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Speaker 1: The social media ban announced by the premiere yesterday. Now

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Speaker 1: Australian first legislation, although I see the federal government announced

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Speaker 1: late last week that Democracy and Public Safety, the Communications

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Speaker 1: Minister saying this is being threatened by social media and

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Speaker 1: its impact must be examined. So social media in the

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Speaker 1: gun State and federally, but certainly here in essay, this

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Speaker 1: is the first legislation when it comes into being that

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Speaker 1: will be in place in Australia, imposing a ban on

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Speaker 1: all children aged under fourteen from having access to a

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Speaker 1: social media account. Now, I reckon if you're a parent,

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Speaker 1: you would welcome this and I think it's a good move,

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Speaker 1: a positive move, although lots of questions, For instance, how

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Speaker 1: will it be policed? Susan McLain direct a cyber safety

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Speaker 1: solution Susan, good morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Matthew.

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Speaker 1: Where do we start with this? How would we police it?

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Speaker 2: Well, each to be impossible, and I'm all for anything

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Speaker 2: that aids young people remaining safe when they use technology. Absolutely,

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Speaker 2: But it doesn't matter what the law is or what

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Speaker 2: the rule is. If it's unenforceable or it's not enforced,

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Speaker 2: your moze will not have it. It's useless.

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Speaker 1: All right, So you reckon. It's impossible to police because

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Speaker 1: this relies on kids, for instance, putting in the right

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Speaker 1: birthday the right year.

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Speaker 2: But Matthew, we have this already. Every single platform has

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Speaker 2: a legal minimum age of thirteen, so the rule is

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Speaker 2: already there. I can tell you now in over eighty

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Speaker 2: percent of the children that I deal with it or

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Speaker 2: on these platforms against the rules, they are there because

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Speaker 2: their parents has helped them to lie. So for me,

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Speaker 2: in the work that I have done for over thirty years,

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Speaker 2: the number one problem is the parent knowingly and willingly

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Speaker 2: enabling their child to be somewhere they shouldn't be.

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Speaker 1: That's what we need to address, allowing them to lie

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Speaker 1: in way, so when parents have a family account they

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Speaker 1: deliberately put in the wrong year.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so there are things like Google Play and iTunes

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Speaker 2: where you can have family share it, so I'm not

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Speaker 2: talking about that. But this is where I am happy

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Speaker 2: for my eleven year old to have a Snapchat account.

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Speaker 2: Therefore I will help them put in a fake data

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Speaker 2: birth already in order to get that. And that is

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Speaker 2: the number one issue that I am seeing. If the

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Speaker 2: Premier is listening, hit me up, I'll come and talk

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Speaker 2: to him. I'll talk to his the leader who's going

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Speaker 2: to do this, and I'll set them down the right

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Speaker 2: path of reality not perception.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so there's a gap between the two this legislation,

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Speaker 1: then what is it You're going to say it's posturing?

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Speaker 1: Is that what it is?

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Speaker 2: Look for me, the only good thing about it at

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Speaker 2: the moment is that it's put in this issue front

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Speaker 2: and center until such time as parents actually understand the

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Speaker 2: risks that they are putting their child in front of

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Speaker 2: and the danger. Again, I can't see them changing their

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Speaker 2: habits because parents will face to me, Oh, but their

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Speaker 2: friends are there, or everyone else has it, or I

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Speaker 2: don't want them to miss out. So then they put

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Speaker 2: them on these platforms, expose them to harm, and then

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Speaker 2: are stuck with an unmitigated miss after it all goes wrong.

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Speaker 2: It requires like a complete solution. We need the platforms

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Speaker 2: to do better, to make it harder to sign up,

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Speaker 2: and we need ease of access for parents to report

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Speaker 2: accounts or teachers to report them. They haven't shut down.

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Speaker 2: We do need government rules and regulations. We do need laws.

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Speaker 2: I mean, civil society needs all of these things. But

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Speaker 2: one in isolation won't work, and we already have the

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Speaker 2: rules that state you've got to be thirteen. But I

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Speaker 2: can go into any primary school anywhere in the world

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Speaker 2: and I will have roughly eighty percent of all grade

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Speaker 2: five and six children have lied to set up an

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Speaker 2: account already. But to me, that's it has to be addressed.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Have you had a chance to look at how

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Speaker 1: this works in Florida with similar legislations in.

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Speaker 2: Play, No, because I don't think they've actually come down

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Speaker 2: to the nitty gritty of what it might look like.

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Speaker 2: If you look at some of the measure products, and

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Speaker 2: this is going into their VR realm, a lot of

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Speaker 2: those are a districted where you have to look into

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Speaker 2: your device and there's a program on it that will

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Speaker 2: actually guesstimate your age if you like. So we have

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Speaker 2: to look at age verification type products. Do we want

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Speaker 2: to give social media platforms all our tudent's personal information?

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Speaker 2: We'll know we don't, and we certainly it's be're not

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Speaker 2: allowed to take them. But when it's sort of like

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Speaker 2: the face ID for your phone, it recognizes your face,

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Speaker 2: it lets you into your phone. So there are programs

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Speaker 2: where they can you could look into the device and

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Speaker 2: an approximate age would be given and then that would

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Speaker 2: be a yes you can continue or no you can't.

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Speaker 2: Ways around that. Have your older looking friend looked into it. Again,

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Speaker 2: it's not going to stop parents doing that in order

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Speaker 2: to put their kids there. So there is absolutely no

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Speaker 2: one hundred percent fail safe way. But I think we

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Speaker 2: need to do more to educate parents about the risks

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Speaker 2: and the dangers of social media poses and empower them

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Speaker 2: to say no, okay.

