Parenting the Digital Wild West w/ Dr. Abe Baggili and Jim Steyer

Everyone always has a choice. Whenever somebody says no, you can't, or there's no rules for you, or you have to look like this, I go. I'll show you. I'll show you. Welcome to Go, ask Allie. I'm Alli Wentworth. Do you know what the metaverse is? Because I do not, and I'm already terrified of it. I don't want to live in the metaverse. I don't want to make new friends in the metaverse. I like where I am right now, in three dimensional real life. It is such a big

topic that we have two guests to cover it. Ibrahim Bighilly is a digital forensics expert and professor who will tell us what the hall of the metaverse is and then Jim Steyer, founder of common Sense Media, will fill us in on big tech and how his organization is advocating for kids safety and privacy in this wild West of digital media. Dr Ibrahim Bigeelly is a professor of

computer science and cybersecurity at Louisiana State University. Prior to that, he was the founding director of the Connecticut Institute of Technology at the University of New Haven, specializing in cyber security and forensics. In twenty nine, the National Security Agency gave you an H the prestigious designation as a Center of Academic Excellence in cyber Operations, and in two did the same for LSU, becoming one of just twenty two

schools on the elective list. He also has co authored over seventy publications, and his work has been featured in news and media worldwide and in twenty languages. Hello, Ibrahim, I'm going to call you Abe for the rest of this podcast, after I've established your very elegant name. Um. The reason I'm having you on besides your a genius of all this uh virtual techno stuff that I feel, I still scream at my iPhone to you know, turn off the lights. You know, I look at Instagram, social media.

The metaverse is kind of like the wild West. And I know, as we're trying to figure it all out, as parents were trying to figure it all out for our kids. But let's just start with the big, broad, simple question, which is, what the hell is the metaverse? I mean, you know, you've hit on something that's close

to my heart, right, what is the metaverse? And you know, people will give you many different answers, but the real answer is nobody knows what metverse is because in my personal opinion, it doesn't really exist at this point in time. It's what people are trying to build, right. Um So, so the metaverse is supposed to be essentially an alternative virtual world where you know, you could do things in a virtual environment with your let's say VR headset or

mixed reality headset, and you can socialize with people. You could, um hang out with people, you can go to class, you could do all the things that you do in the real world, but in the virtual world. That's basically what it's supposed to be. Um it wasn't invented by Facebook, and I just wanted to make sure I say that because Facebook ream in itself to meta and you can't

really take that credit for virtual reality. And that sort of thing has has existed for many years, so it's not like something that's uh that that we're just talking about now. Well I wasn't even gonna mention Facebook, So how about that? Um, I think of it as sort of a virtual reality based world that's separate from our

physical one. Is that aptly put? Yes and no? Because it could be actually part of your physical world if you're talking about mixed reality or augmented reality, right, So you like the hollow lens glasses, Um, you see the

physical world, but you augment it with information. Right. So for example, if I'm wearing my glasses and my glasses are telling the turn left, and there's a signal in my glass telling the turn left, I could still see the physical world, but now the virtual world is also interacting with me and overlaid on top of the physical world. And virtual reality is when you are immersed into a virtual environment completely. So if you wear a headset, it's

going to cover your eyes completely. You might have headphones where you're listening, so you can't see anything except the virtual world. So when people use the word metaphors loosely, there. I think including this idea of augmented reality and mixed reality into that equation. But it is it is a reality that if you pull off your glasses or your helmet or your goggles, you are no longer in that world. It's a three D form, yes, uh, definitely, it could be a three D form. It could be a two

D form also. I mean a good example if that would be Ready Player more in the movie, and I'm sure a lot of people have watched it. You know, you're you're in this alternative world where that people are basically stuck in and they live in and and you know, um, maybe we'll get to the matrix one day where you plug in. You know, it feels like we're getting closer to that. Are you for or against the metaverse? Like? Have you bought beach side property there? Uh? I mean no,

and I don't intend to do so. UM, I understand the potential market value, right. UM. I was at a conference, a really big conference in California, UM, talking about you know, virtual reality, security and all these problems, and I basically told people the metaverse, as you know, maybe Facebook or other organizations are trying to build it is nothing but an app store, and they looked at me, it's like, what do you mean. I'm like, it's nothing but an

app store. Like, it's an app store for all of these different virtual worlds that other people are going to create. You know, you go on your phone and you download an app, you know, for video conferencing, you download games, and you download all of these various things and then

you immerse yourself in them. And if you think about when the dot net era started kind of emerging, Yahoo and all of these companies, what they wanted to do was to become the front page of the Internet, right like, and Google of course was a big winner in that regard towards the end, which is, you know, through a

