Inside Politics: Social media 'crackdown'

Published Sep 12, 2024, 7:01 PM

Snapchat is officially on notice. As are Instagram, Facebook and TikTok

This week the Prime Minister and his communications minister Michelle Rowland announced they will introduce a ban on young people using social media. But they were short on detail, including exactly what age the government would require teens to be before they could access social media. 

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton promised the minerals industry that a Coalition government would be the “best friend” of miners. 

Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss, is chief political correspondent David Crowe and shadow communications minister David Coleman.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.

From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, September 13th. Snapchat is officially on notice, as are Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. This week, the Prime Minister and his communications minister, Michelle Rowland, announced they will introduce a ban on young people using social media. But they were very short on detail, including exactly what age the government would require teens to be before they could access social media. So will the ban add up to anything? How will it be enforced? And is the policy anything more than a thought bubble? Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton promised the minerals industry that a coalition government would be the best friend of miners. So what exactly did he mean by that? And does his pro-fossil fuel stance mean the liberals have given up any hope of winning back the Metropolitan teal seats? Today with us, we have our chief political correspondent, David Crowe, as usual. And also we have a special guest star, shadow Communications Minister David Coleman, to talk to us about the social media bans. Welcome to both. David's.

Hi, jacki. Good day. Jacki.

David Crowe, I'll go to you first, because this week, the prime Minister and his communications minister, Michelle Rowland, made an announcement about a new age limit for accessing social media. What was the announcement exactly? Did we have a lot of detail?

Not a huge amount of detail, but we have a commitment to put a law to Parliament before the end of this year to mandate age verification on social media platforms. And the intention is to set an age yet to be determined, where social media platforms would not be able to sign up those customers.

We will introduce legislation by the end of the year that we have in our May budget funded funded the trial room of age verification technology.

Now this was announced. Well, it was briefed to us late on Monday. And then Anthony Albanese did a media blitz on Tuesday morning to communicate this. We didn't get a press conference. We didn't get a briefing document to really set out how it would work. So there have been I think it would be fair to say, limited opportunities to actually question the mechanisms that the government thinks it can use to achieve this goal. But the policy is there on the table, and it responds to a coalition call for this policy that David Coleman issued earlier this year and started talking about last year. And it also responds to moves by the states, because South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas was pushing for this at the national cabinet meeting last Friday. And so that's the sort of the recent momentum that led to this statement of intent to put the law to Parliament before the end of the year.

Okay. David Coleman, I know you've got some criticisms of the labor proposal, such as it is, but I just want to go back to first principles because, as David Crowe pointed out, you have been talking about this issue for a while. The issue of young people accessing social media has been a concern of yours for quite some time. So just tell us why it bothers you or worries you.

Yeah. Look, I think this is a totemic issue, jacki. I think the evidence is very clear when you look at the mental health outcomes for Australian kids, especially girls, they are really disturbing. And it's a heavy topic. But if you look at things like self-harm hospitalisations for girls over the last decade, they are up dramatically. If you look at things like anxiety disorders amongst girls, they're up dramatically and that has coincided pretty precisely with the rise of social media. So it's either a remarkable coincidence or social media is playing a part. And I think we all know the reality that social media is playing a part. So we would never have said consciously, Let's put young children into an environment where they can interact randomly with any adult on earth who can provide any form of content to them with any motivation. If we'd have actually been asked that question ten years ago, do we want to do that? We would have said, well, no, you can't do that. That's a very bad idea. But that's what's happened. So what we need to do is have the strength and clarity to say that we're going to change, that we're going to impose an obligation on these companies to actually enforce age limits, as opposed to do virtually nothing about it, which is what they do now. And that's why in June, Peter Dutton and I announced that the coalition would do that and would put in place an age limit of 16 and put that obligation on the on the social media companies.

Okay. So you've pointed out that the government's proposed trial of age recognition technology won't start until late October at the earliest because they've only just, I think, put out the tender. Would the coalition do a similar trial of aged recognition technology, or do you have other plans for enforcing the age limit that you will impose?

