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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed B.

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

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Speaker 2: As Australia begins at social media band to under sixteen

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Speaker 2: year olds, The Free Speech Union is worn that doing

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Speaker 2: the same here would do more harm than good. To

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Speaker 2: discuss further, we're joined by Julaine Heather, Free Speech Union

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Speaker 2: Chief Executive Julaine Very good afternoon to you, Cure.

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Speaker 3: To Tyler, Kyda, Matt, thanks for having me on.

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Speaker 4: Do under sixteen year olds have the same rights to

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Speaker 4: free speech as the rest of us?

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Speaker 3: No, it is our position literally as an organization, we

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Speaker 3: legislate for children all the time on a different on

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Speaker 3: a different level than adults, you know, in terms of schooling, drinking, voting,

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Speaker 3: so many, so many aspects. So they don't have the

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Speaker 3: same rights as adults. That doesn't mean they have no rights,

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Speaker 3: though I do absolutely think that taking away or banning

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Speaker 3: their access makes them digitally illiterate and does not set

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Speaker 3: them up for the future. But the rights are different.

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Speaker 4: So they have some rights. And if we do remove

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Speaker 4: the sixteen year olds from social media, does this just

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Speaker 4: remove young voices from what is essentially now the public square?

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Speaker 4: Of discourse in modern societies.

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Speaker 3: No, exactly. So look, our concerns are twofold. One of them,

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Speaker 3: the most the largest, is that any system that we

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Speaker 3: think that will be built to protect kids will actually

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Speaker 3: end up limiting lawful speech for adults, either you know, censorship,

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Speaker 3: collecting excessive personal data you know, etc. Or limiting access

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Speaker 3: for people to get on to the digital marketplace. So

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Speaker 3: our main concern is that we have not seen a

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Speaker 3: system that's rolled out that doesn't have false positives and

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Speaker 3: doesn't actually end up censoring and limiting freedom of expression

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Speaker 3: for adults. But then to your second point, I absolutely

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Speaker 3: think it takes well, it takes away the young voices

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Speaker 3: from their marketplace, their ability to inter rapt with each other,

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Speaker 3: their ability to enter into businesses, their ability to seek help,

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Speaker 3: seek information, etc. And as we all know, we're already

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Speaker 3: seeing it, it just drives them. It's funneling them to

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Speaker 3: different sites, and it will funnel them out of the light,

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Speaker 3: literally to darker and darker and dodgier sites. They're already going, right,

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Speaker 3: They're already clean in the masses.

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Speaker 4: Seems to be the case that Australia, there are there's

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Speaker 4: some parts of it because I'll ask you about digital

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Speaker 4: anonymity in a minute, but what's been suggested in Australia

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Speaker 4: there are some safeguards around people's information, like the data

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Speaker 4: must be used only for age verification where and then

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Speaker 4: must be deleted. No, there's no central government database of

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Speaker 4: the information taken by these platforms to check someone the

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Speaker 4: age is and you know, strict penalties for misuse, so

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Speaker 4: people will still be allowed to be anonymous in Australia.

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Speaker 4: Do you believe those safeguards are enough that they're bring

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Speaker 4: in Australia?

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Speaker 3: Many breaches have we seen from the UK when they

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Speaker 3: brought their acting in July already happening? Was it? How

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Speaker 3: many millions on discord? Was there a data breach? Our

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Speaker 3: data is not safe out there, and I think collecting

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Speaker 3: sensitive data for young people is literally what they term

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Speaker 3: a honeypot in terms of we've just created a holy

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Speaker 3: grail for people to go after. The government talks about data,

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Speaker 3: but how many data breaches literally occur almost every day

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Speaker 3: around the world here. So look, I think the problem

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Speaker 3: is real. You know, if there's predatory algorithms, if there's

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Speaker 3: farm to kids from some of the social media address

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Speaker 3: the problem, make it a proportional response, empirically verified and actually,

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Speaker 3: you know, improve the digital literacy, improve the parental tools,

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Speaker 3: improve the education, and go after the platforms for that

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Speaker 3: asymmetrical algorithm addicting sort of bit. It's a blunt toool

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Speaker 3: that they're doing. I think it's led to sort of

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Speaker 3: virtue signaling. I don't think it works, and we know

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Speaker 3: the kids will find a way around it.

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Speaker 2: Well, we just say to the argument Julane that they're

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Speaker 2: having over in Australia right now with this legislation, that

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Speaker 2: they know that there will be people that will bypass

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Speaker 2: the band and it's not going to be finable offense

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Speaker 2: if you do that. There's obviously some steep fines for

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Speaker 2: the platforms that don't take reasonable steps, but there's flexibility

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Speaker 2: in that law. So their argument is this is a

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Speaker 2: step in the right direction, but it's not going to

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Speaker 2: be iron clad. It's not going to catch every under

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Speaker 2: sixteen year old using the social media, but it's an

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Speaker 2: effort to try and change behavior.

