Kilda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Video sharing website YouTube began twenty years ago with a nineteen second video of one of its founders at the San Diego Zoo. Now, hundreds of hours of content are uploaded to the platform every single minute. There has been a huge shift globally to rain in the social media giants. The UK has introduced to age verification requirements, with Australia to follow suit
by the end of the year. Other countries like India, Germany, Spain, Italy and Norway are also investigating exactly how to better protect kids online. So should algorithms like youtubes be regulated and how would we even do it?
Today?
On the Front Page, Victoria University of Wellington Associate Professor doctor Peter Thompson is with us to discuss what New Zealand should do and whether we're already fighting a losing battle against harmful online contents. First off, Peter, let's start with a relatively easy one. I suppose can you explain what an algorithm is?
Okay? Well, an algorithm is a computer program applied to the servers of online content in this context, and so it basically determines the priority in which you will actually come across and discover content on the platform you're using.
So on social media, they access our data. They look at what we've liked where, what we've looked for, what we've searched for, what we've engaged with, and that informs the algorithm what kinds of content we're likely to want in the future, and so it prioritized is things that the algorithm tells the system is the sort of content that we're going to spend our time with, because that's how they make their money.
How good do you think the algorithm is, like does it really know what we want? Or does it know what it wants us to want? If that makes sense.
They're getting more sophisticated, that's for sure, certainly with AI, but they don't really know who we are. I mean, all they have is a data set based on our online behavior that they can access. And that's why data is so incredibly important because of course not only informs the sort of content that we find on online platforms, it also informs advertising and the way that advertisers might pitch their particular products to us.
So you know.
Is it very effective, well, to some degree, yes. I think most of us have had an experience where, for example, we've gone online search for something and the next thing we know, we're on social media and the thing that we were just looking for is being advertised to us, and there's a little bit disconcerting. On the other hand, Facebook is still convinced I have a dog, which I don't.
It keeps advertising and maybe I'll watch dog videos, but it clearly doesn't really know who I am, what I want, So it still hits a mess to a large degree.
When we talk about YouTube, for example, there have been some controversies about how it can take kids down.
These types of rabbit holes.
Hey, I read some comments from parents talking about it in The Guardian. One said he actively fights against the algorithm. He watches one video of a gel blaster, for instance, then gets fed about one hundred videos of Americans firing guns. Is there a fear that this kind of thing is happening to our kids.
I think there's a legitimate concern there. There have been a number of studies that have shown the tendency of algorithms, and particularly YouTube algorithms, to take people further and further down what we might call an extremist pathway. There was a study by the University of minister As in Brazil.
It was a big international study. They looked at hundreds of thousands of accounts and they found clear evidence of a shift of viewser accessing you know, what they might call the relatively light but right wing leaning kinds of content, So maybe Fox News and the Daily Mail. Before very long you're in the info wars with Alex Jones and then going into some even more near dangerous and toxic content. Now it doesn't happen all the time, but the tendency
is there, and that's been measured. There was another study by Bellingcat that found similar things. They looked at a number of self identified alt right users and the way that they'd become red pilled, that they'd woken up to their right wing reality, and a number of them explicitly cited YouTube as a key motivator for their journey to
the far right. Now, of course, if you're on the far right, you might think this is all well and good, but if you know it possibly works in the other direction if you're looking for extreme left or extreme religious types of content. But the key thing is that the algorithm is there. You know, its proprietary, it's owned by YouTube, it's there for YouTube's use, and it's there to keep our eyeballs on the screen because that's how they make their money. They want us online because that's how we
get exposed to advertising and marketing opportunities. So the algorithm from a commercial point of view, isn't political. It's economic, and so it's there to try and keep our eyeballs focused on whatever we seem to be wanting to see more of. And does that have dangers? I would say in some cases yes.
