0:00

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio,

0:02

news, music and more.

0:12

You're fired. No, wait, you're rehired. Yes.

0:14

This week on Download This Show, we

0:16

are wading into one of the most

0:18

tumultuous weeks in the world of technology.

0:21

Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT, has

0:23

reinstated their CEO, Sam Altman, after firing

0:25

him just four days ago. So how

0:27

did it happen? Why did it happen?

0:30

And where do we go from here?

0:33

All of that and much more coming

0:35

up. This is your guide to the

0:37

week in media, technology and culture. My

0:39

name is Mark Finnell and welcome to

0:41

Download This Show. Yes,

0:52

indeed, it is a brand new episode of Download

0:55

This Show and a big welcome to our guest

0:57

this week, social media strategist, who actually is quite

0:59

critical of social media, Meg Coffey. Welcome back.

1:01

Hello. And the

1:04

co-founder of Patient Notes, Sarah Moran.

1:06

Welcome back. So good to be here.

1:08

Thank you. Right. So it

1:10

has been the most famous, the most talked

1:12

about piece of AI technology in the last couple

1:14

of years. And it seems inside

1:17

the world of open AI, the home

1:19

of ChatGPT has been

1:21

a bit of a bin fire. Meg, walk me through

1:23

what's happened in the last couple of weeks at the

1:25

top of open AI. The

1:27

kids have been fighting. They

1:31

they're not getting along. They really don't

1:33

like each other. And it

1:35

has captivated the world. The

1:38

amount of episodes of succession or or the

1:40

movies, the social network that could have been

1:42

written. The tech journalist did not get any

1:44

sleep in the lead up to Thanksgiving. That

1:46

was for sure. So what happened? Well, Sam

1:48

was out and then he was in and

1:50

then he was out and then he was

1:52

in. So Sam Altman,

1:55

who is the CEO co-founder of

1:57

OpenAI, he is the

1:59

main man, right? But whilst he is the main

2:01

man, he is beholden to a board. And

2:04

over a weekend or a Friday night, the board kind of

2:06

said, well, we don't really like you anymore, so we're gonna

2:08

get rid of you. And so

2:10

they ousted him. But the problem is, is the board

2:12

wasn't really a good board. They were not really like

2:14

understanding governance and they weren't really a powerful board and

2:16

a smart board. And so they didn't really go about

2:19

it the best way, is the simplest way for me

2:21

to explain it. And so then there was this

2:23

tussling and Sam has some

2:25

really good friends, one of them being

2:27

Greg Brockman, because his last name Greg's

2:29

the main guy. And Greg was like, well, Sam's out,

2:32

I'm out. And then it

2:34

started this tussle and then Microsoft stepped

2:36

in because Microsoft has invested a lot

2:38

of money. And the problem is, is when they

2:40

got rid of Sam, they forgot to tell Microsoft. Kind

2:43

of bad, right? Like you tell your number one

2:45

investor things and they forgot to tell him. What's

2:48

happening underneath the hood? Like enough time

2:50

has passed that we kind of get a sense of it. So what's

2:52

actually going on? What happened to precipitate these moves? So

2:55

you need to understand a little bit about the structure of open

2:58

AI itself. It is a

3:00

little bit confusing in its structure and that

3:02

there are some companies and there are some

3:04

nonprofits and they all sort of own each

3:06

other and sit on each other's board. So

3:08

that in itself is quite complicated. But the

3:11

overarching goal is to pursue what's called artificial

3:13

general intelligence. And that is the North Star

3:15

of open AI. And

3:17

it's become quite public as to

3:19

why Sam Altman was fired. And

3:22

they were essentially saying that he was hiding stuff

3:24

from the board. Now, what

3:26

was he hiding has been the question that has

3:28

kept us all awake. And although

3:30

it's not been exactly confirmed, it is

3:32

about this concept of Q-Star. We've

3:35

been talking about how the

3:37

dramatic leaps that open AI has been able

3:39

to make. Like you can't understand just how

3:42

far this tech has come so, so

3:44

quickly. And Q-Star

3:46

is this idea that we're

3:48

getting really close to what

3:51

is that sort of artificial general intelligence? And

3:54

that this needs to be disclosed to the

3:56

board so that they can make accurate decisions

3:58

about the future of open AI. What

4:00

most people know about OpenAI if you've

4:02

used ChatGPT is that up until now,

4:04

the way that the

4:07

large language models work is that there

4:09

is a statistical way of predicting

4:11

what is the next word that may come next. And

4:13

so that is, you know, where OpenAI is good is

4:15

that kind of maths, the stats. Like the chances are

4:17

the next word you want is going to be blah.

