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Speaker 1: Now on another subject altogether, the National Party has revealed

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Speaker 1: that it wants to ban social media for under sixteen

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Speaker 1: year olds. One of the MP's took he took emp

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Speaker 1: Katherine wood Weed is submitting submitting rather a member's bill

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Speaker 1: that would put the responsibility of age verification on the

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Speaker 1: social media companies and this is supported by the Prime Minister.

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Speaker 1: Stephen Sheeler is the former CEO of Facebook for Australia

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Speaker 1: and New Zealand. Has Stephen hither good idea to ban

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Speaker 1: the under sixteens.

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Speaker 2: I think it's a good idea in principle. I think

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Speaker 2: the challenge is going to be doing it in practice.

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Speaker 2: But I do think that evidence shows that younger people

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Speaker 2: there's harm to them. I think that they need to

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Speaker 2: be protected from and as we know, we kids kids

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Speaker 2: younger than thirteen are not allowed on social media. I

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Speaker 2: know if money find it away around that, but I

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Speaker 2: think there's a good, strong evidence to show that sixteen

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Speaker 2: is a good age for that sort of level.

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Speaker 1: What's the practical problem? Is it difficult for the social

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Speaker 1: media guys to actually confirm the kid's age.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's there's a lot that these platforms can do

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Speaker 2: in terms of using a I other verification methods to

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Speaker 2: try to discern what your real age is. However, I

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Speaker 2: think when you come to these levels where there's sort

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Speaker 2: of penalties that apply and there's going to be a

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Speaker 2: bigger regime, you then then set to ask question, well, okay,

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Speaker 2: well how is this going to be verified? Most kids

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Speaker 2: don't have Many kids don't have ID that you know,

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Speaker 2: that's that's that has their not like adults to a

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Speaker 2: driver's license and passports and things, So how they can

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Speaker 2: confirm their age or not confirm their age? What happens

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Speaker 2: when that there's a deception? What do the platforms do?

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Speaker 2: What do the platforms do in terms of storing this data?

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Speaker 2: Do we really want them to have this data? There's

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Speaker 2: a there is complexity in making it work. And look,

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Speaker 2: we've all been teenagers before. You know, you're not supposed

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Speaker 2: to buy alcohol or buy tobacco, and many kids get

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Speaker 2: around this, maybe some of us have on the who

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Speaker 2: we're listening today, But with social media it's the same

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Speaker 2: and that there's there's lots of ways trying to get

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Speaker 2: around these these prohibitions. So I think it's it's good

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Speaker 2: in theory, but it's always the devil's off in the

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Speaker 2: detail of how the government proposes to enforce this and

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Speaker 2: what penalties are proposing to put on the platforms if

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Speaker 2: it's not enforced.

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Speaker 1: Steve, and you have Kidzi, I do, yeah, and so

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Speaker 1: what are your rules around social media use.

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Speaker 2: For good or for bad? My kids are are probably

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Speaker 2: too young to even quite know what social media is.

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Speaker 2: I want, but we've and this has come into a

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Speaker 2: lot of folks who've worked at the big social media platforms.

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Speaker 2: I think I'm not unusual in this that there is

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Speaker 2: a there's a realization that for all the good that

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Speaker 2: the internet and for social media and that AI have

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Speaker 2: done for the economy, the society, for you know, for

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Speaker 2: all kinds of good benefits that come from these platforms,

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Speaker 2: the challenges are for certain people, particularly vulnerable folks in

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Speaker 2: our society, such as kids or young social media may

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Speaker 2: be simply an overwhelming technology that their brains simply and

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Speaker 2: involved enough to be able to deal with. And we've

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Speaker 2: done this with tobacco and with alcohol and other things,

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Speaker 2: to try to even driving a car, right, you restrict

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Speaker 2: it to a certain age and then we ease people

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Speaker 2: into it, and I think the time has come with

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Speaker 2: social media. So I'm a big believer that the thirteen

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Speaker 2: is too young. I think the limits should be higher.

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Speaker 2: I've seen evidence of success. Sixteen is about is a

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Speaker 2: good number. Some have advocated even higher, sort of eighteen twenty.

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Speaker 2: I think there you get into practical challenges that we

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Speaker 2: treat people as adults when they turn eighteen. For most

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Speaker 2: of us society, it's probably gonna be hard to restrict

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Speaker 2: social media past a certain age. But I think sixteen

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Speaker 2: sounds like a reasonable number. With my kids, you know,

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Speaker 2: we do in a way. They're more aware about social

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Speaker 2: media's challenges than I am, because they come home and

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Speaker 2: tell me, you know, you know, these are the reasons

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Speaker 2: why we need to control our social media usage. And

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Speaker 2: I think that's some of the things that are being

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Speaker 2: taught in scorch I think is good. There's a lot

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Speaker 2: more awareness at their age now about the challenges of

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Speaker 2: some of these platforms, the good things and the bad things.

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

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Speaker 1: appreciate your time. Thanks so much, as Steven Sheila, former

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Speaker 1: Facebook Australia New Zealand CEO.

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