Nicole Senior is a radio host in the community realm commentator. She's on the line, good morning, How are you, Hi, Mike, I'm good.
How are you?
I'm fine, Thank you. I'm just interested in your opinion about this sweeping gesture by the government. We're not sure what the gesture looks like, but apparently under sixteen's will not be able to access social media. I'm not even sure how far that goes. I mean, can I still look up odd websites? You know? I like to look up these unusual news websites all over the place. I suppose I can do that without having a picture taken
in my face. But you've gotten under sixteen in the household, haven't you.
I do I have? Well, I've got an eighteen year old and I've also got a seven year old. So look, I think it's a great idea. But how they are going to implement this, my mind bobbles how they can do this. For example, at the moment, I can't even set up a Spotify account for my seven year old son,
who listens to a lot of music. He has. There's a Child's or kids Spotify account, but a lot of the songs he listens to he finds on YouTube and I can't get it on the kids one, so I have to create an account for him under one of my email addresses. How on earth are they going to stop children under the age of sixteen from accessing social media. There's so many ways you can get around it. Recognition like it's probably the only thing. But that's overstepping the mark, don't you think.
I do you? But before we get onto that, just tell me why can't he access certain music as a seven year old? Is because the music is not suitable for him? Or is there something else to play?
Yeah, it could be. It could be when they have a when he has a child. The children's account it things. When I say children, it's like the Wiggles, that kind of music, really young kid kind of music.
Now it's not going to be wap, is it?
No? No? And he plays games like he likes to play, things like Roadblocks and Minecraft and even Minecraft music you can't find on the kids YouTube. That's interesting, I account.
I had no idea, but here's here's what I think is interesting. Just imagine if you're eighteen year old tries to access something on social media and the device says and I believe from tests run so far, are quite possible. The device says, no, you're only fifteen. That's going to be an issue for you, isn't it.
It would be an issue for me. I mean, look, he looks a lot older than eighteen. He's got a mustache and a little goady going on, so I don't think he'd be a fifteen year old. But I think for those kids that are quite baby faced, it would throw off I'm sorry, you're not old enough to access this, but in reality they are. So what do they have to do? Start uploading their birth certificates to prove it? Like I think, gets a little bit out of hand.
And how do you know it's their birth certificate not when they borrowed from a mate?
Well, exactly right. I think there's Like I said, I think they're going to find it very hard to manage accessing social media for under sixteens. But I do I completely understand why, and I think it's the bullying. The cyber bullying is probably the biggest thing, and I completely and usly agree with it from that perspective, But it's how do you manage it? That's the hard part. Managing it would be difficult.
I was looking at a story a few hours ago that is blaming social media for eating disorders with teenage girls. Do you think that's true?
Yes, And I can speak openly about that because one of my closest friends, their daughter has gone through something very similar. It's due to influencers, influences on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Maybe not so much Facebook. Facebook is more for the older crowd, i'd say, but all these other even TikTok.
TikTok's another one. All the influencers that are out there promoting you know, health and fitness with the incorrect information and very unhealthy levels of information to all this younger generation, which is why I think they are trying to implement that age limit, because after the age of sixteen, I think they've got their head screwed on a little bit more. But it's awful. I wouldn't say you would blame social media, but I think kids need to understand that the stuff
on social media is exactly that. It's fake. It's not reality. It really isn't. I create videos on TikTok all the time. You use filters, you use music, you can there's so many different things you can do in those platforms to make yourself look better, looks thinner, look satter, whatever it might be, it's not real. And I think kids at the under the age of sixteen don't have that life experience and the understanding to go that's a load of crap,
do you know what I mean? That's the problem we've got.
On the other hand, what do you say to people who say, oh, yeah, and then all of a sudden at sixteen they have to confront this having no experience whatever.
