Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Digital Duty of Care Is Coming [with Anika Wells]

Transcript

The Digital Duty of Care Is Coming [with Anika Wells] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Families podcast. December 10
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: last year, Australia did something that no country has ever
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: done before. They took on the tech giants. From December
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: 10 last year, under-16s were banned from social media, or
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: perhaps the better way to say it is, legislation was
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: introduced to keep social media giants away from our under-16s.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I was all for it. I made a lot of
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: noise on the podcast about it. I was fortunate enough
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to be invited to Kirribilli House with the Prime Minister
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and Communications Minister, Annika Wells. I'm still actually all for it.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: But nine, 10 months on, eSafety's own research says more
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: than eight in 10 kids are still using these platforms
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and over half were never even asked their age. And
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: now the government wants to go further with a digital
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: duty of care, which is going to cover AI. It's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: going to cover games, chatbots, search, everything else that kids touch.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: So today I'm really fortunate to have a conversation with
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the Minister of Communications, Annika Wells. And I'm going to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: ask her the obvious question. Is this working? And what's
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: coming next? And will it be any different? Stay with us.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: The Minister for Communications, Annika Wells, is next on the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Happy Families podcast. Hello, this is the Happy Families podcast,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, where you get real parenting
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: solutions every single day. Now and then on the pod,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: we get to talk to some high profile guests. Sometimes
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: they're running tech companies. Other times they're introducing products that
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: can help us to make our families function better today.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: It's the Federal Minister for Communications and Minister for Sport,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Annika Wells. Annika Wells is the local member for Lily
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: in Brisbane's north. She's raising a young family and on
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: December 10 last year, Minister Wells ushered in Australia's world-leading
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and sometimes copied social media minimum age law, which as
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you now know, requires social media companies to restrict access
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: to their platforms for our children under the age of 16.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: More than 20 countries around the world are following Australia's lead.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's fantastic. It's incredible, and it shows,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I think, legitimate leadership on one of the biggest challenges
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: facing parents globally. The next big step for Australia's online
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: safety laws is the introduction of a digital duty of care,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: which goes beyond social media to ensure that platforms, all platforms,
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  Speaker 1: are protecting kids from harm, whether it's gaming or messaging platforms, apps, AI,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: other digital devices, and so on. Minister Wells, what a
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: privilege to have you on the podcast. Thank you for
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: joining me today.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Good to be with you.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I want to say upfront that I'm a supporter of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the legislation from last December. I back the law publicly.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I still do. But I want to talk to you
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: about the numbers. eSafety's own report in July, the three-month report,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: found use of age-restricted platforms had fallen from 86%. to 81%.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It was just a 5% drop in that period. More
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: than half of children said that they were never even
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: asked for an age check. There are three or four
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: other studies that have already been published that indicate pretty
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: miserable results. I don't know how else to say it.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: They're just not good results. Your own regulator, the Air
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Safety Commissioner, Julian McGrann, named five platforms back in March
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: who were not doing what they were supposed to do
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: at a systematic level and said that it would decide
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: on enforcement by the middle of the year. It's now,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: what is it, early October. What's happened here? How would
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you rate this outcome?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I think this has always been about cultural change and
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: we know that will take time. I completely agree with
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: you that we would all like to see compliance be
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: a lot better than it is. That's why the eSafety
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Commissioner has begun investigations. But unfortunately for all of us
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: who are desperate to see our kids less vulnerable addicted
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: to their screen time and to social media platforms than
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: they currently are. This isn't a case of issuing a
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: speeding fine on the spot and there being an immediate consequence.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: The eSafety Commissioner has to take some of the world's richest,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: most resourced and sophisticated companies to the Australian Federal Court
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: and ask the judge to adjudicate against them. So, to
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: do that, We've just given her some more powers through
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: the parliament in order for her to have more information
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: gathering and get the documents that she needs to take
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: these companies to court and hold them accountable. Because like
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: you say, they've been taking the mickey. This isn't a
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: question for parents to be regulating their children according to
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Australian law. This is for big tech to abide by
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Australian law and they could be doing an awful lot
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: better than they are.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So the fine is $ 49. 5 million. I know that legislation
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: is proposed to double that to $ 99 million. It's been
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: a while since I've had a look at top-line revenue
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: for Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: brand-new AI app from Meta as well, Muse. They've got
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: so many of these products out there, and they're just,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: as you said, so sophisticated. But last time I looked,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I think that their profit for a quarter, given that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: they're spending a lot of money on AI build-outs anyway–
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: was something like $ 22 billion for a quarter. Do you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: think $ 100 million matters to them?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Not so much as their social license to operate in Australia.
