Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: Australia's world-first social media ban, TikToker lawsuit over stolen "aesthetic" & Ballerina Farm leans in

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: Australia's world-first social media ban, TikToker lawsuit over stolen "aesthetic" & Ballerina Farm leans in · Mini Scroll

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  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
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  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
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  media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
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  through Thursday. I'm your host, Lauren Meisner,
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  the founder of the youth digital media brand Centennial World.
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  Welcome back to Mini Scroll, everyone.
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  Happy December. So before I get into the stories
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  for today, I wanted to share some context about the crashing
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  out story that I reported on last week.
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  So a lot of you guys let me know and I'm if anybody doesn't know,
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  I'm not from the US, like I'm not American.
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  I don't live in the US. So I was missing a little piece
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  of context in this story, which was this term.
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  It's not actually a social media term.
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  It's not even like I said, it was kind of like, you know,
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  millennials being like, oh, I'm crashing, like I'm tired.
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  And Jen's that is using it as like I'm freaking out.
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  No, apparently the term a lot of you guys let me know originated
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  from AAVE, which is African American vernacular English.
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  So this is just another example of AAVE being Co opted as slang
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  by young people online. So yes, everything else that I
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  said in that story is true, but I was missing that big, you
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  know, piece of context. So I would now say if you were
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  going to create content using that slang, maybe just don't,
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  maybe just don't. OK, the first story that I have
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  for you guys today, this is actually a little bit of like a
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  legal episode for you guys. The first story is I need to
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  talk about how the Australian social media banned for children
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  under 16 passed Senate last week in a world first law.
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  Last Thursday, the Australian Senate approved the highly
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  debated social media ban for children under 16.
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  So I covered this a couple of weeks ago because I am actually
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  based in Australia. I know it's confusing.
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  People always comment that on YouTube.
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  They always get very confused when I talk about Australia
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  because I obviously don't have an Australian accent.
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  I'm from Canada, but I live in Australia.
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  So basically this bill was introduced, debated, and passed
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  within one week. That's not to say that the idea
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  for the bill came about like all within a week.
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  I know that they were kind of talking about it for several
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  months, but all of that happened like the process all happened
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  within a week. So that is very contentious.
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  I mean, this bill in general is very contentious, but a lot of
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  people feel like the process itself was very, very rushed.
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  And there were also a lot of experts saying that this is just
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  like, not the right way to go about a law like this.
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  But obviously, you know, they didn't listen to that.
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  So the law puts the onus directly on the platforms where
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  social media platforms must take, quote, reasonable steps to
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  ensure a user is 16 plus. If they don't take reasonable
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  steps to verify age, they can be fined up to 50 million
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  Australian dollars. Those reasonable steps are not
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  specified or defined, so it will be up to the tech platforms to
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  come up with their own plan. The Safety Commissioner in
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  Australia will come up with some guidelines on what those
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  reasonable steps should be or could be, which will be informed
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  by an age assurance technology trial that is currently
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  underway. So the laws apply to a new
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  government definition of age restricted social media
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  platforms where the quote significant purpose is to enable
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  social media interaction between two or more users so they will
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  be able to include or exclude different platforms under this
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  definition. So far they are excluding
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  messaging apps like WhatsApp, gaming services and education
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  platforms. So that could be something like
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  Canva or like a university forum.
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  The laws only apply to having an account.
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  This is kind of the caveat. So logged out use doesn't come
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  under this so like if you're 14 and you're watching YouTube
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  videos without logging in, YouTube doesn't have to worry
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  about this. They will not be fined for this
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  and all of this will not come into effect until the end of
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  2025 S about a year. OK, so like I said, this is very
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  contentious. I'll kind of go through some of
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  the major points. This definitely won't hit all of
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  them, but one of the biggest points of contention is this law
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  isn't as prescriptive as as people would have liked.
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  So the definition of an age restricted platform is still
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  kind of up for debate. There's also possibility that
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  this won't necessarily be as impactful as I think they hoped.
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  So something that has been brought up is that platforms
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  already like generally kind of know our age.
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  Like these giant platforms have a whole range of ways to
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  estimate how old a user is, even if they don't put their age into
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  the platform. And they are using these
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  measures to enforce their own age gating.
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  So now for most platforms, that's 13.
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  But regardless, they have all these measures in place to
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  estimate our ages and you know, that covers their own asses.
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  It also helps with advertising, things like that.
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  So like I said, for most platforms, the age gating is 13.
