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Speaker 1: Already and this is the daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,

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Speaker 1: now it makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily ODS. It is Monday,

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Speaker 2: the first of July. I'm Billy, I'm Sam. Over the

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Speaker 2: past two weeks, Australia's Parliament has been investigating the role

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Speaker 2: of social media in the country. The committee is covering

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Speaker 2: a wide range of issues, from the influence social media

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Speaker 2: has on people under eighteen to the importance or lack thereof,

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Speaker 2: of news on social media. It's a unique opportunity for

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Speaker 2: Australians to hear from some of the most covertly powerful

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Speaker 2: people in our country, and it has raised more questions

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Speaker 2: than it has answered. In today's podcast, we will explain

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Speaker 2: what we have learned so far and what happens next.

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Speaker 1: But first Sam, what is making headlines today.

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Speaker 3: Senator Fatima Payment has been suspended indefinitely from the Federal

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Speaker 3: Labor Party Caucus. The caucus is the group of all

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Speaker 3: Labour MPs and senators. It means she won't be allowed

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Speaker 3: to attend any internal party meetings. The decision comes after

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Speaker 3: Payment crossed the floor of the Senate last week during

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Speaker 3: a motion brought by the Greens to recognize the state

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Speaker 3: of Palestine, which was ultimately voted down by the Senate

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Speaker 3: on Sunday morning. In an interview with ABC's Insiders program,

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Speaker 3: Payment said she would cross the floor again should a

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Speaker 3: similar motion be tabled.

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Speaker 2: A Western Australian man has been charged by the Australian

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Speaker 2: Federal Police after allegedly creating fake, free public Wi Fi

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Speaker 2: networks to steal personal.

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Speaker 1: Data from victims.

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Speaker 2: Police alleged the man created Wi Fi networks that required

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Speaker 2: users to share their email or social media login details,

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Speaker 2: which were then used to harvest other information such as

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Speaker 2: bank details and stored videos. The networks are alleged to

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Speaker 2: have been operating at airports in Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide

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Speaker 2: on domestic flights, and at the man's previous workplace.

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Speaker 3: Glastonbreed, the the UK's biggest music festival, started over the

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Speaker 3: weekend and for the first time in history. The festival

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Speaker 3: is headlined by two female acts Dua Lipa and Scissa,

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Speaker 3: alongside Coldplay, who have become the first band to headline

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Speaker 3: the festival five times. While performing in front of one

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Speaker 3: hundred thousand people, Coldplay brought out actor Michael J. Fox,

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Speaker 3: who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in nineteen ninety one.

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Speaker 3: Other headline moments included a seven minute silence led by

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Speaker 3: performative artist Marina Abramovich to call for peace, boy band

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Speaker 3: seventeen becoming the first K pop group to play on

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Speaker 3: the main stage, and street artist Banksy launching an inflatable

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Speaker 3: migrants boat artwork into the crowd.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news, Australian basketball player Johnny Furfey has

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Speaker 2: been selected in the NBA draft. Furfey, who comes to

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Speaker 2: the NBA after one year of college basketball at the

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Speaker 2: University of Kansas, was drafted with the thirty fifth pick,

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Speaker 2: which originally belonged to the San Antonio Spurs but was

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Speaker 2: then traded to the Indiana Pacers. Furfee is a twenty

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Speaker 2: fourth Australian to be selected in the NBA drafting history. Sam,

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Speaker 2: before we get started, I think we need to acknowledge

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Speaker 2: that this story actually involves the Daily Ods in a

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Speaker 2: weird way, and it's kind of one of those weird

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Speaker 2: times that the media companies that are usually reporting on

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Speaker 2: the news somehow kind of become the news.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to make this pun to start. I mean,

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Speaker 3: it's all feeling a bit better, like we're reporting on

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Speaker 3: ourselves a little bit. It is going to involve meta,

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Speaker 3: but I do think we need to start with a

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Speaker 3: transparency statement. I know the audience really appreciates when we

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Speaker 3: kind of lay our cards out on the table. So

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Speaker 3: we're going to talk about the social media inquiry, and

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Speaker 3: one part of the inquiry is about news on social media,

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Speaker 3: which the Daily Ods is obviously involved in, and we

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Speaker 3: always try and report on things without inserting our opinion,

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Speaker 3: but I just wanted to acknowledge from the top that

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Speaker 3: we're involved in this. We've made a written submission and

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Speaker 3: we can actually explain kind of what TDA wants from

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Speaker 3: all of this at the end of the episode, if

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Speaker 3: we've got a bit of time.

