Tag Archives: #Social Media

Time for age limits on religion?

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As more countries consider following Australia’s lead in banning or restricting children and young people from accessing social media, I wonder why we don’t similarly consider a ban on religion for anyone under 16? Surely, if we want to protect our children from the potential harm caused by social media, we should include religious faith as having similar harmful effects on young minds.

I appreciate this may sound deliberately contentious, but bear with me. I come to this suggestion from a number of perspectives.

First, my own position on “god” and faith-based beliefs sits somewhere between agnosticism and atheism. For those who say “you’re just sitting on the fence” or “you’re hedging your bets”, I would reply I simply don’t have that die-hard certainty in theological beliefs or conviction of faith that is usually required (if not enforced) by most religions and cults. I have no problem with people practising or adhering to their own faiths. But in liberal, progressive, pluralistic and democratic societies the right to “freedom of religion” is balanced with the right to “freedom from religion”. Meaning I shouldn’t be disadvantaged or persecuted solely for my choice of a specific religion, or my choice of no religion. I would also side with the humanists and secularists who argue that your freedom to exercise your religion should not cause any harm to others, especially not to those who do not follow your particular persuasion. And your religious practices and preferences certainly shouldn’t curb my individual rights to things like legal birth control, divorce, gender equality etc. I would also argue that an individual’s freedom to choose their own religion (not have it imposed at birth as if it formed part of our DNA) should be based on an informed, independent and personal decision. Just as we have age limits for voting, driving, marriage and sexual relations, I think we should have minimum age limits for religious membership and participation.

Second, many of my ancestors were subjected to religious persecution. My French ancestors were protestants (Huguenots) and were effectively driven out of France; my Irish ancestors were catholics, and endured the strictures of British colonialism. Both suffered due to religious sectarianism – so I have little time for religious practices that foster discrimination, forced conversion or violence born of intolerance, fanaticism, extremism and fundamentalism. I certainly don’t want to live under theocratic rule!

Third, I spent much of my A-Level History course studying the Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. From a political and cultural perspective, it is an extremely important period, and many of the key events and outcomes are echoed in today’s geo-political landscape. For example, Henry VIII’s break with Rome can be seen as the first Brexit; while vernacular translations of the bible and other religious texts (rather than the Latin versions imposed by the Catholic Church) were important for helping to spread literacy, and they have helped to inform notions of self-determination by nation states and ethnic minorities.

Fourth, those A-Level studies also exposed much of the nonsense that is spouted in the name of religion, for example: theological disputes around predestination and transubstantiation, and debates about how many angels can fit on the head of a needle. Much earlier in my life, I was a member of a church choir. I recall, aged 7 or 8, having to read out aloud during Sunday services some passages from the bible which I just didn’t understand (and which no-one in church could rationally explain). Yet, because they represented the “word of god”, they had to be true, and I was required to believe them, otherwise I was going to burn in hell. That’s surely not how we should be educating children, is it?

If we do want to teach ideas about religion to children under the age of 16, perhaps we need a different approach. While schools may offer classes in comparative religion, it’s largely under the auspices of religious education or religious instruction (or maybe social studies). Whereas, I think sacred texts should be taught as literature (fiction or poetry), and open to the same level of critical analysis applied to Shakespeare, Jane Austen or George Orwell. Maybe these texts could be studied and critiqued in philosophy classes, but certainly not taught as part of science or history subjects!

The current public debate around “religious freedom” is often tied up in torturous arguments about protected beliefs, freedom of speech, and the “right” to cause offence against someone’s personal beliefs. Increasingly, taking a secular or non-sectarian stance against religious overbearance (whether in the form of Islamic Jihadism, Christian Nationalism, Zionism, Hindu Nationalism or Buddhist ethno-nationalism) is dismissed and even prosecuted as evidence of racism, xenophobia, religious discrimination or incitement to violence. And as for the Federal government’s back-flip on launching a Royal Commission in the aftermath of the Bondi massacre, I think the Prime Minister was probably right to change his mind about holding an enquiry, but got it totally wrong by framing it in the context of only one form of religion. Instead, he should have made it a broader examination of religious extremism and sectarian intolerance of all kinds, and the harm this is having on society and our personal freedoms.

