The Government v Social Media | The Each day Aus

Algorithms child abuse domestic violence scams extremist material Miss and disinformation and the availability of good journalism on social media these are all areas identified by the government for investigation as part of a new parliamentary committee investigating the influence and impacts of social media on Australian Society.

Why do you think this year in particular there has been this renewed focus on I guess the um responsibility of platforms and what those responsibilities look like to audiences well I think the first thing to say before diving into the big events of 2024 is that it's not just about what's happened in the last couple of months the law and politics.

Traditionally takes a little bit of time to catch up to the big issues facing our society we know that policy change takes time and that could be months or years and I guess we've known about these risks that social media can have on our lives for many years now I mean you and have talked on this podcast a number of times over the last couple of.

Years of some big moments and some big issues but 2024 has undoubtedly been a big year in social media so in well in January and February this year the CEOs of meta Tik Tok and X testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on the dangers facing children on social media and that included this spectacular moment where Mark Zuckerberg the founder.

Of meta actually physically turned around to apologize to the families of children who had died by Suicide because of social media we've also had questions raised about Tik tok's ownership and connections to the Chinese government and again in the US Capitol Hill threatened to ban the app if it was not transferred to American ownership Tik.

Tok is now suing the US government over that law and then here in Australia we've had this very public battle play out between meta and Legacy news companies after meta withdrew some Financial payments it was making annually to large media companies it also announced that the Global Market that it would deprioritize the.

Recommendation of political content to keep up what it says is changing consumer behavior on their apps okay that was a whole lot of jargon but essentially all you were saying there was that meta's basically said it's going to move away from news in no uncertain terms and that it's not being recommended to users on meta that's all.

That that's trying to say and that's something we've spoken about a lot and I think that um I will probably collapse if I have to talk about it again on this podcast we will move for for quickly but I haven't even mentioned the Elon Musk fight with the Australian safety commissioner about that's about the Wakely stabbing videos of that stabbing.

Being taken down on X so it's been a really busy year for social media in a policy in government context especially and many of these events aren't necessarily linked so we're kind of seeing you know governments try and regulate social media ownership in one space but then regulate what's on those platforms and another then regulate how.

They can pay publish in another but I guess the Common Thread that is bringing all of these things together is that governments around the world want social media companies to take more responsibility rightly or wrongly for the impacts of their platforms and for the audiences that are on those platforms that's right and that brings.

Us to why we're talking about it today because on Friday the minister for communications Michelle Roland and the Prime Minister Anthony abanes announced this joint parliamentary committee into the impacts of social media on Australia and so that's an inquiry that's being led by a committee in Parliament which is basically just a group that's made up.

Of different parliamentarians from across the political divide what's that committee actually looking into well here's how Anthony abanes framed the mission of that committee on Friday but with social media comes the need for social license and a social responsibility uh whether it be the issue of domestic violence or whether it.

Be uh radical ization of our young people something that keeps popping up over and over again is the role of social media which can be very positive but can also have a negative influence which is there how do we make sure that social media's benefits uh continue whilst the potential for harmful impacts are.

Minimized so there's a lot of different topics there what are they actually hoping to achieve ultimately the committee's lens through which it's approaching its inquiries is this key idea of as you said before responsibility and accountability the key premise there is if a platform has a significant reach and control over what.

Australians consume online as these major social media players do it should be subject to appropriate scrutiny and a big part of that is going to be looking at algorithms what responsibilities the algorithms have in terms of scams or illegal content Hello I'm James and I produced the video you're watching if you're enjoying what you're watching.

We'd love it if you considered subscribing and checking us out on our other platforms it would really help in getting the word out about what we're doing here at TDA thanks very much and now back to the Deep dive I mean I think this isn't a novel concept but I think it's just such an interesting Dynamic to see play out because these social media.

Companies are private companies and can not entirely be compelled to do that much that's what we've seen here with meta is that if they are to do something they will just withdraw from the market Al together how does the government Envision this committee will actually achieve those outcomes well there was some language in Michelle Roland's press.

Release on Friday that was really around systems so they're asking the committee to recommend ways that we can bake into the way our government runs methods to keep these companies accountable so it's not necessarily that the committee is only looking at what do we need to do right now to make sure that they're accountable in 2024 but how can we deal.

With this going forward I mean social media is not going anywhere and I think the government really knows that so they're looking for ways systems processes to keep them accountable moving forward years and decades I think it's interesting in almost every scenario Australia is behind many other nations in the world.

In how we approach certain issues just you know much smaller population size whatever else when it comes to relationships with big Tech though you know the news media bargaining code which is what regulates the relationship between big Tech and media that was a world first at the time and that was seen as like breaking new ground is the.

Government seeing this as some sort of revolutionary new idea it's an interesting one I mean the government really thinks it is on the front of the charge towards social media regulation Michelle Roland said on Friday to the ABC the world is looking at Australia right now so they clearly do feel a responsibility to lead reform in this.

Space not just wait for other governments to lead the way but the undertone to this discussion is the fact that these are global companies and these are Global issues and we've seen one government can't regulate if another one exactly and so whether Australia goes first and tries to regulate what's happening in Australia that question is.

Always going to hang over this discussion and what has the opposition said here because again sorry to keep hopping on about the media bargaining Cod but that was the coalition's policy so they have made attempts to regulate big Tech in the past what do they think about this newest inquiry so we heard from the shadow Communications Minister.

David Coleman on Friday he accused the government of being quote addicted to inquiring instead he was calling for the implementation of age verification trials for social media platforms so essentially to ensure that kids under 13 aren't on social media we talked about that in the context of porn passports I'll put a link to that epis episode in.

Today's show notes colan said that excluding social media platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok from an age verification trial was outrageous so the opposition is really narrowing in there on one of the ways that you can combat some of the issues that we're seeing on social media yeah to keep children safe children shouldn't be on there is.

Basically that okay but the government's taking a broader view of the issue um and seeing what else can be done this is a pressing issue we've seen that in the deals of the esafety commissioner with Elon Musk and with you know the immensely distressing videos we've seen on social media with the stories that we see in the news what.

Happens from here committees historically and traditionally take a very long time to do their jobs so how long are we expected to wait for any sort of recommendations from this committee they do take a long time and there's an air around this committee that it's going to try and do its work relatively quickly when we talk and.

Committee speak so we're expecting a report from the committee by the end of 2024 it's going to be this week that the terms of reference which are kind of the specifics to the committee it's the outline it's the architecture of what they're looking at so that's going to be presented to Parliament in the next couple of days and that will really set.

The wheels in motion from there we'll have hearings then they'll write a report then we'll get the report well if anyone who is sitting on that committee is listening to this podcast we would be more than happy to rock up at hearing and let you know about what we think about regulating social media and News until that time though thanks for.

Joining us on the daily odds today if you enjoyed today's episode you can always let us know by either clicking five stars on Apple or Spotify or leaving a review on either of those platforms we so appreciate your support and we'll be back again tomorrow

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