4:20

Where this changes with QStar is that it's

4:23

actually conquering the ability to do maths, like

4:26

real maths. And that is

4:28

going to accelerate things quite dramatically. And

4:30

then there's the question about what does that mean and

4:32

what are the implications and how could that be applied

4:35

and is that dangerous. And

4:37

this is where the tips start

4:39

to kick off because you

4:41

have a number of different camps, particularly in

4:43

San Francisco, about the future of technology. And

4:46

is it that you just add field on the fire, see

4:48

where it goes, let's see where this is going to end

4:50

up? Or do you make conscious

4:52

decisions about planning what it is

4:54

we're going to do with this general

4:56

intelligence once it's created? In the

4:59

days after all this happened, there were

5:01

reports that several staff researchers had written

5:03

to the board warning of a powerful

5:05

discovery that it is said, and this

5:07

is three degrees of hearsay, could threaten

5:09

humanity. Is that what we're talking about?

5:11

Is that where this development falls in

5:13

or could that be something else that

5:15

remains unknown and like deeply

5:17

dystopian in nature? That is definitely,

5:19

you know, that unknown thing is always the

5:22

question. And we know we weren't in the

5:24

board meetings. We don't know what the letters

5:26

were. We're not there. It's the implications. So

5:28

the fallout has been that actually OpenAI are

5:30

sitting on something that really could draw massive

5:33

implications for our future. And

5:37

you know, maybe that's something they should tell their board

5:39

about when they're having these meetings and when they're planning

5:41

these things. And so you're right, this dystopian future is

5:43

up for grabs, but it always has been really right.

5:46

Like that has always been a risk. And now it's becoming

5:48

closer. People like we need to start making calls and

5:51

making decisions about that. Oh, see, as I said, the

5:53

kids aren't getting along. Right.