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  Speaker 2: And this for us is about a cultural change, and
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: this for big tech is about their social license to operate.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And I think they could be doing a lot better.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: They should be doing a lot better. And that's why
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: we're now bringing in the digital duty of care, which
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: changes the onus from the impetus being someone who is
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: harmed by one of these apps, then trying to seek
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: some kind of recourse for that to the impetus being
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: on these platforms to identify risks that might happen to
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: their users on their platforms and to mitigate against those risks.
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  Speaker 2: That's the heart of the digital duty of care.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. So I think what happens with parents in 2026
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  Speaker 1: is that there's just technology fatigue, social media fatigue. Kids
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: are relentless. They've got so much energy. The platforms are
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: so compelling. I mean, they're just They're so desirable. I'm
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: a 50-year-old man with a PhD in psychology who teaches
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: people about this stuff. And I've actually had to, I'm
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: just not on the platforms. I've got my team that
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: look after some stuff for me and they put it
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: out there for me. But I don't have personal accounts
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: on any of these platforms because they have completely owned
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: me in the past. And I know this stuff. So
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the kids are struggling. Parents are a little bit over it.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: We had the big excitement last year and appropriately so
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: around the new legislation. and it's gone global. But this
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: new digital duty of care, you've given us the guts
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of it, but can you slow it down and talk
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: about what it really means? If I'm a parent listening
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to this conversation, I'm looking for answers to help me
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: with the tech dramas of my life, what does this
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: legislation really mean?
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: As a parent, we don't expect you to police what
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: your kids are doing 24 hours a day. It's impossible.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And neither you nor your children, like you say, Justin,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: cannot fight the addictive nature of of social media. That's
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: why your government is taking up this fight for parents.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: We want you to be able to say this is
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: the law and you can point to the law to
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: try and address these daily fights that people are having
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: in their home. And that's why the social media minimum
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: age when it first came in wasn't actually an idea
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: that came out of government. It was an idea that
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: came out of a group of parents who'd lost their
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: children because of the harm they'd experienced on social media.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: And they were backed by 120,000 Australians who signed a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: petition asking for more help. The digital duty of care
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: is the next step in that journey, which is, I
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: would say, this is an industry that has arisen, has
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: been pretty unregulated. You know, President Macron calls it the wild,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: wild west. This is about introducing some basic safety standards
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: to an industry that hasn't had any. But we do
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: expect basic safety standards when it comes to cars or
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: food or toys or So, if you walk down the
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: aisle of Big W, Kmart, name your preferred store, and
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  Speaker 2: you've got stuffed toys or electronic toys on your left,
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  Speaker 2: and then you've got iPads and phones on your right,
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  Speaker 2: it is reasonable for you as a parent to expect
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  Speaker 2: all of those devices that are being sold to your
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  Speaker 2: children have basic safety standards. And that's what the digital
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: duty of care does.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, the draft covers all online platforms, including the
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: social media platforms. platforms, the AI chatbots, including Claude from
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Anthropic ChatGPT. What I'd like to know is, does it
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  Speaker 1: include the places that the kids actually are, like Roblox
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  Speaker 1: and Discord and group chats, or an AI companion that
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: gets developed and launched next month? Who decides what's in
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the scope and how fast can that list change? Because
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  Speaker 1: the December 10 legislation only included a small number of
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  Speaker 1: major tech platforms.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. There was 10. This is much broader. And
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  Speaker 2: by design, it is broader to capture online services because
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  Speaker 2: like you say, it changes week to week, let alone
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: month to month with what might be new and kids
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: might want to jump on. So, it does capture social media.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: It does capture online games. It does capture AI chatbots.
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  Speaker 2: And it will mean that all of those platforms must
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: protect under 18s from harmful content. And we've set out
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  Speaker 2: five of those specifically in the exposure draft, or six technically.
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  Speaker 2: The six are content that promotes or encourages eating disorders,
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  Speaker 2: content that promotes misogynistic content, hostile ideas about women and
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  Speaker 2: gender equality, pornography, content that glorifies crime or dangerous stunts,
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  Speaker 2: and content that causes serious distress, including abuse and bullying.
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  Speaker 2: So under 18s will also be protected from those things,
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  Speaker 2: but also the design features that I'm sure has been
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: a constant discussion topic here. Things like the endless scroll,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: the toxic popularity meters that keep kids up late losing sleep.