Next week: The cost of AI

Regulating Social Media….

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The term “mainstream media” (or MSM) is generally used as a derogatory term to describe traditional news services (print, broadcast, on-line), especially by anyone who thinks that MSM does not reflect what’s “really going on” in politics, society and the wider arena of current affairs. Depending on which conspiracy theories or political agenda you follow, if MSM doesn’t agree with or express your viewpoint, it’s become very easy to dismiss the Fourth Estate as an instrument of the (deep) State, or merely serving the interests of an oligarchy of wealthy media owners and press barons. This dialectic is sometimes described as the Fifth Estate – those bloggers, podcasters, citizen journalists and marginalized voices that seek to pursue their version(s) of the truth via new content platforms.

Although the tradition of the counter-culture as represented by this Fifth Estate has a very long history, its growth has been accelerated and amplified thanks to new digital technologies in general, and social media brands in particular. The problem is, not only is social media challenging (and ignoring) many of the rules and conventions that underpin the social contract between the public and the traditional media outlets, our governments and regulators cannot keep up with the pace of technology.

In the late 1980s, when I studied sub-editing and basic journalism at night school, the ethos of The Five Ws of Journalism were still taught as the essentials of any credible news outlet or publication. This was also a time when the media was going through significant changes, from new content technology to cross-border ownership, from multi-channel narrow-casting to 24-hour rolling news formats – yet the principles of source verification, fact-checking, libel laws and the right to reply were generally still seen as crucial to instilling public trust and confidence in the media (alongside a healthy dose of scepticism to not believe everything that we read in the paper!).

Now, with social media grabbing more of our attention, and with large, global and engaged audiences on their platforms, who are getting more of their news from these channels, the term “MSM” could easily apply to social media itself. Hence the term “legacy media” has emerged to describe traditional news services.

Whether it’s Facebook wanting to be the “world’s newspaper” or X positioning itself as the global “public square”, it’s clear that these new media barons are in many ways no different to the aging media moguls they seek to displace. Newspapers don’t make money from their cover price or even subscriptions – most revenue comes from advertising and the “rivers of gold” it represents. Now, those advertising dollars are on-line, and tied to our social media accounts and the proliferation of posts, “likes” and “shares” (as well as our personal data).

So how should we think about regulating social media, if the old rules no longer apply?

First, the policy, regulatory and industry framework to oversee social media needs to be simplified and streamlined. In Australia alone, based on a cursory internet search, I identified more than a dozen entities (government, agency, association) that have some form of oversight of social media. Apart from being highly inefficient, surely it doesn’t have to be this complicated? (And complexity and ambiguity can embolden those who seek to flout convention.)

Second, if a social media platform wants to be taken seriously as a trusted news source, and if it aspire to be recognsied as a publication of record, it has to adopt some fundamental principles such as The Five W’s. It’s all very well saying that these platforms are anti-censorship, and pro-free speech, but those rights come with a heap of legal and social responsibilities. To argue that these platforms are merely conduits for public opinion (rather then being content publishers) undermines agency theory. Given that I am not entitled to a social media account (I don’t think it’s yet risen to being a fundamental human right?), and that I don’t own my account (often, not even the content I post), social media companies act as our agents. They give us permission to use their services, and they ultimately control what we post on their digital real estate. They also use algorithms to manipulate what is served up in our feeds. Social media should therefore be held accountable for content that it enables to be disseminated; take more responsibility for any libel, lies or dis/misinformation issued on its platform; and risk prosecution for any content that promotes, encourages or incites violence, insurrection and public disorder.