5:56

So Sam is let go. very

6:01

and then becomes quite public

6:04

then a few key leadership people

6:06

like Greg as mentioned they also go what

6:09

happens next because there's been a lot

6:11

since that initial firing a lot has

6:13

transpired well yeah well look open AI

6:15

is a very important company right

6:18

we can't discount that whether it's the nonprofit

6:21

side or the for-profit side and there is

6:23

you know there's a lot of debate is

6:25

it this Q-star development is it what is

6:27

this thing that that Sam isn't communicating to

6:30

the board some people go it's the fact

6:32

that he wants to make profit it could

6:34

simply be that open AI isn't

6:36

is important to the world and as I said

6:38

you know earlier Microsoft stepped in they've invested a

6:40

lot of money so Microsoft over

6:43

this whole chaotic weekend steps in and

6:45

goes well hey wait a second how

6:47

about you guys come work for us

6:49

and there was this weirdly worded statement

6:52

about how we're excited for

6:54

the next chapter with Sam

6:56

but this so this was all

6:58

done and so Sam all of a sudden is working

7:01

and open AI is now at Microsoft

7:05

right but then within

7:07

like 12 hours it's

7:10

not and Sam is back as

7:12

the CEO of open AI because

7:15

all of the employees I mean this is

7:17

this is the kind of founder and CEO

7:19

you want to be everybody has threatened to

7:21

quit if Sam's not the

7:23

boss yeah oh and

7:26

then and don't forget in between all

7:28

of this there was an interim CEO

7:30

right some guy named Emmet Shear who

7:32

was like a co-founder of twitch so

7:34

in the span of something like a

7:37

weekend open AI

7:39

has four CEOs right

7:42

it's just it's absolutely wild

7:44

what happens I think you

7:47

know Microsoft Nadella he

7:49

gets he gets a lot of credit for

7:51

the masterful strokes in this because again open

7:53

AI is an extremely important company and it's

7:55

not something that can just be left to

7:57

sort of fall over and when I talked

7:59

about the board and that they're an

8:01

inexperienced board, they really are. They didn't

8:04

have a lot of experience in tech

8:06

or in board and understanding governance. And

8:08

I think what we will see out

8:10

of this is a much stronger company

8:12

and maybe it is best,

8:14

I don't want to say it's good that this

8:16

happened, but it's good that all of this chaos

8:18

happened now and there is some structure to this

8:21

company than, you know, 12 months

8:23

down the line after they've discovered something

8:25

dangerous. That drama is likely to

8:27

unfold in sort of granular ways over the coming weeks,

8:29

but let's take a step back, right? So one

8:32

of the reasons why we're talking about it is because TATGPT

8:34

is quite simply the most culturally

8:36

impactful AI of the last year or so.

8:38

It's the one that most people have interacted

8:40

with. And you know, I

8:42

think it's for many people, it'll be their first experience

8:44

of, you know, what AI can do. And we know

8:47

that AI has been around, often

8:49

used on us, but it's one of the first

8:51

sort of consumer facing things that lots of people

8:53

have interacted with and really have come to

8:55

understand its power. When dramas

8:57

like this unfold, it has an effect on

8:59

how users and how investors and other companies

9:02

in the space behave. Now,

9:04

Sarah, you work in the AI space.

9:06

Have you sensed people that work in

9:08

other tech startups changing behaviour

9:11

in light of what's happened with OpenAI?

9:13

It's quite interesting. So I've been looking, or

9:16

my team and I have been looking at

9:18

what has been the impact on the tech

9:20

itself. So for example, there was an outage

9:22

last week. We've seen

9:24

high lag times on a lot of the

9:26

calls to the API, which has just sort

9:28

of been happening, which has not happened before.

9:30

So even the tech itself is a little

9:32

bit, I mean, I won't say

9:34

unstable, but there has been instability within that.

9:37

So, you know, running mission critical workflows

9:39

on OpenAI's APIs at the moment is

9:41

a bit of a crazy idea. But

9:44

as you say, it's also been the most

9:46

accessible one. So what

9:49

I mean by that is if you're

9:51

looking to build a startup, you

9:54

basically, you buy access to the API, you

9:56

plug in and away you go. I mean,

9:58

that's oversimplifying it. So

10:00

it means that there's a lot of

10:02

startups who are starting to build on

10:04

these platforms, and then the

10:07

fact that they're kind of on shaky ground themselves

10:09

really calls into question like, should you be doing

10:11

that as a business? But yeah, that uncertainty around

10:13

what you should and shouldn't be doing is definitely

10:15

a conversation that we're having. And the way people

10:17

are covering for that, at least I hope they're

10:19

covering for it in this way, is

10:21

to basically use a bit of everyone's tech, right?

10:23

So use a little bit from Amazon, use a

10:25

little bit from Meta, use a little bit from

10:28

Google, use a little bit from OpenAI,

10:30

and weave them together in such

10:32

a way that you're creating that

10:34

stability yourself in your organization. Meg,

10:36

have you seen a change in people's attitude and

10:39

behavior in the tech scene in response to

10:41

OpenAI? I think one of the

10:43

biggest things is the fact that

10:45

Microsoft is their biggest investor, and all of

10:47

this went down on Google Meet. Right?

10:53

That is the biggest, funniest thing. Look,

10:56

that's the biggest funniest thing.