search engine. But if you think of the metaverse, I mean the metaverse, the winners are the ones that are going to be that that front page for all of the other things that people are gonna build in those virtual worlds. Um and and I think that's really what's happening right So um that that's really where my mind is is we're we're still at the stage of creating some environments that people can be in, but not necessarily the environment that's the access to all other environments. Well,

why don't we just stay in the reality. Why do we have to go to the virtual reality? I mean, that's a great question. Why why do we have Instagram accounts? Like why do we want to show what we just ate? I mean, humans, um, humans I believe have a tendency to want to share at least good parts of their life on the internet. And there's a whole you know, theory of de individual ation when you look at psychology and and you know how when you're online you feel

more anonymous. Therefore sometimes you can be more of yourself. So there's all of these various reasons why you know, online environments can actually be quite awesome, and especially virtual environments.

Like you know, if your grandma is you know, older, and she came from another country and she wanted to see this church that wasn't her hometown, but she can't travel anymore, and all of a sudden, uh, you know, you can get her to see that, uh, And those sort of things have happened right where it really gives them a sense of nostalgia and a sense of something that that's awesome to look forward to. Um. But you know, shouldn't be everything, and that's really the question that I

don't know. I mean, I think just we're as humans. We get addicted to certain technologies and certain things, and you know, the technology goes out there and and there's a lot of issues that we weren't anticipating, right. But also, you know, when I think about when you were talking about Instagram and now virtual reality, it's sort of all

boils down to connection. People want connection. Um. Certainly we saw her in the pandemic that particularly teenagers needed connection more than anything, and virtual reality would benefit that, just like Instagram and you know, so so much of social media did benefit them from from being lonely. And I have read that there are benefits, um, you know, in virtual reality in the metaverse for autism, therapy, learning, retention, socializing. So yes, I think there are with most Internet stuff,

there are good stimulating factors to it. On the other side, I worry about a word that you just said a minute ago, which is addiction, because we seem to have an addiction problem in our culture when it comes to technology, you know, and it started with Facebook and then Instagram, and you know, how do you ever get your kids to disconnect from the metaverse? Why not just live there full time. Um. I mean, it is a problem, and

we're starting to see parts of it. Um. But then the question when it comes to kids, right, is at what age is it appropriate for you to have that? And and different companies have different ages, Different companies have different age limits, and there aren't really any sort of standards for us to understand that a little better. And

and that's kind of a problem. You know, you don't just give something to everybody without any rules, like there's gonna there has to be some rules of engagement, right. There was also a study, um, I think the Information Commission's Office, uh did a study where they went into VR I think it was v our chat fire number correctly, and you know, the researchers found that users, including miners,

were exposed to abusive behaviors about every seven minutes. They said, um, things like, you know, miners being exposed to graphic sexual content, Like should that be the case? Of course not, that should not be the case. And here's the problem. When your kid is is you know, has that VR headset on. You can't most of the time see what they're seeing

unless they cast it onto another device. So let's go through a few of the warnings, particularly for children, because let's say they're on gun raiders or one of the like the gaming devices. Everything I've read they is that kids are exposed to bad words, racist words, and sexual content. Now I'm not saying that's every time they log their brains into this, but you know that's that's enough to be scared of as a parent, just those three things. Actually,

I think it's even worse than that. There's bullying, their sexual harassment. Um, there's grooming is a big thing. Obviously, racism, violence, content, mocking. Certainly, I have two daughters. You know, I'm worried about how you know safe that world is for girls because on Instagram, you know, they have a lot of issues with appearance and self esteem and here in the metaverse they can make themselves look and be anything they want, which, on the one hand, is not realistic, and in how they

see theirselves, it does set them up. As you said, grooming, Uh, explain what virtual reality grooming looks like? How do you do that in a VR setting? You know, you would have essentially an adult that would be in virtual reality and they would talk to children and start slowly talking to them about, you know, things that are completely inappropriate. Um, and eventually get them to do things that they shouldn't be doing. And when you say get them to do things,

are you talking about getting their avatar to do things? Well? Their avatar. But here's the thing. If the avatar is doing it, um that sort representation of a person in the real world, right, it's not just a theoretical avatar. That's that's just doing things. So I think that's that's the problem there. Can you block avatars? If I felt uncomfortable with somebody or if my child was complaining to

me about an avatar, could I block them? Yeah? I think it just depends on on the application you're using. Some applications might enable you to block certain characters and avatars and others won't. And and a lot of systems don't have the parental controls that are typically available on other devices, those sort of headsets. I mean, I don't know how old your children are, but you know, my daughter, she's younger, and she's on what I call a gateway drug,

which is rule Blocks. Right everywhere I go people are talking about roadblocks because Roadblocks is a game that's three D and you interact with other kids and things like that, and it's just blown up, you know, at least that's on a tablet. Asparental controls and so there are parental controls for the metaverse specifically, well, again, the metaverse doesn't exist. There are there are, right, it's just something that they're trying to sell us on that hasn't happened yet that