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  So children under 13, like they might make an account, but once
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  the platform discovers this based on all of these kind of
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  user activity factors, they will in theory ban that account.
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  So this law really is just putting pressures on platforms
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  to be more specific about how they are coming to conclusions
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  about users ages and making that public, like creating policy
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  around that and then making that public in the hopes of enforcing
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  age gating more strongly with the possibility of a fine.
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  And obviously they are also raising that age right from 13
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  to 16. Now, things that this bill
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  doesn't address, that has some people kind of raising their
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  eyebrows, The privacy concerns around big tech companies that
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  are not Australian having access to the government ID of children
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  and also probably many adults who are having to enter into
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  this age gating process. And the bill doesn't address the
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  actual biggest threat to children online, which is
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  platforms, algorithmic models, right?
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  It's not the content itself necessarily that is harmful to
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  children or just to any of us. I mean, there is a lot of
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  harmful content out there, but it's the algorithm that ends up
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  kind of sending you down this pipeline and then eventually
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  feeding you that content. So this bill doesn't address
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  that concern. So all of that to say, where I
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  stand, I mean, I don't know. I feel very conflicted,
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  honestly. I think that this is not
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  necessarily the right way to go about addressing these problems,
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  but I appreciate that. I guess a government is trying.
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  I do think that children under 16 should not be on social
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  media, but I think saying they should not be on social media is
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  different from saying they cannot be on it.
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  And I think the biggest problem that I see here is that the
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  problem itself, he's already too big.
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  It's taken too long to act on the concept of algorithmic
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  models and recommendations to begin with.
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  And now, honestly, I feel like it's almost an impossible area
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  to govern and social media is nowhere near the biggest factor
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  for children's poor mental health.
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  You know, time and time again the research comes out and
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  they're finding that social media has less of an impact than
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  I think we as like everyday people and users would expect.
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  I think the actual focus of the bill and the law is misdirected.
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  I think something needs to be in place.
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  Absolutely. We've talked about this a
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  million times, but like it is algorithms and moderation that
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  we need to be going after and AI, My friend Crystal Andrews,
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  she works at Crikey here in Australia and she also runs Z
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  Feed. She put it really well.
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  We were talking about this bill in Slack today and she wrote why
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  isn't there any legislation being drafted to protect the use
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  of my likeness without my permission when it comes to AI?
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  Feels like there are just bigger problems at play.
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  But I also understand that I think we have to start
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  somewhere. I don't think this is
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  necessarily the right place to start, but we have to start
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  somewhere. Also, go back and listen to my
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  episode where I talked about it. I think it was a couple weeks
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  ago where I talked about like how this bill came about because
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  it did not come about in the most genuine way.
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  It was pretty insidious and it will maybe make you side eye
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  this bill passing in general. OK, the next word that I have
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  for you guys is I need to break down for you the battle of the
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  beige influencers. OK, so this story was actually
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  sent to me by a listener. Thank you so much.
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  You guys can always send me tips.
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  You can DM it to me, you can e-mail it to me.
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  You can just always send me any stories that you think might be
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  relevant and I'll see if they make sense.
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  And this one absolutely does. OK, so this is actually another
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  landmark case in social media. But this one involves a lawsuit
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  between two influencers. OK, so TikTok creator Sydney
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  Nicole Gifford, she is 24. She lives in Minnesota.
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  And then there's another TikTok influencer, Alyssa Shield, who
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  is 21 and lives in Texas. Both Sydney and Alyssa are
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  lifestyle creators, and they have a very similar aesthetic.
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  Think like neutrals, clean girl vibes.
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  That's why people are calling this the battle of the beige
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  influencer because all their shit is beige.
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  You know exactly what I'm talking about.
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  OK so Sydney has filed a lawsuit against Alyssa claiming that
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  Alyssa duplicated her quote neutral beige and cream
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  aesthetics, promoted the same Amazon products, and used
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  similar language across TikTok, Instagram, and her Amazon
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  storefront. Sydney also claims that Alyssa
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  copies some of her content frame for frame.
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  So this sounds kind of insane right?
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  Like, filing a lawsuit for an aesthetic that no one owns.
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  Like, you know, Sydney does not create this aesthetic.
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  Every girl on TikTok is obsessed with this aesthetic.
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  It is like the vibe of what everybody thinks is like, chic
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  right now. Well, journalist Mia Sado for
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  The Verge actually interviewed both women in a piece about this
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  lawsuit, and she got some interesting insight.
