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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, I'm terrified. We've got a whole generation of kids

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Speaker 2: coming through that have got such massive digital footprints. Now

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Speaker 2: I actually tell them to delete everything and start again

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Speaker 2: once they're over the age of thirteen.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my Mum

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Speaker 1: and Dad.

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Speaker 3: Every now and again, something pops up in the news

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Speaker 3: that makes every parent take a quick intake of air

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Speaker 3: and then think, oh no, it would never be my child.

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Speaker 3: And yet technology has changed the way we live our lives,

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Speaker 3: and particularly the way we raise our kids. Oh and

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Speaker 3: the way they engage with the world. Today, I want

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Speaker 3: to have a very important conversation about an issue that's

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Speaker 3: arisen in the news. In the last couple of weeks,

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Speaker 3: The Washington Post, via a journalist by the name of

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Speaker 3: Julie Jargon, has shed some information about how girls are

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Speaker 3: getting increasingly rewarded with huge followings on TikTok as they

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Speaker 3: become increasingly risk And my guest on the Happy Families

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Speaker 3: Podcast today is Kira Pendergast. Kira looks after a business

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Speaker 3: runs a business by the name of Safe on social

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Speaker 3: Kira is somebody that I've been watching and admiring for

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Speaker 3: a long time and had a handful of really great

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Speaker 3: conversations with over the last several years. She does extraordinarily

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Speaker 3: good work in schools and organizations with sporting major national

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Speaker 3: level sporting clubs, helping people to navigate the online world safely.

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Speaker 3: After having some significant experience and unfortunately negative challenges in

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Speaker 3: the world of technology herself, and Kira joins me today

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Speaker 3: for this conversation about our girls and TikTok. Thanks so

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Speaker 3: much for being on the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: Kira, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 3: So let's talk about girls and TikTok. In fact, let's

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Speaker 3: talk about TikTok generally. The idea here is that when

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Speaker 3: people see your stuff and they like it, TikTok has

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Speaker 3: an algorithm that says, let's let everyone see it because

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Speaker 3: more and more people are liking this. That's the general rundown.

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Speaker 2: Right, correct, Correct, it's you know, TikTok has got a

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Speaker 2: really flawed algorithm, to be honest, justin it's just starting

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Speaker 2: to show kids more of what they don't want to

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Speaker 2: see as well. It's like anything that they may hover

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Speaker 2: on for a tiny little second, more than anything else,

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Speaker 2: will keep appearing in their feed, so it sort of

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Speaker 2: starts there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's kind of like if you watch something,

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Speaker 3: TikTok calculates your time staring at it, and the longer

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Speaker 3: you look at any particular piece of content, the more

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Speaker 3: likely it is to push more of that content into

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Speaker 3: your feed.

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Speaker 2: Correct. So's it's absolutely the most advanced algorithm for tracking

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Speaker 2: what a human is looking at and how long they're

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Speaker 2: looking at it for, and that's what's causing the issues.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was going to get onto TikTok clos

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Speaker 3: everyone said justin you've got to get onto TikTok, and

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Speaker 3: my team run a TikTok account for happy families. But

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Speaker 3: one of my team members said, the first two weeks

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Speaker 3: when you've got a TikTok account, you will literally get

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Speaker 3: dragged through the gutter as it shows you pretty much

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Speaker 3: every piece of content that is there in every genre,

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Speaker 3: every idea, every concept. And once you start to like

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Speaker 3: things and start to show TikTok what you're interested in,

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Speaker 3: it filters out the stuff you don't need to see

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Speaker 3: and you can actually have a and if you're willing

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Speaker 3: to go through the two weeks of literal gutter dragging.

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Speaker 3: She said, you can have a really pure and wholesome

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Speaker 3: TikTok account, like you can make TikTok absolutely brilliant for you.

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Speaker 3: But the thing is that our kids, they kind of

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Speaker 3: they're compelled to stare at the stuff that makes them curious.

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Speaker 3: And that's often the kind of things that we would

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Speaker 3: rather not be staring at.

