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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks d Be

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Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about the proposed social media band for under

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Speaker 2: sixteens that has been pushed by a national To check

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Speaker 2: further about this, we're joined by Eric Crampton. He is

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Speaker 2: part of the New Zealand Initiative, the Chief Economist, and

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Speaker 2: he wrote about this very topic at the end of

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Speaker 2: last year. Eric, Very good afternoon to you.

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Speaker 3: And to you Eric.

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Speaker 4: Is social media problem to under sixteens in New Zealand?

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Speaker 4: Do we have solid evidence of this?

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Speaker 5: The evidence is pretty mixed. So there was a great

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Speaker 5: piece summarizing the lit in the Chronicle of Higher Education

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Speaker 5: late last year. There have been strong proponents of the

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Speaker 5: idea that social media is harmful for kids, predominantly Jonathan Hate.

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Speaker 5: The evidence is a little more mixed than he has

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Speaker 5: put up. I consider it sufficient as a parent to

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Speaker 5: be keeping an eye on things, but I don't think

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Speaker 5: that it rises to the level of justifying a band.

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Speaker 4: Is there any good in social media for kids? Understanding?

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Speaker 4: I guess that's the other side of it, because we

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Speaker 4: hear the problems, But is it creating any good in

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Speaker 4: the community.

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Speaker 5: Of course, my children talk to their friends on there

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Speaker 5: when they also go out to meet with them. They

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Speaker 5: do plenty of the actual in person interaction, but they

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Speaker 5: coordinate those through social media accounts. If you consider what's

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Speaker 5: happed to be social media, and the legislation could allow that,

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Speaker 5: it also lets them talk to their grandparents. You can

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Speaker 5: also there are other opportunities.

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Speaker 3: That come up.

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Speaker 5: It's a speech platform, right, so every speech platform there

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Speaker 5: is has some mix of good stuff and bad stuff.

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Speaker 5: There will be communities of kids that can connect with

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Speaker 5: each other online in way that might be more difficult

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Speaker 5: face to face because they're say from a mon art

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Speaker 5: minority group, or have a particular interest that isn't really

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Speaker 5: prevalent in their own school. They can find others that

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Speaker 5: are like minded and chat that way, and that can

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Speaker 5: be beneficial.

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Speaker 2: You wrote about the illusion of explanatory depth in this article,

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Speaker 2: and it's a very good article. People can see it

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Speaker 2: on the New Zealand Initiative website. But can you explain

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Speaker 2: that to us and our listeners when it comes to

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Speaker 2: something like this bill there is It sounds good and

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Speaker 2: theory sounds good on paper, but there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: fishooks when you kind of map it all out.

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Speaker 5: Sure. So what I was there thinking about was there's

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Speaker 5: a phenomenon where if people are asked to whether they

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Speaker 5: understand something, they'll often say, oh, yeah, sure, I understand it.

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Speaker 5: But then if they're asked, okay, now tell me in

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Speaker 5: detail how this thing works, things often fall apart, and

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Speaker 5: then they reassess whether they really understood it. So in

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Speaker 5: this case, I suppose that you thought that the evidence

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Speaker 5: rose to the level that the government really should consider this.

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Speaker 5: In that case, you need to think about, all right,

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Speaker 5: how could they actually implement this in practice? Now, what

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Speaker 5: I've come to in thinking about it more since I

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Speaker 5: wrote that article is that what any system that you

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Speaker 5: come to that puts the obligation on platforms to keep

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Speaker 5: kids off of the platforms is going to have to

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Speaker 5: fail in one of three ways, and you have to

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Speaker 5: pick which one you're most comfortable with. So you could

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Speaker 5: set up a system that's pretty easy for kids to

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Speaker 5: work around, you could set up a system that is

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Speaker 5: really inconvenient for adult users or users who are over

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Speaker 5: the age limit. And you could set up a system

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Speaker 5: that means the effective end of online privacy. So a

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Speaker 5: lot of people get real value out of having accounts

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Speaker 5: on Twitter or elsewhere that aren't really linked to their

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Speaker 5: real name because they're not able, they're not in a

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Speaker 5: job that allows them to speak freely. They have a pseudonym.