Third, the fact that much of the content on social media is user-generated should not absolve these platforms from having to provide a formal right of reply, as well as adhering to a recognised and independent dispute resolution service. This will enable alleged victims of on-line bullying, harassment, personal abuse and outright lies to seek redress, without having to embark on expensive legal proceedings. (Of course, if social media companies maintained fact checking and other verification tools, they should be able to mitigate, if not eradicate, the need to invoke these mechanisms in the first place.)

Finally, any reputable social media company should be willing to sign up to minimum standards of practice in respect of content originated or disseminated on its platform, as well as observing existing regulation around personal data, data protection, cyber-security, privacy, intellectual property rights and general consumer protections. At the very least, social media has to prove itself a credible alternative to the legacy media it seeks to displace, otherwise they are not the solution, just another part of the problem.

The wrong end of the stick!

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In a typical knee-jerk and censorial reaction, Australia’s Federal Parliament has recently approved legislation that will attempt to ban anyone under the age of 16 from accessing social media.

Knee-jerk, because the legislative process was rushed, with barely a 24 hour public consultation period. The policy itself was only aired less than 6 months earlier, and was not part of the Labor Government’s election manifesto in 2022.

Censorial, because Australia has a long history of heavy-handed censorship. I still recall when I lived in Adelaide in 1970 (aged 10), broadcasts of the children’s TV series, “Do Not Adjust Your Set” were accompanied by a “Mature Audience” rating – the same series which I had watched when it was first broadcast in the UK in 1967 during the tea-time slot!

As yet another example of government not understanding technology, the implementation details have been left deliberately vague. At its simplest, the technology companies behind the world’s most popular social media platforms (to be defined) will be responsible for compliance, while enforcement will likely come from the eSafety Commissioner (to be confirmed).

The Commissioner herself was somewhat critical of the new policy on its announcement, but has since “welcomed” the legislation, albeit with significant caveats.

From the perspective of both technology and privacy, the legislation is a joke. Whatever tools are going to be used, there will be ways around them (VPN, AI image filters…) And if tech companies are going to be required to hold yet more of our personal data, they just become a target for hackers and other malicious actors (cf. the great Optus data breach of 2022).

Even the Australian Human Rights Commission has been equivocal in showing any support for (or criticism of) the new law. While the “pros” may seem laudable, they are very generic and can be achieved by other, more specific and less onerous means. As for the “cons”, they are very significant, with serious implications and unintended consequences for personal privacy and individual freedoms.

Of course, domestic and international news media are taking a keen interest in Australia’s policy. The Federal Government is used to picking fights with social media companies (on paying for news content), tobacco giants (on plain packaging) and the vaping industry (restricting sales via pharmacies only), so is probably unconcerned about its public image abroad. And while some of this interest attempts to understand the ban and its implications (here and overseas), others such as Amnesty International, have been more critical. If anything, the ban will likely have a negative impact on Australia’s score for internet freedom, as assessed by Freedom House.

The aim of reducing, mitigating or removing “harm” experienced on-line is no doubt an admirable cause. But let’s consider the following:

