Good evening, Welcome to this special edition of six News from the Olivio Tourist Park in camera on.
Leon Leonardo Paglizi was just eleven years old when he founded six News.
Overnight on Tuesday, Boris Johnson became the leader of the Conservative Party.
And the British PM, defeating Jeremy hunt.
Leo is now sixteen and his online streaming news channel has a team of around a dozen reporters, some are as young as fourteenth.
We're going to be covering all of this and we want to get first to our team of reporters. We of course have eight in Chcombe, Stuart, Jeffrey, Maggie Perry and Roman McKinnon, and we'll be going to Roman first. He is in Morton Bay. Were there.
The six News's whole operation could be in jeopardy because some very powerful people think some of those reporters are too young to be on social media. From Schwartz Media,
I'm Ashlin McGee. This is seven AM. There are a number of campaigns running at the moments concerned about the effect social media is having on young people, from exposure to harmful content, to mental health issues, cyberbullying, depression and even suicide, and the proposed solution is simply to ban anyone under sixteen from social media for their own protection.
But could it even work today? Chief anker and Managing director of six News Australia, Leo Puglezi, on what he thinks of the idea and why even the Prime Minister seems to be backing it. It's Tuesday, May twenty eighth, Leo. You've got a big operation running there, and underage labor is a pretty big part of it.
Isn't it is? It is a pretty big part of it, and I'm glad no authorities have caught on yet. But it's a pretty it's a pretty good news room that we've got running, you know, about a dozen people based right around the country and also one in Toronto as well. And you know, we've been going for about five years now, where you know, we've had people in Perth, in Tasmania, in Victoria, a lot in New South Wales and Queensland as well, and I think we've been growing, you know,
pretty steadily. We've been managing people, you know, some younger than me, some people thirteen and others who are you know, doing their university studies and you know, we've been going for long enough that multiple of our reporters are actually at the age we're they're now able to be picked up by major networks. And you know, I'm not the biggest fan of poaching, but it is a pretty good thing that I'm really glad to see it happen.
But there's a bigger threat to your existence at the moment, too, isn't it. Talk to me a bit more about that.
Yeah, So it's this new proposal that we've seen, and again it's kind of a it's a broad proposal in the sense that the restrictions and the details that haven't all been ironed out and unified. But the basic thing is a restriction on the age for social media for kids now obviously present day, it is thirteen on most major platforms that I've seen, right, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, I will leave they're all thirteen, Facebook and Instagram the same.
But from what we've heard, the government is talking about extending that to sixteen. Now isn't officially a federal government proposal. This, this is the kind of weird thing.
Our next guest is very important to a topic that we launched yesterday. The initiative called thirty six months. We need you go to thirty six months dot com dot AU. We want you to sign the petition. The petition that says we need to change the age that kids can join social media from thirteen to sixteen. We went through the statistics.
The Prime Minister has fully endorsed it being up by thirty six months, which would take it to under sixteen.
Prime Minister, could you go to thirty six months dot com DOTU and sign the petition for us.
I can't sign petitions because they're to me, but we.
Want your name on it. We want your name on it to say that you clearly understand what we're going to do, because you can pull the trigger. I assure you I am very supportive of the work that is taking place, and I would encourage people to What.
That would do would effectively ban half our newsroom and some of the most significant people in it from participating in it. They wouldn't be able to be on social media where we communicate the most, which would be a pretty big, pretty big change for us. And that extends to a couple of people, right that's our national affairs that are Austin Polky basically runs half the life production and we're live every single day on the hour, every hour.
Treasurer Jin Chamas has handed down this year's budget for the twenty twenty four twenty five financial year.
There's problem number one that would be a pretty big loss for us. Our political editor Roma mckinn who's with us for a while, and now he'd also have to go. And he actually interviewed Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanesi in twenty twenty two before the federal election. He'd be gone missed Albanese.
Is Roman McKinnon here, federal political reporter. You said at the start of the campaign that you're not Scott Morrison and don't run away from press conferences. Yet days later you walked out of a press conference rather just eight minutes in. Well, journalists continue to ask you questions. Did you break your promise?
Not at all, I've I never said I.
There's a couple others as well. Maggie Perry, our election reporter, she is with us for all the election nights and plenty of other election previews as well, gone as well. What are you expecting? Well, I really can't see any pathway for a labor majority or anything like that point.
I think the liberals.
