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily Os. It's Friday,
the fifteenth of September. I'm Emma Gillespie. I'm the deputy
editor at The Daily Os.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I'm Nicople, I'm the podcast producer, and of course we're
filling in for Sam and Zara, but.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Just for today one day only Friday special. This week,
eating disorder survivors and support advocates met with politicians and
social media bosses in Federal Parliament. They were there to
discuss the relationship between social media and eating disorders and
what needs to change.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
But when it came to the biggest social media players,
there was one pretty noticeable appain.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
It was quite concerning that TikTok wasn't there, considering they
have over a billion users now and also are really
playing a big role in perpetuating disordered eating, buddy image
issues and eating disordered behaviors as well.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
In today's deep dive, I'm going to speak to Vasha Jajman.
She's a youth advocate for mental health and she was
there in Parliament yesterday. But one Nina when not far
off getting report into the Royal Commission into Disability.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
That's right, over four years after it was established. The
Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People
with Disability will conclude today. The commission began in April
twenty nineteen following widespread reports of severe misconduct against people
with disability. A final report, including a list of recommendations,
(01:48):
will be handed to the Governor General in two weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Free dooaz stations will be given the first chance to
secure broadcast rights for future Matilda's World Cup matches before
subscription services. The Federal government announcement Inshaw's freeoware channels like nine,
seven to ten the abcsbs given the chance to acquire
broadcast deals before subscription services like streaming platforms can make
(02:13):
a bid. The government says this will ensure more Australians
can watch the Tillyes World Cup matches for free in
twenty twenty seven and into the future.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
US Senator Mitt Romney will retire from politics next year.
The seventy six year old was the Republican Party's presidential
nominee for the twenty twelve election, which you lost to
Barack Obama. Romney said it was time for a new
generation of leaders.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
On X and the good News, Australian Paralympic swimmer Jack
Ireland broke his own world record at the Australian Short
Course Championships. Ireland beat his previous record in the multi
class S fourteen two hundred meter freestyle by almost a
whole second in Sydney on Wednesday night.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Emma, You've got a really interesting chat for us in
the deep dive today. I'm keen to get into it,
but before we do, I just want to give a
heads up that we'll be discussing eating disorders and more
specifically some of the triggers that exist for eating disorders
in the social media world. So if you don't fill
up to listening to that today, this might be one to.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Mess people with lived experience with eating disorders. Survivors advocates
met with metabosses at Parliament House in Canbro yesterday, and
of course Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
It coincided with some new research from Melbourne UNI which
found TikTok shows over two hundred percent more appearanced based videos,
(03:39):
over three hundred percent more videos about dieting, and over
three thousand percent more videos about eating disorders to people
with an eating disorder than those without. So to find
out what happened at that meeting and what's likely to
happen moving forward, I spoke with Vashi Yajman yesterday. She
is a youth advocate for mental health and has lived
(04:01):
experience with an eating disorder. Vasha, thank you so much
for joining us. You've just been in Parliament for this meeting.
You've squeezed us into your busy day outside of cafe,
so thank you so much for making time. First of all,
how did the meeting go? How are you feeling?
Speaker 5 (04:17):
I'm actually feeling pretty good.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
It was really great to see all these different people
and especially meatow in the same room as parliamentarians and
people with lived experience and people who have been doing
so much work around eating disorders.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
This meeting coincided with new research from the University of
Melbourne into TikTok, the algorithm which found, you know, broadly
that people with eating disorders are significantly more likely to
see appearance related videos, videos about dieting, eating disorder content,
exercise content. I wanted to ask you, first of all,
(04:51):
what does that content actually look like?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
So social media has been part of my eating disorder
journey since I was probably like twelve or like was.
I really started showing symptimes at fourteen, And it's morphed
into different ways.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
So when I started out, it was kind of.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
YouTube and people being like, this is what I eat
in a day, and what I eat in a day
is are your main culprit because a lot of them
have recently transformed into what I eat in a day
in recovery from eating disorder, or what I eat in
a day when I eat intuitively, or whatever I want.
But in reality, you're still comparing yourself to these really
unrealistic standards and it's just morphed into a new light.