you know. But there are parental controls in some of the applications that that you can use, uh, you know, on your tablets and on your VR headsets and things like that. That might not be part of the entire system, right, but it could be parentical controls for a specific app that would be installed on your on your device. So

is it perfect no? Is it an added level of security? Absolutely, But we also have to take into account something else, right, Like we are operating under the assumption that all the kids were talking about that are using these VR systems are in great home environments, you know, we're talking about this like you know, all parents and all kids lives are equal, and that's not the case because a lot of the kids that might get groomed, or a lot

of the kids that might have challenges are basically using this as an escape mechanism potentially from their real world, which is not a great world to be in in the first place. And that's when you know, a lot of the taking advantage off might actually take place as

they do in the physical world. I know you say this is also the physical world, but I mean, you know, absolutely, I mean, I think legally it's a challenging question, but psychologically it's a very important question for us to pursue. I mean, think about you know, sexual assault, if that happens in VR, which people have claimed that's happened to them. You know, what are you going to argue that this is just the virtual world and and that's it because

of immersion, they feel like they're really in this place. Um, could be really damaging and you can't just be like, that's not real. There was no real you know, physical sexual assault, right because there is the there is the psychological trauma, but there may not be you know, bruises or pregnancy or scratches. You know, they're like forensic evidence of it, right absolutely, um. And actually that's a lot

of the work that we initially did. My area of expertise is mostly in digital forensics, so like you know, investigations that involve computer based systems and extracting the evidence in illegal and scientific manner. And one of the first things we did with work that was funded by the National Science Foundation is look at what evidence can we recover from these systems so we can answer the questions of the who, the what, the when, and the where um. And we were able to find some good stuff at

least with the systems we looked at. If you'd like me to talk about it, yeah, share it with me. Unless it's secret, it's people can read it. Um. So there's uh security research. We have this thing called a man in the middle attack, and it's the idea that you know, right now, I'm communicating with you, and if there was somebody that was intercepting the communication between me and you, they would be injecting themselves in the middle. And that's what's called the man in the middle attack.

So imagine you're in a virtual room, maybe having dinner with your significant other, right, or doing something very personal, and there's this person right there in the virtual environment. You don't know that they're there, you can't hear them, you can't see them, but they're they're right. I call this like the invisible peeping tom right. And then the

human joystick attacked. So essentially, if you're if you're playing virtual reality, you're in a virtual world, but that world is reflected in the real world, right, So if I move my hand up, or I move my hand down, or if I walk around, you're still walking in a real room, right, um, And that real room has boundaries like a wall, and and typically what you do in VRS, you you detect the real wall so you don't hit it in the virtual wall, so that when you get

close to the real wall, it kind of gives you a sign that this is a real wall, don't walk into it. So we were just playing with a file and he like it was a bug in the code that moved the center of the room, and all of a sudden, the girl that was in the virtual environment just moved to that location that he specified by mistake. And we're like, whoa, you can control people. You could move them, right, So basically you can just start pushing people to any location you want them to to move to.

And we thought that was really interesting and we called it the human joystick attack. Oh my gosh. And there's also I've read about cyber sickness. People get motion sickness from in this VR world. Yeah, if you're in VR for a long time, it doesn't make you feel great. Number one. Number two, We we also ran that as an experiment where the environment started flipping around and moving around and made you feel really sick. Um. We also

did the new We called it an overlay attack. So imagine you're in virtual reality playing your game and then people take over your headset by just putting images in front of it, and now you can't see anything. Worse, what if they start putting pictures of your own kids in front of you? Like that going to really psychologically impact the person that's uh, that's in that environment as well. UM, I mean, what kind of parental guidances are you going

to put in place in your home for this? The main thing for me is, you know, we can't control everything that our kids do, but what you can do is at least have some parental controls. One of the

the simplest things that parents can do. UM. You know, if you're using a computer or laptop or a VR system or an in our system or something like that, you should probably be using it in some public space, like in your TV room where there's other people around you, Because I think is as soon as they're putting an environment where they're completely on their own, other things could happen. If you're using the roadblocks, you know, make sure that

they can't chat with other people. Make sure that you know you're choosing the right age limits for the applications or the games that they have access to through roadblocks and other systems like that. And I assume that you as a parent have the same in conversations about virtual reality that you would with any other app or social media, which is you know this, if an avatar you don't recognize,

you know, comes into play, you know you have. It's like there's a whole education for parents every time something in this cyber world gets created. I mean, I say to my kids, let us know if anything makes you feel uncomfortable. We just want to make sure that there's an open line of communication is I think the most critical thing. And I think I think by by ensuring that you constantly tell them you can tell us anything,

we're not going to be mad at you. Um now you might get mad at them, but that's you know, that's another story. But in that scenario, like you can tell us anything and you know we're here to support you. I think goes a long way in terms of ensuring that you know they can come to you with with with with the things they they should be telling you, right. I mean the truth is, I think that we just can't keep up anymore. UM. I mean, if you really want to be honest and we want to talk openly, yes,

