Latest / The Morning Edition / Government v the internet: Albanese eyes algorithm ‘off switch’

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Government v the internet: Albanese eyes algorithm ‘off switch’ · The Morning Edition

• 0:02
  S1: It's the government versus big tech. This week in Parliament,
• 0:06
  S1: with the government set to introduce a bill that would
• 0:08
  S1: tackle online harm. But should our federal politicians control what
• 0:13
  S1: we see on social media? And if they want to,
• 0:16
  S1: can they? I'm Samantha Cylindromas, and you're listening to Morning
• 0:21
  S1: Edition from The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today,
• 0:25
  S1: federal Bureau chief Michelle Griffin on how this legislation might
• 0:29
  S1: address the anxiety about sexual assault that has been spiking
• 0:33
  S1: across the nation after a number of high profile allegations
• 0:37
  S1: involving boys and men. Welcome, Michelle, to the podcast.
• 0:45
  S2: Thank you.
• 0:46
  S1: Now it's a big week for Canberra. Before we started recording,
• 0:49
  S1: you described it as the government versus the internet. What
• 0:53
  S1: is happening?
• 0:54
  S2: Well, there's a range of things happening in what has
• 0:56
  S2: been a big theme for them for well over a
• 0:59
  S2: year now. They have new souped up powers for the
• 1:02
  S2: Esafety commissioner, with an increase in fines going up to
• 1:07
  S2: $100 million for platforms that breach duty and also more
• 1:11
  S2: investigative powers for them to police the under 16 that's
• 1:16
  S2: going to the Senate on Tuesday. This is about policing
• 1:19
  S2: their minimum age requirements, chiefly, but it is going to
• 1:25
  S2: lead into their very ambitious digital duty of care reforms,
• 1:29
  S2: and they're going to be made public later this week.
• 1:33
  S2: This is much more ambitious. This is where they're talking
• 1:36
  S2: about the algorithm, basically, the recommendation machines that direct you
• 1:41
  S2: to new content based on your interests and your response.
• 1:46
  S2: And they've found that a lot of these basically escalate
• 1:49
  S2: your pathway through to more extreme or more emotional stuff,
• 1:54
  S2: although it's also the kind of thing that means if
• 1:56
  S2: you're shopping for an EV, you see a lot of
• 1:59
  S2: ads for EVs, or if you're talking about your holiday,
• 2:02
  S2: you start to see a lot of that. It's those patterns.
• 2:05
  S2: It's the new form of advertising. But the idea that
• 2:09
  S2: they would take on this key revenue driver and switch
• 2:12
  S2: it off in order to stop extremist patterns of following
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  S2: social media. That is a very, very big idea.
• 2:24
  S1: Okay, so Ken, let's drill down a little bit more
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  S1: into what is the problem with our algorithms, because you mentioned,
• 2:29
  S1: of course there that, you know, people who are looking
• 2:31
  S1: at TV content, that's what they're going to get more of.
• 2:34
  S1: But we have seen a lot in the media over
• 2:36
  S1: the last three weeks in particular, but certainly before then.
• 2:40
  S1: On concern with what teenagers are seeing specifically. So can
• 2:44
  S1: you just walk us through a bit about that in particular?
• 2:46
  S1: I think what teenage boys are seeing, and you know,
• 2:50
  S1: why the government is thinking about doing something about that
• 2:52
  S1: in particular. Now.
• 2:55
  S2: There's been a lot of anxiety, particularly around high profile
• 2:59
  S2: cases of sexual assault that it is alleged that teenage
• 3:04
  S2: boys have been part of. There were three boys from
• 3:09
  S2: a high profile school in Sydney the Scots College.
• 3:13
  S3: Scots College have been charged accused of sexually assaulting a
• 3:16
  S3: 14 year old girl. In the eastern suburbs.
• 3:19
  S2: There was a lot of anxiety about the admittedly adult
• 3:21
  S2: men of the Swans football club. Now the Swans.
• 3:25
  S4: Scandal has deepened, with a sixth person now linked to
• 3:28
  S4: that alleged hotel room sexual assault. That's being.
• 3:31
  S5: A string of disturbing cases of alleged sexual assaults involving
• 3:34
  S5: Sydney schoolchildren have sparked.
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  S6: A really disturbing few weeks here in New South Wales
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  S6: and around the country.
