You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play the news from The Australian. From the Australian, here's what's on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Monday, September sixteenth. The government's trying to clean dodgy disability providers out of the NDS by forcing fifteen thousand operators to register so they can be properly regulated. Some disability advocates say that
will force some soul traders out of business. A pedophile who groomed and abused six children has been sentenced to ten years without parole, but he'll get a lifetime taxpayer funded pension when he leaves jail because he was a senior public servant. One of his victims' mothers is crusading
to have Stephen Mitchell stripped of his super entitlements. That's an exclusive Live now at The Australian dot Com dot au Meta says it's up to the Apple and Android app stores to enforce a social media ban on children, and claims parents don't use existing options to keep their kids safe. Online media companies are fighting back, urging the government to toughen up on tech giants today, how online safety will shape the looming federal election.
I remember once I came across a video of a man being shot and was being recorded as he died.
This is an eighteen year old woman talking about her early experiences on social media several years ago when she was in her mid teens.
I haven't seen it since, and I hope other young people never see it. It took away most of my innocence.
This young woman, who isn't named, is quoted in a submission to a federal parliamentary inquiry on social media and Australian society. The submission is by News Corp Australia, which
is the parent company of The Australian and US. Here at the front, the eighteen year old, whose words were read for US by a voice actor, spoke to a research company called Dinata, which News Corp commissioned to ask Australians about their experience in that intangible, magical, terrifying world that surrounds us at every moment social media.
I also remember one time a person who I thought was a friend to be an unsolicited picture of his penis, and I blocked him without saying anything.
Social media can bring us so much joy.
Healthy chocolate it which you can also put in the fridge to make a moose. And what do we do when somebody hates us for no reason?
Give them a reason with therapy.
Or without therapy or without therapy.
Please, because my husband actually just stole all of my cat.
But we've all also probably had one of those experiences seeing something you can't unsee. The idea of children on social media consuming death and misery while they sit quietly in their bedrooms horrifies parents and kids themselves. But we're all addicted and none of us have any power, which is why this seemed like big news. The Prime Minister is vowing to ban children from social media by the end of the year.
We know that social media is causing social harm.
It's an idea first floated by Peter Dutton earlier this year. And at the same time, the government's introducing legislation that would put rules around doxing that's revealing the private information of someone without their consent, and misinformation or disinformation.
From both sides of politics, we're seeing red hot rhetoric calling out the Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerberg's of this World.
Jeff Chambers is the Australian's chief political correspondent.
For both Anthony Albanezi and Peter Dunton. Up alongside cost of living, social media harms is becoming a top tier issue. So we see this flurry of activity around Parliament House. I kept hearing it described to me as this is such a big water cooler issue. And the Prime Minister reveals that in this term of government that he will legislate a minimum age of access to social media and relevant tech platforms. Now, what he didn't have in that
announcement was what was the optimum age? And my understanding is that while the Prime Minister supports Miss Dutton's idea of restricting teams up to sixteen, that some around his cabinet table and more broadly in caucus have differing opinions on that. So inside labor and probably more broadly, there's a bit of a debate over what that right age is,
whether it's fourteen, fifteen or sixteen. We've seen Metaglobal Affairs chief Nick Klegg last Friday pushing back, suggesting that without the help of Apple and Google app stores it would be very difficult to implement.
There are only two choke points in the modern Internet. It's the operating systems upon which everything else is built, which is iOS owned by Apple and Android by Google. If you ask each company's by whack them all of these things, it's going to be a nightmare for parents. So I think you know, in as much as the debate unfolds in Australia and elsewhere, if you're going to make a big move like that, you've got to make
it workable. It's got to cover all the apps that young people use, not just some of them, and the only way is through the app stores. There's no other way.
So Facebook says it's not on them, it's on Apple and Google.
And this We've introduced around fifty tools over the last few years to give parents more control over the time that their kids spent who are they friending with? We default under sixteen year olds into a much more restrictive setting, so they can't be connected or communicated with by people they're not connected with, et cetera, et cetera. And guess what, even when we build these controls, parents don't use them.
I think we'll be making some very significant announcements fairly soon to try and really make these controls simpler, easier, particularly reassuring for parents.
Social media giants they've got huge war chests. They're multi trillion dollar companies, armies of lobbyists and lawyers, and the general view is when they see ad hoc legislation like this, they view it with contempt.