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Speaker 2: So we're going to explain exactly what this social media

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Speaker 2: inquiry is. But first time, I just want to talk

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Speaker 2: about a couple of months ago in mar you and

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Speaker 2: Zara did an episode on this podcast on why news

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Speaker 2: could disappear from Instagram, which would mean that the Daily

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Speaker 2: Oz's Instagram account is white. Can you first just quickly

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Speaker 2: give us a thirty second explainer on what that was

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Speaker 2: and how we got to hear where there is a

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Speaker 2: social media inquiry?

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Speaker 3: Sure, and I'll put a link to that episode in

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Speaker 3: the show notes if you want not a thirty second

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Speaker 3: explainer but more of a fifteen minute explainer. But basically,

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Speaker 3: there were deals signed between big commercial networks and Meta

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Speaker 3: and Google, big two tech companies, and in exchange for

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Speaker 3: content that news companies would put on these social media platforms,

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Speaker 3: they believed they were entitled to money because of the

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Speaker 3: ad revenue they were missing out of not having visitors

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Speaker 3: to their own websites but rather to social media networks.

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Speaker 3: Meta and Google basically paid a fee for the companies

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Speaker 3: to keep putting stuff on their channels. Now, in February,

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Speaker 3: Meta said we're not paying that fee again. And so

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Speaker 3: the ball is now in the government's court and the

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Speaker 3: government has the choice now to be able to say, hey, Meta,

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Speaker 3: you need to pay a fee or you're going to

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Speaker 3: get a penalty, and that's called And so we're at

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Speaker 3: the stage now where the government's considering whether to kind

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Speaker 3: of enforce what's called the News Media Bargaining Code enforce

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Speaker 3: one part of that of designating Meta, which would mean

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Speaker 3: that Meta has to pay a lot of money. Now,

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Speaker 3: the only other country where that's happened is Canada, and

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Speaker 3: in Canada, Meta responded to a similar decision by just

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Speaker 3: withdrawing from news all together.

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Speaker 2: Just to be clear, though, the Daily Os wasn't involved

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Speaker 2: in those commercial deals with Meta. But if the government

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Speaker 2: does designate Meta and then Meta takes news off Instagram,

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Speaker 2: that's how this could impact us.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a super weird situation where we then

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Speaker 3: would kind of be swept up in a segment wide ban.

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Speaker 3: It's quite an interesting one. Can't think of many other

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Speaker 3: sectors where that would happen, But basically that all got

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Speaker 3: kind of tossed up in the year. Lots of people

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Speaker 3: have been thinking about how to solve it. Since then,

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Speaker 3: the Australian Parliament has had a lot of other discussions

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Speaker 3: about social media. I mean, on this podcast, we've talked

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Speaker 3: about raising the age of how old you should be

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Speaker 3: to be allowed on social media. We've talked about eating

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Speaker 3: disorders how prevalent they are on social media, and it

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Speaker 3: kind of got to a point where the government decided

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Speaker 3: that there was enough here to launch what's called a

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Speaker 3: Joint Select Committee into social media. They're going to look

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Speaker 3: at news as part of that, but there's pretty much

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Speaker 3: every topic under the sun.

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Speaker 2: And so before we get into all of the other

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Speaker 2: areas that they're also looking at in this committee. First,

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Speaker 2: can you just explain what exactly is a joint Select committee.

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Speaker 3: So a joint Select Committee is a temporary body, so

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Speaker 3: after they're done with their investigation, they're disbanded and it

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Speaker 3: never exists again. And it's set up for a very

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Speaker 3: specific reason. So it's different to like a National Security Committee,

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Speaker 3: which is always there. It might have rotating members that

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Speaker 3: come and do a two or three year term, but

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Speaker 3: the actual committee itself is a standing fixture in Australia. Now.