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  Speaker 2: We want these platforms to embed safety by design. Some
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: of them have had 15 years to do it of
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: their own accord. They haven't. So now we're going to
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: legislate that they must.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So I think any reasonable parent worried about
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: their children would say, bring it on, like the sooner
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the better, as most parents did when it came to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the social media legislation as well. Can you explain as
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: well the algorithm opt-out and why it's an opt-out rather
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: than opt-in?
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: It's neither opt-in nor opt-out. It's about choosing your primary
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: default feed. So, when you log in, they will have
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: to give you a prompt and they will say, Justin,
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  Speaker 2: what would you prefer your primary default feed to be?
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  Speaker 2: Do you want the algorithm or do you want your
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: following feed? You will make that choice. And you can
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: make that choice as often as you like. Some of
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: these laws exist elsewhere at the moment and some of
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: these platforms offer this choice, but it might reset overnight. So,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: even if you opt out of the algorithm, the next
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: time you come back in, you've reset yourself to the algorithm.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So we're requiring platforms to give you a choice about
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  Speaker 2: what your default is, and then it's up to you
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: to decide if you want to toggle back and forth
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: or not.
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  Speaker 1: So today, I'm really fortunate to have a conversation with
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the Minister of Communications, Annika Wells. I do want to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: ask you one more really important question. In March of
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: this year, the Labor government at a federal level brought
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: in age verification for pornography. This is the other massive
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: challenge that parents are struggling with, especially parents, well, not
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: just of young men, young men are the most affected,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: but the carryover into the lives of girls is enormous
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: as well. So clicking a button that says I'm 18
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: or older is no longer enough. It used to work
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: and now obviously kids can't get in just by clicking
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: that button. Obviously, I was a massive supporter of this legislation,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: but From what I can make out, here's what actually happened. ALO,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: which owns Pornhub, they own RedTube, they own YouPorn, they
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: didn't verify anyone. They just switched off explicit content for
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Australia and put up a banner saying that it wasn't
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: accepting any new registrations here and put some fairly safe
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: content on their site for Australians. And initially I thought, oh,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: that's fantastic. It's not here. And then VPN downloads went
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: through the roof. So sensor tower data showed that VPN
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: downloads went from the 40th most downloaded to the seventh
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: most downloaded on the free iPhone charts in a matter
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of days. And there were a whole bunch of others
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: as well. There was, I don't know, NordVPN and ProtonVPN
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: all jumped into the top 10 or the top 20.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: So the biggest, most regulated, most reachable player left the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: market and the kids who want pornography have learned to
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: either A, use a VPN or B, go to sites
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: that nobody's ever heard of and nobody's policing. And so
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: my question is, how is this a better outcome for
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a 13-year-old boy than what we had before.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Well, what happened in March was the industry crows coming
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: into force. And like you say, some companies chose to
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: leave the Australian market rather than abide by Australian law.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: And like you say, the outcome that we want is
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: for no children to be accessing illegal or seriously harmful
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: content online and for adults to be able to access
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: what is legal but not to be offered things that
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: are illegal. And there's a big wide internet out there,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: like you say, lots of ways to subvert it. We
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: are measuring this in a number of different ways. There's
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: obviously the compliance statistics that you've talked about and that
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I freely admit we would all like to see higher
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: than they are, but that isn't on parents and kids
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: failing to abide by law. That is big tech choosing
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to take the risk and not bide by Australian law.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Those industry codes, again, a remnant of an industry that
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: has not been subject to much regulation over the past decade.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: We are making those codes part of the digital care.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: We are enshrining those requirements in the law. And some
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: of those ways you're talking about kids using VPNs, that
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: is one data point that platforms can use to identify
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: how old someone is. There are a myriad of data points.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: that you can use that you voluntarily give up when
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: you go online that gives away how old you are.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: That's the age of the people that you interact with online.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: That's if you're looking up caravans or grey nomad excursions
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: around the country or if you're talking about the under-14s
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: netball final on Saturday. There are a lot more data
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: points than just VPN usage, but you are right in
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: that platforms are taking the mickey in allowing these things
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to happen. And that's why we want to bring in
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: the digital duty of care where the onus, the responsibility
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: shifts from being on the shoulders of victims here to
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: being on the shoulders of big tech who want to
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: make money off Australian customers. And I know... Cultural change
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: takes time. I'm of an age where seatbelts were always
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: compulsory growing up, but people tell me that there was
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: a moment when seatbelts became compulsory and not everybody on
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: day one agreed with that. And I also... I'm told