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  Quote. This aggressively neutral
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  aesthetic is wildly popular. It's so ubiquitous online that I
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  might be the weird one for not liking it.
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  This minimalism is also aspirational.
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  Millions of people have seen Giffords and Shields videos, and
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  thousands have likely purchased products from their affiliate
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  links. What I was not prepared for,
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  even after watching hours of their content online, was that
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  it wasn't just their social media profiles that were
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  monochrome. Their lives and their homes are
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  exactly the same. It's like you grabbed the
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  corners of your phone screen and expanded a TikTok video out into
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  a world of neutrals. In speaking with Sado, Alyssa
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  pushed back on the lawsuit, saying, quote, there are
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  hundreds of people with the exact same aesthetic, and I'm
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  the only one that's having to go through this.
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  It's coming across very gatekeepy, like I'm the only one
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  that's allowed to be successful in this program, as in the
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  Amazon storefront program. I'm the only one that's allowed
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  to put my foot in the drawer. I do think that there's space
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  and definitely enough money for everyone that's in the Amazon
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  influencer program. However, here is where it gets a
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  little bit interesting. So Sydney and Alyssa apparently
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  met in Austin in December 2022 with the intention of
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  collaborating and helping each other's businesses out.
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  They did a joint photo shoot in January 2023.
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  So one month later and afterward, Alyssa blocked Sydney
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  on social media. Quote.
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  She says it's because she didn't feel the need to keep up with
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  the relationship online if it wasn't all that brilliant in
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  real life, reports the Daily Mail.
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  OK, so imagine you meet someone, like a colleague in your
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  industry. You guys do like a little work
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  project together and you don't really hit it off.
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  You don't block them. You just, you just don't.
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  You just don't block them. That's so extreme.
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  So then Sydney's followers started messaging her, saying
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  that Alyssa's content was very much resembling hers.
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  Alyssa was sent a cease and desist, and when she didn't
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  allegedly stop copying Sydney's content, Sydney filed the
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  lawsuit. Look, all of this is like a
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  little bit crazy because everyone has the same stuff.
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  This is like an ongoing conversation on TikTok.
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  Everyone dresses the same, everyone buys the same clothes,
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  everyone buys the same furniture, everyone suits the
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  same aesthetic. Like it's all the same.
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  So aesthetic aside, I think the frame for frame content copying
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  part is the most interesting of this to me because we've seen so
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  many instances of creator plagiarism over the years and so
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  little is ever done about it. So I think from an IP
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  perspective, if Alyssa really is copying Sydney's content frame
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  for frame, then I do think that this lawsuit and the press
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  around it could end up being a step maybe towards creators kind
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  of taking this more seriously and being able to take this into
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  their own hands. I mentioned this a few months
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  ago, but a segment of our podcast script, one of our
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  podcast scripts from earlier this year, which we do write by
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  hand, was copied nearly word for word by a much bigger YouTube.
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  And when I reached out to various creators who have much
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  bigger platforms and we do like asking, you know, has this
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  happened to you before? What should you do?
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  Basically everyone just said let it go because there's nothing
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  that can be done. And, you know, if this was not a
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  podcast and this was like a written piece of work that
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  published on our website or anywhere else, you know, that
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  would be like straight up plagiarism.
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  So I think there is this kind of interesting fuzzy line because
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  like video and podcasting, it's not like the written word
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  technically. So I don't think there's as much
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  knowledge around how to enforce, you know, copyright or IP
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  ownership and things like that. So I think that that part of
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  this lawsuit is very interesting if she is copying her videos
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  frame for frame. And I've actually don't know
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  much about that law in terms of like in the US for like video
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  and stuff like how that would hold up.
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  But there definitely need to be more protections in place for
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  stuff like podcasts and video like media that is not written.
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  I'll keep you guys posted on anything else that comes out
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  about it. I'll also link the Verge
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  interview down below because it's very in depth, but this is
• 14:19
  just so interesting. The last story that I have for
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  you guys is we need to talk about how Ballerina Farm has
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  appeared on the cover of Evie Magazine.
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  So queen of the trad wives. Ballerina Farm, whose real name
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  is Hannah Neilman, is the cover star of EV Magazine's 2024 print
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  issue. OK, so this is going super viral
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  because for anyone that doesn't know, EV Magazine is a quote,
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  politically conservative American women's magazine.
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  It was founded in February 2019 by husband and wife Gabriel Hugo
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  Boom and Brittany Martinez, with Martinez as editor in chief.