• 3:42
  S2: There are concerns that across the world that boys in
• 3:47
  S2: school are getting more arrogant and misogynist because when they
• 3:51
  S2: go on social media, they end up following a path
• 3:54
  S2: that takes them to really quite toxic, misogynist stuff. The
• 3:58
  S2: Andrew Tate stuff, I think it's also been fuelled fueled
• 4:01
  S2: by things like the TV show adolescents, which showed a
• 4:05
  S2: boy follow this. So there's a lot of anxiety that
• 4:08
  S2: boys are being exposed to quite aggressive, misogynist, ugly stuff,
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  S2: mainly through their simple curiosity when they go online about
• 4:19
  S2: what it's like to be a man, and also, frankly,
• 4:21
  S2: the natural teenage curiosity about sex. Of course, children, both
• 4:27
  S2: girls and boys, will go onto the internet and look
• 4:30
  S2: for porn, and the porn they've been shown is not
• 4:33
  S2: the kind of Playboy centerfold posi stuff that their parents
• 4:38
  S2: might have seen. It's much more hardcore and aggressive, and
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  S2: there's a lot of concern about how the algorithm is
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  S2: feeding up these violent ideas about what it is to
• 4:48
  S2: be a man. So we don't know if this has
• 4:52
  S2: anything to do with any of the cases that are
• 4:56
  S2: before the courts. We can't draw any correlation between that,
• 5:00
  S2: but there is a wealth of information to suggest that
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  S2: a lot of boys are being fed a lot of
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  S2: quite toxic ideas about what it is to be a
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  S2: man through the algorithms, because we know the recommendation machines
• 5:13
  S2: tend to go for emotive content and more extreme content.
• 5:17
  S2: It's also being blamed for, I guess, the degradation of
• 5:22
  S2: political conversation, that people are being sent to more extreme
• 5:26
  S2: views about everything. And so the idea that the temperature
• 5:30
  S2: is hotting up has been discussed by everybody from the
• 5:34
  S2: Prime Minister and the opposition leader through to the head
• 5:37
  S2: of ASIO.
• 5:38
  S1: Now, as we're recording this on Monday morning, we don't
• 5:40
  S1: actually have a draft of this legislation yet, but we
• 5:43
  S1: do know what consent campaigner and author Chanel Contos argued
• 5:48
  S1: for in her Press Club speech last week.
• 5:50
  S7: Without immediate action, Australia risks a generation of young men
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  S7: being entrenched into ideologies that directly contradict the government's aims
• 5:57
  S7: and the national plan to end violence against women and children.
• 6:00
  S1: Now she was suggesting an opt in model, which is
• 6:03
  S1: that Australians wouldn't automatically have their social media feeds hijacked,
• 6:07
  S1: as it were. Do we know if the government would
• 6:09
  S1: be planning to go this far?
• 6:11
  S2: I mean, maybe they have not ruled it out yet.
• 6:14
  S2: They haven't said that's impossible. The Prime Minister, among others,
• 6:18
  S2: told our chief political correspondent, Paul Circle, that he was
• 6:24
  S2: very up for tackling social media over algorithms. So possibly
• 6:29
  S2: this would lead to when you have a social media feed,
• 6:34
  S2: it would show you who you have followed in chronological order,
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  S2: which quite a lot of the popular feeds just do
• 6:40
  S2: not do anymore. And this is contrary to the model
• 6:44
  S2: by which they make their profits. However, this conversation did
• 6:49
  S2: come up over the gambling reforms where the Prime Minister
• 6:52
  S2: was a lot more reluctant to embrace them. There was
• 6:55
  S2: a big push for opt in to get gambling ads,
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  S2: but the government stuck to its gun with an opt
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  S2: out model, where you naturally get the thing that makes
• 7:05
  S2: the profits, and if you have concerns, you can opt
• 7:07
  S2: out of it.
• 7:09
  S8: So let's get into some of the practical.
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  S1: Aspects of this. Like, do we know if it's even
• 7:13
  S1: possible to control our algorithms? Like would Big Tech even
• 7:17
  S1: be open to allowing this? Would the government have to
• 7:19
  S1: take them to court to force this change to happen?
• 7:23
  S2: I don't think they'll do it voluntarily. You will need
• 7:27
  S2: legislation that requires things to happen. The government's argument when
• 7:31
  S2: they're asked about this is that social media companies have
• 7:34
  S2: proved adept at fine tuning and expanding their reach through algorithms.
• 7:40
  S2: So they, of course, have the technical ability to turn
• 7:43
  S2: it off and turn it away. So I'd say it
• 7:46
  S2: is possible. I mean, if you go on Instagram and
• 7:49
  S2: you get sent shown an ad, you can actually click.
• 7:52
  S2: I don't want to see any more of this ad again,
• 7:54
  S2: if you like. So there's already some agency in switching
• 7:58
  S2: off some of the algorithm already if you're active about it.
• 8:02
  S2: And I think Facebook also has some controls about what
• 8:05
  S2: you can see and what you don't that you can
• 8:07
  S2: turn off. So they would argue it is possible.
• 8:10
  S8: Right. But I guess.
