Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven Am. The
Speaker 1: first report from E Safety on how the government's under
Speaker 1: sixteen social media ban is going has been released and
Speaker 1: the early picture is grim. Kids are getting around the
Speaker 1: ban and E safety says it's seemed no drop in
Speaker 1: cyber bullying or abuse reports and bolding children on those platforms.
Speaker 1: So is this just a messy start and the government
Speaker 1: is right in asking for more patients or is it
Speaker 1: proven that you can't simply fix platforms built to hook
Speaker 1: young people by simply locking them out. Today Krokey Associated
Speaker 1: editor Cam Wilson on why the band isn't working and
Speaker 1: whether Australia is focusing on the wrong fix. This Tuesday,
Speaker 1: April seven, Cam, good to speak with you again three
Speaker 1: months on Safety has released data and how the under
Speaker 1: sixteen social media ban is going. So what's the verdict?
Speaker 2: I think the first look from the government about how
Speaker 2: the teen social media ban is going is a red
Speaker 2: flashing light for the policy. The government released a report
Speaker 2: at the same time as they announced that they're investigating
Speaker 2: five of the biggest social media companies for failing to
Speaker 2: comply to their expectations with the ban. But in the
Speaker 2: report is the real story, which is that it confirmed
Speaker 2: how much circumvention there is of the ban, that is
Speaker 2: kids getting around it. About seventy percent of them said
Speaker 2: they still had them after the ban. That is very,
Speaker 2: very widespread. Also, when you start to think about, well, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, at the end of the day, the number
Speaker 2: of kids who are being on or off is actually
Speaker 2: a kind of you know, it's a means to an
Speaker 2: end and not the end itself. There was some data
Speaker 2: from E Safety, which is the regulator who enforces it,
Speaker 2: but it's also responsible for, you know, protecting young peop
Speaker 2: people against range of other harms. They said their number
Speaker 2: of reports about cyber buoying and image based abuse on
Speaker 2: those platforms that have been banned from teens in the
Speaker 2: age group that were meant to be banned had not changed.
Speaker 2: So we can tell from that that harms that they
Speaker 2: were hoping would be addressed by the ban so far
Speaker 2: early days have not actually changed.
Speaker 1: A lote time ago in Ganery, the government declared the
Speaker 1: ban an early success, releasing data showing that roughly four
Speaker 1: point seven million accounts have been deactivated.
Speaker 3: In the first week of our social media ban to
Speaker 3: four point seven million accounts were deactivated, action decommissioned. Those
Speaker 3: are incredible numbers.
Speaker 1: They said, Was that figure accurate?
Speaker 2: CAMP, So to give the context like this is a
Speaker 2: worldfast policy, the fact that they've done this and managed
Speaker 2: to get these tech companies to actually enforce this is
Speaker 2: an accomplishment. You know. I reported weeks before the band
Speaker 2: was set to coming in mid December that some of
Speaker 2: the companies were still quibbling about whether there were social
Speaker 2: media companies at all. So on December ten, when it
Speaker 2: came in, the ten companies that they had kind of
Speaker 2: listed as being in the band all complied. It was,
Speaker 2: you know, a remarkable achievement to actually like land the
Speaker 2: plane in that regard. A month later, they had this
Speaker 2: data from that first week saying these companies removed four
Speaker 2: point seven million accounts or deactivated them.
Speaker 3: Those are incredible numbers. They said. It couldn't be done,
Speaker 3: but Australia is showing just how we could do it.
Speaker 2: But there were some early holes poked in those numbers.
Speaker 2: You know, I heard from tech company sources that many
Speaker 2: of those were not active, were duplicates. So you shouldn't
Speaker 2: look at that number as necessarily proof that all these
Speaker 2: kids have been removed. But we're seeing that despite that
Speaker 2: enormous number, there are still clearly many kids who are online.
Speaker 2: Many of them have like multiple accounts across platforms. So
Speaker 2: you've got, you know, you've got a snaptrad account, and
Speaker 2: you've got a TikTok account, you've got a Facebook account,
Speaker 2: and they're also reportedly some kids have like deleting their
Speaker 2: account that they had used for a while and just
Speaker 2: created a new one with no real identifying information so
Speaker 2: that they can continue to be on these platforms. The
Speaker 2: government has entered into this massive game of whack a
Speaker 2: mole where kids are actively trying to get around it,
Speaker 2: and so this number that came out was proof that
Speaker 2: they had done something, that the tech companies had done something.