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  According to Vice, the website has spread COVID-19
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  misinformation and vaccination misinformation presented as part
• 15:04
  of a traditionalist and anti feminist worldview.
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  So that is directly from their Wikipedia page.
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  But feminist author Jessica Valenti describes EV.
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  She talks about that like how it's kind of, you know, it's
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  like this anti feminist conservative magazine.
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  But she also recently called it quote a front for an anti birth
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  control propaganda campaign. Because Evie is not really a
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  magazine. Evie is a front.
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  Evie is a billionaire backed front for a massive anti birth
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  control propaganda campaign that includes a period tracking app
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  where they're collecting women's data.
• 15:42
  Yes, at first glance, if you look at their like publication,
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  if you look at the website, it seems like this right wing,
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  ultra right wing conservative Christian publication, It has
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  anti trans rhetoric, all the stuff that you would expect a
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  lot of stuff on birth control, a lot, a lot.
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  And there's a reason for that. So they had an article once that
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  said the symptoms of hormonal birth control are
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  indistinguishable from the symptoms of PTSD.
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  They had another one that said women who use Iuds can sometimes
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  hear voices and drown their newborns.
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  Really wild shit. And they're pumping out like
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  article after article after article.
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  And the reason they're doing that is so that when a young
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  woman goes to search for information on birth control,
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  like does a Google search, their insane misinformation comes up.
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  OK, so the reason why people are discussing Hannah being on the
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  cover of this magazine is because of how Hannah over this
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  past year and honestly, like a most of the big trad wife
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  creators position themselves or talk about their influence,
• 16:44
  quote UN quote. They usually claim that there's
• 16:47
  no political agenda tied to their content and they simply
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  just like love having babies, they love farming, they love
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  making sourdough. And a lot of people, especially
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  white women, who see themselves, I guess, in them, may be
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  reflected back in them, have believed them or defended them.
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  This past year, that rang even more true when the Times piece
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  came out. And a lot of people, again,
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  mostly white women, called it a hit piece against Hannah and her
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  family. So Hannah being on this magazine
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  that is so politically charged, that is saying the quiet part
• 17:21
  out loud like that is making a very strong statement.
• 17:25
  This is fully like letting her guard down and showing us where
• 17:28
  Ballerina Farm and her family stand and like really backing up
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  the notion that we all know. But you know, a lot of people
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  refuse to believe that the trad wife content that they are all
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  creating is rooted in white supremacy and anti feminist
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  ideology. And I don't think that this
• 17:46
  would be such a big deal online right now, like Hannah being on
• 17:50
  this cover, if there wasn't such like a phenomenon that we see
• 17:55
  lately. There's this like thing going on
• 17:57
  online that's happened over the last few years where Internet
• 18:00
  users conflate online bullying with genuine analysis.
• 18:05
  So when the Times IECE came out and people were making content,
• 18:09
  analyzing what was written for us that the journalists
• 18:12
  experienced first hand analyzing that content, making educated
• 18:18
  assumptions based on that content, based on Ballerina
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  Farms account, based on what we know of the trad wife movement
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  and what we know of her husband's family, etcetera,
• 18:27
  etcetera. Like making these assumptions
• 18:29
  and talking about the social and cultural implications of this
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  type of content and these types of creators.
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  Those people were called bullies.
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  And this conflation was even more amplified when Hannah came
• 18:44
  out herself and cried victim, you know, and said that the
• 18:48
  piece was written poorly, misrepresentative of her family.
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  And there is truly no group of people in this world that we see
• 19:00
  this conflation benefit more than a white woman who cries
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  victim. And as a white woman myself,
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  that's all I'm going to say on that.
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  I hope that Ballerina Farm, not just associating herself with
• 19:14
  this magazine, but featuring as the cover star of the year on it
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  is a bit of a wake up call to those people who were
• 19:22
  criticizing the analysis of the trad wife movement and the
• 19:26
  questioning of the trad wife movement because now, now this
• 19:29
  is pretty black and white like we cannot deny this.
• 19:32
  Anyways, guys, that's it for today.
• 19:34
  Thank you so much for listening to mini scroll.
• 19:36
  Please remember to rate review and subscribe.
• 19:38
  It helps me so much. It helps me grow.
• 19:41
  Please star rate US on Spotify. We're trying to get to 500
• 19:44
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• 19:46
  I love you guys and I will talk to you tomorrow.
• 19:48
  Bye.