Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mike Dubuski, ABC News is joining us right now, and hey, Mike,
welcome to the show. And this is this is pretty interesting,
although I I one hundred percent wish that this was
the case here in the States, and we're talking about Australia.
This law about you know, Facebook and Instagram and all
of that. But give us the very latest.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
On this, if you would, which is the company that
ownes Facebook, Instagram and Threads, has begun deleting accounts, basically
deactivating accounts in Australia belonging to kids under the age
of sixteen. And this comes ahead of a new piece
of legislation that's set to take effects next week on
(00:42):
December tenth, that would find companies ten companies across the
social media landscape for allowing kids under sixteen onto their
platforms in Australia. This legislation says that firms must take
reasonable steps to keep kids off their platforms otherwise bill
Facebook totaling up to thirty three million dollars apiece meta
(01:04):
as of today, as we already said, has he done
deactivating accounts seemingly to try and get around that or
get a jump on that idea. But of course, it
comes amid a great amount of concern both in Australia
and around the world, and so what effects social media
and some of the algorithms that are in place there
and some of the content that gets posted to these
platforms is having on younger people.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Now, I wish that we had something like that here
in the States. And you know, I've got a twelve
year old at home, and you know, I just I
just say to myself, I'm like, man, I'm the one
constantly having to police and you know, figure out via
our you know, Apple products. I'm like, you know, I'm
constantly having to put stuff in place to try to
(01:47):
But I I wish this was something that would happen
here in the States. Here's the other part of this,
and I maybe other countries are paying attention here with
regard to specifying how the social media companies should enforce
this new measure. And according to this there are various
ways to do that. Do you know what some of
these ways are.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Mike, Yeah, So, again, the law here does not specify
how a platform determines how old a user is. They
are leaving that open. Probably no surprise, right, because this
is actually kind of a complicated thing to do. On
its surface, you might think, oh, well, you have to
upload your birthday to all of these platforms, just kick
everyone off who's under sixteen, Well, gid lie, and that's common,
(02:31):
then that should be expected. So how do you determine
actually how old someone is on the internet. That's a
really difficult problem. One potential avenue here is to have
users upload a picture of their government ID alongside a selfie,
so the platform can cross reference those two images, make
sure that you are who you say you are, that
you're of age, and they'll kind of let you into
(02:52):
the platform. That is, you know, potentially a very effective
way to do this, But then you're also handing over
some pretty valuable data to these companies. What if there's,
for example, a data breach at Snapchat, Well, they're not
just on the hook for the selfies that you take now,
they're on the hook for your government driver's license. That's
a bit of a different concern. So that's one bucket here.
(03:13):
There's also the potential for them to use voice and
facial recognition technology to basically estimate how old you are.
That is, as you would expect, a pretty imperfect system.
A similar idea was implemented in the UK earlier this year,
and it was pretty roundly criticized for not being very effective.
People uploading pictures of video game characters, for instance, in
(03:33):
an effort to fool these system They're not perfect, as
is the case with most artificial intelligence products out there,
and even Australia's government kind of has downplayed the use
of that specific avenue because they say it's just kind
of the not preferable avenue. There's, in addition to that,
other ways that they can sort of track your behavior
(03:53):
online elsewhere. For example, Google or alphabet really owns YouTube,
so they can track your behavior cross Google Search and
the cross Google Drive and Google Docs. Maybe that behavior
can inform some estimation of what your actual age is. Again,
you can expect from these companies in Australia a sort
of full sale approach. They're probably going to use a
little bit of everything in order to actually figure this
(04:15):
out so they can avoid these fines.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Considering all of the trillions of offensive things you can
find on Google, I'm just wondering, is Facebook a completely
different beast in Australia than it is here? If you're
going to have access to all that other stuff it
just seems odd that Facebook would say we better take
this away from the kids.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Right Well, this is where some of the criticism has
started to leak in of this measure. There's right now
an effort in Australia to place an injunction on this
lot to stop it from taking effect before next week,
though currently a federal judge has not put a a
date on the calendar to hear that particular argument. But
it really does underscore guys that this is a complex
(04:54):
problem and taking an approach like this does come with
a lot of criticism. Right now, the law only encompasses
ten companies, as we said, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, but
also Snapchat, x TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Kick and Twitch, just
to sort of underscore how kind of forty this can become.
