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Speaker 1: The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies says the podcast

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Speaker 1: sector in South Africa currently exists in what it calls

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Speaker 1: a regulatory vacuum, no clear definition of what constitutes a podcast,

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Speaker 1: who should regulate it, what standards should apply, and so

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Speaker 1: the government wants a new regulatory framework for podcasts which

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Speaker 1: podcast listenership is growing significantly in South Africa, not through

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Speaker 1: any efforts of my own, because I have yet to

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Speaker 1: listen to a single second of any podcast. I don't

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Speaker 1: know why. I've just never been attracted to the podcast industry,

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Speaker 1: but I never have never listened to a single podcast.

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Speaker 1: I suppose because I can read so much quicker than

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Speaker 1: one can listen, and so the information I want to

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Speaker 1: absorb I find quicker and easier to absorb through my

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Speaker 1: eyes than through my ears. William Bird, director of Media

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Speaker 1: Monitoring Africa Joints, is now William Good afternoon.

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Speaker 2: Last Nay, thanks for having me on the program.

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Speaker 1: Do we need them to be regulated? I mean, don't

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Speaker 1: we have enough laws around things like hate speech and

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Speaker 1: defamation and slander and so on that cover any problems

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Speaker 1: that might occur as somebody saying something they shouldn't to

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Speaker 1: their subscribers.

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Speaker 2: So in essence, this is part of a kind of

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Speaker 2: a bigger argument about platforms and unaccountability of a lot

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Speaker 2: of online content. So if people have a concern about

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Speaker 2: what you say, they can report you to the BCCSA

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Speaker 2: and there's a complaints process. There is a formal thing

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Speaker 2: that everything can get addressed. And if you ever complaint

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Speaker 2: about a podcast, however, that avenue isn't there. You can

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Speaker 2: potentially complain to the platform sometimes you know, and say

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Speaker 2: this is a problem with the station, but like complaining

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Speaker 2: on social media platform, it goes into an international thing.

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Speaker 2: It disappears you have no idea whatever happens to it.

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Speaker 2: And that's part of why they say it's exists in

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Speaker 2: a regulate vacuum. There's no kind of self regulatory body

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Speaker 2: that exists formerly to deal with these things. There is

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Speaker 2: now something called the Essay Podcaster as Guild, but it

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Speaker 2: doesn't operate like a bc CSA or a press council.

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Speaker 2: So to the extent that there are challenges with it,

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Speaker 2: you know, there's legitimacy in saying if people have concerns,

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Speaker 2: there should be a process that has It allows for

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Speaker 2: complaints to be made cheaply, any quickly, and easily, and

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Speaker 2: there should be some mechanism for a reveal and appeal

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Speaker 2: of that. Without that, you know, you may be opening

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Speaker 2: ourselves up to other problems. It doesn't mean that if

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Speaker 2: you see or hear a hate speech on a podcast

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Speaker 2: that there's no avenue. Of course, as you point out,

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Speaker 2: there are laws. You can report that podcast to the

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Speaker 2: South African Human Arts Commission and then they can deal

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Speaker 2: with it that way. But it's not a quick, easy

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Speaker 2: thing like it is for broadcasters for example.

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Speaker 1: And all the media, well at least some of the

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Speaker 1: print media. You know, many of the newspapers and some

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Speaker 1: of the online news organizations subject themselves to the scrutiny

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Speaker 1: of onbuds or the Press Council, and others like independent

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Speaker 1: newspapers have taken them asselves out of that regulatory arena.

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Speaker 1: And you know, if you want to complain about something

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Speaker 1: that is in the times of the argus, you can't

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Speaker 1: go to the Press Council media on but you have

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Speaker 1: to complain to them and they'll ignore that, or you

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Speaker 1: you know, you go to the Human Rights Council, or

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Speaker 1: you go to the police or whatever. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: you sound as if you are supportive of at least

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Speaker 1: some form of regulation over the podcast industry.

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Speaker 2: William So, I mean what emerged from the days round

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Speaker 2: table is that there are clearly gaps. There are also

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Speaker 2: clearly issues around sustainability for podcasters in as much as

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Speaker 2: the moment you start looking at the challenges of social media,

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Speaker 2: it's true that social media platforms board aren't accountable to

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Speaker 2: people in South Africa. So that's why I said it's

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Speaker 2: part of a bigger challenge. And this isn't the fact

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Speaker 2: something that is being looked at currently by the Department

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Speaker 2: of Communication and Digital Technologies. I wouldn't want to say

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Speaker 2: that it's podcast specific. I think that there are issues

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Speaker 2: with online content and online harms where people do need

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Speaker 2: and there does need to be some kind of regulation

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Speaker 2: to bring and hold the platforms themselves accountable in terms

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Speaker 2: of how you deal with specific complaints. I think that

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Speaker 2: there we need to explore what those kinds of mechanisms

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Speaker 2: look like, because as you point out, for broadcasters and

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Speaker 2: the overwhelming majority of you know, journalism media in South Africa,

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Speaker 2: they do belong to some kind of a self regulatory body.

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Speaker 2: And where the big gap is, of course, is that

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Speaker 2: the platforms you know, they each have different rules, or

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Speaker 2: if you are X or Twitter, you know you're the

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Speaker 2: rules are broadly optional, so there isn't need to do

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Speaker 2: something surely.

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Speaker 1: What we want though is kind of outside of the

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Speaker 1: heavy hand of the state.

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Speaker 2: Well exactly. So that's one of the approaches that emerges clearly,

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Speaker 2: and you know and uncontroversially that you that if you

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Speaker 2: do deal with these things, it's either coregulatory or self

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Speaker 2: regulatory mechanism. In other words, those that are then being

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Speaker 2: subjected to that. So the podcasters in this example would

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Speaker 2: get together and say we be to bide by a

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Speaker 2: particular code. The podcast is guilt, so they've got a

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Speaker 2: pledge that they buyde by, but it doesn't have the

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Speaker 2: same kind of complaints mechanism, so they may just choose

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Speaker 2: to sort of upgrade that and then it would effectively

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Speaker 2: cover that gap. Or you have a state that intervenes

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Speaker 2: that says we're going to introduce a coregulatory model where

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Speaker 2: the focus is on holding platforms accountable. In other words,

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Speaker 2: if there are there are hate speech podcasts on Spotify,

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Speaker 2: the state would say to all this entity could say

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Speaker 2: to Spotify, you need to take those down, and if

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Speaker 2: you don't, we might choose to find you as an example.

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Speaker 1: William Byrd, thank you very much. Indeed, Director of Media

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Speaker 1: Monitoring Africa,