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Speaker 3: The reason we say joint that refers to the fact

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Speaker 3: that it has members of both the House of Representatives

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Speaker 3: so MPs and the Senate so senators. And one other

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Speaker 3: example to kind of paint a picture for you of

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Speaker 3: the types of things these joint Select Committees look into,

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Speaker 3: is an another one that's happening at the moment literally

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Speaker 3: I think next door to the Social Media Inquiry, and

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Speaker 3: that's a committee looking at the experiences of participants in

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Speaker 3: the NDIS. So they can really be about anything, and

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Speaker 3: these committees are not there to enforce anything. It's rather

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Speaker 3: about having a conversation in public. It's all broadcast, it's

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Speaker 3: all produced as transcripts. They gather information and then they

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Speaker 3: make recommendations to Parliament and then it's Parliament's job to

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Speaker 3: actually figure out whether they need to enforce those recommendations

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Speaker 3: or not, and that's where legislation comes from. So whilst

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Speaker 3: the committee can't actually make laws itself, they can question

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Speaker 3: witnesses and they can really go pretty hard on witnesses.

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Speaker 3: They can request documents, they can ask people to submit

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Speaker 3: written submissions pretty much anything that they think they need

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Speaker 3: to do to get to what they see is the

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Speaker 3: kind of truth of the matter.

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Speaker 1: So then give us an overview of what this committee

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Speaker 1: is looking into.

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Speaker 3: So this committee has been set up, as it describes quote,

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Speaker 3: to inquire into and report on the influence and impacts

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Speaker 3: of social media on Australian society.

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Speaker 1: Very broad, very broad.

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Speaker 3: But they actually give five key areas in what's called

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Speaker 3: the terms of reference, which is kind of a map

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Speaker 3: of how this inquiry is going to roll out. So

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Speaker 3: number one, the use of age verification to protect Australian children.

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Speaker 3: Number two Meta's decision to withdraw from those commercial deals

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Speaker 3: we talked about before. Number three, how social media contributes

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Speaker 3: to miss and disinformation, which has been a really big

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Speaker 3: focus of the government.

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Speaker 1: Especially in a big election year for the whole world.

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Speaker 3: It's huge, definitely a very important year to have that chat.

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Speaker 3: Number four is how algorithms and recommendations work and how

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Speaker 3: that impacts the mental health of Australians. Fascinating language there,

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Speaker 3: and the last one to throw in a couple of

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Speaker 3: big topics scams, child sexual abuse and violent extremist material.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 3: So in short, everything from eating disorders all the way

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Speaker 3: through to how to negotiate a new deal or a

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Speaker 3: new media landscape between big news companies and social networks.

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Speaker 2: That's a lot of grand and we are now two

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Speaker 2: weeks into these hearings. You've basically been listening to the

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Speaker 2: entire thing better than Netflix. What have we learned so far?

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Speaker 3: It's been interesting seeing the order in which these discussions

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Speaker 3: are panning out. So first we had the big media

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Speaker 3: session and that was this panel of three CEOs from

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Speaker 3: nine News Corp and seven. After that we heard from

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Speaker 3: some regulators. So think about like the a Triple C

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Speaker 3: looking at the competition environment of social media, the Safety

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Speaker 3: Commissioner making comments on child sexual abuse and sextortion and

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Speaker 3: eating disorder content being spread on social media. Then we

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Speaker 3: heard from the independent digital publishers, so not the majors,

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Speaker 3: but the miners, and that's represented by a man called

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Speaker 3: Tim Duggan who was the founder of Junkie and he

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Speaker 3: represents a body called the Digital Publisher Alliance. And then

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Speaker 3: on Friday we heard from representatives from Meta, who owns

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Speaker 3: Instagram and Facebook, Google, Snapchat and TikTok and this Meta session,

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Speaker 3: it was the first session on Friday that was the

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Speaker 3: interesting one and I think it was one of the

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Speaker 3: most important parts of the inquiry because Meta is at

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Speaker 3: the center of a lot of these topics. It went

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Speaker 3: for two hours and it was jam packed.