YouTube has criticized this law for saying, well, hey, you're
(05:14):
actually gonna make this less safe for kids if you're
going to knock their accounts offline or deactivate their accounts,
because you can watch YouTube videos without an account, right
what's to say that a kid gets kicked off of
their YouTube account next week and then just logs on
as a normal person just kind of viewing YouTube and
then gets exposed to something that they're not supposed to
(05:35):
get exposed to because we didn't know they were a child, right,
because they're just an average person. One example of many
of just how complicated this can really be.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah. And then also if you google you know, I know, kids,
I mean kind of to your point, Chuck when you
were saying, you know what, there's so many more things
you can google, for instance, like breastfeeding, and you can
google that and you can just get all kinds of
nudity on there, and kids do that, you know what
(06:06):
I mean, and they're not stopping.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
First of all, it bothers me that you know that,
I just want to but you're right, I mean that.
And plus you know VPN access. That's something else. Do
they not have vp and access. I can get online
in Australia and say I'm in the United States and
get whatever I want.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, And those VPNs exist in Australia and experts there
will tell you they expect downloads of VPNs to soar
in the next week. As was the case guys when
the United States made various efforts to ban TikTok. Well,
TikTok is a social media platform that you know is
pretty it's pretty easy to fool TikTok and really any
website into thinking that your computer is somewhere that it's
(06:44):
not in a country that allows it to be there,
for example. So you know, there are various strategies to
get around this, and I think that especially if you're
a kid and you get told not to do something,
well that put the real, you know, lights of fire
to start figuring out a way to do it. So
that is something that lawmakers that are going to really
contend with and other governments around the world are going
(07:05):
to be watching very closely. Guys. We've seen similar efforts
to ban underage users or younger users on social media
from places like Norway, France, Spain. Even here in the
United States in Utah, there was an effort to ban
kids on social media under the age of eighteen. However,
that was blocked by a federal judge last year from
taking effect. So all of those various entities are going
(07:27):
to be watching Australia very closely to see how this goes.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Mike Dubuski, ABC News out of New York. Mike, thank
you very much, appreciate all this info.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Oh, of course, guys, take care seeing man.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I will say this with regard to the VPN and
fooling the computer into going, you know, you're really in Australia,
but they're like, then the you know online goes, Oh
they're in the US. Oh, how anything goes or what
have you. I can tell you the technology exists for that.
And here's how I know. For instance, DraftKings. You have
(07:59):
that app and you live here and you've registered with
DraftKings in the state of Ohio. So we were in
Michigan coming back and I'm not kidding. I was maybe
ten minutes from the border to getting back into Ohio
and tried to place a bet and it was like,
uh uh ah no, and you're not going to be
able to fool these sports betting apps. So that and
(08:22):
I don't know how you maybe try to get around that.
But if something seems amiss, the thing will just spin.
It will not let you place a bet until you
are it knew when we were back in Ohio, once
we were across the border, literally within like two minutes,
I went to do it and it led it through
the bet. So in other words, that exists, and I
(08:44):
don't know, maybe with a VPN you can fool, but
I don't think you can with the apps kind of
a thing.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Here in the great nanny state of Ohio. A couple
of months ago, didn't we institute new regulations for online pornography?
You had to upload your government ID or what? A asked?
I heard the online pornography providers said no, and we're
not complying. I haven't heard anything since. If you can
make all the rules you want, but if the companies
(09:11):
don't play by it, Meta folding like this kind of
surprises me because they are the giant, and if they
just refuse to conform, I don't think Australia really seriously
could do anything about it.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Well, the only other thing would be somehow on their side,
being Australia's side, are they able to somehow kind of
clamp that down and just close it off and no
Facebook in Australia. I don't know if they're able to
do that, but maybe there was that threat and then
you know, Meta is like, oh wait a minute, you know,
but I'm with you. I'm really surprised that they are going, Okay, yeah, yeah,
(09:48):
we're going to do this. We're going to make sure
everybody's sixteen or older and we're gonna I don't know,
half ass attempt if you will.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
But you know I never upload my government issued ID
for anything online me either.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
No, nope, I'm with you one hundred percent. As a
matter of fact, if they started doing that everybody has
to prove, I'd be like, okay, sweet, no more social
media for me. And by sweet, I.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Mean yes, sweet. I would be happy.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I would be very happy. I'd be like, well, I'm
not doing that. Det say yeah, yeah,
Mike Dubuski, ABC News is joining us right now, and hey, Mike,
welcome to the show. And this is this is pretty interesting,
although I I one hundred percent wish that this was
the case here in the States, and we're talking about Australia.
This law about you know, Facebook and Instagram and all
of that. But give us the very latest.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
On this, if you would, which is the company that
ownes Facebook, Instagram and Threads, has begun deleting accounts, basically
deactivating accounts in Australia belonging to kids under the age
of sixteen. And this comes ahead of a new piece
of legislation that's set to take effects next week on
(00:42):
December tenth, that would find companies ten companies across the
social media landscape for allowing kids under sixteen onto their
platforms in Australia. This legislation says that firms must take
reasonable steps to keep kids off their platforms otherwise bill
Facebook totaling up to thirty three million dollars apiece meta
(01:04):
as of today, as we already said, has he done
deactivating accounts seemingly to try and get around that or
get a jump on that idea. But of course, it
comes amid a great amount of concern both in Australia
and around the world, and so what effects social media
and some of the algorithms that are in place there
and some of the content that gets posted to these
platforms is having on younger people.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Now, I wish that we had something like that here
in the States. And you know, I've got a twelve
year old at home, and you know, I just I
just say to myself, I'm like, man, I'm the one
constantly having to police and you know, figure out via
our you know, Apple products. I'm like, you know, I'm
constantly having to put stuff in place to try to
(01:47):
But I I wish this was something that would happen
here in the States. Here's the other part of this,
and I maybe other countries are paying attention here with
regard to specifying how the social media companies should enforce
this new measure. And according to this there are various
ways to do that. Do you know what some of
these ways are.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Mike, Yeah, So, again, the law here does not specify
how a platform determines how old a user is. They
are leaving that open. Probably no surprise, right, because this
is actually kind of a complicated thing to do. On
its surface, you might think, oh, well, you have to
upload your birthday to all of these platforms, just kick
everyone off who's under sixteen, Well, gid lie, and that's common,
(02:31):
then that should be expected. So how do you determine
actually how old someone is on the internet. That's a
really difficult problem. One potential avenue here is to have
users upload a picture of their government ID alongside a selfie,
so the platform can cross reference those two images, make
sure that you are who you say you are, that
you're of age, and they'll kind of let you into
(02:52):
the platform. That is, you know, potentially a very effective
way to do this, But then you're also handing over
some pretty valuable data to these companies. What if there's,
for example, a data breach at Snapchat, Well, they're not
just on the hook for the selfies that you take now,
they're on the hook for your government driver's license. That's
a bit of a different concern. So that's one bucket here.
(03:13):
There's also the potential for them to use voice and
facial recognition technology to basically estimate how old you are.
That is, as you would expect, a pretty imperfect system.
A similar idea was implemented in the UK earlier this year,
and it was pretty roundly criticized for not being very effective.
People uploading pictures of video game characters, for instance, in
(03:33):
an effort to fool these system They're not perfect, as
is the case with most artificial intelligence products out there,
and even Australia's government kind of has downplayed the use
of that specific avenue because they say it's just kind
of the not preferable avenue. There's, in addition to that,
other ways that they can sort of track your behavior
(03:53):
online elsewhere. For example, Google or alphabet really owns YouTube,
so they can track your behavior cross Google Search and
the cross Google Drive and Google Docs. Maybe that behavior
can inform some estimation of what your actual age is. Again,
you can expect from these companies in Australia a sort
of full sale approach. They're probably going to use a
little bit of everything in order to actually figure this
(04:15):
out so they can avoid these fines.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Considering all of the trillions of offensive things you can
find on Google, I'm just wondering, is Facebook a completely
different beast in Australia than it is here? If you're
going to have access to all that other stuff it
just seems odd that Facebook would say we better take
this away from the kids.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Right Well, this is where some of the criticism has
started to leak in of this measure. There's right now
an effort in Australia to place an injunction on this
lot to stop it from taking effect before next week,
though currently a federal judge has not put a a
date on the calendar to hear that particular argument. But
it really does underscore guys that this is a complex
(04:54):
problem and taking an approach like this does come with
a lot of criticism. Right now, the law only encompasses
ten companies, as we said, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, but
also Snapchat, x TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Kick and Twitch, just
to sort of underscore how kind of forty this can become.
YouTube has criticized this law for saying, well, hey, you're
(05:14):
actually gonna make this less safe for kids if you're
going to knock their accounts offline or deactivate their accounts,
because you can watch YouTube videos without an account, right
what's to say that a kid gets kicked off of
their YouTube account next week and then just logs on
as a normal person just kind of viewing YouTube and
then gets exposed to something that they're not supposed to
(05:35):
get exposed to because we didn't know they were a child, right,
because they're just an average person. One example of many
of just how complicated this can really be.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah. And then also if you google you know, I know, kids,
I mean kind of to your point, Chuck when you
were saying, you know what, there's so many more things
you can google, for instance, like breastfeeding, and you can
google that and you can just get all kinds of
nudity on there, and kids do that, you know what
(06:06):
I mean, and they're not stopping.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
First of all, it bothers me that you know that,
I just want to but you're right, I mean that.
And plus you know VPN access. That's something else. Do
they not have vp and access. I can get online
in Australia and say I'm in the United States and
get whatever I want.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, And those VPNs exist in Australia and experts there
will tell you they expect downloads of VPNs to soar
in the next week. As was the case guys when
the United States made various efforts to ban TikTok. Well,
TikTok is a social media platform that you know is
pretty it's pretty easy to fool TikTok and really any
website into thinking that your computer is somewhere that it's
(06:44):
not in a country that allows it to be there,
for example. So you know, there are various strategies to
get around this, and I think that especially if you're
a kid and you get told not to do something,
well that put the real, you know, lights of fire
to start figuring out a way to do it. So
that is something that lawmakers that are going to really
contend with and other governments around the world are going
(07:05):
to be watching very closely. Guys. We've seen similar efforts
to ban underage users or younger users on social media
from places like Norway, France, Spain. Even here in the
United States in Utah, there was an effort to ban
kids on social media under the age of eighteen. However,
that was blocked by a federal judge last year from
taking effect. So all of those various entities are going
(07:27):
to be watching Australia very closely to see how this goes.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Mike Dubuski, ABC News out of New York. Mike, thank
you very much, appreciate all this info.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Oh, of course, guys, take care seeing man.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I will say this with regard to the VPN and
fooling the computer into going, you know, you're really in Australia,
but they're like, then the you know online goes, Oh
they're in the US. Oh, how anything goes or what
have you. I can tell you the technology exists for that.
And here's how I know. For instance, DraftKings. You have
(07:59):
that app and you live here and you've registered with
DraftKings in the state of Ohio. So we were in
Michigan coming back and I'm not kidding. I was maybe
ten minutes from the border to getting back into Ohio
and tried to place a bet and it was like,
uh uh ah no, and you're not going to be
able to fool these sports betting apps. So that and
(08:22):
I don't know how you maybe try to get around that.
But if something seems amiss, the thing will just spin.
It will not let you place a bet until you
are it knew when we were back in Ohio, once
we were across the border, literally within like two minutes,
I went to do it and it led it through
the bet. So in other words, that exists, and I
(08:44):
don't know, maybe with a VPN you can fool, but
I don't think you can with the apps kind of
a thing.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Here in the great nanny state of Ohio. A couple
of months ago, didn't we institute new regulations for online pornography?
You had to upload your government ID or what? A asked?
I heard the online pornography providers said no, and we're
not complying. I haven't heard anything since. If you can
make all the rules you want, but if the companies
(09:11):
don't play by it, Meta folding like this kind of
surprises me because they are the giant, and if they
just refuse to conform, I don't think Australia really seriously
could do anything about it.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Well, the only other thing would be somehow on their side,
being Australia's side, are they able to somehow kind of
clamp that down and just close it off and no
Facebook in Australia. I don't know if they're able to
do that, but maybe there was that threat and then
you know, Meta is like, oh wait a minute, you know,
but I'm with you. I'm really surprised that they are going, Okay, yeah, yeah,
(09:48):
we're going to do this. We're going to make sure
everybody's sixteen or older and we're gonna I don't know,
half ass attempt if you will.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
But you know I never upload my government issued ID
for anything online me either.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
No, nope, I'm with you one hundred percent. As a
matter of fact, if they started doing that everybody has
to prove, I'd be like, okay, sweet, no more social
media for me. And by sweet, I.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Mean yes, sweet. I would be happy.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I would be very happy. I'd be like, well, I'm
not doing that. Det say yeah, yeah,
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