If this band went ahead, right, you would have our fifteen year old reporters would be off Twitter, where we communicate most of the time and that's where we organize things, that's where we plan our live coverage, that's where we plan election coverage. They'd be gone from that. And also they wouldn't be able to interact with any of our viewers, which is really important because Twitter is one of the
largest places we have a following. It's where a lot of these reporters post breaking news and we're able to get that out. And it's just quite an extraordinary proposal because it's not just talking about taking kids off Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, but it's talking about banning from YouTube. And when six News we started, and mind you, for the first year or so, it was the uploads were under parent supervision. I will stress that, but I was
eleven when the YouTube channel started. There would be no six News if this band was in place a couple of years ago. So let me get this right.
One of your reporters can interview the Prime Minister for your social media channels, and yet the Prime Minister's saying, yeah, Na, we don't trust you on social media.
It is pretty weird. It is pretty bizarre. And look, I mean the Prime Minister and we had them on just before the election where he was elected. You know, he said he would come back on six News if he was elected. You know, but he's praising us for our work at mind you. I was fourteen at the time of the interview as well. He's praising us for our work. But you know, he just doesn't think that we're mature enough to have a Twitter account or a
YouTube account. It just makes no sense when you scratch the surface.
I mean to give you a bit of pushback on that. Some people might hear this and go, oh, well, you know, Leo Puglezi is just a media baron speaking for her from his own self interest here.
Well, maybe I am, but also like, I have no personal stake in it in the sense that I'd be banned with this proposal. And I will of course say that these fifteen year old reporters we have they will be sixteen soon ish. But in general it's just a bizarre proposal. And when I think about mind you, of course, you know you seven and eight. For me starting high school, it was remote learning that has changed things. You can say for better or worse of social media and use
and the amount of time people spend online. But you know, I just can't imagine what it would be like if I didn't have Instagram at that age, because you know, using a boom a frase. Kids these days they don't communicate via phone calls or even just text messages, whichat via Instagram or some do via discord or whatever. And it is twenty twenty four. Social media action, interactions and communication that is normal for us, even though I know the Prime Minister said he wants kids to act in
in normal ways. You can have you know, your directivities, you should have your directivities. You can have all that without banning kids from communicating with each other on Instagram or just having a social media profile if the age loomits thirteen right, and with the current restrictions they have, which is just enter your birth date or click are you over insert age here? Depending on the site. That doesn't work. You can take that from experience. That doesn't work.
The only other way you could make it work is if you put in a lot of ID and a lot of information that all users would have to have in now. I don't see that happening either given there are plenty of understandable privacy concerns and safety concerns with giving all your data to Twitter at the moment, which seems to be falling apart on its best days, or
just any site. And again I just don't think it's worth all that effort to ban from these platforms when mind you, there are so many other initiatives that you could put it in place that could work here in terms of making sure kids are safe without having to ban them, because I guarantee you a band will only spur them on, especially especially if we're thinking a bit more specific, for a thirteen or a fourteen year old who is banned for at least a year until they
turn sixteen or whatever, and you just think, well, they've just had it taken away from them. It's not going to work.
After the break the political strategy behind raising the age Leo, it feels like this story about raising the age of kids on social media is everywhere at the moment. Where's it come from? Are we even having this discussion right now?
Look, we had seen this develop for a couple of days right the South Australian Premier Peter Malanowsk has really kicked it off. He's proposing a bit more moderate which is under fourteen's men, which is barely change from what it is now.
And it's not about being a trogoloid eye or anything, but I think it's about making sure that for children under the age of fourteen, they're not getting access to these platforms where we know it's doing them harm.
And then look, we have seen a pretty big increase in this conversation in the media and polity over the past week, especially in a lot of the news Corp newspapers.
News Corp Australia is launching a new national campaign aimed at protecting young Australians from the dangers of social media.
That let Them Be Kids campaign is called It's a good thing to have on the headlines, a big campaign launched by all the newspapers that gets clicks. That's why it was also on radio and you've got the thirty six months website.
How good made of Mine? And radio broadcaster Michael Whippat Whipfley has gone on a bit of a rampage which I'm loving.
It's called thirty six months.
He wants to increase the age restriction of kids getting on to social media from thirteen to sixteen.