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Speaker 2: So with the session on Meta, I know you were

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Speaker 2: keen to hear about what they were going to say

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Speaker 2: regarding news, particularly on Instagram, but they actually spent most

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Speaker 2: of the session talking about safety, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, And the questions were really interesting because they

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Speaker 3: were mostly centered on in the question of safety, how

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Speaker 3: Meta perceives itself in Australia. So does it perceive itself

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Speaker 3: as an Australian company, Does it have ways to handle

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Speaker 3: complaints or reports of scams in Australia When you report

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Speaker 3: something to be a piece of abusive content, Who looks

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Speaker 3: at that and how quickly do they get to a

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Speaker 3: decision what age should people be allowed on social media?

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Speaker 3: And there was a really interesting discussion about the age

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Speaker 3: verification topic. I mean, this has been part of a

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Speaker 3: larger discussion in the government and the opposition are both

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Speaker 3: aligned on actually and having whether we should increase the

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Speaker 3: age from thirteen to sixteen. I did an interview with

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Speaker 3: Michael Whipfley from NOVA. He's leading a campaign called thirty

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Speaker 3: six Months. Put a link to that episode as well

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Speaker 3: in today's show notes. But I think the key moment,

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Speaker 3: the highlight moment for me, was they dialed in the

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Speaker 3: vice president and global head of safety from America and

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Speaker 3: she said about the experiences of children on the platform

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Speaker 3: that Meta, according to its own research quote, has not

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Speaker 3: harmed children.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, that's a really big call to make. How did

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Speaker 2: the committee respond to that?

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Speaker 3: Well, the Committee had the same sort of reaction that

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Speaker 3: you just had. They were a bit puzzled. They acknowledged

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Speaker 3: that it was a different narrative to the one presented

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Speaker 3: in a lot of research. Just last week we had

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Speaker 3: the US Surgeon General come out and say that social

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Speaker 3: media causes immense harm, but it is in line with

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Speaker 3: Meta's statements in other similar inquiries. Mark Zuckerberg said the

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Speaker 3: same thing in front of the US Senate Committee in

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Speaker 3: his hearing earlier in this year, and one member of

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Speaker 3: the committee in Australia on Fridays said that Meta is

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Speaker 3: performing a similar role to big Tobacco of the sixties,

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Speaker 3: which I thought was a fascinating comparison. And I'm not

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Speaker 3: sure this is the last we're going to hear from Meta.

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Speaker 3: Actually in this inquiry.

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Speaker 2: Some major topics being discussed. Were there any other big

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Speaker 2: learnings from Meta?

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Speaker 3: Well, there was one point they raised about the age

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Speaker 3: verification discussion that I hadn't heard before, and that was

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Speaker 3: that Meta of proposing that there's age verification not when

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Speaker 3: you sign in to make a Facebook or an Instagram account,

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Speaker 3: but when you download the app. So they're saying that

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Speaker 3: the burden of enforcing age verification should be on Google

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Speaker 3: and Apple from an app store perspective rather than from

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Speaker 3: a signing perspective. That's a really interesting discussion. I kind

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Speaker 3: of needed to do a bit more research and think

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Speaker 3: about what that could mean. And the other big theme

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Speaker 3: was accountability, So who is Meta in Australia, How much

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Speaker 3: tax do they pay in Australia, who do they employ

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Speaker 3: in their offices here? But there were also some really

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Speaker 3: tough questions about how someone could sue Meta in Australia

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Speaker 3: because you need to sometimes physically deliver a document to

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Speaker 3: somebody you want to sue. Who do you give the

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Speaker 3: document to? Who's the executive with ultimate responsibility for the

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Speaker 3: company's actions. I mean, this was some really big questions

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Speaker 3: and it was one of the more revealing discussions about

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Speaker 3: the way that Meta works I've heard on the record

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Speaker 3: in Australia in many years.

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Speaker 2: To bring this discussion back to the start, can you

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Speaker 2: just explain how TDA has been involved in the process

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Speaker 2: and what has this looked like for you.

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Speaker 3: I think it's kind of been the best way to

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Speaker 3: learn about how a Joint Select Committee works is to

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Speaker 3: kind of be part of the Joint Select Committee proceedings.

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Speaker 3: So we submitted our written submission on Friday.

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Speaker 1: And what is tda's position.