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Speaker 2: Right, exactly right. And if I ask a room full

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Speaker 2: of primary school children, one of the questions I asked

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Speaker 2: them when I like, I do sessions from grade three

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Speaker 2: all the way through to parents, teachers and sporting bodies,

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Speaker 2: as you know. And if I ask a room full

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Speaker 2: of kids, like any age group who's seen something that's

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Speaker 2: made them feel uncomfortable, made them feel funny in the tummy,

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Speaker 2: or you know, scared in any way on TikTok, the

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Speaker 2: whole room will put their hand up. They're all seen it,

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Speaker 2: and they've all been exposed from a really young age.

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Speaker 3: And can I just highlight you're talking to grade three kids.

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Speaker 3: We're talking about eight year olds, no.

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Speaker 2: Younger six and seven in some cases too. You know

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Speaker 2: the little ones that are on it. You know they're

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Speaker 2: using mum's account because Mum thinks TikTok's a fun little

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Speaker 2: thing where they can watch little dances and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: And you know, at the end of the day, it

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Speaker 2: does come back to a lack of parent education around

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Speaker 2: this and not understanding the tech behind it and the

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Speaker 2: fact that this will be around forever. And while their

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Speaker 2: kids are innocently scrolling through looking for the last little

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Speaker 2: viral dance on TikTok, they're seeing horrendous, horrendous things.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so a little bit of a content warning right now.

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Speaker 3: I don't want you to drag us through the gutter

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Speaker 3: too much, hre here. In fact, I probably prefer to

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Speaker 3: stay out of the gutter. But a lot of parents

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Speaker 3: probably don't even know that their kids are on TikTok.

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Speaker 3: A lot of parents think that let's just the latest

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Speaker 3: social media fad, and everyone in the media, everyone on

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Speaker 3: the podcast, everyone on the TV gets worried about the

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Speaker 3: latest platform all the time, and when it's not TikTok,

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Speaker 3: it'll be something else. A lot of parents have almost

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Speaker 3: become immune to the warnings that come from people like

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Speaker 3: you or I about kids being on things like TikTok.

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Speaker 3: Could you give parents who are listening to our podcast

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Speaker 3: conversation today, just a sampling of the kinds of things

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Speaker 3: that six and seven and eight year olds are seeing

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Speaker 3: when they jump onto TikTok, either with their parents account

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Speaker 3: or maybe their friends, or their big brother or the

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Speaker 3: big sister, or the neighbor down the road, or somebody

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Speaker 3: on the school playground. Let's let's let's give I've given

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Speaker 3: the content warning. If kids are listening, maybe you want

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Speaker 3: to press balls for a sec. But let's just dive

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Speaker 3: in and have a one to two minute exploration and

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Speaker 3: then we'll talk about what parents need to do.

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Speaker 2: Okay, before we dive into that. A lot of parents

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Speaker 2: come straight back at me with that one in parents

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Speaker 2: sessions and say, well, I don't let my child use TikTok.

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Speaker 2: Where you may not, but at school they're accessing it

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Speaker 2: through their friends' phones, and whether they're at sleepovers or

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Speaker 2: whatever on the weekends, they're accessing it through their friend's phone.

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Speaker 2: So parents need to be aware that, no matter how

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Speaker 2: hard they try, their kids are looking at it, they're

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Speaker 2: seeing it.

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Speaker 3: The metaphor that I always use is you can put

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Speaker 3: a fence around your pool, but you can't put a

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Speaker 3: fence around the ocean. And you've got to teach your

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Speaker 3: kids to swim, because one day they're going to end

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Speaker 3: up in front of a body of water that is

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Speaker 3: not fenced. And your filters and your parent controls and

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Speaker 3: whatever you're doing to keep your kids off it at

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Speaker 3: home is one thing. But they head out of the

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Speaker 3: house and they're going to come across that metaphorical unfenced

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Speaker 3: body of water at some point.