10:59

No, I mean, it's the nerdiest thing. No, it

11:01

is the nerdiest thing. I think it's hilarious. There

11:04

has been a shift, and I think

11:06

what Sarah just said about diversifying is really

11:09

important, but it's what we've said for the

11:11

beginning of time. You're always on rented land

11:13

in a lot of this stuff, like in

11:15

social media. If you're building your entire community

11:17

on a social media platform, that's on rented

11:20

land. That's not on your own, so you're beholden

11:22

to them. It can be taken away from you at any

11:24

time, right? So if you're building your startup

11:27

on OpenAI's API, well, then you're

11:30

beholden to them. By

11:32

diversifying where you're relying

11:34

on things, that's just smart

11:36

business in today's world. Download

11:40

the show is what you're listening to. It

11:42

is your guide to the week in media

11:44

technology and culture. I guess this week, Meg

11:46

Coffey, social media strategist and the co-founder of

11:48

Patient Notes, Sarah Moran. Mark Fennell is my

11:50

name. Now we're talking about Tesla. Using

11:52

legal cases unfolded overseas where the

11:55

question has arisen, did Tesla know that

11:57

there were defects in their self-driving technology?

12:00

and still let people drive anyway. Sarah,

12:02

what's happened? Well, in the

12:04

States at the moment, there's an active case

12:06

where a judge has found that there is

12:08

reasonable evidence that Elon Musk and other people

12:11

at the company knew

12:14

that the self-driving technology

12:16

was defective, but they still allowed people

12:18

to drive them anyway and so that

12:20

they didn't disclose to customers that there

12:22

was potentially an issue with their self-driving

12:24

technology. So this is, you know, the

12:26

first time this has actually come out

12:28

and they're saying that Tesla engaged in

12:31

a marketing strategy that painted the products

12:33

as autonomous when in fact the company knew

12:35

that that wasn't the case,

12:37

that there are issues, there are

12:39

bugs. It's had a significant effect on

12:41

the belief about the capabilities of the

12:43

products in the eyes of consumers. So

12:46

that's where we're at. So the question

12:48

comes up, you know, is a car actually driving

12:50

itself and what are

12:53

the limits to that technology and what

12:55

are some of the other lawsuits that

12:57

may be coming afterwards? Do you get

12:59

the sense, Meg, that there's a lot of

13:01

jurisdictions around the world that are just waiting

13:03

to see how it shakes out in a

13:05

few different cities and a few different countries

13:07

legally to kind of provide us a roadmap,

13:10

pun intended, provide us a roadmap for

13:12

how to legislate? Because I will confess,

13:14

a part of me thought we would

13:16

be further along with self-driving cars by

13:18

this point, given the technology has been

13:21

sort of in development for 15, 20

13:23

years. I was sort of

13:25

expecting by this point that there'd be more of them on

13:27

the roads and it feels like it's encountered

13:29

enough legal and I

13:31

guess you would say cultural pushback that it hasn't

13:33

really developed. Do you think that there are countries

13:35

and cities that are just sort of waiting to

13:38

see what happens in a few test markets? Yeah,

13:41

definitely. I think with

13:43

any type of legislation, you need a couple

13:45

test cases to get something through. You want

13:48

to see how it goes and

13:50

then the floodgates will be open. And

13:52

I wonder how much of the pushback

13:54

recently on a lot of this

13:56

Tesla stuff is

13:58

a of

14:01

Elon. And I'm being serious when

14:03

I say that, like, is his

14:05

personal brand starting to impact the

14:08

way we feel about certain

14:11

things, like the way that we feel about autonomous

14:13

driving, the way that we feel about the Tesla

14:15

car, the Tesla brand? Now, back to

14:17

the lawsuit and your question. Yes, I

14:19

think that, you know, should we

14:21

be further along? Possibly.

14:24

I think that, you know, it is humans

14:29

are litigious by nature. Americans are

14:31

extremely litigious. If there's a way that they

14:33

can control something, they're

14:35

going to. And so I think that they're

14:38

going to be uber, uber

14:41

careful about this one before they

14:43

just let completely the machines take over.

