So where do you start the efforts to combat this? Is it kids who are kind of sitting outside their peer group quite early on? Are we just keeping watch on kids to see where their journeys are taking them online? Where do we start looking out for this?

I think all of the above.

I think we need parents to be an active participant.

in their child's life, be it on or offline, and understand that this is real.

And the worst thing you can think is not my kid.

I mean, no parent wants to think of their kid getting caught up in anything that is untoward.

But understand that if you have a teenager, particularly a teen boy, who uses the internet then you've got to be able to talk to them about what they're seeing what they're being presented with what the algorithms are pushing them it doesn't take a lot to either look for something see it stumble across it you might then watch something or interact with it and go oh my god that doesn't interest me but all of a sudden the algorithm is going to keep feeding you similar content there's a lot of misogynistic content anti-female content, gender-based content that is being fed to impressionable and vulnerable young men online.

How does that fit into this picture, that particular cohort of kids and boys in particular?

So what regulations do you think we need to put in place on AI companies?

There needs to be clear regulations, enforceable legislation about when breaches occur, and it's the same as we have here when a breach of systems occurs or when certain information might be being compromised.

Reports have to be done within a clearly defined time, and that needs to be a very short amount of time because if, for example, this had resulted in the theft of data and identifying data, well then, the bad actors or the offenders have five months headway on us, if you like, trying to work out what had happened, how it happened to put in place protections to stop it happening again.

So I think that we need really clear guidelines that are enforceable that will state that this has to happen within, you know, one day, two days, 48 hours of it occurring.

The platforms themselves know this.

This is not...

Um, OpenAI didn't just find this out five months later.

The simple fact is we cannot trust these tech bosses, Susan.

What are the safety risks with children who use these online gaming platforms?

With gaming platforms, there's probably three parts to it.

There's time, you know, are they gaming for 10 hours a day? That can be a problem, of course.

Then we look at the content of the game and the interaction of the game.

So I always say to parents that they should be downloading and playing the games first.

to check that the content and what the game is all about is suitable for the age and stage of their child.

Now, if the content is suitable, then you have to look at what does the game do.

Why are there still gaps in the way young players are protected from harm?

What are the safety risks with children who use these online gaming platforms?

With gaming platforms, there's probably three parts to it.

There's time, you know, are they gaming for 10 hours a day? That can be a problem, of course.

Then we look at the content of the game and the interaction of the game.

So I always say to parents that they should be downloading and playing the games first.

to check that the content and what the game is all about is suitable for the age and stage of their child.

Now, if the content is suitable, then you have to look at what does the game do.

Why are there still gaps in the way young players are protected from harm?

Yeah.

Then regularly check the messages because what we know is that an adult will often pick up something that's a bit weird, a bit over-familiar, a bit slimy way before a child will.

Yeah.

And plenty of kids, their parents are putting their face on or an older sibling.

So to me, it often gives parents a false sense of security.

"Oh, there's a ban.

My kid will be safe." No, no, no.

That's not how it's working at all.

Yeah.

Then regularly check the messages, because what we know is that an adult will often pick up something that's a bit weird, a bit over-familiar, a bit slimy way before a child will.

Yeah.

And plenty of kids, their parents are putting their face on, or an older sibling's.

So to me, it often gives parents a false sense of security.

"Oh, there's a ban.

My kid'll be safe." No, no, no.

That's not how it's working at all.

So we're likely, it's likely to be less civvy, but, but do you think it still won't be effective?

The problem is even with content that is illegal to be hosted or viewed in the UAE, for example, the same as Indonesia, um, VPNs get around that.

Um, there's many ways that you can still access the content.

So this is what we're seeing here in Australia, and the eSafety Commissioner's own research has only put a decrease in use for under 16s at around 3%.

So I'm in a school every single day.

I'm talking to kids.

I'm talking to parents.

What would you call for instead? What would you like to see instead that would, you know, if parents are going to break the rules, if parents are going to do the stupid thing, you know, is it the responsibility of the government to, to care for children when their parents won't? Surely, in some ways it is.

Maybe for those who don't know you, before we start talking about this book, Growing Up Digital, and all of the incredible insight you have, as well as our practical tips, which we will talk about later, Can you talk to us a little bit about your background and why you care so much about this topic of how we help kids in our digital world and indeed teens and parents as well? And it goes all the way back to your previous career.

It does.

I was a Victorian police officer for 27 years and I took my first report of cyberbullying in February 1994.

Wow.

So for 30 years, I've been aware of technology harm and technology misuse.

And when I took that first report, I was blown away.

It was like, really? You can do that? Like, why would someone want to do that? It was so out of left field.

Yeah.

It's a new world, but it's a pretty horrible one, isn't it?

It is, and I think it's not overly new.

Like, we know this has been happening for a long time.

I think what the Safety Commission's release has done is it's raised more awareness of it and that we need people to stop and think.

I'm inundated.

with parents, particularly in New South Wales, complaining about the way their schools are managing social media in that they are not being given the option to say no to social media but yes to the school newsletter, for example.

Yeah, and this rise of the AI-generated deepfakes, and, you know, I don't want to be too specific about it, but I'm sure my listeners can understand what we're talking about, and this exploitation, and it's, you know, putting the image of somebody's head on top of another body, that sort of thing, and it's just appalling, and would have a deep effect on people who are subjected to it, surely.

It does, and people will say that have been caught up in this, that the impacts is exactly the same as if it was an actual nude photo.

All

right.

So a couple of things.

First of all, I am 100% for a safer internet for all young people.

That has been my life's work for the past 30 years.

So I am not beholden to any social media companies or pushing them or anything like that.

