0:01

From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning

0:03

Herald and The Age. This is

0:05

the Morning edition. I'm Chris Payne

0:07

filling in for Samantha Sallinger. Morris.

0:10

It's Wednesday, May 1st.

0:14

When you think about live streaming,

0:16

you might picture mainstream social media

0:18

sites, but its popularity has

0:21

skyrocketed on other platforms

0:23

with a focus on gaming. Twitch

0:26

emerged as a live streaming giant

0:28

over the past decade. Now

0:30

there's a new player making noise, and

0:33

some of it's troubling. Edward

0:35

Craven, the founder of State.com

0:37

and the youngest billionaire in Australia,

0:40

has gone on to co-create the streaming

0:42

platform Kik. Today,

0:45

investigative reporter Patrick Begley,

0:48

on a platform described as a playground

0:50

for degenerates and the risks

0:52

it poses to vulnerable people.

1:00

Now, Patrick, you spent the last few weeks

1:02

looking into a new streaming giant.

1:04

Could you tell me about what you found and

1:07

how it's problematic? Sure.

1:08

Yeah. I've been delving into the world

1:11

of streaming, and by that, I don't mean

1:13

Netflix or Stan or any

1:15

of the video on demand services.

1:17

I really mean live streaming.

1:19

And there are a couple of platforms in this

1:22

space that are devoted to live

1:24

streaming as its own category

1:26

of entertainment, and

1:28

a lot of the time you've got younger viewers,

1:31

men in their teens and 20s,

1:33

and they're logging on to sites like

1:35

Twitch, and they're seeing

1:37

their favorite content creators game,

1:40

or just chat with them, or

1:42

go out and about in what they call IRL

1:44

or in real life streaming. And

1:46

so it's about engaging with your

1:48

favorite people online and seeing what

1:50

they're up to in real time.

1:53

The dominant player in this space

1:55

is Twitch. It's been around

1:57

for, you know, quite a long time

1:59

now. It sold to Amazon

2:01

ten years ago for $1 billion,

2:04

and it's grown quite a bit since then.

2:06

But my story's really taken me to

2:08

look at a different platform called Kik.

2:12

It was only launched in 2022.

2:15

It's an Australian company, and

2:18

in some ways it's billed itself

2:20

as a bit of the anti twitch.

2:22

It's more permissive with the kind of content

2:24

that it allows. And my story

2:27

really looked at some of the fringes of that

2:29

content, some of the dark corners of

2:31

Kik, where people are doing some

2:33

pretty gross and even disturbing

2:35

things. In one case, a streamer

2:37

who was now banned from the site, he was

2:39

accused of coaxing young women

2:42

to strip even underage

2:44

girls to strip in conversations

2:46

that he initiated on Kik, and

2:48

then later distributing those images through

2:51

a separate social media platform.

2:53

Other streamers have had sex while

2:55

streaming. They've held up sex toys

2:57

in front of young girls that they've met

3:00

in video chat apps, and

3:02

they've even hit on or made sexual

3:04

comments towards some of those young girls.

3:08

Now, you wrote about this in a story

3:10

that was published on Monday. If anyone's listening to this

3:13

and hasn't read it, please go and check it out.

3:15

Can you tell us how you came across the

3:17

story in the first place?

3:18

I'd previously written about one of the co-founders

3:21

of Kik. So this is Australia's

3:23

youngest billionaire. His name is Edward

3:26

Craven. He's 28 years old.

3:28

He lives in Melbourne. He's worth

3:30

$3 billion, according to the AFR

3:33

young Rich list. And he made

3:35

his money through online gambling.

3:37

He and his business partner Bijan Tehrani.

3:40

They set up a platform

3:42

called Stickk.com, which is both

3:44

an online casino and an online sports

3:46

book. It can't legally

3:48

operate in Australia due to our laws,

3:51

but it gained this enormous

3:53

international customer base. It's

3:55

become one of the biggest gambling enterprises

3:58

in the entire world. So

4:00

Edward Craven, Bijan Tehrani, they're already

4:03

enormously successful,

4:05

having created stake. Then

4:07

in late 2022, they decide to

4:09

launch Kink.com.