I do want to be honest. We can't keep up, you know. And the amount of information that's thrown at us constantly is parents, is I think beyond our ability to comprehend what's going on. And I'm the person that does this for a living in terms of research, and I'm saying I can't keep up anymore. UM. I can only imagine, you know what other parents that are not

in the technology field, they're probably feeling like, oh my god. Yeah, I am one of those parents, And I feel like there's a mental health crisis with these younger generations right now. And I can't tell if virtual reality, the metaverse, social media, if it's helping them, if it's not helping them, because certainly, I know, like I said before, the during the pandemic, that they were able to connect. I know that there

are good, positive socializing aspects of this. UM. But do you think that there's a benefit for for younger children attains when it comes to anxiety. Well, I do definitely believe there's good stuff and there's bad stuff with every single thing that we do. There's definitely some very positive use cases for you know, using virtual reality, uh, you know, for people that might not have great social skills, for

folks that might have autism and um. But also there's some very negative things about it, like all the data that they might be collecting with your eyes and your gazes and well into that data you know, being used positively or negatively and and are they just you know, leveraging that data for making more money or not? Um And and these are the sort of questions that that we need to think about very carefully, other than the safety issues and of course a lot of the challenges

that we about. But definitely definitely there are positive use cases, um. But it doesn't mean that they're going to overpower the negative use cases. And that's that's kind of the the crux of the problem. Right As a security researcher, you realize that when companies are releasing new technology, they're trying to get it to market as quickly as possible. Right. So security is a complete afterthought. Um and and and

that's one of the issues that really happens. When people get excited about technology, they just want to watch it, they want to put it in people's hands, and the rest is history. Right, And then all of these problems start appearing, and we're not thinking about the problems. So you know, sorry, I'm kind of drawing a dark cloud here. No, I'm happy you're drawing a dark cloud because I have a lot of fears, as I think a lot of

people do about this. And I'm even gonna make you go darker by asking you what are your biggest fears about the future? And the metaverse? Um? I mean, so, so there's there's the saying, right, money is the is the root of all evil? Right, that whole metaverse thing. It's not really driven by you know, it's not it's not pure. People are not trying to move into that direction because they're thinking that it's really going to help people.

The hard to push from all these big companies. It's not driven by we're gonna make your life better, right, It's really driven by we're gonna make more money. Right. So, so that's really what scares me is is there's no real foresight and thinking about the potential impact of moving in that direction, like in terms of how do we do this right? And I think that's honestly one of my biggest problems with not just the metaverse, with any

new technology that's coming out. You know, I think that parents should know that at this point the metaverse is not there, but that extended reality, virtual reality, augmented reality is truly there, UM. And and you know, we need to be very cognizant and as parents, we need to maybe unite in some fashion to make sure that you know, things are being done in a way that that will benefit our kids in our society. And I think that that's that's an important message that we need to all

consider as we're moving towards the soul called metaverse. Yes, yes, thank you. UM. Before I end this, I want to just ask you, Abe, how did you get into this? So? I mean, I'm from Jordan's in the Middle East, UM, and I grew up in the uae Um Dubai Abu Dhabi area and where I grew up, the Internet was fully censored UM. And in order for me to sort of things that I wasn't supposed to see as a kid, I had to learn how to you know, bypass the Internet proxy at that point in time. So you were

a baby hacker. So that's how I got into security, right, okay, baby hacker. Thank you so much for doing this, Abe, I really appreciate it, and thank you for all the work you do to you know, help keep it safe for all of us. Thank you. And you know, my students did the hard work, you know, I just was there to support them. And it's time for a quick break. But wait, when we come back, the founder of common Sense Media tells us what his organization is doing to

help us protect our children. Welcome back to go ask allie. My next guest is Jim Styre, the founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that provides ratings and recommendations of safe media for kids. Styre describes a group as nutritional labeling of media. It also focuses on the effects media and technology have on young users and advocates for kids privacy protections online. On top of this, Styre is an award winning professor at Stanford University, where he

also attended college in law school. And I met him when I was twelve, So Jim sire, besides being the founder and head of common Sense Media, we should probably disclose that, in fact, you were my camp counselor at a very young age. You were very very cool camp counselor. You wore like pooka beads and you're always in bare feet, and your hair was longer. And look at you now, look at you now. I love that. I love that. You know that I still think of you as Dabber.