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Speaker 2: What are you going to do then, So the things

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Speaker 2: like to answer your first question there about what they're

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Speaker 2: exposed to and not going too far into the gutter,

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Speaker 2: I'll just use subject headings self harm, eating disorders, you know, racist, violence, hate, crimes, war, genocide,

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Speaker 2: you name it, it's there, and it's graphic. And the

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Speaker 2: latest one was the shark incident off Sydney a few

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Speaker 2: weeks ago, and the graphic unedited, unedited video circulating around TikTok.

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Speaker 2: If you had a little one that was into baby

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Speaker 2: shark and type that in, think about what was coming

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Speaker 2: up instead.

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Speaker 3: After the break, we're going to have a deeper dive

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Speaker 3: into what Julie Jargon wrote in the Washington Post about

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Speaker 3: these sexualized images and the sexualized algorithm on TikTok and

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Speaker 3: get stuck into an important I mean, this is the

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Speaker 3: podcast for the time for parent who wants answers. We're

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Speaker 3: going to get stuck into the important question of how

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Speaker 3: do we talk to our children about staying safe online,

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Speaker 3: especially since we know that they're probably going to use

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Speaker 3: TikTok at some point. It's the Happy Families Podcast.

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Speaker 4: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having

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Speaker 4: to feel bad or in trouble. The do's and don'ts

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Speaker 4: of Disciplined as a webinar to help parents set limits

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Speaker 4: with love, compare and humanity. Find it now at happy

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Speaker 4: families dot com, dot au slash shop.

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Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 3: poor parent who just wants answers Now. My guest today

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Speaker 3: on the podcast is Kira Pendergast, the CEO of Safe

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Speaker 3: on Social and Kira, this conversation matters so much, and

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Speaker 3: I'm sure that a lot of parents are going I

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Speaker 3: had no idea that TikTok was this. Let's dive into

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Speaker 3: this Washington Post article. I just want to read a

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Speaker 3: smidge of this to you. When Jula Anderson joined TikTok

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Speaker 3: at age sixteen, writes Julia Jargon, her first video featured

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Speaker 3: her family's home renovations. It got five likes. After seeing

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Speaker 3: others post risk a videos and get more likes, she

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Speaker 3: tried it too. She said, I wanted to get famous

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Speaker 3: on TikTok? Can I just pause on that? I wanted

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Speaker 3: to get famous on TikTok? How many teenagers are saying

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Speaker 3: that's it? That's my goal in life. I want to

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Speaker 3: be famous and TikTok's the way to do it. And

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Speaker 3: she said, and I learned that if you post stuff

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Speaker 3: showing your body, people will start liking it. Jula is

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Speaker 3: now an eighteen year old high school senior in Colna,

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Speaker 3: and what Julie Jargon basically says is mental health professionals

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Speaker 3: around the country are growing increasingly concerned about the effect

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Speaker 3: of teen girls posting sexualized TikTok videos. Therapist say teens

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Speaker 3: who like a group of close friends and teens with

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Speaker 3: underlying mental health issues, especially girls who struggle with disordered

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Speaker 3: eating and body images, are at particular risk. Now we

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Speaker 3: will link to the Washington Post article, although it is

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Speaker 3: it's behind a paywall, which is going to make it

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Speaker 3: difficult for a lot of people. But just talk me

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Speaker 3: through how we're supposed to respond to this. I mean,

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Speaker 3: our kids want to be popular too. Many of them

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Speaker 3: really believe that TikTok fame is what life is for.

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Speaker 3: That's why they were born, that's why they'll put on

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Speaker 3: this planet. And I know that sounds superficial and ridiculous

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Speaker 3: to most of us as adults, but our team they

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Speaker 3: just buy this, right. I mean they're hook line and

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Speaker 3: sync with this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. Look, you know when I was a young girl,

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Speaker 2: I wanted to be on the TV. You know, it's

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Speaker 2: the same thing, different format now. But because it's gone

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Speaker 2: from being a newsreader or an actress or something like

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Speaker 2: that to this international platform, where they've got to be thinking.