That's why you get Anthony up and easy On to endorse it, and then that gets a lot more attention. It got my attention. A lot of it of course, is coming from post pandemic. Right. We've had all these discussions about the impact of being online too much in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, and look, I don't
doubt that either. I think though, there is a bit of confusion and mixed conversation about the differences between kids spending too much time inside and online and kids being addicted to a certain social media platform or kids you know, being unsafe on social media platform. In some ways, they are different conversations. But again, when you scratch the surface, there are just so many problems with it, and again there are just so many other ways that you could
protect kids through social media and help keep them safe. Education, of course is a big thing, and of course education goes both ways. Right, we're talking about parents in this conversation. We'll educate parents. So many parents that are digitally illiterate, so on mine to be honest, LEO, why.
Do you reckon?
So many politicians are throwing their weight behind it, Like what's in it For someone like Anthony Albanezi, why would they back it.
Well, look, it's a good way again to say that you're doing something in terms of supporting parents, it's a good way to say you're protecting kids, you know. And mind you, in terms of the people who would be banned by it, well, they're not voters yet and so it's a nice way to say that you're doing all that. It gets you a good lot of attention, to Midie, I have seen pretty much every government minister in the book and premiere talking about this over the past few weeks.
It's getting a lot of attention. It's getting a lot of opposition attention as well. It's a good way to, of course try to get the opposition on side and pass something through easily. But again i'll just backtrack into
what I said before. It is just a good way to say that we're doing something, even if it might actually not be because what are you going to do when the fourteen year old who has banned signs up with a different birth year and still can access the harmful material that you're talking about stopping again, it's not logical.
Anyone who knows, you know, teenages will tell you that they will be spurred on by being told that you can't do something, or you can't access this, or you can't have an account on that.
I think the part of this that isn't in dispute is that there are some really serious and significant harms to young people's mental health from different social media platforms to various extents, for various people. But Leo, you're someone who's pretty exposed on social media, and I wonder if you worry at all about the impact on your own mental health.
Look for me personally, I mean, I've seen a lot of you know, nasty comments over the years. Right, these are just the haters and losers of Twitter. Right. Look, there have been messages to kill myself. I've had a couple of those. There's been some threats to go to my school. I do keep my school anonymous, but there's
just been general comments. So over like four years I've been on Twitter, where it's either and this extends from when I was thirteen to you know, now sixteen going seventeen, Comments mentioning genitalia, comments that are just generally inappropriate, comments about parents, just you know, really weird, creepy comments, and it's just amazing how me reporting the news, you know, impartially running six news has managed to you know, noise
so many people. It's incredible. I don't completely understand why these people have such weird reactions. So look, I cop it all the time. I'm not saying it's taken a toll or anything like that. I feel like I'm again maybe not the right word, but coping fine, right, And so for me personally, I'm able to deal with it fine. But again that goes back to what I said in terms of the fact that each child, each teenager, reacts
to a comment differently. A seventeen eighteen year old could take an awful comment on Twitter a lot worse than a fourteen year old or a thirteen year old or a fifteen year old. It's all about the individual, which again parents and their kids will only know that best. And so, yeah, you're right, it's not in dispute that there can be impacts on kids' mental health because of
social media. I'm not disputing that myself, but it really just is down to the individual, which is why I don't see how a blanket being could actually address it if we're talking about keeping kids safe, because I will remind everyone that there are kids who feel more safe in a social media community. Maybe it's because they've got problems at home or problems at school, and they feel like they're able to be safe and expressive on social media fifteen sixteen year olds, And I don't see how
taking that away would help them. And again, especially if we're talking about an issue with their own family, it's not like they can just go to their family instead of social media and some of these circumstances, which again it goes back to it, a blanket band does not work. It will not work. Leo.
Thanks so much for your time.
It's great to be here.
Also in the news today, administrators for the budget airline Bonza have been given a two months deadline to try to sell it in a federal court hearing yesterday. Bonza's fleet of planes has remained grounded after the company unexpectedly
canceled all flights in April. It's since been revealed to be one hundred and ten million dollars in debt and more than three hundred staff face an uncertain future, and Lisa Wilkinson is seeking one point eight million dollars from Channel ten to cover illegal fees in defending the defamation claim brought by Bruce Lehman against both the network and
her the presiding judge. Just as Michael Lee said, he hoped Ten and Wilkinson's lawyers could sit down with some quote yellow and blue highlighters and come to an agreement themselves, but Wilkinson's lawyers appeared unconvinced, saying they believe Ten had a reluctance to pay us anything. I'm Ashlin McGee. This is seven am, and we'll see you again tomorrow.
Hello,