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Speaker 5: Some people know who they are, most don't. There is

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Speaker 5: some value in that. It is hard to design a system,

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Speaker 5: or at least I've seen no way of designing a

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Speaker 5: system that avoids at least one of those three problems.

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Speaker 5: And I worry that the legislation that's been proposed in

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Speaker 5: New Zealand seems to have a mix of all three

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Speaker 5: happening at the same time. So the obligation will be

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Speaker 5: on a platform provider to avoid giving accounts to people

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Speaker 5: who are under the age of sixty. They can rely

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Speaker 5: on government identification as a way of verifying and if

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Speaker 5: a kid puts up a fake ID, then that's a

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Speaker 5: good defense for the platform. So they are not liable

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Speaker 5: for a two million dollar fine. So what does that

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Speaker 5: mean in practice? Potentially, then if I'm fifteen and I

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Speaker 5: have a sixteen year old classmate, my sixteen year old

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Speaker 5: classmate can verify my account for me using their ID.

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Speaker 5: There's no prohibition on that. On the there'll be no

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Speaker 5: penalty for the kid having done that. The platform will

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Speaker 5: have every reason to store identification indefinitely in case they're

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Speaker 5: ever challenged on it. So it's the end of online

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Speaker 5: privacy because all of those could be subpoened. And if

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Speaker 5: you want to tighten things up so it's harder for

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Speaker 5: kids to use a friend's ID, you're going to require

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Speaker 5: something that frequently makes them double check their ID, So

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Speaker 5: just reverification to make it hard for to find the

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Speaker 5: same friend again to get it done again. And that'd

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Speaker 5: be burdensome for adults if it winds up going that

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Speaker 5: way when people discover that, shock horror, kids have gotten

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Speaker 5: around the system.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I mean kids are incredibly smart. And I

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Speaker 4: guess the other thing is if they're successfully running a

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Speaker 4: you know, so they actually do manage to put these

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Speaker 4: systems in place. The main social media ones, the one

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Speaker 4: we know, the marquee ones, there's a bunch of underground

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Speaker 4: social media and completely unregulated places that they could end up.

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Speaker 4: Do you think that that is a concern that the

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Speaker 4: unforeseen circumstance would be I'm just picking for chain, you know,

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Speaker 4: out of thineasia that kids end up in the dark

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Speaker 4: recesses because that's the only place they're allowed to be.

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Speaker 5: That's another real risk that the better you are at

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Speaker 5: keeping kids off of a platform that they want to

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Speaker 5: be on because that's where they're able to talk with

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Speaker 5: their friends, the more reason they have to find another

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Speaker 5: place where they can talk with their friends, whether that's

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Speaker 5: the rule blocks chat group or voice chat in a

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Speaker 5: video game or a weird foreign site that isn't subject

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Speaker 5: to New Zealand regulation because New Zealand can issue all

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Speaker 5: the directors at once. But if somebody's based that oversees

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Speaker 5: it and aren't in a jurisdiction that really cares what

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Speaker 5: New Zealand thinks, then there's not much to be done

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Speaker 5: about it. So that is yes, a risk.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, doctor Crampton, thank you very much for your thoughts

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Speaker 2: and expertise. Really appreciate it and very interesting, Really appreciate

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Speaker 2: your time.

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Speaker 5: No problem at all, thank you.

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Speaker 2: That is doctor Eric Crampton, a chief economist and part

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Speaker 2: of the New Zealand Initiative. The ACT Party is not

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Speaker 2: convinced a ban on social media for under sixteens will

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Speaker 2: work or is the right way to go. ACT Party

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Speaker 2: leader David Seymour joins us on the show David Good afternoon.

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Speaker 3: Good afternoon.