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Speaker 3: Well, because of that weird dynamic where TDA hasn't benefited

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Speaker 3: from a commercial deal with Meta, we obviously don't want

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Speaker 3: to be booted off Instagram, So we're actually asking the

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Speaker 3: government not to pull that designation trigger on Meta. We

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Speaker 3: kind of argue that there's other ways that news companies

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Speaker 3: should be making money. They don't deserve money from technology companies.

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Speaker 3: So in many ways it's weird, but we almost agree

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Speaker 3: half with social media companies and half with news companies.

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Speaker 3: Very interesting position for us to be in. I'm trying

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Speaker 3: to work out if I can provide one of those

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Speaker 3: verbal submissions so appear in front of the committee and

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Speaker 3: give young people a voice, because the thing that's come

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Speaker 3: up a lot in my meetings with government opposition Independent

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Speaker 3: screens is that this is less about TDA and more

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Speaker 3: about the voice of young people in this discussion. Because

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Speaker 3: traditional media have their print newspapers and they have their

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Speaker 3: websites and their big subscriber bases for young people. All

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Speaker 3: the research now from reports last week, but also surveying

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Speaker 3: we've done with our audience shows that young people rely

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Speaker 3: wholly on social media sometimes for their news consumption, and

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Speaker 3: we think that's really valid and should be protected.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say this discussion is so much bigger

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Speaker 2: than the daily ods. This is about what would Australia

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Speaker 2: look like if we didn't have news on social media?

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Speaker 2: What kind of misinformation would then emerge? Because if you

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Speaker 2: just have influencers who are able to put their opinion

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Speaker 2: out there, but you're not able to have any fact

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Speaker 2: based information coming from a credible news source.

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Speaker 3: What does that look lady? Yeah, it's super interesting topic.

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Speaker 3: I'm really enjoying kind of flying the flag of young

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Speaker 3: people in this discussion. Let's see how we go.

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Speaker 2: Last question, do we have any idea on a timeline

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Speaker 2: of when this committee will wrap up and then when

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Speaker 2: we have an answer on whether the government will designate Meta.

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Speaker 3: So the committee has these hearing days, it's not every

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Speaker 3: single day in a row. It's kind of sporadic through

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Speaker 3: a calendar. So the next one is actually tomorrow in Canberra,

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Speaker 3: and then they're due to write a report that's filed

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Speaker 3: by November. So they're meant to gather all of their

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Speaker 3: evidence over the next couple of months, get together their thoughts,

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Speaker 3: write a document together the twelve committee members, which would

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Speaker 3: be an interesting Google doc to be a part of,

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Speaker 3: and then submit the report to the government by November.

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Speaker 3: But the hearings could take any direction. I mean, we

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Speaker 3: could get Meta back for a couple of days. We

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Speaker 3: could hear from people we haven't even thought of yet,

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Speaker 3: So it's a bit of uncertainty, bit of see how

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Speaker 3: we go, but we're looking at by the end of

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Speaker 3: the year a clear result.

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Speaker 2: Sam, Thank you so much for explaining. Thanks Billy, and

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Speaker 2: before we go, one thing to mention is that today

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Speaker 2: is the first of July.

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Speaker 1: Happyish financially year.

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Speaker 3: Finally, those take an extra twenty percent off sales. We're

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Speaker 3: going to stop coming through my inbox.

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Speaker 1: It is finally tax time.

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Speaker 2: And if you are someone who is a bit confused

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Speaker 2: about all of the different things that you need to

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Speaker 2: know about tax I know it can sometimes feel like

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Speaker 2: you've missed an entire class and all the different tax

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Speaker 2: questions you have. We have an episode dedicated to just that.

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Speaker 2: Explain it I faques Yes, explaining all of the different

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Speaker 2: things that you need to know about tax time. It's

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Speaker 2: actually become one of our most downloaded episodes ever.

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Speaker 1: It has been very popular. We've had so much positive feedback.

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Speaker 2: If you'd like to listen to that, we will put

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Speaker 2: a link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 3: Show notes a pack.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to the Daily Os.

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Speaker 2: If you would like to help us grow, if you

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Speaker 2: do put all of our podcasts up there now. We

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Speaker 2: can also watch us do the recording. If you can

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Speaker 2: press subscribe. It also helps us grow.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much and we'll be back again tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcoton woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present,