14:46

Right. What do you think, Sarah? Well,

14:48

I've driven Tesla's, many of

14:50

them. And I think actually the

14:52

gap is I like

14:55

the autopilot ish features, but

14:57

I don't need a car

15:00

to drive itself. I

15:02

think we come so close to it

15:04

with, you know, all

15:06

the whizbang lane keeping and, you know,

15:08

all of the things that are close

15:10

to autopilot. Like, I'm satisfied. I think

15:13

that the the jump to being full

15:15

of autopilot and the the risk that

15:17

a company would take on to do that, the,

15:19

you know, the mind change that

15:21

you would need in a consumer to say,

15:24

just let the car drive itself. That's

15:27

such a jump. And I think

15:29

most people, the luxury

15:31

of having a lot of the

15:33

features that are autopilot close is

15:36

good enough. And at least in Australia, in consumers anyway,

15:38

when I do jump it, you know, if I do

15:41

jump in an electric car and I show people how

15:43

that works, people are like, wow, this is so much

15:45

better than than what we've had in the past. I'm

15:47

really satisfied with that. So I do wonder if that

15:49

lag, so you're talking about that, you know, 15 year

15:51

uptake, in part is that consumers

15:53

aren't knocking down the door saying, hurry up

15:55

and give me my autopilot car. Like, we're

15:57

just we're just not doing that. Yeah,

16:00

like so like my car can parallel park itself

16:02

and like find a parking space and do all

16:04

those kinds of things itself, right? I don't

16:07

need it to do that. I don't let it

16:09

do that. I'm good at parallel parking I can

16:11

I can do it on a two-point turn right

16:13

so and I don't trust it. I don't want

16:15

to like I don't know I'm not there. Maybe

16:17

I'm old right? I'm not ready to trust the

16:19

machines I know that I'm better

16:21

than the machines at this stage,

16:23

but maybe you know the younger

16:25

generations are ready for it I

16:28

don't know. I like yeah, I'm happy with what we

16:30

have. I'm not ready to let my car completely bad.