Remember the algorithm is a black box. No one knows what it's doing. All YouTube can do is change the feedback it's getting, change the signs that say this is good or this is bad. If YouTube wants a human to watch and categorize every video being uploaded as safe or unsafe in real time, they would need about one hundred thousand employees working shifts around the clock. Plus that would expose them to legal issues in most of the
countries where YouTube has an office. If you let an algorithm do the filtering and then manually step in when you get a complaint, you illegally flying but if you approve everything with a human in the loop, you are a publisher and you're opening yourself up to some very expensive lawsuits.
So we're talking about this now, hey, because worldwide there have been moves to limit Internet access to under sixteen year olds, things like social media in Australia, for example, is YouTube a social media side It's not exactly what one thinks first straight off the bat.
It's a very curious environment because the key thing with social media is that they're primarily platforms user generated content.
So third parties provide the content on these platforms, and that's very different from say a linear television broadcaster, where you know somebody makes the programs or licenses the programs, aggregates them and puts them out as a channel where there's always editorial oversight, or indeed from a subscription video on demand channel, where you know the library of content or the atalogue of content has been brought in and provided on the server and they know exactly what's there.
With online social media platforms, you don't know what that content is. Now. YouTube's curious because it's not the sort of social media site where people just go to share the family photographs. You know, or exchange political views. You know. It's very very video oriented and it always has been so music videos are a big driver of content. Increasingly television channels are setting up online, so it's a bit of a one stop shop. You can find all kinds
of content there. YouTube doesn't have complete oversight, you know, over the material that's been put out there. I mean, regrettably, it was quite a significant host of the christ Church terrorist video. Now even months after there were versions of that popping up on YouTube. Now it's algorithms do, generally speaking, pick that up and get rid of it. And there's other forms of content that get policed. But there's so so many people putting video material up on YouTube, it's
impossible to police everything. And therefore there is this potential, you know, for children to access content that isn't appropriate for them. Now, are there ways to police that, well, I think there are, But does it require a total ban?
I think that would be perhaps a step too far because there's also very useful educational content on YouTube, and some of that material, you know, if children really wanted to discover it, well, they're pretty smart and tech savvy, you know, they can probably find ways around it.
What about YouTube kids. So I've got friends with children. They watch a lot of kind of sensory videos on YouTube kids. But those accounts, I understand is for kids aged up to thirteen, right, and that's in accordance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. But doesn't that skew towards a much younger audience that should we be looking at, say a YouTube teen's or something.
I think that would be a great idea. Now, does it mean that you're you know, your fourteen year old reaccessing sixteen year old content? Well, very likely, But I think I think labeling is an underrated exercise in media regulation because we know from studies by the BSA and the Classification Office that people really do you those labels. So if something is labeled R eighteen, well, okay, we know that maybe sixteen, maybe even fourteen year olds will
probably try and access it. But if you have a sense of responsibility, and most people do, you're not going to let a ten year old or a five year old access that kind of content. So if you have built in systems, you know, where where someone can only access the adult content if they have an account that signals they're an adult, well that will cut out a very very large range of potentially harmful exposures. It's not perfect.
If you're a terrorist and you're trying to live stream your active terrorism, you're very unlikely to give our dance notice that you've got an R eighteen video coming up, or even an objectionable video coming up. So of course it's not perfect. But would we all rest a little more peacefully knowing that our children are more likely to be playing in a safe soundbox, you know, with those protections. I think yes, and it's doable.
Yeah.
I quite liked this comment from Australia's Federal Communications minister. Her name's Aniica Wells, and she described protecting children from internet harm as like trying to teach her kids how to swim in the open ocean with rips and sharks compared to a local pool. And she said, we can't control the ocean, but we can police the sharks. But Peter, can we police the sharks?