4:11

So what may their

4:13

motivations be to

4:15

have launched this? Does it actually have anything

4:17

to do with State.com, or is it a completely

4:19

different ball game for them?

4:21

That is the subject of enormous

4:23

speculation and discussion

4:26

before Kik even existed.

4:28

What stake would do as a gambling

4:30

platform is that they would pay

4:33

streamers on Twitch to

4:35

basically show their audiences,

4:37

them gambling on stickk.com.

4:40

So you would log on, you would watch your

4:42

streamer, and they would be playing

4:44

online slots on Stickk.com.

4:47

Now, what happened is Twitch decided to

4:49

crack down on these gambling streams.

4:51

And then very shortly after Kik

4:53

was born, and on Kik

4:56

streamers again are paid to

4:58

gamble on stake. At least some of them

5:02

earn coins.

5:03

Coins owe me 25

5:06

bucks. Boom.

5:09

Boom. However,

5:11

Craven has said that it's just a coincidence

5:13

that kick was born so soon

5:15

after this gambling ban on the other

5:17

platform, and he has said that

5:19

he really wants kick to be something in

5:21

its own right, and that it is not

5:23

designed as a funnel toward

5:26

his casino.

5:27

So tell me a bit more about what kind of creators

5:30

are on kick, what content they are

5:32

creating. One of the people you

5:34

spoke to described it as a playground

5:36

for degenerates. What's happening there?

5:38

A playground for degenerates. That's how it was described

5:41

to me by Kristen Gillespie. She's

5:43

the founder of Rights to Unmute.

5:45

She was pretty frankly appalled

5:47

by some of what she had seen on

5:50

Kik. So Kik has always been known for

5:52

being edgy. It has

5:54

said that it doesn't like cancel culture.

5:56

It believes in free speech. It

5:58

wants a more understanding approach

6:00

to creators who have done the wrong thing,

6:03

rather than blanket prohibitions

6:05

or bans. But Kik's ethos

6:07

also comes across in the type of

6:09

creator that they've supported

6:11

and encouraged to come to the platform.

6:14

And probably the biggest in this

6:16

category is Aidan Ross. He's

6:20

in fact the biggest streamer on

6:22

Kik. He's 23 years old. He has

6:24

1.2 million followers on the platform.

6:27

He was recently asked how much money he earns

6:29

streaming, and he said

6:31

that it was more than $10,000

6:34

an hour and less than $100,000

6:36

in an hour. So an enormous amount

6:38

of money, I.

6:39

Think I'm here. A Rolls Royce Twitch

6:41

would never, Twitch would never.

6:43

They wouldn't. Oh my God,

6:46

I got a rolls.

6:47

Mom, you want to sit next to him? Yes.

6:49

What the. Aidan Ross from the get

6:51

go, even before he'd moved over

6:53

to Kik, was describing it as a place

6:55

where he could really be free

6:57

to do what he wanted. That was

6:59

part of the pitch to his existing

7:01

audience, and I think that his behavior has

7:04

shown that he's really pursued that.

7:06

If you slit his throat, I think I'll give you 20 K. I'm

7:09

kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm

7:12

kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

7:13

He visited a porn site on

7:15

Kik not long after he joined the platform.

7:18

He has featured video

7:20

calls with Andrew Tate, who's the alleged

7:23

sex trafficker misogynist

7:25

influencer who's being held on charges

7:27

in Romania. Ross says he wants to take

7:29

Tate out for dinner as soon as he's no longer

7:32

being detained.

7:33

If I come to Miami and you're in charge of the fun,

7:35

what fun will we have? What will we do? Let me plan

7:37

a day.

7:38

All right. We'll go on a yacht full of beautiful women.

7:40

Okay, so.

7:42

I've never done that before. Interesting.

