The Govt's plan to turn off the algorithm

0:00What you're about to listen to is our daily news podcast, but it is not all the TDA makes TDA sport TDA finance TDA culture and the good newsletter Four free newsletters five minutes each on the one thing you actually want more of the links to sign up to all of them are in the show notes Ready and good morning This is the daily of oh now it makes sense Good morning and welcome to the daily Oz is Thursday the 10th of September. I'm Elliott Lowe. I'm Billy Fitzsiamonds If you have the choice would you go back to the way social media was 10 years ago? Just post from your friends family and creators you follow in the order they were uploaded Well if the government gets its way that very well could soon be an option Will require social media platforms to provide user empowerment tools They give people over the age of 16

1:02Genuine and enduring choice about what they see in their feet It's a new proposal called the digital duty of care in today's podcast We're breaking down how we got here and what it means for the future of Australians on social media So Elliott we're talking about algorithms and that is something that we are all very Very familiar with but like you said in the intro algorithms have changed a lot over the years And now they're basically just Completely bespoke to you. Yes, right. Yeah, exactly right. Do you remember what it used to be like? Yes, it used to be well it used to be timeline Yeah, and it used to like I used to remember getting onto Instagram and in the morning getting to the bottom of my feed And say you're caught up and then you'd go on with your day I actually sometimes when I'm on holiday This is so bad. I get to like the end of like Instagram You can still get to the end of the thing. No way. It just keeps going. It's happened to me before It's like you're calling you're all caught up and I'm like I need to delete Instagram for a year

2:05That's crazy. I have not had that experience But yeah, algorithms is a word that gets thrown around a lot the one that we're probably most familiar with and what people are referencing when they say the algorithm Is what's called a recommendation algorithm? So that's built basically on how you view content So how long are you watching a video for what are you liking? What are you sharing? The social media apps basically take this all on notice and then try to create a really custom Like you said bespoke feed that reflects your interests and The reason we're talking about today partly is because the government has announced this draft legislation That's born out of the idea that algorithms can be incredibly problematic. Yeah In the fact that they can surface videos that take you down a rabbit hole that is really dangerous Especially for young people. Yes exactly right. So algorithms are designed to be addictive Like they want to keep you engaged and they want to keep you scrolling and this isn't a new conversation

3:05It's actually been sort of circulating in Australia's federal parliament since 2024 back then the then communications minister Michelle Rollins actually Proposed implementing a duty of care into Australia's legislative framework And that came after a review of our online safety act which basically recommended that Tech companies should be responsible for preventing harm on their platforms rather than you know This sort of system that we have at the moment where people have to report harm on their platforms and report whether they're saying things that could be an issue Now since that review Australia has been rolling out a series of reforms probably the biggest one that we've seen in the last year is Taking children under the age of 16 off social media and this is kind of the next layer to that And there was also the campaigns be headed by Chanel contos Which was all about I think it was called fix our feeds. So it was this idea that you should be able to turn off an algorithm If you want to yeah exactly right So Chanel contos a lot of people would be familiar with her mainly around her work with teachers consent

4:09That's a youth led Consent charity that she started that has done a bunch of amazing work like they managed to get Consent education put into the national curriculums and now this has become sort of their next focus area Now their ask was really simple. It was to make algorithms opt-in So people would actively have to choose to see the sort of recommendation algorithms that we've been talking about And I actually reached out and spoke with her yesterday full transparency the interview did cut out halfway through So we are just going to play a little bit of a clip of what she said about why they started this campaign Wasn't just what we were seeing online it was it was also what we were seeing in research and studies There was a very sudden resurgence in misogynistic attitudes particularly in younger cohorts and then particularly again in Boys and young men and we were also seeing this play out as real world harms and behaviors with An increased rate of perpetration of sexual violence by teenage boys as a perpetrator class