I want these platforms to be safer.

Oh,

If the Prime Minister's data can be accessed like this, does that mean anyone's information can be accessed?

Morning, Nat.

Yes, of course it does.

And I think we put a lot of trust in the organisations that we work with, we bank with, we interact with.

And this is the reality.

Now, I'm not saying this is a common occurrence, but we've certainly seen situations where medical records have been accessed, criminal records, criminal proceedings, and, of course, banking details.

So if it's electronic and it's digital, there is a possibility that this can happen.

Yeah, is there anything we can do to stop this happening?

Whose fault is that, that the framework's not there?

Well, it was the government because the government rushed this instead of sitting back and perhaps taking another six months or another 12 months to put this into place.

What we've seen is rushed legislation, rushed ideas, very headline grabbing, so very positive on that front.

But then they've amended it as they've gone.

They had to amend the language in the law because Reddit and another group did a high court challenge.

So we upped it a bit there.

Now they've realised, well, perhaps the fines aren't enough.

Do you buy into that?

Have a listen.

This legislation that we have in Australia has as many holes in it as a sieve.

The problem is picking 10 platforms out of thousands, excluding some platforms that we know cause problems for young people.

We're also giving parents a false sense of security where they think banned is bad and if the platform is not banned, it must be safe for their children.

And we also know that most children, I'm in front of a class of students every single day.

And I can tell you now that almost zero have actually had accounts removed.

If they've had them removed, they've managed to get them again straight away.

So if school social accounts are on private, are the kids still at risk here?

Of course, because who's accessing that private account? So even if it's school community members, the minute you post the picture, you've lost control over it.

And I think what schools must do, rather than this bundled consent rubbish, which that's what it is, is having formed consent to start with.

So that means you aren't giving the parent the option to say, yes, you know what, I'm happy for my child to be in the newsletter, but I do not want their photo on social media.

So why are these apps still legal

that enable you to do it? That's a very good question, Nat, and it's perhaps one that we could ask the government as to why they're not being made illegal.

Now, if the app is illegal, it means the app store can't host it.

That doesn't mean this is going to stop, but it's certainly going to make it harder for people to find the apps and use them.

So I guess what should the UK learn? What are the biggest lessons that the UK should be learning from Australia's experience? Because actually, to give Australia credit, being a world first, you know, is kind of going to be learn as you go approach, I imagine.

It is.

And I think, you know, most people and even our e-safety commissioner was not in support of this ban.

It was not the advice provided to the government and it was rushed.

It is rushed legislation.

Legislation or laws are only useful if they work, if they're enforceable and there are consequences.

So they're some of the holes that we're seeing.

Has there been any ramifications for the tech companies who are wrongly identifying children in Australia as being 16 when they're not?

But is there any age range that this ban has been effective for?

So pre the 10th of December when the new rules came in, 13 was the legal minimum age to have any form of social media.

And I was vocal about the fact that parents should not be helping their children to lie, to set up accounts that they should not have.

And what we also knew at that stage is around 80% of under 13s who are on these platforms were there with parental permission.

So raising the age to 16 was not going to address parents the cohort of parents that were happy to help their kid get around the rules.

And we've seen that consistently.

The government also said that it was going to shift the narrative.

So what should we do? Should we just throw up our hands and say this is a battle we can't win? Let the tech giants do whatever they want? Or is there something we can do?

Uh, but i- is there any age range that this ban has been effective for?

Uh, so pre the 10th of December when the new rules came in, 13 was the legal minimum age to have any form of social media, and I was vocal about the fact that parents should not be helping their children to lie to set up accounts that they should not have.

And what we also knew at that stage is around 80% of under 13s who are on these platforms were there with parental permission.

So raising the age to 16 was not gonna address the cohort of parents that were happy to help their kid get around the rules.

And we've seen that consistently.

The government also said that it was going to shift, uh, the narrative, so the families that said no and didn't have their children on these platforms would be the majority, and those doing the wrong thing, if you like, would be the minority.

Well, that hasn't happened.

Or is there something we can do?

What impact have these laws actually had? A lot of them saying we can still get on.

Look, I think there's not a person in the world that doesn't want a safer internet for young people.

And I think everyone was acutely aware of the danger that was lurking on these platforms.

In reality, however, numbers only paint a very small picture.

I'm in front of a school somewhere every single day.

And what I'm seeing is that most of the children whose accounts were flagged by the platform have managed to pass the the id checks by doing a face scan and the ones that didn't even bother to do it i had a group last week calling out going oh mum did it for me dad did it for me my older brother did it for me so i think there's flaws to the implementation of it i think for children that Parents that have children that are in primary school, I think that's when we're going to see the real rewards from this because they're going to keep them off it longer.

But as for the cohort that are between 13 and 16, I don't believe it's a success at all.

Has anyone been fined? Have the social media platforms been fined? What needs to change?

So if we've got a colleague that we suspect is being impacted by this, what can we do to support them?

Support them and let them know that they're not alone.

I'd like to think that holistically a school has wellbeing structures in place for their staff.

But certainly, most schools, the staff work in teams, be it a year-level team, or a subject matter team, or a team around something in a school.

They're the ones that are normally on the frontline and perhaps can notice a change in one of their colleagues.

They've become quiet or withdrawn or there has been an issue.

"Don't hold it in," is my advice to staff.

And this is such a clear message that you've given us the whole time, Susan, that we really can't afford to put our head in the sand when it comes to this topic and to really think about where's our risk? What are we going to do if something occurs? How can we support our staff? How can we also be clear with our students and our parents about what is okay and what's not okay? So when it comes to staff online safety, what would you like us all to keep in mind?