Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #930 Why Big Tech Doesn't Care About Your Kids

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#930 Why Big Tech Doesn't Care About Your Kids · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers now now, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: then on the Happy Families Podcast, we try something different today,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit of that difference. Hello, my name is
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: doctor Justin Coulson. Today, I guess you'd call it an
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: opinion piece, an of ed from yours truly on the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: issue of tech, the tech giants, and how the tech
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: giants are anti kids, they don't care about your kids.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: On February the second of this year, Australia's e Safety
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Commissioner Julie Inman Grant wrote a blistering critique of the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: world's tech giants and their response to discussions in the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: USA about increasing protections for children. What I'm going to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: share with you is what Julie wrote. I will mention
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: that she begins by talking about a US Senate committee
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: hearing with Mark Zuckerberg. I'm going to play part of
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: that a little later in this podcast episode. Here we
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: go from Julie Inman Grant in The Australian on the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: second of February, platitudes but no real action to protect
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: our children. This week I watched as a US Senate
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: committee grilled CEOs from Meta X formerly Twitter, TikTok, Snap
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and discord about measures they have in place to arrest
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the global explosion in online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: While tech executives being called to testify on this issue
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill as a welcome development, the hearing was
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  Speaker 1: just as notable for the important and pivotal players who
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: were not called to appear, including tech giants Apple, Google
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and Microsoft. Unfortunately, what we heard from the leaders of
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the companies who were there, including metaboss, Mark Zuckerberg, and
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: X's newly minted CEO Linda Yakarino, was more of the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: same apologies and platitudes without any concrete commitment to take
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: immediate action to protect children. It came as no surprise
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to me, says Julianmangrant that many of the assembled senators
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: emerged from this process frustrated, particularly as a number of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the CEOs continued to push back on supporting proposed new
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: US child protection legislation. As the head of Australia's online
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: safety regulator, I have some experience in this area. While
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: EA Safety was established as the world's first online safety
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: regulator in twenty fifteen, it wasn't until six years later,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: after hitting brickwall after brickwall with the platforms, that the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Australian government gave us compulsory information collection powers. Through these powers,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: we've spent the past two years surfacing a range of
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: online safety shortfalls and inconsistencies in child protection across more
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: than twenty seven tech services, including companies such as Apple,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Meta x, Microsoft, TikTok, Snap and Google. Our reports showed
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: many companies weren't even using available tools and technologies to
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: detect child sexual exploitation and abuse material, let alone detecting
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: grooming or live stream child abuse. What's more, there were
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: no real barriers to stop users creating new accounts and reoffending.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest disappointments was to see Google and x,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: two of the most widely known companies in the world,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: did not fully comply with the notices I sent them,
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  Speaker 1: failing to answer key questions even though they related to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: crimes against children. While Google was given a formal warning,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I issued ex Corp an infringement notice of six hundred
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and ten five hundred dollars due to the scale of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: its non compliance. X Corp elected not to pay the fine,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and my office is now involved in civil proceedings with
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the company in Australia's federal court, with the company also
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: challenging the validity of the notice through judicial review. This week,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the US Senate Chair Dick Durbin criticized tech companies for
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: conveniently rolling out new child safety announcements only days ahead
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: of the hearing. That included X's new Trust and Safety
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Center of Excellence boasting one hundred new full time content
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: moderators focused on child protection. While I commend any child
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: safety improvements. Ex's announcement came after the company cuts more
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: than two thousand trusts and safety staff following the October
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two acquisition, something revealed in the E Safety
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Commissioner's latest transparency report. The unprecedented explosion in online child
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: exploitation we are witnessing is difficult for everyone to confront,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: including tech executives, but we cannot bury our heads in
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  Speaker 1: the sand. Australia will continue pushing ahead, plodding the tech
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: industry to account through our powers under the Online Safety Act.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: But the US is where most of the major platforms
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: are headquartered, so measured tangible changes there could see a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: meaningful difference in the online lives of children worldwide. What's
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: needed is firm commitments to tangible safety action. In the meantime,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: we should continue putting pressure on tech companies to do
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: more and more and better and better when it comes
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: to protecting our children. The cost of continued in action
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: is simply too high. That's Julie inmand Grant, Australia's E
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Safety Commissioner. Julie will be on the podcast with me
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: next week talking about some other issues, but let's just
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: discussed this for a moment. First off, leaders from several
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: major players didn't even bother to show up in the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: US Senate hearings. They genuinely think that they're above the law. Apple, Google,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Microsoft execs all stayed away. Second, those who did show
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: up spent their time justifying inadequate and downright harmful decisions,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: and they're acting like they're providing the world of service
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  Speaker 1: and doing as all of favor. So after surveying twenty
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: seven this is according to Julian mcgrant. Surveying twenty seven
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of the biggest names in tech, her office found that
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: many companies weren't even using available tools and technologies to
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: detect child sexual exploitation and abuse material, let alone detecting
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: grooming or livestream child abuse. And she says there were
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: no real barriers to stop users creating new accounts and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: reoffending even if they were found. So Google is given
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: a demand noticed by the E Safety Commissioner's office, requiring
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that they improve what they're doing. They ignore it. X
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: formerly Twitter find just over six hundred thousand dollars. They've
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: ignored it, and now it's before the courts. They're actually
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: saying no, no, you don't have the authority to fine us
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: because we're US based and you're in Australia. Like, what
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: is going on here in terms of the duty of care?