5:09We were hearing from teachers from across the nation this kind of just sudden resurgence in misogynistic comments and attitudes and behaviors that they were saying in the classroom And then of course we were also seeing this content come across screens as well knowing that it was spending More time and there was more of that sort of content on the screens of boys and men So she's very clearly there connecting a change in the behavior of young boys and men to what they are seeing in their algorithms and this sort of research and this campaign that she started up through teachers consent Has got a lot of support over the last year so they wrote an open letter to the PM And that's been signed more than 15,000 times including from people like former PMs, Julia Gillard and Malcolm Turnbull Current senators David Pocock and Sarah Hanson Young and community strong Australia MP Allegra Spender so really across the political spectrum there And Chanel mentioned there That part of the problem is this misogynistic content that young boys and men in particular are

6:13viewing on their feeds and She often sites this stat that it only takes 23 minutes for someone to be on social media Or for a boy I should say to be on social media for that misogynistic content to show up on their algorithms And I know that you wanted to test this So you asked me if you could spend 23 minutes in a booth to see if that misogynistic content showed up If you were on a completely new account. Yes, and what did you find? Well, I mean it sounds like a lot of fun saying in the middle of the work day I'm going to go scroll tick tock for 23 minutes But it was actually a little bit grueling Like you said, I set up a brand new account. The only information I gave it was that I was 18 years old And I feel myself kind of live reacting to it So I think we'll play a little bit of that now I've got my timer And I've just set up an account and the only information that I've given it Is that I'm currently 18 years old 23 minutes on the clock. Let's see what we find

7:13Okay, we are at the halfway mark and I'm yet to come across anything That is nine minutes to go on the timer and I've come across a video about young boys sexualising their female teachers Okay, there's six minutes to go on the timer and I've just come across a video joking about using a woman for oral sex Oh Okay, throw him it's to go on the timer and it's almost every single video now This one says if she doesn't scream during sex make her pregnant she will scream in labor these stubborn ones will need to learn Oh Two minutes to go and I've got a video listing three things you shouldn't do as a grown man They include having anxiety having a list and shaving your arms and legs Okay, that's 23 minutes done It definitely started off slow and it was quite general But as soon as I started to get some of that early misogynistic content It just kind of snowballed after that. It was more and more and by the end almost every video was about sexualising women calling them

8:14Slows or generally degrading content and it got even a little bit racist towards the end there And just to remind of all I gave it was my age and it would have some location metadata as well I know we hear about this happening and we hear that start But as someone who like my algorithm obviously isn't from the perspective of an 18 year old boy And so I don't see that content you kind of hear about it But to hear you actually talking about it and To see the way it just so easily came up on your feet is I don't quite shocking to me. I don't know producer all you're obviously also not an 18 year old boy Is that shocking to you? Yeah, the speed that it came up on your feet and the the way that it snowballed as well was quite shocking Yeah, I mean like I said in the video there was you know probably like 13 or 14 minutes where I thought This is feeling like a little bit of a waste of time. It was just um, you know showing me Hikes around Sydney or it was like young kids during pranks on trains And then as I kept going it just started serving me more and more of this content that to be honest

9:16It was presented at a lot of the time in a joking manner There was you know at least one in there that was definitely not joking at all But that is kind of part of the problem is that um There's sort of misogynistic language is presented in this very Almost entertainment style question Were you engaging in the video like opening the comment section or scrolling through Reading the caption. It's a really good question. I tried to do it as neutrally as possible I know um when other people have run experiments They'll go and try and follow sports stars or something to try to tell the algorithm that they're a young man In this case, I was just wanting to see what the algorithm would serve me just from being an 18 year old in Australia and The only sort of engagement I was doing was watching maybe the first five to ten seconds of the video Then scrolling to the next one interesting That's all it took five to ten seconds. Yeah, wow and then obviously for the ones that did seem like they would fall into that category I did watch them for a bit longer which may have been sending a signal as well. I wonder why