Well? I think we can. I don't think we've tried hard enough to be perfectly honest. But if we take the christ Church call, for example, and give ct the Global Internet Forum for Encountering Terrorism, I mean they've put in some incredibly sophisticated software, you know, for picking up
or on problematic content. It can't stop someone posting, you know, terrible material like the terrorist video in the first place, but it picks it up incredibly quickly now and through hashtagging, she's kind of a digital fingerprint on the way that
content is represented on the screen. There's be a pixel, a series of data points that identify the problematic video, and that goes out to all kinds of social media and online operators and they all have the same code, and they very very rapidly now have protocols for getting rid of that content. So you know, there are things we can do, and I think there's other other options there. We could look at you closer identification of who's using
these accounts. We could look at age verification. So there's a number of mechanisms that could be put in place. And I have to say that none of this is an affront of free speech, as some people on the far right seem to imagine. And I do have to question the motives of people that say that, such as the threat to freedom of speech, we can't regulate any
media in any way. I think that's absolutely irresponsible, because there are many ways that we can regulate the media to protect the younger people in particular and to protect the wider community. And it doesn't mean that we don't get access to content. It just means that we're unable to make more airful and better informed decisions.
That's it constantly telling us that they're really worried about the impact that social media is having on their children, and they say they're really struggling to manage access to social media.
This bill is about protecting children from online harm, including bullying, addiction, and exposure to inappropriate content. By restricting social media access for under sixteen year olds, it puts the onus on social media companies to verify that someone is over the age of sixteen before they access social media platforms.
This is about protecting our children. It's about making sure that social media companies playing their role in keeping all of our kids safe.
Journalists, for example, we do stuff under the Broadcast Standards Authority. We've also got ethics and things like that. I mean, a so called journalist on YouTube just spouting off conspiracy theories, what do they have any regulations or anything at the moment or.
Short answer is no, Whether they're whether or not they would counter as journalists, I think is the question. Now again, this is where I would have some sympathy for the argument for free speech. I mean, people are allowed to be mistaken. I think there's a case for looking very closely at platforms or channels that simply perpetuate disinformation and really they're they're just a troll farm pumping out malinformed material to a wide population. I think I think there's
a very strong case for regulating those sources. But does that mean that we should all be looking over our shoulder because big brothers going to censor us? I don't think that would be the case. And so one way to deal with that would be to flag content. You know, if if a source is proven to be unreliable but it's providing something that looks like news, you put a label on saying, look, you know, experts consider this to be an unreliable news website.
Facebook did for a minute, yeah that to Facebook did do that, and where that people were putting.
Vaccine skeptic material up on the platform, and they said, oh, look, you know that this information is disputed, it's not seen as reliable. Here's a link to some reliable information. Now, that's not censorship. That's enabling the user to make more sensible choices about the sorts of content that they engage with. So again, that's not censorship. It's not saying you can't have access to this information. It's not saying that you
can't have an opinion that differs from the mainstream. But it is saying that we can enable the audience to make more informed and more judicious decisions. And I think that's where they go back to the algorithms. I think that's where maybe we need to regulate the algorithms as well, to make sure that when we're looking for news and information that we find the reliable sources at the top of our search or the top of our news feed, that those sources are going to be the reliable sources
and not not ones that are of more dubious provenance. Right.
So, lastly, Peter, what should the New Zealand government do if they were to do something tomorrow. It kind of seems like at the moment they're sitting back and just kind of checking out what the rest of the world does and see what's working.
I think that's often the default position. There's a there's a value in aligning whatever regulatory framework we you know, we adopt here with the regulatory frameworks overseas, and i'd be looking at Europe and the UK perhaps there. I mean, Australia has got gone quite a long way towards blocking social media for for for younger people. I don't think you can ban it outright. I think that's going to
be quite difficult. But there are steps, as I say to to looking at ways of flagging content or introducing age verify and restricting the sorts of content available to people in those age categories. Now they're not perfect, but I think they would go a long way to protecting younger people, and I think we should be looking at those measures. I happen to think that the government made a very poor decision to abandon the Safer Online Services
and Media Platforms proposals. They weren't fully formulated as a bill, but there were some very sensible ideas there, none of which included advancing censorship on free speech. They were all about trying to make the public more able to control the sorts of content that they're exposed to. So as a first step, I go back to that and have a look at what those proposals were because I thought there were some very sensible ideas there.
Thanks for joining us, Peter, very welcome. That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzerld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.