That was your nickname when you were twelve years old. Yes, it was. And uh, you are one of my all time favorite campers. Said that means a lot to me. Thank you. That is totally true. So, first of all, you are the founder of common Sense Media, and as a mom who has always been concerned about content, I'd like to thank you. Um, how would you best describe common Sense Media? I would describe us as the biggest child advocacy group in the United States and also the

biggest media and tech advocacy group in the world. And I think most of your listeners in our audience knows us because we rate and review every movie, TV, video game website we have about a hundred and fifty million unique users and also we have a curriculum on digital literacy and citizenship. That's in a hundred and ten thousand

schools in the United States around the world. So we created that whole field of the safe, ethical, responsible use of cell phones and the Internet and Instagram, Snapchat, that kind of stuff. So it's a big nonprofit. How did you jump into this? This is obviously something you're very about. I graduated from Exeter, the fancy private school up in New Hampshire, and I spent a year teaching in Harlem in the South Bronx with my mom before I went to college. And that was right before I became a

camp counselor. And so when you knew me when I was eighteen years old, I already knew that I wanted to work with kids, and I knew that I didn't just want to work with Upper East Side kids, but but I wanted to work with kids who lived in Harlem, the South Bronx, East Oakland, the toughest areas in the United States. And that's really been my career. So I went to Stanford, I taught again in the worst schools in New York City for a couple of years, and I went back to law school and became a civil

rights layer. And the reason I started Common Sense Media was there was no major child advocacy group in the United States that had a constituency, which is really parents who have to advocate for children because kids don't vote and they don't have political power. And the reason I started Common Sense was to get people to join the organization and understand that that both media and tech media.

At that point it was mostly movies, TV, video games, We're having an incredible impact on kids lives, but also that you needed to be part of an organization that advocated for children. I did not know into the thousand and three that that rating and review platform would be so successful so that moms like you would use it. Yeah, it's a it's a big need. We can't we can't as parents. I knew that I have four kids. Yeah,

you have four kids. You can't be aware of what movie or what game or what you know new app. You can't control it let alone you know know if there's going to be nude scenes or swearing or violence. And so it was a huge need in our culture. I really appreciate. And what happened was you could tell right from the beginning once we had those movie and TV ratings. There was nothing like it at the time,

and people just flocked to it. And then what happened was a few years in this happened the iPhone and Facebook and install Graham and Snapchat, and the truth was kids went from watching movie and TV shows to being glued to their screens. And we were there and we were by far the biggest organization in the country, and we realized, oh my gosh, what we really have to do is look at the impact of technology and cell phones and social media on kids and the rest is history.

And by the way, and I want to do a deep this is the area I want to do a deep dive into because um, I mean, of course, we didn't grow up with social media or cell phones, so there's no This is like the wild West for us parents that didn't grow up with it. And even though I have older girls, I feel like the conversations with parents all the time is when do I give my kid a phone? When do I allow them to do this?

Because we have no idea. And you know, I do this work with the Child Mind Institute because I have very very strong feelings about technology and how it's sexualized. This whole generation of girls. And I feel like what people don't talk about is there's a whole new component to parenting, you know. I feel like I've spent a majority of my lecture series with my children talking about tech.

I totally get that. And I went to Silicon Valley with the Child Mine Institute and there were all a lot of people from Google and Facebook and everything there. We had this big conversation, and then afterwards many of them came up to me and whispered to me, Oh, yeah, listen, it's far worse than you think. I won't let my kids go. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, come on, you hypocrites. You mean you're making billions of dollars working for these companies and yet you know how bad it

is for our children. You're absolutely right, Alan, and every parent deals with that today and they need basic, simple advice. Um and I will tell you we also have big political leverage over the tech companies. Referring to so and so for example, you mentioned Google, So Sundar he's the CEO of Google. He's actually a good guy, way better than the predecessors, I would tell you on these issues. He cares about it a lot, and Susan Wajetski, who

runs YouTube We work with two now. By the way, we criticize them when they don't do good stuff for kids, but we also work with them and I agree they now all understand in the big Silicon Valley companies as parents a the incredible impact that their platforms are having on kids. Be most of them, with the exception of Mark Zuckerberg, love common sense media. And the reason Mark doesn't this because we're so critical of Facebook and Instagram

and have been for so long. Um, but this is the seven reality for every parent, and we try to make it simple easy, you know, and and you know, we have several hundred staff here who all they do is try to educate parents in the broader public about the impact of media and technology on kids, what we can do about it, and then we try to pass big laws around privacy and holding the social media platforms accountable for the misinformation and disinformation. We're doing a study