10:18It is serving you that kind of content or like what it New about you or I don't know why why did it show you that? I mean as we said earlier there is this intentional design feature to keep you and engaged and keep you scrolling I kind of had the same question to what you just asked me and I did ask that to Chanel and here's what she said about it Recommendation algorithms on social media platforms Their intention is to keep us as engaged for as long as possible on the platform And that means that they are engineered to promote content that is outrageous or invokes a strong emotion from us It may play on those kind of strong feelings like fear or insecurity or desire or grievance And unfortunately misogyny is something that's really at the center of that and we also kind of have this broader system of a shared business infrastructure profit model where we have a lot of these you know quote-unquote man influences kind of preaching manosphere content

11:21who first Given aspiration, you know, they may be surrounded by multiple women and multiple sports cars or like show like exorbitant wealth They'll have a body that's very unrealistic and then they They give out kind of like a grievance model they Basically say that all the reasons why Someone doesn't have these things is because usually women but also other minorities whether it's another religion or a race or Immigrants or refugees whatever it is And then finally they often seldom the solution. So simply by watching this content We are contributing to their profits And so the reason we're talking about today is because the government has announced this week that they are Going to try to change this Yeah, this was something that came out on Tuesday from Prime Minister Anthony Elbanese and communications minister Anika Wells and Like we said the headline change in their duty of care reforms is to make the algorithm a sort of opt-in system

12:22So to talk you through how this would work Anyone who signs up for a new social media account in Australia or anyone who is already on social media will get a pop-up in their feed Basically asking them if they want to stay on the recommendation algorithm system Or if they want to move over to a more sort of chronological Feed like what we talked about earlier. That is more friends and family Yeah, exactly. So it's just the people that you follow and it's not trying to send you down this rabbit hole That we've just been talking about for the past 10 minutes Right, so it could still be influences for example, but you would need to follow that in the end Actively follow them. Yep, that's right now one thing that is unclear in this announcement is what happens if you ignore the un notification And that's probably what will be part of the next process is really defining out the rules here Also a lot of ads I type about you three algorithms has that part being addressed Really good question producer all are no this wasn't in the announcement But it is something that I think would likely fall under it because they've tried to take quite a broad strokes approach and say

13:31Anyone that operates a massive online platform in Australia will be responsible for these things. Yeah And one thing that I found interesting in the announcement is that it won't only apply to social media companies Yeah, exactly right. It's uh, you know things like online gaming or AI chat bots They will also be subject to the same sets of rules There was also other things in the duty of care bill so you know with a game It might not have a algorithm per say, but they would still have to be thinking about this duty of care Including things like making sure that under 18s aren't exposed to anything that could cause addictive behavior And they would also have to stop them from seeing content that you know might affect their body image or you know Might promote hostile ideas about women or you know showing them pornography or anything like that This is all kind of under the same package and you said before that When there was this campaign there was broad political support for it not just from labor Have we heard from any other parties now since this was announced? Yeah, so I mean it's not before parliament yet

14:35It is still in that draft stage and they've opened it up for sort of consultation The Greens have said that they're happy about the announcement They were very much behind this fix our feeds campaign And they are probably the ones that will help it get through parliament by striking a deal in the Senate The government will need the support of someone there to get it through But they're gonna probably you know at their own amendments to pass it through On the other side the coalition has been less so supportive They are broadly in support of the idea of implementing a digital duty of care But what they're saying is the issue with the government's proposal is that it potentially aligns with censorship And shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson she also echoed some concerns about if you bring in this thing Where suddenly everyone's signed off the algorithm. How does that affect businesses who have created their whole business model By tapping into the algorithms Have we heard from any social media companies in response to this? So no social media companies have publicly responded with how they're going to tackle this and whether they're