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Speaker 2: Is like I often tell kids, you do not know

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Speaker 2: who's looking at you the amount of grooming and things

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Speaker 2: that happens through TikTok, because they'll get a message saying,

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Speaker 2: you know, hey, Q, what are you doing And they'll say,

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Speaker 2: I'm just in my bedroom, what are you doing? And

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Speaker 2: the person responding says, I'm about to get in the shower,

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Speaker 2: I'm in bed, and you know, statistically from the Australian

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Speaker 2: Centerive account of Child exploitation, they'll say it's something ridiculous

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Speaker 2: like eighteen seconds before a child is that far into

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Speaker 2: a conversation with a potential online predator that it's really

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Speaker 2: difficult for them to back write out of it. You know,

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Speaker 2: there's that side of it that parents need to be

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Speaker 2: aware of.

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Speaker 3: And I've got to interrupt you there here because the

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Speaker 3: eighteen seconds it sounds shocking. And yet I've spoken with

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Speaker 3: teenage girls. When I was writing Misconnection, my book about

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Speaker 3: adolescent girls, one girl told me, and this wasn't even

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Speaker 3: on TikTok, this was just via messaging app. She had

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Speaker 3: met a friend in the mall, and while I was

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Speaker 3: hanging out, a friend of that friend showed up. They

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Speaker 3: had a chat. Ten minutes later, as she was getting

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Speaker 3: in the car with her dad, he'd found her, sent

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Speaker 3: her an instant message and made a sexual solicitation to her,

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Speaker 3: Like he'd known her for three minutes in conversation, and

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Speaker 3: within ten minutes he'd sent her an absolutely obscene message

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Speaker 3: saying how about it? And she's sitting in the car

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Speaker 3: next to her dad. She's like fourteen fifteen years old.

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Speaker 3: So when you say eighteen seconds online and they're talking

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Speaker 3: about the shower or the bedroom or what are you wearing,

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Speaker 3: it must be nearly a nighttime eighteen seconds. It happens

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Speaker 3: that fast.

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Speaker 2: That's correct. And the other way that it happened super

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Speaker 2: fast is with little ones unsupervised playing roadblocks. I've had

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Speaker 2: a ten year old that was playing roadblocks against her boyfriend.

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Speaker 2: And I say that trying to attempt in verticmmace because

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Speaker 2: she said to me. She came up to me after

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Speaker 2: one of my workshops in a little regional town and

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Speaker 2: said that her boyfriend in America had asked her to

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Speaker 2: follow him on TikTok because as soon as they moved

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Speaker 2: them from one platform to TikTok, it opens up the

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Speaker 2: video message section, so they're able to share video messages

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Speaker 2: with each other. And what happened with this ten year

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Speaker 2: old is she was convinced to send videos of herself

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Speaker 2: and she would ask for a video back and he

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Speaker 2: said his camera was broken. And it went on and

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Speaker 2: on and on, and this person found out everything about her.

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Speaker 2: So there's this little one that I'll never get her

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Speaker 2: face out of my brain. Was standing in front of me,

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Speaker 2: trembling with tears streaming down her face, saying, please don't

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Speaker 2: tell my mum because she won't let me use TikTok

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Speaker 2: and roadblocks anymore, and as she then told me the

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Speaker 2: horrific things that this man was making her do on

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Speaker 2: video and sending it through TikTok messenger. So what we've

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Speaker 2: got is a whole generation of kids that are growing

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Speaker 2: up thinking they've got to do this because that's what

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Speaker 2: everybody else is doing. And we've got a whole heap

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Speaker 2: of parents that are just saying it's too hard to

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Speaker 2: make or to socially ostracize my child because they're the

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Speaker 2: only one that doesn't have it. All of those kinds

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Speaker 2: of things, and the lack of education on where and

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Speaker 2: how these algorithms work and what's being stored and where

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Speaker 2: it's being stored, and starting from the very basics, Justine, like,

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Speaker 2: I go through with the kids. Have you read the

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Speaker 2: terms and conditions abuse? And in primary school they all

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Speaker 2: put up their hands and go, yep, I've read the

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Speaker 2: men to end and I'm like, no, you have not.