  • On-line platforms such as social media are simply reflections of the society we live in. Such ills are not unique or limited to Facebook and others. Surely it would be far better to examine and address the root causes of such harms (and their real-world manifestations) rather than some of the on-line outcomes? This feels like a band-aid solution – totally inappropriate, based on the wrong diagnosis.
  • When it comes to addressing on-line abuse and bullying, our politicians need to think about their own behaviour. Their Orwellian use of language, their Parliamentary performances, their manipulation of the media for personal grandstanding, and their “calling out” of anything that does not accord with their own political dogma (while downplaying the numerous rorts, murky back-room deals and factional conflicts that pass for “party politics”). I can’t help thinking that the social media ban is either a deflection from their own failings, or a weird mea culpa where everyone else is having to pay the price for Parliamentary indiscretions.
  • A blanket “one size fits all” ban fails to recognise that children and young people mature and develop at different rates. Why is 16 seen as the magic age? (There are plenty of “dick heads” in their 20s, 30s, 40s etc. who get to vote, drive, reproduce and stand for public office, as well as post on social media…) From about the age of 12, I started reading books that would probably be deemed beyond my years. As a consequence, I by-passed young adult fiction, because much of it was naff in my opinion. Novels such as “Decline and Fall”, “A Clockwork Orange” or “The Drowned World” were essential parts of my formative reading. And let’s remember that as highly critical and critically acclaimed works of fiction, they should neither be regarded as the individual views of their authors, nor should they serve as life manuals for their readers. The clue is in the word “fiction”.
  • Children and young people can gain enormous benefits from using social media – connecting with family and friends, finding people with like-minded interests, getting tips on hobbies and sports, researching ideas and information for their school projects, learning about other communities and countries, even getting their daily news. Why deny them access to these rich resources, just because the Federal Government has a dearth of effective policies on digital platforms, and can’t figure a way of curbing the harms without taking away the benefits (or imposing more restrictions) for everyone else?
  • In another area of social policy designed to address personal harm, Governments are engaging with strategies such as pill-testing at music festivals, because in that example, they know that an outright ban on recreational drugs is increasingly ineffective. Likewise, wider sex, drug and alcohol education for children and young people. Draconian laws like the under-16 social media ban can end up absolving parents, teachers and other community leaders from their own responsibilities for parenting, education, civic guidance and instilling a sense of individual accountability. So perhaps more effort needs to go into helping minors in how they navigate social media, and improving their resilience levels when dealing with unpleasant stuff they are bound to encounter. Plus, making all social media users aware that they are personally responsible for what they post, share and like. Just as we shouldn’t allow our kids to cycle out on the street without undertaking some basic road safety education, I’d rather see children becoming internet savvy from an early age – not just against on-line bullying, but to be alert to financial scams and other consumer traps.
  • Finally, the new Australian legislation was introduced by the Labor Government, and had support from the Liberal Opposition, but not much from the cross-benches in the Senate. So it’s hardly a multi-partisan Act despite the alleged amount of public support expressed. It may even be pandering to the more reactionary elements in our society – such as religious fundamentalists and social conservatives. For example, banning under-16s from using social media could prevent them from seeking help and advice on things like health and reproductive rights, forced marriage, wage theft, coercive relationships and domestic violence. Just some of the unintended consequences likely to come as a result of this ill-considered and hastily assembled piece of legislation.

Defunct apps and tech projects

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In the early days of this blog, I featured many new tech projects and start-ups that I came across by attending pitch nights and meet-ups in Melbourne. I also signed up to beta test numerous apps, and I contributed to quite a few crowd-funding exercises. In doing some research for a recent blog on music streaming, I realised that many of these ventures are no longer with us.

Here’s a random selection of projects and products that I either used, subscribed to, funded, or covered in my blog:

1. Klout – launched in 2008, this app used data from social media profiles to create individual “Klout Scores”, designed to calculate how “influential” your content was. Nice idea, but there was probably no money in the business model, because as far as I can recall, it was a free service. It was purchased in 2014 for $200m by the company that eventually became Khoros, who then closed Klout in 2018, as it was not seen as core business. Khoros itself is a customer engagement, social media and content management solution for corporate clients and consumer brands – obviously, there is more money to be made from capitalising on customer behaviour…

2. Do.com – founded in 2014 as a productivity tool, focused on making meetings more efficient. Acquired by Amazon Web Services (amount undisclosed) and folded into its Chime web-meeting and conferencing application. From my personal experience, the only company using Chime for external-facing calls is Amazon itself, but perhaps it’s more of a white label solution, or it’s mainly used by internal teams to communicate among themselves (especially if these teams are using AWS?).

3. Paper.li – launched in 2010, and grew to 2 million users within 6 months, this was a neat product that enabled users to curate their own “newspapers” from Twitter and other online content. Closed in April 2023 – probably too much noise and competition in this space, and too hard to monetise?