16:32

It's all I'm

16:35

on the other end of the spectrum and I've driven

16:37

it with my partner. I'm happy to let it park

16:39

I'm happy to let it do all the things My

16:41

partner freaks out when it happens because it does it

16:43

so much more quickly and not in a very human

16:45

like way And I think that that's probably the difference

16:47

But even though even though you can doesn't mean you

16:50

should and I'll be honest half the time. I just

16:52

forget to turn it on So

16:54

I don't know. I I do wonder I mean it's

16:56

it's It is interesting

16:58

though to have a company that perpetuates

17:02

the myth that this can be delivered and

17:04

then to have a judge find that hey,

17:06

that's actually not true so to your point

17:10

What does that do for trust about the

17:12

brand and trust in electric vehicles? I I

17:14

don't appreciate the damage that that that actually

17:16

causes I guess there's something to be said

17:18

about the fact that both the two of you are you know

17:21

People that engage with very high-level technology a lot

17:23

of the time and and and I think Part

17:26

of what I wonder about this is actually There's

17:29

going to be a very long period of

17:32

time where people again culturally Socially adjust to

17:34

the idea of the technology and only that

17:36

can be built on a pretty thick layer

17:38

of trust and convenience Right, you know the

17:41

thing that normally makes us sign up to

17:43

technology is just like convenience It's

17:46

like oh, it's it's so much easier to just pay for everything on

17:48

my phone now than it is to walk around with a wallet It's

17:50

that kind of territory, right? And I just

17:52

think that you you can't even begin to

17:54

shift that culture and I'm not by

17:56

the way suggesting that you should Net it is if I to

17:58

complete and we should by the way But you

18:01

have to build that on top of a very wide Wide

18:05

base of trust to convenience and I feel like

18:07

that is quite a far way away But tell

18:09

me if you think I'm wrong like yeah,

18:12

I don't know I'm I'm

18:14

thinking about it as we're chatty like

18:16

I love driving. I love going

18:18

for road trips. I thoroughly enjoy

18:21

Driving I'm not ready to give

18:23

that up and so then I was like, okay autonomous

18:25

cars But then if you're just gonna get into autonomous

18:27

cars, then just get taxis right like if you're gonna

18:30

get to the point where you're not for

18:32

I mean for me then I if I

18:34

would just Get taxis if

18:36

I'm in a place where I'm not needing

18:38

a car or I'm not driving but back

18:40

to the autonomous car But

18:43

again like in a city like San Francisco, I think I

18:45

would probably be okay with that in a in this

18:48

I Would be

18:50

okay in the city like San Francisco taking

18:52

a car an autonomous car I

18:57

don't know the trust though back to what

18:59

Sarah said. I'm not okay with you

19:01

know, false advertising I don't think it's good

19:03

that that Tesla's out there saying one

19:05

thing and it's and it's not the

19:07

the truth I think that when things

19:09

like that happen, it puts us back so

19:11

many years and it and it is

19:13

harmful to technology I

19:17

think it's interesting what you said about San

19:19

Francisco specifically and I think There

19:22

are cities I would be happy in an

19:24

autonomous vehicle in but that's because there's probably

19:26

a lot of autonomous vehicles And I think

19:28

think about the times when I've used those

19:31

auto features and it's been a long drive

19:34

from Melbourne to Byron Bay doing the

19:36

big road trip and you're driving for

19:38

long stretches at a time and And

19:42

you know So I drove from Melbourne

19:44

to Byron without the auto features and

19:46

Byron to Melbourne with the auto features

19:48

So I could really compare the difference

19:50

in experience and I thought it

19:52

would make back all difference But actually I found

19:55

I was less fatigued. There was a lot of it was once

19:57

I got used to it I found it was a much more

19:59

delight experience. And I think

20:01

that that is where things make a difference

20:03

is I'm happy to go on the open

20:05

road and help me do those like long

20:07

stretches. But in a city, I

20:10

want all the other, like I think we

20:12

thought that autonomous vehicles meant they'd all be

20:14

autonomous. Like once, you know, the Jetsons picturing

20:16

all of those, you know, all of the

20:18

vehicles going around in a grid and they

20:21

all know where each other is. Whereas I

20:23

think at the moment it feels so independent,

20:25

like my car's autonomous, but yours isn't. So

20:27

if you do something really stupid that we

20:29

haven't programmed the AI to do, like even

20:31

think about kangaroos. How many kangaroos jumping out of

20:34

the road as this has been tested on? So

20:36

I think we have all of that doubt until

20:39

we have a critical mass where actually if all

20:41

the cars are autonomous, they can talk to each

20:43

other. And that's what I envisioned that would look

20:45

like in the future. Download the

20:47

show is what you're listening to. It is your guide

20:49

to the week in media technology and culture. And

20:52

it was one of the stranger websites

20:55

online where you could basically

20:57

roulette talking to people. It

21:00

was called Omegle. Does

21:02

anyone remember Omegle? Out of curiosity? I

21:05

never used it. I never used it. Well, you're

21:07

probably not going to do it anytime soon. So the

21:09

way it would work is you'd open it up and

21:11

it's basically like playing Russian roulette with the internet and

21:13

webcams. You'd click through and you'd get surprise new person,

21:16

surprise new person and hope to God that they'll wear

21:18

clothes, which often didn't happen. But

21:21

it has been taken offline in a lawsuit.

21:24

Why though, Meg? Because

21:27

it should have been. Yeah. No,

21:29

look, so Omegle was one of those sites

21:31

that has sort of been it was one

21:33

of the fringe sites. It was not something

21:35

that I ever used. I'm aware of it

21:37

simply by nature of what my job is

21:39

and I've had to talk about it. And

21:42

it was a place that was actually really prevalent

21:44

among some of the younger children because it was

21:46

a place that you could go and just

21:49

meet random strangers. Right. And and sometimes when

21:51

you're a kid, that's exciting. And that's kind

21:54

of how it was originally sort of built.

21:56

It was this place that you could go and

21:58

just meet anyone across the world. and

22:00

the optimist in me is saying that, oh,

22:03

cool, I can go meet anyone across the world.

22:05

I can have pen pals and I can make

22:07

interesting friends. Well, that's not the case. And what

22:10

it turned out to be was a bunch of

22:12

pedophiles and mean evil people. So

22:14

basically what happened was there was this woman in

22:17

the UK who, very

22:19

long story short, brought a lawsuit against

22:21

Omega that said she was groomed through the

22:23

platform. And she

22:26

had wanted to do it through court. She hadn't,

22:28

when she brought the lawsuit, she hadn't

22:30

intended for the site to be

22:32

shut down, but that was the end result. And

22:35

as she said, she couldn't have asked for a

22:37

better thing because this site wasn't a good site.