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Speaker 5: The first thing says you've got to be over the

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Speaker 5: age of thirteen, and none of you are. And whilst

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Speaker 5: it's not illegal for them to use it under the

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Speaker 5: age of thirteen with a parent's permission, it's against the

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Speaker 5: law for TikTok to store and retain the information of

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Speaker 5: children under the age of thirteen for the purposes of

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Speaker 5: sales and marketing through the Children's Online Privacy.

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Speaker 2: And Protection Act in the US. So there's education. And

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Speaker 2: then when I go through what's in the license agreement

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Speaker 2: in kids' terms, and even with teenagers, they all sit

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Speaker 2: there looking horrified, and I'm like, one of.

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Speaker 6: The terms and conditions actually states that they can change

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Speaker 6: the terms and conditions anytime they like and it's up

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Speaker 6: to you as a user to keep on top of that.

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Speaker 2: They don't have to notify you. So last September, TikTok

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Speaker 2: sneaks through a whole new set of terms and conditions,

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Speaker 2: which was that they have the permission to use your

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Speaker 2: face through facial recognition technology and voice imprint. Okay, so

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Speaker 2: if they're already using those two things to identify people,

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Speaker 2: what else are they using? And how is this going

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Speaker 2: to look in ten years time? And what if your

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Speaker 2: child grows up to be a politician? Like And I

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Speaker 2: always say that, please know, I know, but.

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Speaker 7: That's you know, that's what I actually use that as

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Speaker 7: an analogy with primary school kids, and I say, what

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Speaker 7: imagine if Scott Morrison had TikTok and they go, Scott

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Speaker 7: Morrison does have TikTok and then they laugh when I

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Speaker 7: said no, but what if he had it when he

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Speaker 7: was your age?

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Speaker 2: And they go, oh my god, and then they all laugh.

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Speaker 2: You know, but they get it then because they I

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Speaker 2: have to step them through stuff that they haven't learnt yet,

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Speaker 2: like how cloud computing works, and that nothing is ever

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Speaker 2: really deleted. There's backups upon backups upon backups, and there's

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Speaker 2: people taking screen recordings and screenshots, and you don't know

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Speaker 2: where it's going to go, so as soon as you

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Speaker 2: post something, it's out there forever somewhere.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's all those wayback machines. I've had it

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Speaker 3: happen to me. I've had people dig up stuff that

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Speaker 3: I said eight years ago on Twitter in a moment

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Speaker 3: of weakness or a moment of frustration, and then they're

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Speaker 3: not even things that are representative of what I really

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Speaker 3: do think or feel. But someone said I found this.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure that will change.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they change with the education. You know, when

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Speaker 2: we're educated more, we go, oh well no, that's I

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Speaker 2: thought that then, but not now. And people don't take

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Speaker 2: that into consideration.

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Speaker 3: Once you've said it. That's who you are in the

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Speaker 3: eyes of some so obviously really important. Now let's just

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Speaker 3: talk about some solutions for parents who are probably listening

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Speaker 3: to this conversation and going, oh, my goodness, I hadn't

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Speaker 3: I had no idea, And I don't want my child

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Speaker 3: to feel like the only way that he or she

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Speaker 3: can be a value as a human is to seek

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Speaker 3: reward for sexuality, that my value is placed in the

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Speaker 3: evaluations that other people make of me based on how

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Speaker 3: I look and how sexually available I am, or how

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Speaker 3: many likes I'm getting on TikTok or any of those things. So, Kurra,

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Speaker 3: I know that you primarily work in the tech space,

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Speaker 3: but you do talk to a lot of parents about

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Speaker 3: this kind of thing. Obviously I do that a lot

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Speaker 3: as well. Let's put our heads together for a minute

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Speaker 3: or two. If you're a parent and you're hearing this

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Speaker 3: stuff for the first time, or you've been mildly aware

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Speaker 3: of it, but now it's kind of given you a

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Speaker 3: bit of an uppercut metaphorically speaking, would you what would

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Speaker 3: do you want parents to be knowing about roadblocks, about TikTok,

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Speaker 3: about Instagram, about everything we're talking about here.