• 8:11
  S1: Wouldn't big tech fight this in, in perhaps in an
• 8:14
  S1: extreme way? I mean, we know even not that long ago,
• 8:17
  S1: I think Elon Musk was in a tussle with our
• 8:20
  S1: Esafety commissioner over an attempt to get a violent video
• 8:23
  S1: taken down. So it's not without struggle, right. And even
• 8:27
  S1: then it's hard to get through.
• 8:29
  S2: I'd say there would definitely be a struggle, particularly because
• 8:31
  S2: this is literally the profit model for every social media
• 8:35
  S2: platform is to have advertising that they send your way.
• 8:40
  S2: I mean, in due disclosure, the masthead for which we
• 8:44
  S2: work will also send things through and see that they
• 8:49
  S2: get into people's feeds. It's how you make yourself visible
• 8:52
  S2: on social media. Political campaigns do this. Everyone does this
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  S2: for money. So a world where there was no algorithms
• 9:01
  S2: would probably be a world in which social media was
• 9:04
  S2: a subscription model, and you paid for it up front.
• 9:07
  S1: And in terms of support or lack of support across
• 9:09
  S1: the political spectrum, is there an argument in relation to
• 9:12
  S1: the algorithm and social media that it should just be
• 9:15
  S1: a matter of personal choice? You know that we just
• 9:17
  S1: don't need our algorithms controlled.
• 9:20
  S2: There's a debate looming about free speech, which will sharpen
• 9:24
  S2: when we know more of the details about what they
• 9:27
  S2: want to control in the algorithm. I think there's concern
• 9:31
  S2: about how the government would decide what is acceptable and
• 9:36
  S2: not acceptable under the digital duty of care. If the
• 9:40
  S2: platforms have got a responsibility to withhold harmful material, which
• 9:44
  S2: is bigger than just turning the algorithm on and off,
• 9:47
  S2: who decides what is harmful material and what isn't? Do
• 9:51
  S2: they decide that a one nation group formed by supporters
• 9:56
  S2: of One Nation, but not controlled by One Nation, shouldn't
• 9:59
  S2: be able to say things. It's a complicated area to
• 10:04
  S2: rule what is acceptable and what isn't beyond. I think
• 10:07
  S2: the stuff that is already illegal. The extreme violent, non-consensual pornography,
• 10:13
  S2: for example, that's flat out illegal for anyone to demonstrate.
• 10:17
  S1: And so you are there recording out of Parliament House today.
• 10:20
  S1: So what are you hearing on the ground? Like, is
• 10:22
  S1: the government preparing to be accused of trying to shut
• 10:25
  S1: down freedom of speech? You know, and is it their
• 10:28
  S1: job to try and control information on the internet?
• 10:31
  S2: Certainly they would argue. Communications Minister Anika Wells and the
• 10:36
  S2: Prime Minister would argue that this is one of the
• 10:39
  S2: big struggles of our times. They're very proud of the
• 10:41
  S2: work they did on the under 16. They are not
• 10:44
  S2: taking a backward step on digital duty of care. They
• 10:47
  S2: think it's important, and I think they also think it
• 10:50
  S2: resonates with people. So of course they're prepared for a
• 10:55
  S2: debate about it, but we'll see where it goes.
• 11:02
  S1: Just finally, Michelle, this fight against Big Tech, it does
• 11:05
  S1: seem to be a real legacy piece for this labor government. Right.
• 11:08
  S1: So do you have a. Yeah. Do you have a
• 11:10
  S1: sense of, I guess, how widely supported though it is
• 11:13
  S1: among the Australian public.
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  S2: When we polled on the under 16 measures and when
• 11:19
  S2: other people have polled on it, they have found widespread
• 11:22
  S2: support for the controls. So I imagine that with heightened
• 11:26
  S2: concern around what's to be done about boys, that there
• 11:30
  S2: would be some public support for measures that manage to
• 11:34
  S2: restrict what they could see to a greater degree, because
• 11:39
  S2: this is so wide ranging in what it could be
• 11:43
  S2: with the note that I don't yet know what the
• 11:46
  S2: weight is on the digital duty of care. You could
• 11:50
  S2: come across people who have more concerns about it, particularly
• 11:54
  S2: as it spreads into adult behaviour and adult choices. You
• 11:59
  S2: get into a more uncomfortable conversation then about what you're
• 12:03
  S2: trying to control in the free speech and the free
• 12:06
  S2: choices of adults.
• 12:09
  S1: Well, thank you so much, Michel, for your time.
• 12:12
  S2: Thank you.
• 12:16
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  S1: now and what to save for later. You can read
• 13:07
  S1: more at the 8.com.au or smh.com.au. Today's episode of The
• 13:22
  S1: Morning Edition was produced by Julia Karkazis. Our executive producer
• 13:26
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