15:39You know broadly in support of the idea But what we do have is a bit of a point of reference So over in the EU they try to implement a version of this a few years ago Uh, it was a law that would apply to the biggest digital platforms with more than 45 million users And it would require them to offer at least one non-personalized feed option The result of that is now when you and I go into TikTok or Instagram whatever You'll always see that following tab in there That was kind of a result of this It's saying that we need to give people the option to be able to just see stuff from the people that they have Consented to seeing stuff from now in theory it was a good idea But it is something that every time you go into the app you kind of have to opt into it as you have to opt Out of the algorithm yeah and opt into this uh more chronological version So the issue with that is you're kind of constantly being switched back onto the algorithm Almost every time that you leave the app and

16:39Anika Wells she said that we all have a slightly different approach Being when you get that pop up you choose once and then you'll be set onto whichever path you want to take But then you can go into your settings and switch again So it'll be a little less toggling But the idea being you have a more enduring commitment to how you want your feed to be right Sorry going back to no social media companies responding I know that you reached out to met her. Yeah. Did they not get back to you? They did and they gave me a lot of information But they didn't give me anything that I can say on the record. Oh, okay. You've got secret information No, that is a very common thing just from a literacy point of view if anyone's interested Often in journalism when you ask someone or a company for comment They will come back to you on background which means that you can't say anything on the record or you can't attribute it to them You can say the information that they give you but you can't say meta told me this. Yes. Yeah, very confusing Well from here, I mean in terms of when this could come into effect Like you said, this is still in the consultation phase so no time soon

17:41Well the government did say that they were hoping to get it in front of parliament this year So there's not many months left So we could see it sometime soon, but yeah, we will have to see that consultation process first Elliott, thank you for taking us through that. Thanks, really all right time for the tip bit But it's less of a tip to bit and more of a follow-up from a previous Oh, that we've done So Lindsey Clancy we've now done two episodes on this case if you're not familiar with it She is a woman who was on trial for the murder of her three children Her legal team did not dispute that she killed her children What they did dispute is whether she should be held criminally responsible. Yeah, they pled or she pled I should say not guilty by reason of insanity. Yeah, because they say that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis That was very succinct somewhere. Thank you And so there was a trial that now I'm thrown, but you say it was succinct and I'm like keep being succinct

18:42Anyway, there was a trial it went for a number of weeks And it ended in a mistrial because the jury could not come to a unanimous decision because of one person because of one person now A difference between and Lucy said this in the most recent episode that we did which if you're interested in this case And you haven't listened to this episode you should definitely listen because it's so interesting But Lucy was talking in that episode about how In Australia you cannot speak to any During members of a trial even after the trial is finished, but in the US you can and the jurors have oh That's so interesting. Well, it's free of them have and they've spoken to NBC Ten Boston, which is an outlet in the US and here is what they said he Redded here reasonable out and I started filling out the forms. I was so excited and then he said But I'm still not gonna say that she's now guilty by reason of uncertainty So just to explain that a little bit more the jury said that the issue with the jury who did not agree with them

19:47They said that he was not following the law or not following the instructions when it came to the definition of what Reasonable doubt is and they spoke about how frustrating that was which will he now Every one of us in the hours of a frustration would get up and walk the room He would not interact with us and and Try to understand so there she's just talking about the frustration in the room and She also talked about the reason why the majority of them believed that she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity I just found it to be harsh the fact that They had no character witnesses To in we got to Lindsay of being a bad mother So I found it to be biased right out of the gate. I found the muscle to be Kind of unprofessional so interesting Yeah highly recommend going back and listening to that episode that we did earlier this week

20:48To understand more about that case and so what happens to her now? Well, that is the whole episode So I will leave you on that cliffhanger. Okay, that's all we have time for on today's podcast We'll be back in your headphones this afternoon with the headlines until then have a great day You My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Aranda bunge long calcadune woman from Gadigal country The daily os acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries both past and present Just Before you go you've just heard today's TDA podcast But here's the bit that we don't do in your headphones. There's four TDA sport TDA finance TDA culture and the good newsletter Four free newsletters five minutes each that go deep on the one thing you'd actually want a bit more of Whether that's the footy your investments

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