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: This is nothing but an abdication of responsibility. This is
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: mendacity at its finest. These companies are all happy to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: roll out improvements quote unquote improvements and grab pr but
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: in all honesty, can we read what Julian and Grant
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: has shared and truly believe that these platforms are safe
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  Speaker 1: for our kids? These companies and their leaders do not
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: care about you. They don't care about your kids. They
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: don't care about bad actors. They don't care about scammers
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: or pedophiles or abuses or bullies or anything that could
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: potentially impact their bottom line. If we talk about this
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Senate hearing policy wise, nothing is going to come of this.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: These are talk fests where politicians get to show boat
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: and make accusations and speak over the top of those
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: who have been called to testify, and they bang their
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: fists and they put on their tough guy acts and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: they don't move the needle. There's this one. I'm going
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to call it a grotesquely awkward moment. It's just terrible.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Senator Josh Hawley, this is a guy with a very
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: big voice. He's been talking a lot about men and
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: their challenges late in the US, wrote a book about it.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: He demanded that Zuckerberg apologized to the parents in the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: audience at the hearings for the harm that their families
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: have experienced through his platform. This is what happened. This
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: is the full context.
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  Speaker 2: Here's some information from a whistleblower who came before the Senate,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: testified under oath in public. He worked for you as
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: a senior executive. Here's what he showed he found when
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: he studied your products. So, for example, this is girls
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: between the ages of thirteen and fifteen years old, Thirty
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: seven percent of them reported that they had been exposed
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  Speaker 2: to nudity on the platform unwanted in the last seven days.
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  Speaker 2: Twenty four percent said that they had experienced unwanted sexual
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: advances they've been propositioned in the last seven days. Seventeen
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: percent said they had encountered self harm content pushed at
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: them in the last seven days. Now, I know you're
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: familiar with these stats because he sent you an email
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: where he lined it all out. I mean, we've got
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: a copy of it right here. My question is who
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: did you fire for this? Who got fired because of that?
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  Speaker 3: Senator? We study all of this because it's important, we
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: want to improve our service. Well, you just told me
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: a second ago you studied it that there was no linkage.
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  Speaker 3: Who did you fire? I said, you mischaracterized.
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  Speaker 2: Thirty seven percent of teenage girls between thirteen and fifteen
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  Speaker 2: were exposed to unwanted nudity in a week on Instagram.
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  Speaker 2: You knew about it.
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  Speaker 3: Who did you fire? Senator? This is why we're building
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: all Who did you fires?
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  Speaker 2: Senator?
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  Speaker 3: That's I don't think that that's who did you fire?
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  Speaker 3: I'm not going to answer. That's because you didn't fire anybody, right,
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: You didn't take any significant actions it's appropriate to talk
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: about like it's not appropriate decisions.
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  Speaker 2: Do you know who's sitting behind you. You've got families
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: from across the nation whose children are either severely harmed
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: or gone, and you don't think it's appropriate to take
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: up talk about steps that you took, the fact that
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: you didn't fire a single person. Let me ask you this.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you this. Have you compensated any of
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: the victims? Sorry, have you compensated any of the victims?
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  Speaker 2: These girls? Have you compensated them?
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  Speaker 3: I don't believe so?
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Why not?
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Don't you think they deserve some compensation for what your
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: platform was done? Help with counseling services, help with dealing
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: with the issues that your services caused.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Our job is to make sure that we build tools
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  Speaker 3: to help keep people safe.
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  Speaker 2: Are you going to compensate them?
