Latest / Best of Business / Rachel Tan: Waikato University Cyber Law lecturer on the best method to regulate social media

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Rachel Tan: Waikato University Cyber Law lecturer on the best method to regulate social media · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks, it'd be
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  Speaker 2: Experts are warning Australia's approach to social media isn't the
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  Speaker 2: right one. The Australian government's investigating five major social media
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  Speaker 2: companies for trying to get around the under sixteen band.
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  Speaker 2: Erica Stanford, the minister in charge of it over here,
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  Speaker 2: says Australia's rules are just too broad and she's exploring
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  Speaker 2: all options and designing our own response to it. Rachel
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  Speaker 2: tan is a cyber law lecturer at the University of
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  Speaker 2: Whitkataw and with US now Hi.
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  Speaker 3: Rachel Hi, Kira Heather.
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  Speaker 2: If Australia's response is the wrong one, what's the right one?
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  Speaker 3: Well, to begin with, that's a lot of.
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  Speaker 4: Well. I think what Australia is really talking about here
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  Speaker 4: is the each verification focus right on who's using platforms, yes,
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  Speaker 4: rather than how those platforms are actually operating.
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  Speaker 2: So do you think a better approach is to look
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  Speaker 2: at how they're operating?
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  Speaker 3: Yes? I do.
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  Speaker 2: So do you mean in terms of you leave the
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  Speaker 2: kids on? Under sixteens can go on, but it's how
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  Speaker 2: they're operating.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think the age verification is not the root solution.
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  Speaker 4: It might have a role, but on its own it
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  Speaker 4: does not actually address all those harms that can be
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  Speaker 4: produced on social media. So I do propose a duty
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  Speaker 4: of care, and that's what I think policymakers are looking
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  Speaker 4: at right now for New Zealand is a duty of
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  Speaker 4: care model.
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  Speaker 3: How do you know that?
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  Speaker 4: Well, it looks like that. In Australia there's a push
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  Speaker 4: to its strongest safety regulation.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, no, how do you know that? That's what
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  Speaker 2: our legislators are looking at.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'm hoping based on what.
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  Speaker 4: The policy makers have been mentioning about a joint approach.
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  Speaker 2: All right, so you're you're piecing together.
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  Speaker 3: A break from me. Yeah, I can break all right, Well, how.
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  Speaker 2: Does the duty of care thing work? Then? Talk me
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  Speaker 2: through that because it's very simple. The Australian model is simple.
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  Speaker 2: If they are under sixteen and they're on your platform,
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  Speaker 2: you're in trouble. So how does duty of care work here?
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  Speaker 3: Yes?
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  Speaker 4: So a duty of care is about, like you know
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  Speaker 4: how the hotel metaphor used, right, It's not just about
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  Speaker 4: individual users. It's about how the system is designed. So
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  Speaker 4: you're talking about your design architecture, and that's where the
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  Speaker 4: hotel analogy comes in.
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  Speaker 2: What's the hotel analogy?
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  Speaker 4: So the hotel analogy is like if a like a
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  Speaker 4: hotel is known to be a base for criminal operations, right,
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  Speaker 4: you might not be able to sue the company for
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  Speaker 4: what its customers do in their rooms. So the Australian
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  Speaker 4: approach is to require hotels to not allow under sixteen
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  Speaker 4: year olds to enter. So this is where you know,
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  Speaker 4: because of that ban, a duty of care is about
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  Speaker 4: how the hotel is run, whether it's actually preventing harm insight.
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  Speaker 2: So, but it is this is the problem, rightchel, is
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  Speaker 2: that social media is This is like asking segis not
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  Speaker 2: to cigarettes, not to be addicted exactly. Social media is
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  Speaker 2: by design it's designed to be addictive. So if you
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  Speaker 2: then say duty of care, you mustn't be addictive, addictive
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  Speaker 2: to under sixteen year olds. Literally, it will not. It
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  Speaker 2: can't do that, like you're asking it to change its
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  Speaker 2: very system.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely, but you know it's addictive. We got to do
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  Speaker 4: something about it.
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  Speaker 2: What are we going to do about it?
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  Speaker 4: We got to get these big company social media companies
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  Speaker 4: who actually look at their algorithms.
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  Speaker 2: Chances out of one hundred, Rachel, chances out of come on,
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  Speaker 2: give it to me. No, give it to me.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, no exactly, because right now, now that's a question.
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  Speaker 2: How do you rate the chances out of one hundred
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  Speaker 2: that they will make their product less addictive?
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's going to be that's a million dollar question.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's not. It's ten percent. I reckon, it's ten
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  Speaker 2: it's five to ten percent. And even then I'm being generous,
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  Speaker 2: they're not going to do it. So if we're I
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  Speaker 2: mean seriously though, Rachel, because I respect the fact that
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  Speaker 2: what you're talking about is like, this is the optimum
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  Speaker 2: and this would be ideal and you know, utopia. But
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  Speaker 2: you and I are living in the real world with
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  Speaker 2: teenagers who live in the real world. Are we not
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  Speaker 2: wasting our time talking about duty of care?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah? But if this is a statute of judio care,
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  Speaker 4: it legally imposes an obligation onto these platforms to actually act.
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  Speaker 2: Who we trust about zero out of one hundred exactly.
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  Speaker 4: But we still have to learn from the likes of
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  Speaker 4: the UK, from you, the DSE, even Australia early early days.
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  Speaker 3: But here we are.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Rachel, thank you, I appreciate it.
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  Speaker 3: That was that was fun.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate that very much. Rachel Tan Cyber Law lecture
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  Speaker 2: at the University of White Cattle.
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