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Speaker 1: Federally, let's look at this, the Communications Minister saying the

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Speaker 1: Joint Standing Committee to examine algorithms on social media platforms

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Speaker 1: determining what people see as well as impact on mental health.

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Speaker 1: That's got to be a positive move.

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Speaker 2: It is, but it's not new to anyone in the field.

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Speaker 2: You know, you read all of these things and you think,

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Speaker 2: oh my god, this is just happening. No, no, it's not.

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Speaker 2: This has been an issue that has been raised by

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Speaker 2: people who are on the transport and on the ground

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Speaker 2: for a long time. We also need to understand that

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Speaker 2: the way the algorithms push content an adult is very

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Speaker 2: different to what a push is to a child. And

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Speaker 2: again you can get into the censorship if you like,

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Speaker 2: for an adult who chooses what someone can see. But

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Speaker 2: that's a whole other argument for me. My main concern

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Speaker 2: is young people, and you know, whether you want to

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Speaker 2: see it or not, there's certain things that children shouldn't

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Speaker 2: see because we know it impacts their mental health and

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Speaker 2: we already have a mental health crisis.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, And do you believe the premier says, well, it

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Speaker 1: seems to be worse since front facing cameras came along.

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Speaker 1: Would you agree with that.

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Speaker 2: I don't think it's solely front facing cameras. We had

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Speaker 2: issues when webcams were put on digital devices. It's not

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Speaker 2: just the camera things, but a whole lot of things

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Speaker 2: have come in over the past perhaps five to ten years,

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Speaker 2: and there's more apps, there's more platforms, there's more people

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Speaker 2: with devices. If you go back to the early days

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Speaker 2: of their internet and smartphones, there was a whole lot

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Speaker 2: of protective factors in play, not that we knew it

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Speaker 2: at the time, but we do now because little people

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Speaker 2: didn't have access to the devices. So you know, if

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Speaker 2: there'd never been a child in primar school with a

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Speaker 2: mobile phone, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in

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Speaker 2: lower secondary with the phone. There was the class there

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Speaker 2: was a class computer singular. So all these things in

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Speaker 2: fact kept kids safer because they weren't there exposed and

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Speaker 2: with the access. So we're never going to go back

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Speaker 2: to that. But for me, it's about education, and it

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Speaker 2: is about empowering parents to support each other to say no,

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Speaker 2: and it is to hold the platforms to account. Absolutely yeah.

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Speaker 1: And given that, for instance, Mask refused to take down

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Speaker 1: content that many would find offensive, holding them to account

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Speaker 1: is no easy task. As we know, we know, and.

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Speaker 2: I mean he's an outlayer here. You tend to find

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Speaker 2: that meta and google when that the issue happened in

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Speaker 2: relation to the stabbing at the church, they quickly act

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Speaker 2: as they removed the content, et cetera, et cetera. He

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Speaker 2: is a whole different in kettle of fish. But it

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Speaker 2: just goes to show that it is a very difficult

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Speaker 2: thing to actually moderate and manage no matter where you

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Speaker 2: are in the world.

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Speaker 1: It does come down to good parenting ultimately, though, it does, and.

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Speaker 2: Being prepared to say no. You know, if you've got

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Speaker 2: upset your kids at least once a week, you're probably

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Speaker 2: not trying hard enough. And you know the very worst

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Speaker 2: reason you can give in to your child is because

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Speaker 2: another parent gave in for now. A lot of the

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Speaker 2: primary schools I work with now, the whole year group

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Speaker 2: get together and they signed basically an agreement we are

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Speaker 2: not going to put AC kids on this platform. So

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Speaker 2: it's one in, all in, and then it gets rid

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Speaker 2: of the badgering about our soci's got it or Tommy's

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Speaker 2: got it. No one has it, therefore we're all safe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting, you know, and just being handed information about

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Speaker 1: teachers quit talk, a social media trend where seventeen thousand

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Speaker 1: people have put on to teacher quit talk, a tag

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Speaker 1: on TikTok, wracked up four million views on the single

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Speaker 1: most watched video. Other tags like teacher burnout twelve thousand

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Speaker 1: posts on that basically what seems to be Australian. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of Australians on it, and just teachers saying

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Speaker 1: I'm bailing out. I just can't do this anymore. But

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Speaker 1: all on TikTok, where young graduates, young teachers seeing this

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Speaker 1: thinking well maybe there's something in this. I'm in the

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Speaker 1: wrong profession and social media working against them in that way.

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Speaker 2: And this is what I think mainstream people don't understand,

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Speaker 2: is this way that social media has if you have

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Speaker 2: said a diet of something long enough, you're going to

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Speaker 2: believe it if you see it from various sources, and

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Speaker 2: it just it permeates, so it comes in underneath and

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Speaker 2: it grows and grows and grows. So whilst that can

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Speaker 2: be for content that is really really good and positive

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Speaker 2: and useful, it can be for stuff that is detrimental.

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Speaker 2: It can cause people to think a certain way, but

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Speaker 2: that perhaps would not normally. Now that doesn't have to

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Speaker 2: be a negative, but it often is. I think we

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Speaker 2: need more education around how platforms work, what they take,

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Speaker 2: what they use, what they feed to you through the algorithms.

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Speaker 2: But ultimately, you know, adults need to be adulting and speak,

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Speaker 2: to be making those those tough choices. Parenting the tough gig.

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Speaker 2: But you know you will never ever forgive yourself if

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Speaker 2: your child ends up in trouble or the victim of

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Speaker 2: crime because you said yes when you should have said no.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, Susan, thank you for your time.

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Speaker 2: Pleasure always.

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Speaker 1: Susan McLain, Director Cyber Safety Solutions. Lots of good info

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Speaker 1: on her website as well. Just Google Cyber Safety Solutions