7:44

You have been on a yacht with women. Don't say that.

7:46

Whoa. Excuse me. I'm

7:48

a beacon of morality.

7:50

And Ross has done just all kinds of

7:52

things. He pretends to expose himself

7:54

with a pair of fake balls. And

7:57

he also engages in some pretty dubious

7:59

conversations with young people

8:01

on video chat apps.

8:04

We'll be right back. Now

8:08

it sounds like this has become a destination

8:10

for harmful and hateful content.

8:13

What are kick supporters saying

8:15

about that? Is it a freedom of speech thing?

8:17

Is it something more sinister?

8:19

I don't think a lot of these content creators

8:21

or streamers see themselves

8:23

as free speech absolutists

8:25

in any kind of principled way.

8:27

Really, they seem like a

8:29

bunch of guys that are just doing whatever they want to do.

8:32

There's this really antic, puerile,

8:35

stunt based form of content

8:37

that they're putting out there, and they're also constantly

8:40

receiving feedback from their own community

8:43

in the form of the chat comments that are pouring

8:45

down the screen that they can see

8:47

people are interacting with these streamers in

8:49

real life, and I think often encouraging

8:52

them to go even further. But if we look

8:54

again at someone like Ross, I mean,

8:57

a lot of the problems here come back to

8:59

these video chat apps. So these

9:01

are sites that you visit that

9:03

will randomly match you in a video

9:05

call with another person on

9:07

the internet. And a lot of the time the people

9:09

using these apps are really quite young.

9:12

Ross in one call, he matched with

9:14

a woman who asked if he was recording.

9:16

He said no, and then he described

9:19

really graphically what he wanted to do to her

9:21

sexually and made a masturbation gesture.

9:23

In other cases, the people on

9:25

the other end of the call have actually been underage.

9:28

In one case, Ross suggested a threesome

9:30

to two girls that he met.

9:33

Ross yes, it is another Ross

9:35

threesome.

9:36

Three one of them said. I'm

9:38

13, I'm 13.

9:41

And then Ross ended the call. Other

9:44

streamers apart from Ross have also engaged

9:46

in this kind of thing. They've held up

9:49

sex toys in front of girls who then said

9:51

they were 15. They've

9:53

made sexual comments or advances

9:55

toward girls who are as young as 13,

9:58

saying things like, I want to date you.

10:00

I want to kiss you.

10:02

Like, hey, hey, yo girls, what up?

10:04

You on the left? And I think Xirka likes the

10:06

girl on the right.

10:07

They're both on the left. Two of these

10:09

clips.

10:09

Actually, which belong to the streamer Zurka,

10:12

who's a 30 year old man. They

10:14

were still up on Kik when I approached the

10:16

company. And then they disappeared

10:18

a short time after that.

10:19

How old are you guys under age? Like how

10:22

underage though?

10:23

Like be turning 15 in a month.

10:24

Oh, that's too old. I don't fuck with old people.

10:29

I emailed questions to a number

10:31

of content creators or streamers that I mentioned

10:33

in the story, and none of them got back

10:35

to me. Some of the creators that I

10:37

looked at in this story have since been

10:39

banned, but kicked just flat

10:41

out refused to discuss individual allegations

10:44

against them.

10:46

We have seen this before. Social

10:49

media giants talking about freedom

10:51

of speech. Then there's also a social

10:53

responsibility piece. How do they

10:55

moderate this sort of thing? What is

10:57

Kik saying about protecting

10:59

its community?

11:00

Kik has said that it's striking

11:02

a sensible balance. If you've

11:04

got Twitch on the one hand, which Kik

11:06

says is too conservative, and

11:09

then on the other hand, you've got X or Twitter,

11:11

which has been criticized very

11:13

widely for being way too permissive

11:15

in what they allow up on their site. Kik

11:17

says that they're charting a

11:20

middle path. When I came

11:22

to them with a lot of the video examples that

11:24

I discussed in my story, they tried to say

11:26

that all of these dated back to the very early

11:28

days of the site, but I

11:31

pointed out to them that that was just

11:33

false. Some of these videos were from

11:35

as recently as two months ago

11:37

or less than that. In response

11:39

to that, Kik said, well, we've updated

11:41

our community guidelines since and

11:43

especially around those video chat

11:45

apps and underage users.