Yeah. Well, look, just on the trial and it is it's a bit comical to be honest. So back in November, we put legislation to start the trial. The government voted against it. Then in May, they said they'd do it. Then on Tuesday, they announced that they were going to actually implement age verification. But then when we looked on the Austender website, the tender to conduct the trial was just issued on Tuesday, the 10th of September, which is absurd. Um, in terms of the model, what we said is we'd legislate within 100 days of taking office to do this. We made that very firm commitment. And if you look around the world, there's some fairly clear models emerging, which is broadly that a regulator is given the the power to define a standard in the UK for pornography. They describe it as highly effective age assurance. As Justice French points out in his report for Premier Malinauskas. Most of the US states use a model of all reasonable steps, and that's what Premier Malan, the Justice French's report speaks to. But broadly, you put an obligation on the companies. You say you must follow this standard, and if you don't follow the standard, you can be liable for very significant fines. And that's the model that's being adopted around the world, and that's the direction we need to go in.

Mhm. How would you actually manage the age recognition though.

So there's there's different models for that. So Ofcom the UK regulator has published guidance on that. And they have about 5 or 6 different methods. The the platforms themselves interestingly do actually do age verification in some limited circumstances now. And so for instance with meta, if you say your age is under 18 and then you later change it to over 18. Even meta realizes, hey, we can't just take that at face value. So they do age verification around using things like video selfies, requesting documents in some circumstances. And they say when they do that, it's been 96% effective. So they can do it. They just don't want to do it and they don't want it to be regulated. And I think the other really important point on the technical aspect is, I don't know if you saw this week a letter in the Financial Review where some of Australia's most successful tech executives, tech founders, uh, founder of seek, the founder of Afterpay, Richard White from Wisetech, uh, Daniel Petrie, many others. They came out and said, we need to do this and it can be done. So we need to do it. And that's an absolutely a crucial, I think, as a country that we take that step.

Yeah, I think some of those tech guys as you just described have sort of said that it's better to lay the onus for this on the technology companies rather than have a government tender for it, because the tech companies are the ones who know how to use age recognition technology. They're at the forefront of all kinds of technology, so they're better at it than government ever will be. Yeah.

And it's it's very unclear because the government just literally put out the tender a couple of days ago. It's extremely unclear what the government has in mind. And I think it's fair to say the government probably doesn't know itself at the moment, but they are they are obviously very sophisticated. The tech companies, I mean, think about it this way. If it comes to using data for the purpose of selling advertising, these are the most sophisticated companies in the world when it comes to analysing data for the purpose of protecting children. They're remarkably unsophisticated. And if they got $5,000 every time they identified an underage child on their platform, you know, they'd get pretty good at it. Yeah So they've been very effective in muddying the waters on this issue over many years and getting people really, you know, bogged down in a whole lot of issues that, frankly, are about their business model. And, you know, that's their problem. The job of the legislature is to say, what do we as an Australian community, believe should be acceptable? What we believe should be acceptable is that if you're 16 or over. Fair enough. Go for it. Have a social media account. But we don't think these companies should be able to offer those products to younger children. And it's it's their problem, to be frank, if that creates awkward issues for their business model, that's not our problem. That's their problem.

It's a regulatory burden that you're willing to push back on those companies. Yes. Okay. David Crowe, what detail? David Coleman is, you know, sort of pointed out that we don't have a lot of detail on the government proposals. So far, they haven't set an age limit yet although it seems that the PM is leaning towards the higher end of 16, which is the coalition policy. Do we know what sanctions they might impose on the tech companies if they don't comply? Do we have any detail at all?

No, none of that detail at all. We know from similar things that have been done on other fronts that they're willing to impose fines and penalties. They've they're moving towards a scam regime, for instance, that will have a fine of up to 50 million on, on, on companies. And they're looking at a misinformation regime that also puts an onus on social media. And so I think the government is sending all the signals about asserting Australian sovereignty and putting the onus on tech companies to lift their game. But this is you know, this core issue is how exactly would they do it and whether it would work. But it is interesting that they are now. Well, the way I put it is that they've stolen the coalition's plan, and now they've got to prove that they can fly it because they've lifted a policy from the coalition. It's now on the government to make it work. But in theory, there is a bipartisan commitment to do something. And so I think it's going to be interesting for David Coleman and his coalition colleagues on whether they can accept the mechanism that the government may put forward, because both sides actually do say that something needs to be done.

Yeah. And David Coleman, what sanctions would a coalition government impose on social media companies that didn't comply with the ban?