Oh I think. Look, one of my bosses quite a sad story, but his daughter went through something similar at the same age, about sixteen. She had an eating disorder and spend a lot of time in hospital. And I was actually talking to him about that on Thursday, and he said, it is a most horrific experience for any family to go through, especially at such a young age, when they don't quite understand the consequences of watching all of these people online and they can't articulate the difference
between reality and what's real. And the worst part is a lot of them are famous actors and actresses, and you know, promoting huge ounce of weight loss, and then a lot of them people are saying, oh, that's a zampick or something like that. I think, I don't know, it's just really toxic. At the moment I know where to draw the line, I'm like, yeah, I'm not following it. Gone, gone, gone. But I'm forty one years old. All these younger kids that don't have the capability to do that yet.
There are certain themes that keep cropping up, not necessarily along the lines that we are discussing, but there's one that says this insert whoever it is, well known, star politician whatever, was sued by the Reserve Bank for giving this secret away. How it's possible to make money in Australia without working. And I see this over and over, and I know some of the people who are being featured in it. The most recent one I saw was
Penny Wong. I'm not saying that I know Penny, but I would bet the house on her not supporting this, and yet nothing is done about it. So really, I suppose, because to be clear, you think it's a good idea, right, but you don't know how they're going to go about it. So let me ask you this. If it comes to the point where we all have to say who we are, are you prepared to subbort it to that extent.
I struggle with AI. I have a massive fear of AI, and I've seen it. I work for one of the big four banks full time and it is constantly our work in technology, so it is constantly discussed the fear of AI and especially video generated footage, and you know, it happens all the time. It's happening with a lot of famous people saying, oh, I've seen them in a
video online. They've said that they're going to do this and this, or they know agree with this or don't agree with this, and it's like, oh, that was not me. I never ever once did that. It's very how real it is. There are ways you can pick up whether it's real or not, but you need to understand the technology to do that. Most people don't. And working as a voice actor, because I'm a voice actor too, Working as a voice actor AI is one of the biggest
issues in that industry. So it's not a good thing for anyone.
So if somebody could take your voice without your permission and use it, yeah, correct, Yes, you also told me when we discussed that we were going to talk about this on the program that you were concerned about a I generated porno or nude pictures at the very least of high school girls in particular, and how disastrous it can be for them.
Yep, yeah, I think. Well, I've read on the news recently there's been a couple of instances where footage has been leaked around schools or university campuses of particular women, and those women it was not them in that footage. It was their face, but it was not their body. And a lot of these pornographic sides are created by
males and distributed to other males. And the scary part was the only reason why this particular person found out about it was somebody she knew had seen it and brought it to her attention, and she had no idea that that was happening. And that's the scary part. If you know someone that sees it, great, they can bring it to your attention.
But if you.
Don't know, you've got your face on someone else's body c circulating around god knows where. That's scary. That is really scary.
You know. In years gone by, a couple of my more ardent I suppose female listeners thinking it through have sent me photographs. I know it's them, but the photograph has only been from the shoulders down naked I'm talking about. But that wouldn't save them, now, would it.
No, it's not hard to DoPT something like that.
Well, that's right, and so I guess they're thinking, Okay, you know, if it does, somebody else does, somebody else won't know it's me. But now you can basically create what you like and just toying around with AI. You know, the other day, Dale was generating a picture of Vladimir Putin writing a unicorn and Dale, indeed, but it was so easy to do.
Miss It was because there's a lot of programs. And look, I'm not dissing the programs. I use a lot of AI programs. I love Chat GTP. I'm a massive fan of it, and I also like the video content, so I use camera a lot, and there is an AI option in Canbra. But I think it all comes down to the integrity behind, like of the person using the app. If you're going to do it for good's you going to use it for something like work related or something
like that, I think it's fine. But as soon as you start using it for something that's going to damage someone's reputation. I think there needs to be something in place for that. And I could just imagine that the Feds would be up to their eyeballs and how the hell are we going to manage this, like, how are we going to how are you going to legalize or make these things illegal? And actually manage it? From that standpoint, I don't think you can. It's too much.
Okay, so you think the idea is good, but you don't think it's possible to pull it off.
I don't think it's possible to pull it off. I think the idea is good, though.
Yeah, all right, thanks Nicole.
Thanks Mike Nicole
Senior, who's a radio host in the Community Spectrum and also a commentator commentating there.