22:39

And the way that it was connecting people and

22:41

the way that it, because it didn't have the

22:43

filters, it didn't have the moderation that the, shall

22:46

we say, in air quotes, traditional sites had,

22:50

there was no way to protect people. So

22:53

over 220 images and videos of Alice from

22:55

the age of 11 carrying

22:58

out sex acts under the duress of

23:00

someone on the site. And this is

23:02

what the legal case is about. It's

23:04

this idea that there were many,

23:08

many children being exploited on

23:11

the site. And this particular

23:13

abuser had done the same thing to five

23:15

other girls. So meeting them and grooming them,

23:17

all on the site. And so these people

23:19

had become very skilled at doing that. And

23:22

the site was exposed for

23:24

doing all of these horrible

23:26

things. And that's a big reason why it was

23:28

shut down. How

23:30

did this thing manage to run as long

23:33

as it did make? Look,

23:36

I think that with any of these social platforms,

23:39

they do run unregulated until

23:42

enough people scream and shout,

23:44

until enough people bring suits

23:46

against them, until enough people

23:49

bring them in front of regulators

23:51

and say, there is a problem

23:53

and we need to do something

23:55

about this. You know, that

23:58

is, I think the great... some

26:00

of the many instances that were known since 2009

26:05

that these sorts of things would happen. Whereas

26:07

in Australia, we've really gone to great

26:09

lengths to really think about, well, what

26:11

do users on websites need

26:14

to be able to do? We have

26:16

the eSafety Commissioner. We have quite strong

26:18

restrictions, and even just cultural restrictions

26:20

about what young people can do online or should

26:22

do online. And we have a lot of education

26:25

to young people about how to engage or not

26:27

engage with strangers on the internet. So I was

26:29

really shocked that it was in the US. The

26:32

other thing just contextually is that this was created

26:34

by a child. So it was created by an 18-year-old

26:36

in 2009. And

26:39

I think there is this desire that young

26:41

people have to connect with other people and

26:43

to explore the world, whether that be their

26:45

friends or whether that be someone else. That

26:48

desire doesn't go away, but the

26:50

environments need to be safe. And they

26:53

need, we have most social

26:55

media, actually you'd be able to speak to this

26:57

probably a bit better than I can Meg, but

26:59

most social media platforms do have restrictions that you

27:01

need to be 13 to be able to use

27:03

them. But this one didn't. And so I'm really

27:06

confused how they were able to skirt a

27:08

lot of the laws that other social media

27:10

platforms had to abide by in order

27:12

to be able to provide service without being cut up.

27:15

I'm just really confused how it was able to go on

27:17

for so long and as long as it did. The

27:20

other thing just briefly to mention is that popularity

27:22

around the pandemic, I saw it take

27:24

off on other platforms. So what people would do

27:26

was they would record their screens so record your

27:29

amigle. And so you've got, oh, I'm gonna go

27:31

meet a heap of strangers and I'm gonna record

27:33

that and then recreate that as

27:35

content. So putting it on YouTube, putting

27:37

it on TikTok. And so, you

27:39

might have someone, oh, I'm gonna randomly play

27:41

a song to a stranger and see how

27:43

they react. So it really came

27:46

at a time where there was reaction videos and

27:48

people were looking for connection during the pandemic. But

27:50

unfortunately at the same time, the

27:52

pedophiles didn't go away from that website.

27:55

And with that, we are in fact out of

27:57

time. Huge thank you to our guests this week.

28:00

Meg Coffey, social media strategist who has

28:03

a critical eye let's say on social media. Thank you

28:05

so much for joining us on the show. Oh,

28:08

thank you for having me. And Sarah Moran,

28:10

co-founder of Patient Notes. Thank you so much

28:12

for joining us on Download This Show. Always

28:14

fun to be here. And

28:16

with that, I shall leave you. My name is Mark Fennell

28:18

and thank you for listening to another episode of Download This

28:20

Show. Please

28:27

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28:30

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