Speaker 2: Now we're kind of coming to terms with the fact
Speaker 2: that that number doesn't actually necessarily directly prove that kids
Speaker 2: have substantially been taken off these platforms.
Speaker 1: So what's the government said about the fact that this
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be going too well at the moment.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, this is a comment that has always
Speaker 2: stuck in my mind before the ban had even come
Speaker 2: into effect, Anthony alb Easy said on TV the ban
Speaker 2: was already a success.
Speaker 1: How will you be measuring the success of this?
Speaker 4: It is a success already divid because what's happening is
Speaker 4: that parents are having this discussion with the young ones.
Speaker 2: On the day that the ban happened, they celebrated it
Speaker 2: and I think pretty fairly it was a significant policy.
Speaker 2: And then a month afterwards they released these numbers and
Speaker 2: again reason to say this is working. But in the
Speaker 2: last week the government has now for the first time,
Speaker 2: started to acknowledge this widespread circumvention. The Communications Minister Anaka Wells,
Speaker 2: who's charged with overseeing the policy. Their response so far
Speaker 2: has been well, now it's time to really step up
Speaker 2: and crack down on these tech companies and do a
Speaker 2: better job now of figuring out how they're actually doing
Speaker 2: ongoing compliance with this.
Speaker 3: All of the platforms who are covered by our social
Speaker 3: media minimum age laws said that they would respect our
Speaker 3: laws and if these companies want to do business in Australia,
Speaker 3: they must obey Australian laws.
Speaker 2: I reported last year the government was given a report
Speaker 2: that they didn't release the fourth thing to the public
Speaker 2: by a research agency that said we believe that if
Speaker 2: kids thwart the ban, they get around it, it will
Speaker 2: lead to normalization of circumvention and also we think undermine
Speaker 2: the ultimate benefits because like, if you're a teen and
Speaker 2: you are one of the people who are unlucky enough
Speaker 2: to draw the short straw and get kicked off social
Speaker 2: media and all your friends are still on there, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, like you can think of the dynamics of that.
Speaker 2: You want to see everyone else and even if you
Speaker 2: are on there, you're going to think that it's still
Speaker 2: normal to be on there. So you know, I think
Speaker 2: this change from the government is the first step to
Speaker 2: acknowledging this problem. They say they're investigating these major companies
Speaker 2: and they're turning the screws in the companies because they
Speaker 2: want the companies to turn the screws on the kids.
Speaker 2: The question I think is is to what extent is
Speaker 2: this ability to get around the band to thwart the
Speaker 2: certain methods that are being used, To what extent can
Speaker 2: it be fixed by changing in policy, And to what
Speaker 2: extent is it kind of intrinsic to the difficulty of
Speaker 2: trying to prove people's age online?
Speaker 1: Coming up why met as terrible week in the US
Speaker 1: courts could impact our laws here.
Speaker 3: As the independent regulator E Safety is actively investigating potential
Speaker 3: non compliance in relation to five platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok,
Speaker 3: and YouTube. As Jay's world leading social media laws are
Speaker 3: not failing, but big tech is failing to obey the laws.
Speaker 1: A safety is working on a longer term evaluation of
Speaker 1: the plan. So when it comes to what success looks
Speaker 1: like actually reducing harms, how is a safety in the
Speaker 1: government going to measure that?
Speaker 2: So there are two ways that the government is currently
Speaker 2: looking at this, or specifically the e Safety Commissioner is
Speaker 2: looking at this. The first way is those investigations into
Speaker 2: how well the companies are enforcing it. They are working
Speaker 2: with an academic advisory board who is advising them on
Speaker 2: the best way to study it. And it's a longitudinal
Speaker 2: study that involves surveys. They're asking for medical health data.
Speaker 2: They're asking both parents and kids. They took some data
Speaker 2: before the ban came in. Now I think they've got
Speaker 2: like five. I think they call them waves of sections
Speaker 2: where they're checking in to see, you know, how is
Speaker 2: it affecting you based on what you say, how is
Speaker 2: it affecting how you use the phone. They're asking people
Speaker 2: who are participating to install apps on their phone. So
Speaker 2: they can actually see what apps that they are using.