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Speaker 3: I think culture changes behavior. Not passing a law that

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Speaker 3: doesn't actually probably address the problem. As soon as you

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Speaker 3: prohibit something, what happens. Prohibition just doesn't work right, It

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Speaker 3: makes it almost more desirable. Look, I absolutely understand the impetus.

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Speaker 3: I understand the protective you know, sort of urge that

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Speaker 3: people are feeling, and I know there are real harms

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Speaker 3: out there. I just think this is a really blood

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Speaker 3: instrument that that hasn't been proved to work so far,

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Speaker 3: and we'll just drive kids into different places underground, you know,

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Speaker 3: et cetera. Look, it's the school holidays. Australia is bringing

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Speaker 3: this in at a time when kids are going to

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Speaker 3: have all the time in the world on their hands.

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Speaker 3: I bet you that they are not outside plane on

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Speaker 3: the eleventh of December. I bet you that they're on

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Speaker 3: the VPNs and social media figuring out a way around

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Speaker 3: or just going to new platforms right until the government

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Speaker 3: comes after those platforms.

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Speaker 4: And it could potentially make just a whole generation of

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Speaker 4: really digitally sneaky people, yeah, you know that have trained

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Speaker 4: from a young age to circumvent regulations. Now we're hearing

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Speaker 4: this a lot, and this is a wider issue, but

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Speaker 4: we're hearing a lot on the text machine right now.

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Speaker 4: What is the problem with people using their real names online?

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Speaker 4: People say it, Well, you know, make the discourse better

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Speaker 4: if people have to back up what they're saying with

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Speaker 4: their reputations in real life. So is anonymity online important

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Speaker 4: for free speech in why?

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Speaker 3: Look I believe that no exactly, Look, I believe that

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Speaker 3: it is. And look, don't get me wrong, I would

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Speaker 3: love more managed to come back in every aspect of

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Speaker 3: our lives. And I think that would absolutely help with

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Speaker 3: discourse and people knowing who you are. I think that

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Speaker 3: does give another level and sort of shuts down some

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Speaker 3: of the trolls. But the ability to criticize government, the

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Speaker 3: ability to criticize your employer, the ability to criticize systems

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Speaker 3: where maybe your job's at at risk, maybe you're you know,

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Speaker 3: the society that you're in doesn't doesn't you know, likes

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Speaker 3: conformity of thought. There seems to be a lot of

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Speaker 3: conformity of thought at the moment. So I think the

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Speaker 3: ability for pseudo anonymity to go on to comment on things,

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Speaker 3: to actually raise discussions that like, even during COVID for instance,

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Speaker 3: or you know, other periods that we've been through, for

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Speaker 3: people to actually raise real issues when otherwise they might

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Speaker 3: have felt afraid to or felt that they would be

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Speaker 3: sanction that work or shunned from their community. We need

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Speaker 3: an outlet for that. But believe you me, if we

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Speaker 3: could bring back more manners are they're big fans.

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Speaker 4: Further that point and issues that were raised, and of

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Speaker 4: course there's been a lot of talk about how these

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Speaker 4: big tech companies engaged in censorship and with pressure from

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Speaker 4: the governments, particularly in the United States but all around

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Speaker 4: the world. Do we want tech companies to be the

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Speaker 4: gatekeepers on public discourse? And isn't this kind of what

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Speaker 4: we're empowering them to be that they are the people?

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Speaker 4: Because because you know this Australian law particularly puts the

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Speaker 4: onus on them. So are you comfortable with them, these

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Speaker 4: big corporations being the gatekeepers?

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Speaker 3: I'm very uncomfortable with that sort of power in anyone

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Speaker 3: else's hands, right, except for those really bright lines of

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Speaker 3: incitement and direct harm, etc. Look, in a way, by default,

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Speaker 3: these large companies are already controlled so much of what

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Speaker 3: we see and so much of what we do, but

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Speaker 3: the government then handing them more and more power. We

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Speaker 3: saw that in the in the UK with the Online

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Speaker 3: Safety Actor came into effect in July and the platforms

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Speaker 3: just pulled. They were pulling news, they were pulling, you know,

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Speaker 3: factual reports and things from the universities and professors because

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Speaker 3: it referenced violence, or it referenced this or that, and

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Speaker 3: like it's that it's a blunt instrument. I don't want

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Speaker 3: the power in the data company. Let's go after how

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Speaker 3: they how they use the data that they have. Let's

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Speaker 3: maybe address data sovereignty. Let's look at the predatory algorithms,

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Speaker 3: and let's find a way to incentivize the companies to

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Speaker 3: you know, or misincentivize them, to incentivize them to sort

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Speaker 3: of fix those algorithms as opposed to these blunt bands

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Speaker 3: that that will censor adults as well. And you know,

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Speaker 3: and our supporters are very concerned that this does turn

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Speaker 3: into sort of a default you know, digital ID program,

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Speaker 3: which we did see the UK going down straight after

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Speaker 3: the the when they bought the Online Safety Act.

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Speaker 2: Done, Julane, thank you very much for coming on I

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Speaker 2: have and chat with us and your expertise really interesting.

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

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Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever

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