Yeah, very significant fines, jacki, because, you know, these are these are massive companies. In some cases, they are literally trillion dollar companies. So it needs to be a pretty big number to get the attention of senior executives. And obviously if if we come into government, we'll we'll outline that. I mean, the immediate task for us will be when the government eventually comes up with its proposal. You know, we'll look at that. We'll obviously look at that in in good faith. Uh, but, um, we're waiting on the government now, as the government said, it's going to do this. I don't think has much of an idea as to what it is they're going to do, but we'll look at that and be constructive about that when it's put forward. But plainly, the fines for the companies need to be very substantial because otherwise it won't get their attention. Mm.

We don't know when Anthony Albanese and the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, will reveal a draft law, but we do know that there aren't that many weeks left for Parliament this year, and we can't even be sure that there'd be any weeks in Parliament before the next election if if the timing of the election is quite early in 2025. And so that, I think, means for parents, they know that there's an intention for governments to do something. They know that there'll be a bigger responsibility on the tech companies. But I don't think anybody can be really confident that there's going to be a regime in place before the election. The timing is really in doubt.

Could I just. Yeah. Could I just pick up on that? Jackie. So the tender document that the government so the government keeps saying they're doing the trial. The trial is very important to inform their thinking. The tender to select someone to run the trial doesn't close until the 7th of October. So the trial can't even start, presumably until late October. And the government's allocated $6.5 million for the trial, which suggests it's not something that's going to happen in a couple of weeks. So how on earth the government is going to conduct the trial, produce legislation, bring it to Parliament in the short number of sitting weeks we have remaining, I don't know, but that's the commitment they've made.

Okay. David Coleman, just on a slightly separate but related issue, the Prime Minister has also said that his government will force the big tech companies to compensate news providers for the use of their content on search engines and on platforms like Facebook. Does the coalition support that?

Well, we created the news media bargaining code, So absolutely, we support the very important principle that if you use the intellectual property of Australian journalists, you should pay for it. And that's why Josh Frydenberg went toe to toe with Mark Zuckerberg a couple of years ago. And we made mita pay. And they paid Australian media companies about $75 million. Then on the 1st of March, they said, we're not going to do it anymore. The government has basically huffed and puffed, but it certainly hasn't blown the house down because nothing's actually happened. Six and a half months later. So this is a really fundamental issue, not only for Australian journalism, but also for our society more broadly. We have seen hundreds of job losses in the media industry in recent months, directly linked to the loss of that meta revenue. So I think it's well past time that Stephen Jones stopped producing zingers and started producing solutions, because this isn't theoretical. This is very.

Real.

And you are seeing it in newsrooms around the country. We created the code because we recognized the importance of this issue, and the ball is in the government's court, but they've got to make meta pay. Should they designate meta?

Should they designate meta?

Well, I think the the powers in the code are very strong. And we've said the government should be willing to use all the powers in the code. They haven't come up with any alternative model.

What about a levy?

Well, look, I think again, I mean, we're we're sort of, um, clutching at straws in a sense, because we don't know what it is the government is going to put forward. We'll look at anything they put forward in this space.

What would a coalition government do, though? Because as you say, it's your code. You guys created it. It was your baby. And then meta pulled out of it. So how would you force them to comply?

Well, I think in a situation like this, you need to have the ability to muscle up to meta And communicate very clearly that there will be consequences if they don't comply. That's what Josh Frydenberg did. That's what this government has not done. And I guess I'm.

Asking you sorry to cut across you, but I'm asking you what those consequences would be under a coalition government.

Well, look, I'd rather not sort of speculate publicly about what I would say privately to meta, but what we have a track record on as a coalition is solving this problem. So we know how to do this. There was a very interesting revelation last week that Nick Clegg, who is the head of global policy for Facebook for meta, actually offered to meet with Prime Minister Albanese about this. And he said no. And so then Andrew Wallace, our MP, asked meta in an inquiry last week what is the most senior level interaction that this government has had with meta about this issue? And the answer was that it was Stephen Jones and that he'd met with the Asia Pacific regulatory head of meta. So why on earth is the Prime Minister and other senior ministers not actually going to the top to to resolve this issue? That's what that's what we did. And it is impossible to understand why this issue hasn't been resolved. There's been a lot of tough talk from the government. Um, they said on the 1st of March that we've made our expectations clear to meta, which, you know, I think was meant to have some sort of ominous implication. But, you know, meta didn't respond. And six and a half months later, nothing's happened. And it's well past time that something did. Yeah.