on porn and sexting. As a mom, I guarantee you you will be interested because most parents out don't know their kids are exposed to stuff at ridiculously young ages. Now, yes, so I mean, you know, a little seven year old boy can just google titties and he can go to the dark web in a matter of minutes. Correct, And they're not supposed to be on YouTube or TikTok, but

they are. I mean that's where kids live today, right, It's primarily on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, probably in that order. And the problem is these are all driven by algorithms, and what happens is they also maximize the most sensational stuff. That's how you engage people. Violence, sex, and so little kids can go down the rabbit hole very quickly on these platforms. It must be such a battle for you because there are so many billions of dollars made in

this arena, like you know, sex and violent cells. But we're pretty powerful. I mean, you'd be surprised, a honestly. I mean this we've been a almost all the executives use our stuff. You said you went out there for the Child Mine Institute, and by the way, we work with them on kids and mental health issues a lot um. But the guys who run most of the companies and the people at the levels below them are almost all common sense media consumers, and so we go to them.

But we also regulate them. We passed all the big privacy laws here in the United States. We passed this year. We did in California over the opposition of certain tech companies, the Age Appropriate Design Code, which means that if you're building a new platform like a Snapchat or an Instagram, you have to think about the kids who are in

your audience and build it for that. And you know, the Europe and the rest of the world are in certain cases farther ahead than the U S. The U S has done a terrible job of regulating the tech companies in my opinion, and only over the last few years, because the broader public totally agrees with the common sense perspective on this. Has everyone come to understand that the wild West, which is how you correctly described, has got

a change. So we're entering an era now where young people themselves, including yours, have really come to understand how much their lives are being shaped by these devices in these platforms. So give me an example of something that you fought in one. I'll give you two good ones.

Early early years of common sense media. Early years we went after the video game industry because they made really disgusting, ultra violent and sexually violent video games like the Grand Theft Auto series were postal, and so they were coining money. Video games, by the way, are a way bigger business than movies. I don't know if the public knows that, but those companies are way more valuable than movie companies are. And you know, boys in the US and around the

world are addicted to video games in many cases. But before we came along, there were a ton of ultra violent, sexually violent video games that kids could buy at age ten. So we went after them and passed laws in Michigan, in Illinois, California and elsewhere the stopped the marketing and sales to miners of sexually violent also had a lot of racist stereotypes. I mean, black and brown people were

always either prostitutes or drug dealers in the games. So we went after them and one and we filed all

these laws. By the way, the case went up to the Supreme Court on First Amendment ground, and it's like six years later we lost, but it didn't matter because by then the video game industry cleaned up its act on a lot of this stuff and stopped marketing and selling him to get So that's a big example where we took on a huge industry, and one, I would say, the other biggest one is look, I read a book inn called Talking Back to Facebook, which really piste off

Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg, and they even they wrote me threatening letters saying we're going to block the publication of it. And I said, how you know, I'm a First Amendment law professor at Stanford. You're not gonna block the publication in my book. But um, and it exposed them were what they did around girls body image and all the errative, performative stuff that kids do on these platforms. And in those days, Facebook was a platform that kids used.

But what happened there was I wrote a whole chapter about privacy. Privacy is a fundamental right. But if you think back a decade ago, Ali, my own children told me Dad, no one cares about privacy. Privacy is passe, and people like Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt. Was that of Google in those days, they would go around telling the world no one cares about privacy, privacy is old

fashioned stuff. Well that was ridiculous. It's also a fundamental right under the US Constitution, although with this Supreme Court, who knows. But having said that, what happened was we passed in the California Consumer Privacy Act, which is the law of the land in the United States, and it gave everybody in your audience in the United States rights as consumers to protect their own personal information, data and their kids. So we had a huge victory in that one.

And what happened is we split the industry. So Microsoft an Apple came with us. Remember their business model is they make money by selling devices, not by hoovering up your personal information or your kids personal information. Whereas with Facebook, you are the product or your kids are the product. They're selling your private information to advertisers. That's their business model.

It's also Google's business model, by the way, and it's why the leadership of those companies are so important in terms of where they're responsible or not. How much have you learned from your own kids about this? I mean really a ton, right, totally. I mean I'll say this when we first when I first started Common Sense Media, Let's see, Lily was about our oldest was about nine, right,

So we have two boys and two girls. So I saw the body image issues really big with my daughters, right, and I could see them photos shopping their images I could see body image and eating disorder issues with them in their classmates. You have plenty of young people, even tweens, let alone teams, who are exp aariencing that. And it's

because they're constantly exposed to social comparison. You know, they're growing up on these platforms where you're constantly trying to show your perfect which which only you are Alley, only you and I are only were the only two perfect people in and so. But when I wrote talking back to Facebook, it came out wrote it inven I could not believe how much kids self esteem, girls and boys was being shaped by these platforms, and how irresponsible the

platforms were about it. Even though some of the people who random were parents. Part of the problem was the people who built all these platforms were twenty five years old and they didn't even think about what they're doing. They're just making money, right, and they're building products that were addictive, and they built all these features that would

addict you to the platform. No, I mean I I've seen it, and I've talked a lot about, you know, particularly with because I have girls, how it affected girls eating disorders, but also how many likes you got was you know, affected your self esteem or I remember one boy on one of my daughter's um instagrams, which by the way, are private, and I said, they will be private and your till your twenty one. UM. One of the boys was like, you'd be hot if you had teds.