11:48

So Kik has said, now, look,

11:50

you cannot be engaging with anyone

11:52

that is a minor or could

11:55

reasonably be expected to be

11:57

underage. On these video chat

11:59

apps. Kik has said that it has a

12:01

large content moderation team

12:03

that works around the clock,

12:05

that it won't hesitate to mute creators,

12:07

or to suspend them, or to

12:09

ban them. And Kik has really said

12:12

that they want to create a safe

12:14

place for everyone.

12:16

It's just that a lot of the time, this content,

12:19

it's already out there. Sometimes it's

12:21

even just spread beyond Kik

12:23

because people might do a live stream,

12:25

but then they clip part of that live stream

12:27

or other users do, and it lives

12:30

on in other parts of the internet as well,

12:32

or stored on Kik site.

12:34

But some of the allegations you've described

12:36

are serious. Are authorities

12:38

getting involved or not, and what are they

12:40

doing?

12:41

I asked Kik about the incidents and

12:43

they just wouldn't comment on law enforcement

12:45

or individual streamers. Full

12:47

stop. I did

12:49

ask the Australian regulator about

12:52

Kik, the Esafety commission. They said

12:54

that they'd received a small number of complaints.

12:57

The Esafety commissioner, Julian

12:59

Grant. She said that really

13:02

tech platforms need to do

13:04

a lot more in this space. She

13:06

did admit that it. Can be harder with live streamed

13:08

content because it is ephemeral.

13:10

But she said that really,

13:13

the tech platforms have the expertise

13:15

to be able to do a lot more

13:17

when it comes to this kind of content and

13:19

even enforcing their own terms of service,

13:22

because I think there's two things going on here.

13:24

There's what is legal and illegal,

13:27

but there's also whether Kik is actually

13:29

enforcing its own guidelines

13:31

that it's promising to do so.

13:33

Patrick Kik will need to be profitable

13:36

eventually. It's a business. Edward Craven

13:38

says. Within about five years, with the introduction

13:40

of advertising, do you think restrictions

13:43

and protections will ultimately be

13:45

driven by advertiser wants

13:47

and needs? Like, say, we've seen with Twitch?

13:49

I think that Kik definitely feels

13:52

a lot more anything goes at the moment

13:54

because of the lack of advertiser content,

13:57

and that's part of the attraction

13:59

for Kik. People are often pretty annoyed

14:01

at the number of ads that they'll get if they

14:03

log on to a different platform, like Twitch.

14:06

At the moment, there's none of that on Kik, so it's

14:08

a much better user experience,

14:10

but they're not making any money right now.

14:13

Craven, the co-founder, has

14:15

said he wants the business to be profitable within

14:17

3 to 5 years. The only business

14:20

plan he's put forward to achieve that is

14:22

advertising. And I just don't know

14:24

how many advertisers would

14:26

accept the kind of content that

14:28

Kik has allowed so far on the platform.

14:31

So perhaps it's the

14:33

commercial pressures that will really

14:36

change the platform

14:38

as we know it today. Certainly

14:40

since it was launched, it's updated

14:43

its community guidelines several times.

14:45

It's made a lot of promises, but maybe

14:47

it really is the threat of an

14:49

advertiser dollar leaving the platform

14:52

that will really spur change.

14:54

Patrick, this is a fascinating story.

14:56

Thanks for joining us.

14:57

Thanks so much, Chris.

15:05

Today's episode of The Morning Edition

15:07

was produced by Julia Carcasole,

15:09

with technical assistance by David

15:12

Macmillan. Our head of audio

15:14

is Tom McKendrick. The Morning

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15:48

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15:50

Thanks for listening.