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