You know, things like that that I'm like, that get in their heads and I'm like, who is this kid? I'm calling the mother and they say, mom, no please. But then they would see, you know, girls just a couple of years older than them, you know, in bikinis with their thumb in their mouth and all this stuff. And I really I spent hours saying to my kids, this is a girl that has a whole she's trying to fill. This is not something to emulate. Please don't

think that this is your currency. And it's exhausting and it's you know, right now, it's completely out of control. I can't. I mean, I look at Instagram and I just go, oh my god. I agree. Yes, and it's time for a short break. Welcome back to go ask Alli. Okay, but here's what I want to talk to you about. Two. What are you doing about the metaverse? A lot? Okay? Good,

tell me because if that terrifies me. Okay, so we're coming out with a report, so it should be terrifying partly because the leading company in the spaces Facebook, and they're the least responsible of all the companies. I would never trust my kids to that company, right and they're the biggest player in the metaverse. So we're about to come out with the report. It's going to show you that it's a completely wild wild West scenario and that

they're hoovering up your kids data. So if you think online data or on Instagram or or YouTube, you're getting data right in the metaverse. They get all your facial characteristics, they get all of the data about the way you behave And there's not a single company in that space right now that's doing it in a way that's sensitive

to kids and teens. I would not, as a parent right now, let my kids room in the in the metaverse nowhere, I tell me why to me the scary stuff because the companies don't have protections, they don't have privacy protections. And also you can get into porn, You can get into a lot of stuff you shouldn't be in as an as an eighteen year old, let one as an eleven or twelve year old, which is who we're buying some of these headsets, and it's a completely

unregulated environment. The metaverse should scare you, but what are you scared about? Tell me, like porn, it's porn, but three D porn that they're participating in exactly. And the thing is this, if you actually look at new platforms. Steve Kate is the founder of a o L would tell you this when when new platforms emerge, the way you really grow an audience is usually with bad stuff

at the beginning, right before it becomes universally bodular. So aile All in the early days had a huge porn audience. So if you really look at how how those platforms, social media platforms work, it's the sensational stuff that creates engagement. So it's violence, sex, and anger. So that's a really the last one is a really important issue. Hate an anchor appeal to people. Right, they stay on there and then they get in big, you know, virtual arguments with

each other, and kids are susceptible to that. They're younger, right, they get drawn in. And also there's a massive amount of misinformation and disinformation on these platforms, which we've been very critical of them for we created with the Anti Defamation League and the Double A CP a campaign called stop Haide for Profit a couple of years that led to an advertising boycott of Facebook. But in there are a lot of ways as a parent that you really need to be aware of what your kids can be

exposed to. Is there any worry about like spending too much time in the metaverse and not in one's real life. I think so, But I think that's true with any screen honestly. I mean, if you're in the metaverse for three hours, that means you're three hours you're not out in Central Park, or you're not out playing outside, or you're not you know, out with your friends. You're just

zoning out in a virtual world. Me that that was one of the things about the pandemic is it was so hard on kids and some of the mental health issues that that we're already there, but they were exacerbated by the pandemic because kids sat in front of screens.

Our youngest kid was in high school, and you know, he would sit in his bedroom right and go to school, and I was worried about him being depressed because you're in front of the screen all day and the big ramifications by the way for lower income kids, because the other part of what happened in the pandemic is a lot of kids just didn't go didn't go to school.

If you're in a single parent home where your parent is working full time and you have to leave your kids at home and unsupervised, you know, to go to school, a lot of kids just sort of dropped out and the schools weren't able to follow through. So we're going to be living with the consequences of the pandemic on young people for a while. Have you found with tech um the suicide rates have gone higher with with teens in terms of isolation, And so here's what I would

tell you. First of all, it's not a pure causal relationship. I mean one, we're pretty careful. I mean again wearing my Stanford professor hat um. You have to be careful about just like blaming it all on social media, right or tech And it's simple to do, but it's complex.

The data is clear that kids who are already anxious, or have other minor issues of depression or anxiety or the normal insecurities of that all adolescents have, they can be exacerbated by their online experiences and their social media experiences. So there are clear major mental health implications of that. And this was really exacerbated during the pandemic because kids

are just living their lives online. All the screen time rules went out the window during the pandemic, partly because you were going to school for a while on this on on online. I mean, weren't there aspects of it that helped kids um that they were able to talk to friends and not feel so isolated, that there was some form of socialization. Yes, so platforms can do good stuff too, right. It can actually connect you to mental health resources, online counseling, a lot of stuff I don't

think people realized was there until the pandemic. So it's not a simplistic that it's all caused by being you know, online. But I will tell you that about half of all American teenagers experienced some form of depression during the pandemic. That's unbelievable, right, And we have an and mental health epidemic right now. So Common Sense Media and Child Mind Institute, who we partner with a fair amount, are probably the

leading organizations around this. We're about to do a big campaign with the Surgeon General of the United States of a Murphy who's fantastic on these issues and who wrote a book about isolation and loneliness. See, that's another issue for for all adults. But kits is that that social platforms and Internet platforms can allow you to isolate and just sort of retreat into your own little world. And and that's really dangerous for young people. Yeah, I mean

I can feel it myself. I you know, I I can monitor how I feel when I go on Instagram and stuff, and I know how much time I spend on screen. Is that I could be you know, out walking the dog or doing other things. So and it's it's you know, ten times that for the kids or more. And it's also compulsive and addictive, and you constantly looking at your phone. You're constantly checking your messages. But if you talk to kids about it, they know that more

than we realized, and they're they're concerned about it. But they also have issues that are very interesting that I've learned because kids view it differently than we do. So for example, um, one of the reasons why they so constantly check their phones is they want to be there for their friends and they feel they need to respond to their friends when their friends and I'm like, why

who cares? But they actually feel pressured to do that. Um. They also feel pressured to perform sometimes politically, as as young people have become more politically aware during the insanity years of the Trump they have also now been you know, called on activism online. Right, teenagers feel that they should respond to issues like racism and and other social problems online. So it's there's a lot out of pressures they feel

that we don't always understand. So I was my concern was I was worried that these younger generations were losing their sense of empathy. But based on what you just said, that's maybe not true. So maybe there is empathy more than I thought. And it's it's a really important point, Ali, because empathy is so basic to human relationships and too friendships and to family and everything. And the truth is it's not black and white. Meaning the platforms do enable

you if you really read what kids say. It's really important. And by the way, this is what my kids tell me all the time, Dad, you don't get who we really are. And there's some truth to that because we did not grow up with this, right, and they are natives they only know this experience. They have no other childhood or adolescence without these platforms, and it's it's it's more nuanced and empathy. Can they can actually communicate online and ways we do not write, We don't use the

platforms the way they use the platforms. Um before we go, tell me what you're hoping for with common sense media in the next let's say five years, what are what are the sort of the dream the dream ideas. I would say, number one, you permanently close the digital divide so that everybody in the United States has access to broadband, because whether you like it or not, you need it to go to for school, you need it for work, you need to do your homework. So currently close the

digital divide. The money's there. We're doing a huge campaign on that for the next couple of years. I would say another big dream is that we really address the youth mental health crisis in the United States and adult mental health crisis. But that we really do that, and that we make the resources available to everybody who needs it in the suicide prevention area, but also for people who have significant but not necessarily rising at the level of suicide or you know, massive self harm, but that

we really really take this mental health crisis seriously. I think third, that we work with the companies and regulate them, the big tech platforms and social media platforms, so that they're way more responsible, both in terms of how they shaped the lives of kids and families, but also about how they've screwed up our elections. I mean, I think our democracy is that its most fragile state in my lifetime,

actually since the Civil War. And I will tell you, I think that the media platforms are a big part of the problem because they've spread misinformation, disinformation. It's where all the jam six stuff was was formed online, and people are manipulating these platforms in really really devious ways. That's true here in the US, but it's really true globally as well. Okay, see you at the Camp reunion.

That would be so fun. I know, I can't thank you enough for everything you do with common Sense Media really go to I mean, I want your whole audience to become members of Common Sense, because guys, this is your kid's life. But it's also the way to advocate for children. It's also the way to advocate for democracy. It's like thirty bucks a year and the truth is this is the reality our kids are growing up in and that we're living in. So the more we do,

the better. All that's right. Thank you, Jim, Thank you for listening to Go ask Alli. As always, please check out our show notes for other great info and links. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review Go ask Alli and follow me on Instagram at the real Ali Wentworth. Now. If you'd like to ask me a question or suggest a guest or a topic to dig into, I'd love to hear from you, and there's a bunch of ways

you can do it. You can call or text me at three to three four six three six, or you can email a voice memo right from your phone to Go ask Alli podcast at gmail dot com. And if you leave a question, you just might hear it. I'm go ask Alli. Go ask Alli is a production of Shonda land An Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.