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  Speaker 3: Senator? Our job and what we take seriously is making
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  Speaker 3: sure that we build industry leading tools to find harmful
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  Speaker 3: to make money, take it off the services to make money,
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  Speaker 3: and to build tools that empower parents.
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  Speaker 2: So you didn't take any action, You didn't take any action,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: You didn't fire anybody. You haven't compensated a single victims.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you this. So let me ask you this.
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  Speaker 2: There's families of victims here today. Have you apologized to
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the victims? I would you like to do so? Now?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Well they're here, you're on national television. Would you like
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: by your product? Show them the pictures? Would you like
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: to apologize for what you've done to these good people.
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  Speaker 1: In charge? For everything that you fall down through. It's terrible.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: No one should have to go through the things that
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: your families have suffered. And this is why we invest
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: so much and are going to continue doing industry leading
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: efforts to make sure that no one has to go
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: through the types of things that your families have had
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: to suffer.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Mister Zuckerberg, why should your company not be sued for this?
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Why is it that you can claim you hide behind
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: a liability shield you can't be held accountable. Shouldn't you
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: be held accountable personally? Will you take personal responsibility?
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Senator? I think I've already answered this. I mean this
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: is these try again. Will you take personal responsibility? Senator?
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: I viewed my job and the job of our company
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: is building the best tools that we can to keep
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: our community safe. Well you're failing at the time. Well, senator,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: we're doing an industry leading effort. We build all tools.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Sence, your product is killing people. Will you personally commit
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: to compensating the victims. You're a billionaire. Will you commit
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: to compensating the victims? We set up a compensation fund
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: with your money. There, these are with your money, Senator,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: These are complicated.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: No, that's not a complicated question though.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: That's a yes or no.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Will you set up a victims compensation fund with your money,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the money you made on these families sitting behind you?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Yes or no, Senator, I don't think that that's my
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: job is sounds like good tools, you know. Make sure
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: your job is to be responsible for what your company
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: has done. You've made billions of dollars on the people
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: sitting behind them, you hear, You've done nothing to help them.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: You've done nothing to compensate them. You've done nothing to
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: put it right. You could do so here today, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: you should. You should, mister Zuckerberg.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I watched this car crash TV moment. I
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: don't know about you. I found myself squirming at the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: appalling theater of it all. But I couldn't help but
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: think after that apology that a parent might have demanded
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that Zuckerberg stand up and turn around and ask the
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: politicians who are bereting him, why haven't you done anything?
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Because ultimately, this is a free market economy, and the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: US government has allowed the free market to decide. The
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: lobbyists and the people with power have pushed those politicians around,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and the US government has let the tech companies bully them.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: The US government has let the billionaires have full sway. Ultimately,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the US government has more control, more potential for power
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: over what's going on with our kids in the online
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: world than any other body on the planet. And they
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: are doing precisely nothing except show voting and grandstanding in
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: these big Senate committee hearings. They're having the hearing that
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: go nowhere. They're extracting fake, awkward apologies from tech execs
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: who aren't going to make anything happen until we get
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: some real legislation that helps kids. Zuckerberg, once he's given
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: his apology, he's going to get back onto his private
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: plan and fly back to his compound in Hawaii and
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: talk about his handgrown lamers and whatever organic vegetables he's
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: growing with his huge coiterie of servants and employees. The
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and Sandberg and Mask and all the other executives
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: at all these big tech companies are culpable, there's no
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: denying that. But the real culprits, the ones that are
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: at the very heart of this, are the politicians who
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: are failing to act. We're dealing with it an Australian
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: level where we just passed the buck to the USA.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: That's what our Australian government does, and the USA it's
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: an exercise in cynicism. It's not just the platforms, it's
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the politicians as well, who are ironically trying to create
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a gotcha moment. It's going to go viral on the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: very platform that they're trying to catch out with they
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: gotcha moment. But when ex and Google are plainly ignoring
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: our e Safety Commissioner's warnings and even fines, we're spinning
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: our wheels. We're going nowhere fast. Until Australia's feckless politicians legislate,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: we are not going to see change. We can fix
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: so many of these problems so easy. Politicians claim it's
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: too complex, we can't do it. Those claims are overblown.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: We've got rules around when kids can drive, when they
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: can drink alcohol, when they finish school. The online world
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't have to be any different. But our politicians won't
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: age gate anything at all, not even explicit content, not
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: even pornography. Where the federal alban Eazy government last year
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: walked away from a recommendation from Julian Moan Grant, the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: e Safety Commissioner, to put an age gate trial on
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: explicit sites, the federal government walked away from that and