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Speaker 4: So you've said for every problem there is a solution

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Speaker 4: that is simple, neat and wrong. Do you see this

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Speaker 4: in this potential social media band for under sixteens. Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I do. It's one of those times when I think

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Speaker 3: we just need to take a step back. Yes, social

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Speaker 3: media is a real problem. There's a lot of bullying

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Speaker 3: online that being online brings up the worst in people

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Speaker 3: when they interact with each other. There's grotesque content, be

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Speaker 3: it sexual or violent or whatever. And there's also I

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Speaker 3: think an incentive for social media companies to make their

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Speaker 3: algorithms addictive. And there's a lot of literature you read

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Speaker 3: Jonathan Hate, You, Johann Hari, the people who really think

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Speaker 3: about this stuff to say it's just serving the way

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Speaker 3: that kid's minds evolve. All of that's true, But just

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Speaker 3: putting together a band slap dash in the middle of

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Speaker 3: a week of Parliament and saying this is your solution,

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Speaker 3: it's hard to believe that a solution that's simple can

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Speaker 3: actually solve a problem this complex. And here's just one

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Speaker 3: reason why you're not actually banning kids from the Internet.

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Speaker 3: You're banning kids from social media companies. And there's still

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Speaker 3: a million of the places on the Internet that can

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Speaker 3: have those three problems that I described. And actually, you know,

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Speaker 3: if anything, while social media companies are bad in some ways,

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Speaker 3: at least a relatively controlled environment compared with where they

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Speaker 3: can end up in the dark web.

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Speaker 4: How important is online anonymity for free speech? Because anything

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Speaker 4: that involves prove your age could risk that anonymity.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's another thing. I mean, if you look at

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Speaker 3: this band an actual fact, it's really a requirement on

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Speaker 3: adults to prove their identity before logging in. And you

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Speaker 3: think about how we're trying to reduce bureaucracy, it doesn't

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Speaker 3: seem very sensible. But look, here's what I said. We

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Speaker 3: shouldn't say it's all too hard to wash our hands

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Speaker 3: of it. We should use the parliament we're paying for, say, look,

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Speaker 3: you know, take it to a select committee. Have the

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Speaker 3: social media companies come and put their side of the story.

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Speaker 5: Have people like.

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Speaker 3: Jonathan Hats and Johann Hari, World Exports, zoom in, or

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Speaker 3: maybe even come here. Hear from your local school principle

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Speaker 3: about what works. Look at some of the technologies that

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Speaker 3: some parents are using to monitor and control their own

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Speaker 3: kid social media use the end of that process, we

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Speaker 3: might find that together as a country, we can have

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Speaker 3: a much smarter solution to this problem than slapping on

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Speaker 3: a band. And if it means we're six months behind Australia,

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Speaker 3: who are already having lots of trouble with their approach,

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Speaker 3: then so yes, I would rather judge when we finish

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Speaker 3: with a good result rather than when we start off

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Speaker 3: on the road to getting a bad one.

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Speaker 4: Do you think it's realistic to just say, look, parents,

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Speaker 4: you sort it out for your kids. If you think

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Speaker 4: it's a problem, then spend resources on solving the problem.

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Speaker 3: No, I don't. I think our society all together, business,

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Speaker 3: parents and the government all have a role to play,

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Speaker 3: just like I say that they all have a role

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Speaker 3: to play when it comes to school attendance. So the

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Speaker 3: community owns these problems because we get the impacts when

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Speaker 3: they go wrong. However, I also believe that we've got

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Speaker 3: to start being a little bit realistic about the fact

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Speaker 3: that the government alone cannot do the job of business

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Speaker 3: and community just by slapping on a ban. If solving

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Speaker 3: our problems was that simple, we wouldn't have.

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Speaker 2: Any David, thank you very much for your time. Really

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Speaker 2: appreciate it that is act party leader David cymore so

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Speaker 2: the social media band. The proposal is in the biscuit tin,

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Speaker 2: and if it gets pulled out of that biscuit tin,

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Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll chat more about that.

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Speaker 1: For more from News Talk st B, listen live on

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