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Speaker 2: Take the time and make sure you know what your

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Speaker 2: child's signing up for. There's a lot of information out there,

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Speaker 2: think about how it's going to be used in the future.

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Speaker 2: I'm terrified that we've got a whole generation of kids

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Speaker 2: coming through that I have got such massive digital footprints

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Speaker 2: now I actually tell them to delete everything and start

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Speaker 2: again once they're over the age of thirteen, because from

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Speaker 2: a HR perspective, if someone is like, right, the simplest

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Speaker 2: thing here justin is around that lying about their age

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Speaker 2: to sign up to these apps. And what's that going

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Speaker 2: to look like depending on what job they apply for

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Speaker 2: in the future. Is it going to build a pattern

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Speaker 2: of deceit in an automated software system that's looking at

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Speaker 2: their digital footprint? You know? Is it going to stop

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Speaker 2: them from getting a job interview because of that? You

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Speaker 2: know the basics here. I would also suggest that parents

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Speaker 2: take the time to sit with their kids and make

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Speaker 2: sure that they understand how to block and report on

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Speaker 2: every app their child's using. They need to know where

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Speaker 2: to go when things go wrong, because we're not going

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Speaker 2: to stop them from using it, so we need to

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Speaker 2: build some resilience and mitigate some risk around that. And

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Speaker 2: the other way that they can do that is sit

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Speaker 2: with them and go through like age specific of course,

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Speaker 2: how do you know that person? Tell me two other

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Speaker 2: people at school that know them, and if they don't.

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Speaker 2: If they can't do that, delete them is another strategy

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Speaker 2: that I get parents to go through with little ones.

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Speaker 2: In particular, I had a kid in grade two who

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Speaker 2: had ten thousand followers on TikTok like that just tells

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Speaker 2: me that she probably knew three of them and the

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Speaker 2: rest of them could have been potential whatever you know,

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Speaker 2: So all of those things and then you know, my

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Speaker 2: final tip there for parents would be help them to

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Speaker 2: cleanse their feed, go through and unfollow things that make

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Speaker 2: them feel rubbish about themselves or rubbish other people, or

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Speaker 2: up fit them in any way because of the content

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Speaker 2: level on it. It's just a couple of tips.

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Speaker 3: Kira, I reckon. We could have this conversation over the

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Speaker 3: course of about four days. There's so much to talk about,

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Speaker 3: and I listen to your tips, lots of wisdom there.

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Speaker 3: There's about I don't know seven hundred other things that

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Speaker 3: I want to add, and I'm sure the same for you.

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Speaker 3: There'd be so many more things that you could share.

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Speaker 3: Let's get you back. I think that these conversations matter

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Speaker 3: a lot. In fact, recently on Facebook you mentioned something

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Speaker 3: about air dropping and cyber flashing, which has been also

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Speaker 3: flagged with me a few times. I reckon we should

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Speaker 3: have a conversation about that in the next couple of weeks.

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Speaker 2: Yep, for that sounds fantastic.

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Speaker 3: The conversation continues with Kira Pendergast Safe on Social or

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Speaker 3: the details at safe onsocial dot com dot au. The

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Speaker 3: Happy Family podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge

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Speaker 3: Media and Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you'd

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Speaker 3: like more info, like I said, check out Kira's page.

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Speaker 3: If you run a school, if you're looking after school wellbeing,

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Speaker 3: school welfare, counseling, any of that sort of stuff, definitely

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Speaker 3: have a look at what here offers, and of course

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Speaker 3: all of the usual resources that can help your family

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Speaker 3: to be happier at Happy families dot com dot au