So it seems like there's a lot going on, But media companies like News Corp Australia say in their submissions to the committee, in fact, the government isn't taking big, bold steps to really get social platforms under control. News Corp says it wants two things. First, for the government to force Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, to negotiate payments to news companies for the material it serves up to its users. This was happening. You might have heard
about it. In twenty twenty one. Meta and Google paid Australian media outlets millions for their content. That's after Meta had a brief tantrum where it removed all news content then restored it. But this year Meta said it doesn't want to pay anymore and claimed its users don't really consume much news anyway.
The News Media Bargaining Code was established by Josh Freedenberg. It wasn't easy to land for him, but he personally took on responsibility of negotiating this outcome with the big social media guys, in particular Meta and Google, and written into that code, if one of the major social media platforms or tech giants does withdraw not in good faith, they can designate that company. What we've seen is in late February early March, Meta shredded their deals, walked away.
We've seen this kind of behavior from Meta across the world. So just over six months now, the Albenese government has talked a big game in terms of the effect of what Meta has done. Anthony Alberzi could have taken this on himself. Technically, the media Bargaining Code falls under Jim Charmers. Jim Charmers recused himself for a conflict of interest.
The treasure is wife is a senior journalist with News Corp Australia.
And instead of appointing a senior cabinet minister to lead negotiations with Meta and swiftly determine whether the company should be designated under the code, Anthony Alberanezi picked assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones. He sits outside of cabinet and he is the one who's been given the responsibility to determine the
government's position. And again a lot of retric from mister Jones, we're hearing that he is seriously considering an alternative option of imposing a general levy, a government ordered levy, instead of invoking designation powers that the government has. I think the problem here is time is just ticking. There's only three joint sitting weeks left of the year, which means both the Senate and the House of Representative sitting because I think the government thought they might be having an
early election. It's almost like they're dumping out all this legislation knowing full well that the reality of getting all of it through by the time of an election is looking very unlikely.
Coming up, what the news organizations want? News Corp Wants the government to create a new system called a social License, where giant tech companies would have to pay an annual license fee to operate in Australia and be held liable for algorithmically amplified content. That's like the video of someone's death, which the eighteen year old we heard from at the top of the episode said she saw during COVID. So
when she was fourteen or fifteen. News also wants the media companies to have to implement customer complaint systems so you can ring a call center here in Australia to raise a problem. They also want something called an ex and a competition framework that means regulations that look forward, anticipating harmful situations as they arise and taking action to regulate the platform's behavior. Jeff, these are our bosses. This
is what they want. But as an independent analyst yourself, do you think the Albaneze government is actually going to designate meta and or would the opposition do it.
It's interesting because the Coalition on a whole front of different policy areas are still sticking in that opposition space where they say they are the government of the day, it is their decision to make. But as that election comes around, we're going to have to see some clearer
policy indicators from the coalition. As for the government, there's been lots of mixed messaging and a lot of concern that a more senior cabinet minister, potentially Michelle Rowland or even the Prime Minister himself haven't personally taken on this issue.
What it means.
We've got a junior minister sits outside of cabinet, who's leading this when you're recall Josh Freedenberg with support of Scott Morris and they had personally taken control of that and they got a big outcome from it. And if Australia doesn't designate, it really does undermine the future of what was a world first and a world leading media bargaining code.
And what about that social license, Jeff, do you feel like that's an idea that either the government or the opposition are actually going to embrace.
Look, it's a new idea that's being floated and I'm sure that both parties would have a close look at it. I did ask Michelle Roland about a social license and her response was there is nothing special about social media companies when it comes to adherence with Australian law. These companies aren't licensed in the way that traditional broadcasts and telecommunit loccasion services are, but they are regulated and they
do have obligations to society. So not not an overwhelming kind of positive response.
Yeah, it's an interesting notion, isn't it that these companies are regulated? I mean, are they.
Well, if you look at the tax arrangements if you look at their behaviors, I mean X now have no staff based in Australia. If you wanted to complain to any of these big companies, it's very, very difficult. None of that really shows that there's any sort of fear from them around Australian regulation.
Jeff Chambers is The Australian's chief political correspondent. You can check out news Corps submission and read what the opposition and the social platforms say right now at the Australian dot com dot au