Well, you certainly are preaching to the choir in terms of telling that message to journalists. David Coleman, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you making the time and thanks for being at the forefront of this very important issue.

Thanks, Jackie.

David, I want to turn now to a speech that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton made this week to the Minerals Council of Australia, who had a do in Canberra, I think. And he said to them that a coalition government would be, quote, the best friend that the mining and resources sector in Australia would ever have. What did you mean by that and what policy, if any, did he give to back that up?

That is primarily about workplace policy, actually, because that's one of the big sticking points between the mining industry and the government at the moment. BHP has been warning about the the high cost to it from the from the labor workplace regime. At the same time, there's a labor attempt to get new environmental laws through the parliament. And a big question about whether labor will work with the Greens on what's called a climate trigger which may then impose a new barrier to approving mine projects. Yeah. So the mining industry is concerned about that. Peter Dutton goes to them in a big week in Parliament, where a lot of mining executives are in town and promises to be, in a sense, their champion in Parliament. The dynamic here, I find really interesting because it's working on a number of fronts. Peter Dutton goes after labor from the right, saying that they're damaging the economy. The coalition refuses to deal on the government's changes to the reserve Bank. It warns about the government's changes on the environment, and it attacks the changes on workplace relations. In the meantime, Adam Bandt from the Greens is attacking labor from the left, saying that they're not standing up for enough ordinary workers. Look at the CFMEU dispute, for instance. Labor's being squeezed on both sides and it does show the pressure on labor to hold its electoral base while it's under pressure from both left and right.

So support for the mining sector is particularly important strategically in WA, in Queensland and in some parts of New South Wales. So which seats is the coalition sort of hoping to hold or win back when it gives this really pro-mining stance? And which seats does labor have to worry about? If it looks like it's not a friend of the mining industry?

The coalition's been spending a lot of time focusing on Western Australian seats, but so has labor. They held an entire cabinet meeting in WA recently to shore up support there. At the same time, the complexity of the issue is that labor actually has a policy that helps miners. It's called a mining production tax credit, and it's something that people like nickel miners want to use to kind of support their financial position. It's also meant to support lithium miners and so forth in new areas of mining. The coalition is actually against the mining production tax credit when that bill comes to Parliament, there's a chance that it'll sharpen that dispute over who's really the friend of the miners. In Queensland, it's quite challenging for labor because they don't really have any. Well, they don't have any seats north of one of the outer areas of Brisbane, but they're under pressure in that seat, the seat of Blair. And also they need to hold up their seats around Brisbane. So if they don't look like they've got a pro-business agenda, it can hurt them in areas that go beyond strictly what you might call a mining seat. And that's why it's a lot about the the broader economic argument. If labor aligns itself with the Greens on things like RBA reform, workplace or other economic issues, the coalition will just seize on that to to paint, paint labor as being untrustworthy on the economy. And that's what Anthony Albanese has to watch out for.

Yeah. So it's the coalition is trying a broad frame, you know, to frame the government as being anti-business or not, at least not very good at managing the economy. On the other side, though, what about the teal seats for the coalition? Because if the coalition is pushing out, the opposition leader is pushing out this very pro fossil fuel mining message, isn't that saying effectively that they're giving up any hope of winning back the inner metropolitan teal seats?

I thought it was really interesting that the the independent teal candidates came out with a call for a climate target of 75% by 2035. Currently, the government's target is 43% by 2030. I don't assume that that is going to be a guaranteed winner for for all of those voters in those city seats. When I visit teal seats in Sydney and Melbourne, I see a fair few Porsches and SUVs, right? Sure, EVs are being purchased in in volume, but there's still a lot of people in those seats who are quite happy to emit fossil fuels. So I'm, I'm undecided basically on how an issue like that is going to play out in those seats. Mhm.

Okay. I mean these are all seats to watch. And it's going to be fascinating, particularly as the race really sort of sharpens in the lead up to the election whenever it may be. And as always we're grateful to have your insights and your analysis David.

A lot to talk about today. Anyway. That's great. Thanks, jacki.

Today's episode of Inside Politics was produced by Kai Wong and Tami Mills, with technical assistance by Debbie Harrington. Our head of audio is Tom McKendrick. Inside politics is a production of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. If you enjoy the show and you want more of our journalism, subscribe to our newspapers today. It's the best way to support what we do. Search the age or Smh.com.au forward slash. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley, this is inside politics. Thank you for listening.