Speaker 2: So there is this really broader evaluation that's being done.
Speaker 2: That's where we got this survey data saying that parents
Speaker 2: say that their kids are largely still on these platforms.
Speaker 2: Now the Communications Minister that will run a kind of
Speaker 2: legal evaluation of the war two years after it came
Speaker 2: into effect. That's part of the law and young people
Speaker 2: they're wellbeing. Use of technology is a very very complex area.
Speaker 2: I think it's good to see this scrutinized study that's
Speaker 2: being done. It will take a while to going to
Speaker 2: get some answers, and I don't think we should be
Speaker 2: holding our breath either to be told yes, no, this
Speaker 2: has been a.
Speaker 4: Success in breaking news out of the US. Now Meta
Speaker 4: and Google have been found guilty on all counts in
Speaker 4: a landmark trial that could shape the social media landscape.
Speaker 4: The social media cam.
Speaker 1: Meta itself has been in serious trouble in the US
Speaker 1: this month. It's lost two major court cases, one in
Speaker 1: New Mexico and the next day another in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about those cases?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure. So there were two substantial cases that came
Speaker 2: down in various US state courts. One that was around
Speaker 2: the fact that Meta Meta alone, which is the owner
Speaker 2: of Facebook, Instagram threads What's Up, had not done enough
Speaker 2: to protect young people from sexual exploitation. Warriors for the
Speaker 2: case had set up dummy youth accounts and found that
Speaker 2: they were being exposed to predators and the company wasn't
Speaker 2: doing enough to protect young users.
Speaker 5: The jury woruld tuesday the company violated state law by
Speaker 5: failing to warn users about the dangers of IT platforms
Speaker 5: and protect children from sexual predators. Meta was ordered to
Speaker 5: pay three hundred and seventy five million dollars in damages.
Speaker 5: The company plans to appeal the decision.
Speaker 2: There's separates a little bit more attention that was Meta
Speaker 2: and YouTube were both found to have been negligent in
Speaker 2: creating app designs that had led one specific young person
Speaker 2: to have mental health issues that contributed to her well being.
Speaker 6: Outside the California courthouse, families celebrating the outcome of a
Speaker 6: David Versus Goliath lawsuit one twenty year old woman against
Speaker 6: two social media giants. The jury found Mata and Google
Speaker 6: liable on all accounts after she alleged that the addictive
Speaker 6: design of their platforms kept her hooked and harmed her
Speaker 6: mental health.
Speaker 2: And this was substantial because one of the big legal
Speaker 2: protections that tech companies had in the US is that
Speaker 2: content that is served by platforms two users is not
Speaker 2: the responsibility of the platform as long as they abuided
Speaker 2: by some other laws. But essentially, like if you say
Speaker 2: I was shown eating disorder content on Instagram and I
Speaker 2: developed an eating disorder, these companies are actually protected by
Speaker 2: a rule that says, well, we're not actually responsible for
Speaker 2: the harm that is caused by content on our platform.
Speaker 2: This lawsuit took a different route. It said, we're not
Speaker 2: talking about the actual content that is served on the platform.
Speaker 2: We are talking about the platform's design itself, and it
Speaker 2: identified endless scroll, the algorithms that run the recommendation engines.
Speaker 2: These things, they said were leading users to harm. They
Speaker 2: caused harm in this one person's case, and this jury
Speaker 2: in California decided that yes, they were responsible for that.
Speaker 7: She will be paid millions of dollars. And that's just
Speaker 7: one woman. But this case affects millions, if not billions,
Speaker 7: more people all of us who use social media, because
Speaker 7: inevitably the product will change to make it safer, and
Speaker 7: the verdict in this will affect hundreds of other cases.
