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Speaker 1: Over in Australia, kids will soon be banned from social

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Speaker 1: media apps like TikTok and Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook.

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Speaker 1: The government's going to decide an age limit then they're

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Speaker 1: going to introduce legislation for the band before the end

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Speaker 1: of the year. And Chris lux And our Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: says he's thinking about doing a similar thing here now

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Speaker 1: Lisa Given as a professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute

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Speaker 1: of Technology and with us now, hey Lisa, Hello, they

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Speaker 1: haven't specified what age they're going to go for. What

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Speaker 1: do you reckon?

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Speaker 2: Ah, they haven't. They've sort of set arrange fourteen to sixteen.

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Speaker 2: Most other jurisdictions exploring this have head on fourteen. But

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Speaker 2: we'll see what they say.

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Speaker 1: And how do you think it's going to Where will

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Speaker 1: the enforcement be. Will it be at the point of

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Speaker 1: the social media site, so Facebook for letting the kids

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Speaker 1: sign up at all, or would it be at the

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Speaker 1: app store where the parents would have to give permission

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Speaker 1: for the download of the app.

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Speaker 2: It could be either one. We actually don't know that

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Speaker 2: quite yet. I suspect it will be at the point

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Speaker 2: of applying to say get an account. There may be

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Speaker 2: something pop up where parents might have to say upload

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Speaker 2: or at least a test to a child's age of

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Speaker 2: that minimum requirement.

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Speaker 1: Is that the smartest way of doing it, Well, this

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Speaker 1: is challenging.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's certainly a way to do it, and

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Speaker 2: you can then exclude people if they don't provide appropriate

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Speaker 2: evidence of age. The question is are there workarounds on that.

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Speaker 2: There's certainly ways that children could get around that type

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Speaker 2: of mechanism, using a VPN for example, or even just

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Speaker 2: accessing content through other people account man.

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Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what, Lisa, If there's one thing

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Speaker 1: you know about kids is that they know more about

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Speaker 1: technology than their parents, right, so that will get around us.

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Speaker 2: They know what they're doing. And I think that's really

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Speaker 2: the critical thing is is a ban even possible? The

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Speaker 2: other question is is this what we need? We don't

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Speaker 2: actually have definitive evidence around the harms to children with

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Speaker 2: social media, and so the experts are quite divided on

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Speaker 2: this one.

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Speaker 1: So let's say you find out who is whoever the

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Speaker 1: Facebook police are, find out that Johnny, whose age twelve

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Speaker 1: is on Facebook, who gets in trouble Johnny or Facebook

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Speaker 1: or Johnny's parents.

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Speaker 2: Effectively, it's going to be the social media companies. So

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Speaker 2: what the government is talking about is legislation that would

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Speaker 2: enable could be fines, different kinds of sanctions, could even

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Speaker 2: be court proceedings.

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Speaker 1: Is it going to work? What do you reckon, Lisa,

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Speaker 1: If you had to give us your professional opinion.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and my professional view is that this isn't going

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Speaker 2: to work. I think it's too simple a potential solution

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Speaker 2: for the complexity of the problem. This is really a

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Speaker 2: social problem. It's really about how do we keep our

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Speaker 2: children safe from harm. There are many other technical solutions,

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Speaker 2: for example, battling the algorithms on social media, and this

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Speaker 2: one leaves too many holes. There's almost no way to

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Speaker 2: ensure that every single child would be off of social

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Speaker 2: media under this legislation.

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Speaker 1: Does the responsibility really lie with parents to equip kids

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Speaker 1: for this world that we now live in?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely? I think it is about parents. It's also about teachers,

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Speaker 2: other people in the community that can help kids and

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Speaker 2: their families to navigate social media. I'd love to see

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Speaker 2: more resources going into those kinds of supports around digital literacy,

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Speaker 2: as well as regulation for social media companies to stop

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Speaker 2: the harmful content at the source.

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Speaker 1: What would you teach if there was a parent listening

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Speaker 1: right now, who had a button. I know, let's say

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Speaker 1: thirteen year old who wants to go on the face,

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Speaker 1: what would you say to the parents is the most

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Speaker 1: important thing to teach that child?

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Speaker 2: The most important thing is actually teaching them openness and

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Speaker 2: willingness to engage in dialogue about what they're seeing. So

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Speaker 2: I'd be wanting to sit with that child, help them

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Speaker 2: to set up an account, put some reasonable boundaries, perhaps

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Speaker 2: around what time of day you're going to do this,

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Speaker 2: and then have conversations about the content they're seeing online.

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Speaker 1: So, for example, if you've got a week go and

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Speaker 1: this is a problem particularly for girls, but it does

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Speaker 1: affect boys as well. But if you've got a girl

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Speaker 1: on Instagram and she's looking at the photographs of perfect

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Speaker 1: supermodels and their perfect lives and their perfect bodies and

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Speaker 1: starts to feel a bit bummed out about it, the

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Speaker 1: best thing is to go and talk to your parents

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Speaker 1: about as your parents can tell you, that's not really

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Speaker 1: what life is like. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, the problem itself does not go away with this

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Speaker 2: kind of ban. This is a social problem we have

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Speaker 2: around body image and the things that young women are

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Speaker 2: seeing online. But they're also going to see that in

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Speaker 2: real world. They see it on television and lots of

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Speaker 2: other places.

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Speaker 1: Lisa, it's good to talk to you. I really appreciate

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Speaker 1: your expertise on that, Lisa given professor at the Royal

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Speaker 1: Melbourne Institute of Technology. I mean that Lisa's banged on

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Speaker 1: as you can ban the kids if you want to,

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Speaker 1: but you're not actually you actually got to just equip them.

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Speaker 1: It's like, because whether the fourteen or sixteen or eighteen,

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Speaker 1: they're still gonna have to go and come across the

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Speaker 1: stuff on the internet. It's a bit like trying to

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Speaker 1: ban toddlers from walking on the footpath. The smartest thing

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Speaker 1: to do is to teach them road skills, isn't it,

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Speaker 1: So they can actually manage the roads. You can't ban

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Speaker 1: them from roads forever. For more from Hither to Duplassy

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Speaker 1: Allen Drive, listen live to news talks. It'd be from

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