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: said no, no, no, we can't do it. It's too hard,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: not going to go there. Bottom line, there are no
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: benefits to the world or to our children's lives from
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: social media at the young ages that they're given access.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Just aren't. And speaking of bottom lines, in the past
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, right after those Senate hearings, Meta the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: parent company of Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and now
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: it's their record earnings. This was I think their chance
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: to warpaper over the disaster of the previous days of
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: ugly publicity in the Senate hearings. I'm not a business guy,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: but this might be the best quarter of performance of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: any company in the modern business world. Meta posted a
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: twenty five percent increase in quarterly revenue a total of
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: forty point one one billion dollars. That's forty billion with
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a B in three months profits. This is a company
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: that has laid staff off. They dropped from eighty eight
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: thousand stuff to sixty six thousand staff, so about a
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: quarter of their staff gone, and it led to a
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: two hundred billion dollar gain in market capitalization in one day.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: But they won't implement safety measures to stop our kids
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: from seeing pro anorexia content. They won't implement basic procedures
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: to block EYEPA addresses from known scammers and pedophiles. They
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: won't remove explicit content messages up our kids, and the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: list goes on. They're putting staff off that could do
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: this stuff, and they're making forty billion dollars per quarter.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: The mendacity, the mendacity of this company is astonishing. They
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: speak with such duplicity, They weaponize their armies of pr people,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and they effectively scrub the negative realities of their products
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, it's all about money,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the politicians, the shareholders, the economy. They'll let profitability rule
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: over the well being of our kids, because it's all
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: about money. So this has gone on long enough. What's
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the upshot. We have government legislation and organizations to protect
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: our environment, we have government legislation and organizations to protect
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: our industrial relationships. We have commercial codes of conduct. We
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: have so many things that are out there that are
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: all about protecting people, jobs, environment and so on. But
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: big tech immune can't be touched. Their balance sheets are
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: bigger than the balance sheets of several countries in the world,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: and governments just won't go near them. Cigarettes require warnings,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: they highlight the smoking can kill you, but there's nothing
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: like that for tech. And that means that as parents
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: up against this enormous machine, we have to pick up
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the pieces and take individual responsibility. Since we have these
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: ineffective elected officials who care more about tying to mendacious,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: duplicitous tech billionaires than helping our kids. They're focus on
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: prosperity over protection, and ironically society, the society that they're
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: supposed to represent, is the poor for it. So what
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: do we do? Number One, here's got to recommend be
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: across your kids tech. Just know what they're doing, keep
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: them off it as long as you can, but when
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: you do give them the go ahead, be aware of
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: who they're talking to and what they're viewing. Number two,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: be really firm on this. No screens ever allowed in bathrooms.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: No screens ever allowed in bedrooms. It's just not safe.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Number three, Have regular and consistent conversations with your kids
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: about the risks that come with their tech, and invite
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: them to share what's going on with their friends and
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: their friends tech. Be up front, talk about things like capping.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: That's what we talked about with the Australians centered counter
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Child Exploitation in episode eight hundred and eighty seven of
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the podcast. Talk to them about sextortion. We're talking about
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: that in a couple of weeks time with Julian and Grant.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: But there's some other episodes as well that are out there.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Will link to them in the show notes. Don't water
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: it down or they won't understand the seriousness of it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Tip number four. Make sure that they know that they
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: can come to you if anything, anything at all happens.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: That's concerning the number of parents who have told me
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: my kids had this issue happen and they came to me.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: It's just beautiful and these parents then get to have
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: really important and healing conversations with their children and better
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: decisions are made moving forward. The last thing you want
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: is for your kids to hide this from you. Make
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: sure they can come to you if anything happens that's concerning.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Other than that, get online to resources where you can
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: get help. The e Safety Commissioner's web page LinkedIn in
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the show notes, the ACE web page that's the Australian
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Center to Counter Child Exploitation. Just get there so that
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you can know what's going on it really matters. And finally,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: hope that tech executives grow a conscience or that politicians
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: grow a spine and start doing something at a society
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: wide level for the well being about kids. But don't
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: pud your breath. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Justin Roland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: If you'd like more information about making your family happier,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: you can check out a text version of my opinion
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: piece at happy families dot com dot au. For more
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: information about how to keep your family safe and happy.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: All the details at our social media pages. Ironically, but
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: better yet, sign up for our email at happy families
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: dot com dot au and will help you without all
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the social stuff,