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: that the car industry said that that would send them bust,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: wasn't possible to design, seatbelts would affect the economics of
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: car manufacturing, all that jazz. Now we have car companies
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: who compete to be the safest car on the market.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And whilst I know that parents might feel like This
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: isn't working as fast as they want. This hasn't panned
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: out the way that we would have liked. This is
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: about cultural change and cultural change takes time. And I
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: always said that the first three years of this was
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: going to be the hardest as we had young people
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: who have been on social media for years being asked
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: to go back off it for a year or two
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: years until they turn 16, whereas there's another whole generation
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: of kids out there who will now not be on
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: social media platforms until they turn 16 because they were
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: younger than these laws coming in. And there are green
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: shoots that, like you say, you feel better for being
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: off social media. We're tracking this through a long-term study
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: at the Safety Commission and we know through other polls
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: like YouGov that 30% of young Australians are spending more
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: time playing sport now, 27% are reporting better sleep now,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: online bullying's down 9%, and exposure to inappropriate and violent
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: content has fallen by 18%. So, there's lots of different
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: ways that this is affecting us. We're trying to track
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: as many of them as possible. I want parents to
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: have hope that we will use every weapon in our
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: arsenal to address some of the most complex policy dilemmas
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: of our time online. And we will hold big tech
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: to account. And unfortunately, it wasn't just a case of
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: writing a fine on day one. But even today, because
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: of the laws that we passed in the to those
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: platforms that accountability is coming.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Well, go get them. I want to ask you so
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: many more questions, but time is going to get away
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: from us.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I'm happy to come back.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe we need to. Our time is done, but I
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: really want to ask you just one more question about
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the online pornography challenge, because it's such a big one.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: With all of the digital duty of care content that
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: we've discussed today, one of the things that concerns me
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: most is that while the big tech platforms, whether they're
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: pornography or social media platforms or AI chatbots, there's the
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: stuff that happens publicly, but then there's the stuff that
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: happens behind the scenes in the group chats or the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: thing where an older cousin or somebody shows a kid
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: something that's just really, really explicit or inappropriate and changes
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: their life. And I wonder if the government has any
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: any capacity to do anything to help when we're talking
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: about the exposure that never actually goes there's not happening
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: on the websites but rather it's happening in the background
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: in the chats the post and boast in the in
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the messaging the video that was taken privately and sent
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: privately but doesn't actually end up on tiktok or on
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: instagram or on discord is there anything in the legislation
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: in the digital duty of care act that can support
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: families whose kids have kind of gone all right we'll
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: just keep it private we can still have lots of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: fun we can We can take photos and video of
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the fight that we've organised down at the local park
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and we just won't put it online. Is there anything
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: that we can do around that?
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: The digital duty of care legislation explicitly prohibits the harmful
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: content like pornography or glorifying crime or dangerous stunts, the
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: post and boast, as we call it up here.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Any platform, any online service must protect under 18s from
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: that harmful content. They will have to do a risk assessment.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: They will have to convince the safety commissioner that they
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: have identified this risk and that they have taken reasonable
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: steps to mitigate against any under 18 user from seeing
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: that kind of content on their platform. And if the
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: e-safety commissioner is not satisfied, then we go through the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: accountability process and they can get fined. And the digital
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: duty of care fines, like you say, aren't going to
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: bankrupt META, but they are comparable with other consumer protection
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: laws that we have in Australia. And if you breach
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: both the digital duty of care and the social minimum
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: media aid by, for example, allowing a 15-year-old to be
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: on Instagram seeing pornography, that would be a breach of
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: both of those laws. which would mean double the fines.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Bring it on. Bring it on. It's a really thankless
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: task that you've got. You're up against some... An important one. Yeah,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: some powerhouses globally. But I really appreciate you taking the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: time to chat with us today, Minister Wells, about the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: legislation and how it affects our families. Thanks for your time.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I appreciate everything you do to help parents through one
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: of these really complex challenges that we're all navigating.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Have a good day. You too. Thank you so much.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: That's the Communications Minister, Annika Wells, on the Happy Families podcast.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: We will link to the legislation. We'll link to some
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: articles and some other info to help you to understand
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: everything about what we've discussed in the show notes. If
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: you'd like more info to make your family happier, visit happyfamilies.com.au.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: A big thanks to Justin Roulon from Bridge Media for
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: sound and audio engineering and Mim Hammonds for additional support.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Back on Monday with more to make your family happier.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: We'll see you then.