I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist, and
this is a Radioland Extra for December the 9th,
the stupid bit of Australia's social media ban
for kids. Governments everywhere are not very
good at technology, but the Australian government
excels in almost deliberately not understanding
it. In 2017, Australia had a prime minister called
Malcolm Turnbull, and all indications were that
this was a man who knew his stuff. As a lawyer,
Turnbull had successfully defended Peter Wright,
a former MI5 official who wrote Spycatcher, leading
to the book being published in Australia. Then
Turnbull bought a half -a -million -dollar stake
in the Australian ISP OzEmail, selling it just
before the dot -com bubble burst for $57 million.
So a man who understood freedom of speech and
a man who understood the internet. Sadly, two
brains turnbull went on to attempt to pass a
law to force tech companies to give a backdoor
for encrypted messages to the government. Encryption
can't be weakened for just one set of people.
The laws of mathematics are that if you weaken
encryption to let the government in, you also
weaken encryption for the rest of us, breaking
online banking and payments as well as chats.
The laws of mathematics are very commendable,
he said. But the only law that applies in Australia
is the law of Australia. In the sort of smug,
logic -twisting nonsense that was to prove his
downfall 12 months later, yay, when we got Scott
Morrison instead. Turnbull isn't alone, and this
week has seen Australia enacting a ban on social
media for children under 16. The law forces social
media companies to stop allowing under -16s from
holding an account on their platforms, which
is good, I think. But here's what the law doesn't
stop. The law doesn't make it illegal for kids
to access them. The only people who'll get fined
are the social media companies. Further, the
law lets kids access the social media websites
anyway. They just can't hold an account. So use
of a VPN makes no real difference. It won't be
illegal to use one to access social media, but
if companies let someone from Australia use social
media through a foreign VPN, they'll be fined.
And the law doesn't stop many social media companies
at all. Someone who's under 16 can pop along
to Murdoch's Courier Mail website, open an account
and leave an angry comment, and that's absolutely
fine. Instead... Companies have to be named by
the government. And there are only 10 companies
actually named, like Facebook and Instagram and
Reddit and Twitch. And I'm fine with these companies
being banned for under -16s, actually. But another
company named by the Australian government under
this law is YouTube. Now, YouTube isn't a social
media platform. It's a video service. There are
comments on YouTube, but as we've established
already, there are comments on the Courier Mail
website too, and they're not banned. Being the
parent of a daughter under the age of 16, I'm
more aware than most about the protections that
YouTube has in place. I can ensure that she's
forced to use SafeSearch, which is supposed to
successfully stop her from unearthing bad things.
I can also ensure that if she does find bad things,
she can't play them. Google's Family Link is
pretty good software, all things considered.
She'll still be able to use YouTube. The law
doesn't stop that. She just can't use YouTube
with her account, which means that she gets potentially
the worst of YouTube, and I can't do a thing
about it. Her account's a premium account, so
I pay to get rid of the advertising when she
uses YouTube. Except the Australian government,
in its brilliance, won't let my daughter use
YouTube under her premium account. So she'll
have to see all of the advertising. And YouTube
won't know that she's under 16. She could opt
out of seeing gambling or alcohol or all kinds
of stuff. But to do that, she'd need to log in,
which would mean she'd have a YouTube account,
which she isn't allowed. And she can't use YouTube
music. If you're unaware, YouTube music is a
bit like Spotify. Well, very much like Spotify.
It's got every song in it and you can listen
to all of the songs just like Spotify. But I
can't let her use YouTube music anymore because
that requires access to the account that she
can't have access to. And I can allow her to
use Spotify. So stupidly, under this law, my
daughter can still use YouTube and access videos
on it. I can no longer control what she sees
on the service. I can no longer get rid of the
advertising there. I can't even control what
ads she sees, and nor can she. And she no longer
gets access to YouTube Music either. For music
then, we've had to shift to Spotify, which offers
an identical service, but which apparently isn't
a social network, even though she can look up
her friends on there and message them. And I've
retained YouTube Premium for my use, so I don't
see the ads, so I'm now paying for two music
services and not one. And none of this makes
much sense to me. Although perhaps the weird
front page of the Courier Mail makes it a little
bit more obvious that Murdoch thinks this is
a very good idea indeed. Here is the Courier
Mail for December the 10th. Today, childhood
will be rebooted. Today is the day humanity...
reboots childhood with Australian kids the first
in the world to be banned by law from using social
media until they turn 16. Not true. Lives will
be changed. Lives will be saved. There are laws
that will unshackle our kids from an online world
they are not old enough to handle, freeing them
to grow up in a society that protects them. Social
media harms our children. Let's just let them
be kids. Editorial, page 52. Parent's Guide,
page 4 and 5. It's all a bit terrifying, really,
isn't it? Bless them. And until next time, keep
listening.