(05:29):
You're being sold the exact same content that is eating
disorder content of you know, showing photos of people who
are really struggling or actually pushing the you know, disordered
eating agenda, but now it's being sold to you as
the way you should be eating and what health and
wellness is, what fitness is like, incredible amounts of protein
in your diet that apparently is the way that you're
(05:51):
supposed to be eating, exercise routines that are supposed to
be just part of a normal, healthy lifestyle, when it's
not actually focusing on the fact that this is a
mental disorder. That comparison, it's such a big part of it,
and that's why prevention and care in social media is
so incredibly important before we get to the point of
thinking about things like treatment.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Do you think social media platforms understand their impact in
this space, just how much of an impact and influence
they have over the young people on their platforms.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
I think to some extent they might understand their impact,
but I think a lot of the times, and obviously
I can't speak directly for them, but it seems like
it's just another business model and it's whatever works best,
and if that means capitalizing off of millions of people
struggling with this big problem, then so be it.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
And that's the really frightening.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Bit because it's almost that the norm is to sell
you diet culture content, and it's the responsibility of the
user to then make decisions not.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
To For people who you know, see stories like these
studies or hear about, you know, kind of the toxicity
of culture on social media platforms, and they say to
people struggling, you know, just switch off, delete your account,
or block those accounts, or just don't go online, just
don't participate in that world. How do you respond to
(07:14):
those kind of comments?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Okay, well, I'd say think about it like this. So
let's say you have one hundred percent brain capacity and
like ninety nine percent of that is taken up by
your ating disorder or buy body image of shoes.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
You have that one percent left.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
That one percent is not thinking about switching off when
you're already all consumed by this. And I think a
large part of me personally thought that what I was
doing was for my own benefit. So it's really hard
to distinguish between negative content and positive content, and I
think that sometimes missed out. I also think social media
is really important because for like, personally, from my experience
(07:50):
being a person of color, I didn't have much support
around me.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
So validating my experience.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Meant turning to social media to actually look for resources,
and then when you're being sold content that supposed to
benefit your recovery but is actually detrimental.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
That's quite terrifying.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
So for first nations, queer, people of color communities, social
media plays an even bigger role, Le'd say.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So, armed with all that experience of your own and
the lived experience of others that you've spoken to and
worked with, what was the most important goal of heading
to Parliament to meet with these bosses? What was the
aim heading into that meeting?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Yeah, well, I think for me it was just really
understanding what is being done and also making the point
that the accessibility functions is saying not interested, not interested,
not interested in all your diet culture content is very
mentally trading. I know for myself, going on Instagram and
then having to go through these like multiple different settings
(08:48):
to censor all of the diet culture content was a lot,
and it's something that a lot of people don't know about.
So I think the main goal was to really figure
out what's actually being done from these companies and then
also making the point that more accessibility around this one
needs to be there.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And how did they feedback to that? How was their response?
You know, in terms of this idea of the algorithm.
Everything we do is sort of so intrinsic to the
algorithm online and you see one video, the algorithm thinks
you engage in it, so it serves you another one.
What was their response to how we even begin to
tackle that?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Yeah, so they were talking about a lot of the
work that they are doing in partnership with organizations like
the Butterfly Foundation should to create resources and educational content,
which is really great. But then I think also some
really great points that other people made was the fact
that a lot of the time the content that we
receive isn't even because we're engaging with the content itself,
but purely because it's being sold to us. And then
(09:45):
saying that you're not interested in all of this content
and trying to set your algorithm up in the best
way possible is really difficult.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
How do you think these platforms responded to that feedback?
Do you think they're open to practical change implementing that
or did you feel resistance?
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (10:03):
So, coming out of the meeting, there's now going to
be a working group steered by the Butterfly Foundation and
then also working with Meta to see what we can
actually do to make sure that there are more social
media protocols. So I think what that looks like exactly
is still being figured out. But having actual solid actions
(10:23):
coming out of that meeting felt really really good, because
I think, first of all, we're not really talking about
eating disorders in parliament ever, and then it's really uncommon
to actually have social media.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Giants like Beta part of these conversations.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
But I also think just knowing that these platforms do
hold such great power and that they should be doing
more something to keep in mind, and also that social
media is one part of the bigger picture.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
The amount of funding putting to eating disorders, especially regarding
like First nations and communities of color, is.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
Really really important to look at.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
And social media is a vital world, but providing funding
to the greater system such as like healthcare is incredibly important.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And of course you met with bosses from Meta obviously
Meta parent company Instagram, Facebook. But the elephant in the room,
of course is TikTok. You know, the world's fastest growing
social media platform. All that research from UNI Melbourne that
we touched on, does that concern you that there wasn't
a TikTok representative in the room.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah, it was quite concerning that TikTok wasn't there, considering
they have over a billion users now and also are
really playing a big role in perpetuating disordered eating buddy
image issues and eating disorder behaviors as well, and the
way that they aren't really screening the content and selling
you content that is supposed to be about health and wellness,
(11:45):
but it's actually just glorifying eating disorders. So I really
do think that they should take some ownership and recognize
that they hold such a great amount of power and
that they do have the resources and the means.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
To actually do something about this.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It really shouldn't fall on people who are struggling with
the mental illness.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And for people listening who might be struggling either with
the needing disorder or in recovery from a needing disorder,
where can they go? What are the resources that you
want those people to know about.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah, so if you have a support network around you,
that's great, turn to that. If not, there's a butterfly
eating disorder helpline, And I think just knowing in yourself
that what you're feeling is incredibly valid.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
If there is a counselor you can talk to. I
would say that really.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Is the best step, even if it's just at school
or going to your GP and having that conversation.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Thank you so much. We so appreciate your time, and
thank you for being so open and vulnerable and sharing
with us.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Thank you so much for having me and if you
do need help, you can call the Butterfly Helpline on
one eight hundred eedy hope that's one eight hundred three
three four six seven three, or head to butterfly dot
org dot au. Thanks so much for joining us on
the daily ours this week. Sam and Sara will be
back with you on Monday. Until then, have an excellent weekend.