Speaker 2: And one thing this is substantial is we're seeing this
Speaker 2: distinction here. The distinction is not that like social media
Speaker 2: inherently is damaging. The issue is how these companies have
Speaker 2: designed their apps in a way that is linked to
Speaker 2: their business practices that is harming users. And I think
Speaker 2: that is very important to understand because there was this
Speaker 2: little change made to Australia's teen social media ban last
Speaker 2: week to roughly coincide with this, that they narrowed the
Speaker 2: band to say we are focusing on social media companies
Speaker 2: with these apps that have features that we deem to
Speaker 2: be harmful and addictive, the same things that were found
Speaker 2: to be harmful in this lawsuit. And why that is
Speaker 2: substantial is because meta like TikTok could actually now release
Speaker 2: versions of their app to my understanding of the law
Speaker 2: now in Australia, that could have teams back on it
Speaker 2: if they get rid of those features. We're now seeing
Speaker 2: the band narrowed to actually say social media inherently is
Speaker 2: not the wrong thing, it's actually these features. I haven't
Speaker 2: heard anything from social media companies. I don't think that
Speaker 2: we're going to get like you know, Facebook tomorrow will
Speaker 2: drop you know Facebook Australia that is like great to
Speaker 2: use that we're not worried about all this stuff. But
Speaker 2: it is a change in the WAW that I think
Speaker 2: is substantial because I think it is a more sophisticated
Speaker 2: war that gets away from this really blunt ban and
Speaker 2: some of its unintended consequences.
Speaker 1: So when we look at our social media ban and
Speaker 1: given what you've just said, CAM is Australia trying to
Speaker 1: solve the problem of protecting kids mainly by excluding them,
Speaker 1: while courts and others are increasingly saying the deeper problem
Speaker 1: is how these products were built in the first place.
Speaker 1: And so through the narrowing of that law, are they
Speaker 1: opening the door for Meta and other social media conglomerants
Speaker 1: to serve content to children.
Speaker 2: Again, let me put it this way. I don't think
Speaker 2: court is going to save us, Like, if it does
Speaker 2: end up holding it up, it will be you know,
Speaker 2: a cost that metatakes on board. But these things do
Speaker 2: influence what these companies do, you know, like the way
Speaker 2: I think for justice, the way for a better you
Speaker 2: know version of these apps that in particular that Australians say, well,
Speaker 2: we want them to work this way, you know, the
Speaker 2: way to that is thinking about regulation that makes these
Speaker 2: apps more like the way that we want them. Because
Speaker 2: companies are like Meta, like TikTok, like Snap, they also
Speaker 2: see Australian markets as a market that is valuable to them.
Speaker 2: They want to keep the users, and so that's the
Speaker 2: leverage that we have over them. There would have to
Speaker 2: be a lot for someone like to Facebook to withdraw
Speaker 2: from the market. So we should use that leverage to say, well,
Speaker 2: if you want to serve users in our country, we
Speaker 2: expect you to work like this, and we actually think
Speaker 2: that certain features are not okay or should we change.
Speaker 2: That is a leverage that we have, and I hope
Speaker 2: that this court case gives politicians a courage to know
Speaker 2: that there is a broad desire to do something. They've
Speaker 2: done this social media band that I think, you know,
Speaker 2: we still don't know, but I think that there is
Speaker 2: a broad desire fuel to help people and not just
Speaker 2: young people, but people of all ages to have experiences
Speaker 2: on these applications that would make them generally happier.
Speaker 1: Cam, thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, Australia has locked in another month's
Speaker 1: worth of fuel as consumers and motorists browsed for higher prices.
Speaker 1: Energy Minister Chris Balen says Australia initially had supply until
Speaker 1: mid April, but that's now being secured until May, with
Speaker 1: three point seven billion leters of fuel set to arrive
Speaker 1: this month. Prime Minister Anthony Alberinezi will also travel to
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia later this week to meet with counterparts about
Speaker 1: stabilizing each country's fuel supplies. And US President Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has rated it up pressure on Iran, threatening in an
Speaker 1: Easter Sunday social media post to target Iran's power plants
Speaker 1: and bridges if the strategic Strait of Whole Moves is
Speaker 1: not reopened. An expletive laden truth social post, President Trump
Speaker 1: stated the Iranian regime will be living in hell if
Speaker 1: the strait isn't reopened, following up by giving the deadline
Speaker 1: of Tuesday eight pm Eastern time. Iran meanwhile has expanded
Speaker 1: attacks and golf energy infrastructure, launching drones and missile strugs
Speaker 1: on petrochemical facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. You've been listening to seven AM. We'll
Speaker 1: be back tomorrow