4. Pandora – one of the earliest internet radio and music streaming services, Pandora launched in 2000 – and as recently as 2019, had a market valuation of US$3.5bn, based on a stock acquisition by SiriusXM. But by 2017, Pandora had already decided to exit the Australian market, so I have no idea about the current content or service quality.

5. Twitter Music – as featured in my previous blog, this “service” was launched in 2013, and closed within a year. But watch this space – since re-branding his new toy as “X”, not only has Elon Musk taken back the @X handle from a Twitter user, he’s also just claimed @Music from another customer.

6. 8tracks – another early-ish player in the internet radio and music streaming service (launched in 2008), 8tracks is primarily a social media app that allows users to share their favourite playlists. Despite industry accolades, and various integrations with Android, Windows and Soundcloud, 8tracks ran into problems, including a copyright and licensing issue which meant it could no longer stream music outside of the US and Canada (instead, having to rely on content from YouTube). In 2019, the company announced it was shutting down. Then, in early 2020, the brand was relaunched under new ownership, but is only available in the USA.

7. Sensel Morph – this tech business began life as a Kickstarter project in 2015. The product was a touch-sensitive computer interface that allowed users to run various applications, such as graphic design, video editing, gaming, digital audio workstations, MIDI devices and coding (e.g., for Arduino and Raspberry Pi). Despite a successful funding campaign, the Morph devices did not start delivering until 2017 – and some of the promised features never appeared, or were scaled back (or support was dropped soon after development). In early 2022, Sensel announced it was discontinuing support for Morph – instead, the company is focused on providing touch-sensitive and pressure pad technology to third party developers and OEMs. I can’t help feeling that the Kickstarter campaign was really a way for Sensel to fund its early R&D (especially given the 2-year time line to deliver the first physical devices).

8. Swatchmate – a Melbourne-based startup, this optical device for scanning colours, surfaces and patterns had a big future when it launched in 2011. Aimed at designers, illustrators, printers, textile manufacturers and paint companies, initially, there appeared to be significant interest from major brands. Yet, within a few years, and following a name-change to Palette, the product (and the company behind it) have disappeared – although the device can in theory be ordered online. I suspect that as mobile phones’ own optical quality has improved (along with AI-trained apps to handle colour-matching), the standalone Swatchmate cube was doomed to failure.

9. Broadcastr – this was an interesting angle on audio content creation and curation. It was designed to bring location-based stories, travelogues and events to remote audiences and visitors via streaming. It only ran for 2 years (2011-13), and simply ran out of money, in the face of Soundcloud and the emerging podcast industry.

10. iTunes Ping – a cross between a social media platform and a playlist sharing app, this was Apple’s attempt to help fans discover/recommend new music, and for artists to engage with their fans. Launched in 2010, it survived for 2 years, before Apple decided to integrate iTunes within Facebook and Twitter…

11. MySpace – despite reaching its 20th birthday earlier this month, and after much hype and a one-time over-inflated price tag, MySpace has failed to deliver on so many counts. It’s a wonder how it has survived, although I’m not sure how “active” this former darling of social media actually is. Scrolling through it’s clunky UI, it’s easy to get the impression MySpace is nothing more than a digital scrapbook of a by-gone era, forever preserved in virtual aspic (and slowly decaying for lack of attention or maintenance). Nothing works on this platform, so it was interesting to see a recent fan message on Justin Timberlake’s page: “1.Get off TikTok. 2.Fix MySpace. 3.Launch App.”

12. Friends Reunited – finally, the OG of SoMe, which launched in 2000 (4 years before Facebook, 6 years before Twitter, 3 years before LinkedIn, 10 years before Instagram…). Designed to help people re-connect with their schoolmates, work colleagues, college friends and other community groups, it was actually more of a research resource, and ended up like a huge directory of your past associations. Gave up the ghost in 2016, just as TikTok was unleashed on the world (although I’m sure that was purely a coincidence).

Next week: Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB)