Has the internet ruined Child Safety?

Many people - especially parents - feel that the internet has seriously compromised the safety, well-being, and even innocence of young people, by exposing them to risks that the offline world struggles to contain.

It’s an issue that’s everywhere right now around the globe, with a huge range of passionate opinions from every angle about what respective roles governments and parents should play.

I sat down with Brett Lee, a Cyber Safety Advocate, Author, and Founder of Internet Safe Education, to help us understand the effects of the internet – and especially social media – on the safety of children, how the digital world has changed over time, the dangers and opportunities it presents, and how everybody can play a part in ensuring a positive experience online for young people.

Check out the episode here.

Gareth King (00:31)

Brett, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show.

Brett Lee (00:35)

Thank you, Gareth. Pleasure to be here.

Gareth King (00:38)

Before we begin, can you tell us a bit about the work that you do and what led you to this area of expertise?

Brett Lee (00:45)

Look, for the last 17 years, my primary business is going into school communities, whether they be primary or secondary, all across Australia and New Zealand, educating students right from prep, right up to year 12, teachers and parents in relation to how to get all the great things that technology has to offer and reduce risks, so cyber safety.

And how I got into this was in my former life, I was a detective. And for the last five years of my career it was my job to go on the internet and assume the fictitious identities of children to locate, identify and arrest child sex offenders. And after doing that for five years and arresting hundreds of people just for doing the wrong thing on the internet, I was looking for something different.

So, to clear my head, I took a contract and I went over and I trained police in Iraq, which was a bit of an experience. And when I got back from there, I really saw the need to pass on the unique face of technology that I got to see for the end user. When I was in the police, our inspector said to me, “I've got a friend who's a principal at a local school. Would you mind going and speaking to the year 10 girls about some of the dangers?” And this is back in, this would be back in like the year 2001. So we're talking 24 years ago.

And me and my partner, we went there and we did a bit of a presentation and I was just flabbergasted by the lack of insight and knowledge that these year 10 girls had. And I thought they would be the perfect victims online. So that sort of first spawned me to want to start educating the community right back in 2008, I started the current training business that we have now.

Gareth King (02:28)

Yeah, that's um, I mean, it's already sounds quite heavy, uh, just through that intro, but yeah, obviously the internet even since 2008 has just changed so much. And you know, I, I can remember when I first probably got access to the internet, it was like 1998 or something, you know, and, then I think to 2008 and then to now, and it just feels like this exponentially increasing change. So, who knows, you know, where that's going to go, but that said, from your perspective, what's the most significant ways the internet changed childhood safety and created challenges that we just weren't prepared for?

Brett Lee (03:08)

Look, I really think it is multi-levelled, and Gareth, I think you and I could talk about it for weeks, the different aspects of technology and how it affects human beings. Look, even the last 10 years, the amount of young people who now frequent that world has dramatically increased. I know that when my kids were in high school, our biggest challenge was making sure they didn't send too many texts, because you had to pay 15 cents for every text that you sent.

But now, you know, there's so many different platforms. There's so many different ways for people to connect. People are getting on older. There's a lot more content out there that could be inappropriate for young people. It's become so ingrained in every aspect of our life. And like I said, younger kids are getting online, and there's positives with that as well, but older people as well. So, back when I started doing it, it was very limited. Not only the amount of young people that got access to public spaces online, but the amount of adults there as well.

So that's the big thing I've seen is the increase in traffic on the internet, the increase in content and the speed. I can remember when I first started doing it, I don't know if people remember you download a photo, and it would click down the screen as it loaded each little frame of the photo. Now it's just instant, know, 4K video, instant. You know, I don't think we’ve changed as human beings, but I think there's a lot more human beings now that are part of that world.

Gareth King (04:42)

I guess because it is obviously so ubiquitous in our lives, there's not really any escape from what the digital world is touching. Does it create its own set of new dangers simply by the nature of the technology? Or is it simply reformatting existing problems, you know, in a digital way? Or is it doing both?

Brett Lee (05:04)

That's a really good question. I believe it's doing both from my experience. You know, before the internet, a parent never had to worry about an adult person with evil intentions entering their child's bedroom. That's just something we never considered. Now, since the advent of the internet, when young people may go into their bedroom and they get access to technology, they can get access to these people and predators can get access to them. And in a lot of ways, the predator there is a lot more effective because the kids don't even get a chance to see the threat.

They just get a chance to see, you know, what someone else presents to them. So, look, human, we've always had child sex offenders and this is what I say to parents. We're not really dealing with any new issues. Bullies have always been around. People who want to rip us off have always been around. Child sex offenders have always been around. This is a new medium, but it's a very effective one, where predators can connect with young people very quickly. They can move through different ones to identify a need or a vulnerability. And the internet is the perfect platform for that. Not saying it's the internet's fault, of course, but it's the perfect vehicle for child sex offenders.

Gareth King (06:12)

Hmm, and I think that point you touched on earlier around kind of, you know, Just pretending to be obviously somebody that you you're not you know like the whole point What's that saying you know on the internet nobody knows that you're a dog? But I think you know as you said there's always been predators you know, I can remember back when I was a kid and you would see it in the news and someone got kidnapped or something and that kind of felt, you know, almost so invasive that someone might go into someone's house and do that.

But as you said, now with the device and the access to this digital world, it's almost like that threat is less personal, but it's constantly in your pocket. And I think that just the avenues, as you said, just lets people with that intent just have so many more options to be doing this sort of thing.

Brett Lee (06:40)

Yeah, look, that's exactly right. And you touched on something there that I talk about, whereby the internet can dehumanise people, where we're dealing with two dimensional data. And I wrote a book on the different types of predators out there. You know, from the slow patient groomer to the speedy predator, to the boy lover, to predators who are specific as to what they're looking for.

And there's a predator that I call the opportunist, which I believe is somebody who probably never would have offended against a child in the physical world, and this is just my opinion from my experience, but presented with a child on the internet, maybe they sought it out, maybe they didn't, they're prepared to do the wrong thing by that child.

So again, this is the nature of technology that, you know, I say to parents, if we don't teach our kids about the nature of that world, the internet's very good at sucking things out of people's minds that would normally stay there and encouraging sometimes good people to make bad choices. And please don't get me wrong, because someone's an opportunist, the damage that they can have on a child is just as great.

And just going back to where you said about how I pretended to be a young person online and how effective that screen can be. I remember when I'd arrested a child sex offender, every single one of them, and they were sitting in the police station being interviewed. And I disclosed to them that you weren't talking to a 12-year-old boy or girl, you were talking to me.

And I could tell by the look in their eyes that they were struggling to comprehend that because that child that they were talking to online was as real to them as someone walking around in the street. And some of them needed convincing. They thought that that child was real, that I was actually lying. So that's the effect that, you know, technological use, looking at that screen can have on a human being's mind. And they were adults.

Gareth King (08:27)

Do you think, you know, since that time, that mindset would probably still remain? Are people still in this disbelief or are we so desensitised to being hit with things that aren't as they seem through digital means, that there'd almost be that kind of assumption, you know, there'd be no surprise if you were to hypothetically say that to somebody today?

Brett Lee (09:10)

Yeah, look, that's a really good question. You know, I like to think that I'm a bit of a thought leader in relation to this technology in the human mind and how we interact, but that's something I've never progressed past myself. Look, I really, that would be hard for me to say. I just know it imprints a very real picture on a person's mind. I liken it to, and this is just layman talk, that as human beings, we're set up that seeing is believing.

So, as soon as we look at a screen, if we don't start to challenge ourselves and think critically, that our mind automatically makes us believe it's real because we got nothing else to grasp onto. And that's why, that's why, you know, I still meet adults who this year have been scammed by a Nigerian prince and, true story. And when you say to them, don't you know that was a scam? And they say, yeah, I've heard of those scams, but this was real.

So, yeah, it's a very personal individual thing. It's an individual looking at a screen and how it affects someone's mind. Of course it would differ, because everybody's different, personalities and maybe even our life experiences what life's presented to us already. But yeah, I just know it has an incredibly powerful effect. Particularly, think when someone wants it to be real.

So those predators that I arrested, I wrote in my book that they go through five steps and one of those steps is they have to identify a need or a vulnerability so they can fill that need or vulnerability, and that's how adults get scammed. Their vulnerability or need is they want money and they want it quick, they don't want to have to work for it. So that becomes a need where their intelligence or their life skills you know sort of goes by the way and they're driven by that desire. That can I think encourage people to believe things are real as well that aren't real, because they want it to be real.

Gareth King (11:05)

And I think it is, you know, the technology gets more sophisticated and you always read about people falling for, please transfer this money into this bank account, and it looks like it's come from their bank and, know, I guess my concern with, with that kind of thing as well, as we know, with the rise of AI and even another layer of kind of pretend, online,  that it's just gonna get so much worse and I'll eventually fall victim to it.

But that said as we as we are talking around, different platforms and ways that people can kind of gain access for you know nefarious means, in your opinion what platform design features are the most harmful to young people say mental health and beyond, and what are the impacts that these features have?

Brett Lee (11:32)

Okay, look, I would say one of the main functionalities that can make a platform or program very concerning is the illusion of anonymity or the promise of anonymity, where it's been proven that if someone believes they're anonymous, it can encourage them to make a bad choice. And some people will hide perceived anonymity and they use it to target and attack other people.

There was a program released called Sahara. And I'm not sure whether you're aware of it, but it's one of those many that came and went. It didn't last long. And if you downloaded it from the app store, its promise was that, look, if you're in the workplace, it’s for the workplace, and you want to compliment another worker, but you're embarrassed to say it to their face, you can anonymously give them a compliment in the Sahara app.

What they found when it was released, it was used for exactly the opposite. It was used to target and attack other people. So, I do say to people, stay away from those programs and apps that promise to give other people anonymity because they hide behind it.

The eSafety Commission has just, at the end of the year, we're gonna have some new laws in Australia and... there’s something called an age restricted social media site. So young under 16 years of age legally won't be allowed to have these programs or apps. Now there's a definition that covers age-restricted social media programs. And that is where two or more people generally in a random way can connect and interact on a personal level and share information.

That's where young people have a lot problems as well. So, we're talking open social media sites. They have found that through research, that young people aged between particularly 11 and 15 have decreased life satisfaction when they're exposed to these social media sites for extended periods of time. And of course it gives others access to get to contact them and get personal information and interact that personal way. And that's what particularly child sex offenders need.

Most of them need to, well I'd say nearly all of them need to interact on a personal level. They need to know who their victim is for a start. So, they may meet in a public place like a gaming site, video sharing site, social media, and then go to a more private program to interact. so that's another risk factor would be sites whereby social media where people can connect and start interacting and sharing information. Yeah, so they're probably the two main areas.

Gareth King (14:19)

Okay, on those points, you mentioned this that specific age range of children and the research born out of that. Obviously, those threats are not unique to people within that age group. Is there a particular reason that age group is more vulnerable? Is it simply, lack of life experience, or is it the development of the brain to not kind of have that self-protecting way of thinking that say, older people might have?

Brett Lee (14:59)

Yeah, look, I don't have a medical background, but I've heard some very clever people in the medical field speak at conferences. And that is you hit the nail right on the head is brain development. So, their brain hasn't fully developed, particularly specific parts of it. It's about self-managing choices as well.

And that relates to the brain development as well, but it's also life skills. I mean, we learn as we go, children are very trusting and it's a beautiful thing, but that makes them very vulnerable when it comes to dangers presented by the outside world. And before technology, parents could manage that a lot more effectively.

When I was growing up, my world was the world that was presented to me outside my front door. I grew up in a town, I like to say Australia's tourism capital, Ipswich. And I didn't even know the kids who lived on the other side of town. And now they're you know, young people can get on and interact with people older than themselves in every corner of the world. And some of these people don't have the same values. They don't have the same care for the children or beliefs. you know, I definitely think it's brain development and it's life skills.

And look, young people are looking for something different from the world and technology than we are as adults. They want to make friends. They want to be noticed. They want to explore. They want to take risks. They want to grow up quickly. And all of that makes them incredibly vulnerable online. But like you said, every issue that I talk to parents about that their children may face online, adults are facing it every day of the week as well, you know.

Gareth King (16:31)

Yeah, it's interesting in there as well, it's around that age group kind of you know, in that phase where you don't really know who you are, you're still working out who you are and growing into yourself. And as you mentioned earlier, the internet or the digital world allows you to test and sample lots of different things, which assuming, you know, opens up so many doors to help you work out who you are, but also opens up so many avenues for people with bad intentions. But I guess that leads me to my question. You mean, while we can talk about this social media ban, why was it age 16? And not lower or higher? Is there any particular reason?

Brett Lee (17:14)

Again, a good question. I can only surmise and I'll tell you what some of my thoughts are. They had to start somewhere. So they thought if we start at 17 or 18, we're gonna get a bigger backlash. Let's get the community used to this first. And I think the real young kids, 15 not that that's real young, but 15 and below, they are the most vulnerable. Only because what we're talking about are lessened brain development and life skills.

So I think that's where they're starting. Will it increase in the future? Maybe, we don't know. How will this roll out? We don't know. Will it be perfect at the start? We know that. No, nothing is. But I believe it's about changing our community whereby we create a new norm. And I spoke to parents last night and I said to them, maybe in 10 years time, a parent's gonna go to another parent. Do you remember back when kids under 15 use social media? and that other parent will probably go, no, yes, that's right.

So, what we're trying to do is change a community. That's what we're trying to do. Just like kids have to be a certain age to vote, to get tattoos, to drink, to smoke, this is gonna be another one. And our governments determined that this is for their health and wellbeing, the same as those other things that are.

So, I think they've started at 15. Well, 16, you can have a restricted social media site. So it's under 16. So, I think that's probably why they targeted that. And of course it was to do with their research as well.

So, one bit of research they had was that they researched 17400 young people in that age bracket. And they found that particularly, I think it's girls between 11 and 13 and boys between the age of 14 and 15, as I mentioned before, that they had decreased life satisfaction. Maybe due to extended use, so they're missing out on education or other activities. Maybe it was being exposed to inappropriate content, being groomed or bullied as well. So cyber bullying. So it's not kicking kids off the internet. It's just restricting them from some of the programs that have been causing a lot of issues for young people in this country.

Gareth King (19:30)

Yeah, that's just on the point of bullying there. The more I've spent time thinking about this ban and you know, the pros and cons, and without going into either of our position on it, one of the things that I've kind of tried to wrap my head around is the fact that, as you said, bullying, say, so say you're getting bullied at school.

You know, I remember when I was at school, you might get bullied for the six hours a day that school was there. And then once you're home, it's you know, you're safe again, you can escape that bullying. But the fact that so many young people have these phones with so many avenues to bully and there's just kind of no escape from that or whatever other problem there, it just makes me really wonder that, you know, I just can't wrap my head around what it must be like to be a young person being bullied and just literally have no escape unless you threw your phone in the bin or something.

Okay, well, why don't we just touch back to the potential social media ban. You mentioned that there'd be a kind of a restricted internet, that when you turn 16 and you might get your L plates for the internet kind of metaphorically. What would that look like? And would it potentially bring another sort of risk which might be taking someone who's 16 and just throwing them onto the internet with kind of no exposure to anything? Does that make them more naïve, or is it that they would be older and they might be able to, you know, recognise the danger signs?

Brett Lee (21:07)

Look, that possibly could be the case, but I don't think that's what's happening here. So, at the moment, they've only got five programs that are gonna be age restricted. So that means, you know, children up to the age of 15 with the guidance of their parents can basically have access to every single thing, other thing on the internet. So, it's only these five and it's gonna be managed by the social media companies themselves. So, they're gonna be required to establish identity, and if someone's under the age of 16, it is their responsibility, the onus is on them to not allow that account to be created or if there is a person under 16 with one to deactivate or delete that account.

So, the total onus is going to be on the social media companies themselves. And at this stage, there's five of them. At this stage, I believe, look, it's changing every day. YouTube's not included. So a young person can still use YouTube. I believe they can still use messaging programs. I believe they can visit websites and research and learn that they can connect with other people. I think it's more the open, unmoderated, really, and unmonitored social media sites that they wanted to target.

So, there's only five that have come under the definition so far, and that is X, formerly Twitter. I like it when they change their name, but you still gotta say both now. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and the other one is, you probably guess it, TikTok. So, they're the five that they've identified that come under that definition. And you know, some people say, well, what if those programs modify some of its functionality so it doesn't come under that definition? I say, fantastic, that's the whole point. So then, you know, 13, 14, 15 year olds may be able to use it.

Because they have made it that bit safer, that I don't see. And when you really think about it for those multi, you know, those multi-level, multinational companies that make billions of dollars, I think losing customers from, you know, 13, 14, 15, it's not gonna affect their bottom line that much.

Gareth King (23:19)

What about something like Reddit, perhaps? You know, like Reddit is very anonymous, but it's not that kind of visual stuff. I mean, obviously, something like X is not really like that. But where would something like Reddit fall into this?

Brett Lee (23:25)

Look, there are so many programs out there that aren't healthy for young people that probably at this stage, they're calling this phase one, that won't come under the guise of these restricted social media sites. Now there's companies that are run from other countries as well, I'm not sure where Reddit's run from, that refuse to comply. So that's gonna be another challenge as well.

So, look, I always say, it always comes down to the parent. Imean, I know the struggles parents have. I'm a parent myself and I know the struggles they have and it is hard to manage, but if the parent managed it effectively at their end, I don't believe this would be needed, but it is very difficult.

Look, there are so many other programs. There's a program called Ask FM, which is an incredibly dangerous program been linked to hundreds of teen suicides around the world, and its main feature is it promises anonymity and they don't care what's said on there. They nearly encourage people to do the wrong thing, and the people who own it don't care. So, they will not do anything about it. And it's not run out of a country like Australia or England or Canada that monitors and investigates this and has oversight.

Gareth King (24:52)

Right. What? Just to clarify, what is Ask FM? How does it work?

Brett Lee (25:00)

Ask FM is where, now Ask FM has been around for about 20 years. And it's, I call them fringe programs. Reddit, for kids, I call Reddit a fringe program. One or two may use it for a while, a couple of their friends, then it drops away. They go back to the normal ones, Snapchat, TikTok. So, Ask FM is where you can connect randomly with other people, or you can select people who you know on there. You don't need, of course, there's no identity verification, and you can ask them a question, but what happens it turns into a cesspool of bullying. And I mean, really, really bad bullying.

And why do people do it there more than anywhere else? Because of that promise of anonymity. So that's all it is. And parents go, it's gotta be more to it. No, there is no more to it. That's it. So that's the effect that that can have on a young person, just that promise of anonymity.

Look, it is becoming quite rare. You know, 15 years ago, I'd go into a school and the students had heard of Ask FM, whether they had or hadn't used it, the school had heard of it. If I go into a school now, there's a very good chance the teachers may have heard of it, maybe not, but the kids haven't. But they're still out there and they can infect communities very quickly.

Gareth King (26:12)

Yeah, I was only asking because I've seen the name and I've never looked beyond that, and I was just curious what it was. But you mentioned something a couple of minutes ago around with kind of guidance from the parents, you know, they could almost help curate a more positive experience online for their kids. So maybe let's, move on to some more positives and benefits. You know, we know there are some.

Beyond say that community building and friendship and support and learning and development, what else, you know, we know that certain things allow young people to be creative. We've all heard of, you know, young musicians who've been creative and posted some songs online and then that's been their big start.

So, there's obviously lots of benefits to access to the digital world and potentially social media for young people. How would this kind of stuff continue under say any kind of legislation, or would that fall into more parental or guardian guidance and access 16 plus?

Brett Lee (27:25)

Yeah, look, it'll always come down to the parent, I believe. And you just mentioned that, Gareth, that most people, not only adults, but kids, have a pretty good time on the internet. Most people don't face life-changing issues because of technology. And every school I go into, primary schools as well, sometimes right down to year one and two, they're using technology to learn.

Now, of course they say to me, we've got to be very strategic about it. We're not, know, e-learning isn't about technology, it's about learning. It's about using and managing and overseeing technology in such a way that kids can learn and stay safe while they're doing it.

The issues young people generally have are not with educational programs. They're with the programs outside of that that they like to use, extracurricular. And they're the ones that parents are really always going to have to manage, because once a child walks out of the school, the school can't put really anything in place to manage choices except education when the kids walk out.

So, look, with parents, know, it's, you know, if they need technology for their homework, they talk to the school and say, well, what device do they need? And it's usually the school device. How long do they need to do it? A lot of schools run those sessions for parents at the beginning of the year to say, this is how it is. There's no games to be downloaded. It's a learning device.

If you have a problem, this is your contact person. So, working together as a team there. And then the parent, each parent's gonna have to decide with themselves what they're comfortable with when it comes to their child using technology outside of their education. And all I say to parents is there's just five things to remember. I hope I can remember the five without searching for the answers. It's continued conversations. And I said to a parent, that's your greatest weapon, because this is really about people. Child sex offending is about people. Cyber bullying is about people. It's not about technology. So constant communication, rules and boundaries, knowing that you're the one who has control over technology. not really a choice you can make. If you make it, you know, in all good faith, that's really gonna change the outcome of your child's life.

The other one is considering filtering or monitoring software like parental controls. And it's not about spying over kids' shoulders, it's about just helping them manage that world when it comes to just knowing where they're going, who they're communicating with. And I think every parent has a right to do that. We grasp onto that right in the physical world. I mean, why not? Why not know where my child's going and who they're communicating with? And just to block certain websites depending on the names of the ages of their children.

Yeah, so it's pretty simple. Look, the strategies I think it's simple and it can't be complicated. Life's very busy and, you know, so I just get the parents to use some of the skills they already have, work with the school. And do you know what? At the end of the day, everyone's happy. Of course a young person is going to want to use a particular program. Of course they are because they're young person. But if a parent says no, everybody I believe is better off. If that parent does it for a reason and explains it to their child why. I've young people have problems in here, let's look at something else.

Gareth King (30:43)

Yeah, it's an it's an interesting point around, you know, because whenever I try and think about why do young people need a smartphone? I imagine that the peer that you know, the peer pressure is just immense, you know, and I can just imagine that if you if you had a young child that was the only one without one and then they were saying that they were being bullied because they didn't have one I mean that must be an incredibly hard you know, decision and require a lot of sternness from a parent.

But I think on that, to get parents guiding the children to be, you know, more internet safe, do you think that something like that will come more out of legislation, which takes that burden off the parents? Or do we need to get to some kind of critical mass where if everybody's doing it, the kids will kind of become more comfortable not having access to this stuff?

Brett Lee (31:37)

Look, I think so. And that's what I mentioned earlier about becoming the new norm. And I think that's what the government's doing it for, to take the pressure off parents. I hear this every single day of the week, what you just said. My child's come home and said, everybody's playing Fortnite. So that parent feels that if I don't give my child Fortnite, they're gonna be the only one, they're gonna miss out, I'm gonna be a bad parent and they're gonna get picked on.

Now there's no evidence that says that's what's gonna happen. I mean, when I was growing up, sometimes I wasn't allowed to do things at my, like go skating during the week. I didn't like that, but that's just how it was. My parents made that decision. Maybe the kids talked about skating the next day and that made me feel a bit, that's not fair. But I moved on. And I think that's a part of building resilience as well and not feeling I have to have everything all the time.

So, I think this with the government is the first step. When I speak to parents about this new law coming up, without their kids around, they can't wait. They love it. Schools can't wait either. Schools can't wait. They said 90 % of the resources we use in restorative practices is issues kids are having in social media at home. They said, we didn't have that, we would have so much more time to dedicate to everything else.

So this is what's happening at ground zero with families and it's one of the parents' biggest concerns when they're, you know, some of those concerns are probably unfounded. A lot of it's the unknown. They just don't know what's going on. They don't feel good about it. And it's the pressures. But I think it's gonna be good that, you know, I think creating this norm and from there we may move forward, I think that's gonna be it.

So, it's the opposite at the moment where the pressure is coming in relation to using it young for no reason and having access only because everyone else does or we have that perception. So, I think we just wanna flip that whereby the parent feels comfortable that no, you don't have social media till you're 16. There's all these other programs you can use. You can go and play these games. You can chat to your mates here.

Gareth King (33:36)

That’s an interesting point there I want to touch on two of those things one being games before I forget or come back to that and you mentioned Fortnite, but then also parents kind of not seeming so unreasonable, know as you as you mentioned before you can't go skating during the week, you know I remember I was probably like 10 and I couldn't get some Air Jordans or something and you know my I thought my parents were the most horrible parents in the world.

But it's an interesting point I wonder whether there'll be kind of any kind of stronger connection between say, children and parents without so much distraction of devices and things like that, because we all know that they can be used to buy some quiet time and get a little bit of peace. And that's a that's a whole, whole other issue that I don't really want to go too far down today.

But in terms of any specific platforms and types of online activities that young people, whether they're under 16, 16 to 18, or beyond, what ones do you see are overwhelmingly positive for kids? We know there's kind of community building, friends, and if it is Fortnite and gaming, you know, that kind of challenge and things like that. But in your experience, what have you seen that is, is yeah, absolutely, undeniably positive for young people online?

Brett Lee (35:01)

Look, I think where young people are having to be critical thinkers, where they're using their imagination. So that's why sometimes I think gaming sites are quite good, but of course they have to be managed with time limits because that's a whole nother discussion in relation to the triggers built into the games that affects the human brain. So, I think gaming sites are good, but look, potentially they can connect with other people. But I think gaming sites are good.

Look, for primary school aged children, the king at the moment is Roblox. That is the king. It is well and truly taken over from Minecraft. And parents say, it good? I say, no, it's not good and it's not bad. It just is. So, you put time limits in place. You talk to your kids about language. You guide them towards positive games, and who they can and can't communicate with, and what to do if you have a problem. And just to keep those conversations going.

You know, people sometimes try and minimise these strategies and say, yeah, that's all well and good, but they could still have a problem. What I just mentioned there, reduces risk by 95%. And the kids can still have fun, yeah, and play the game. So, I think games are very good. There's little creative websites. There's, now I'm not promoting any of these, but there's, you know, there's mathletics and there's little word game videos that, word games that young people can play. You know, when they're ex school, look, the thing is, when there's people managing it, they're the platforms, properly, they're the platforms that I believe are healthy for children where people are responsible for their actions. And if someone does make a bad choice, if it's reported that it's addressed. So that's why I would say people look out for programs that are prepared to do that. So yeah, there's lots of educational programs, of course.

And do you know what, when I was going to school, I was going to do a project on Japan, I'd have to go to the library and they'd have one book and it would have been checked out by somebody. Now kids in primary school can get online and talk to children in Japan. So, you know, and it can interpret under it. So, I just, that must expand someone's mind being able to do that. So look, there are great programs out there. And the eSafety Commission, I believe, talks about some of those on their website, eSafety.gov.au, and they're the federal government go-to body.

Gareth King (37:37)

Yeah. I mean, obviously a lot of those positives, come down to this notion of learning. I'm just trying to draw a distinction between what say these children might be learning via technology and the digital world at school. Is there anything that they might be able to log onto outside of school that, that, you know, obviously would come with risks social media wise in some regard, but is there anything that does what like what are the positives that people get out of it or young people?

Brett Lee (38:07)

Yeah, look it's very hard for me to say that. Only because the purpose of social media is that it is largely uncontrolled. The first thing is this, no identity verification. So that's the first thing. So you know, without that, anybody can be any single person. I know there's child sex offenders in Roblox right this very second, trying to connect with and groom children. I'm not saying kick kids out of Roblox I'm saying that, you know, that's one aspect of it.

So where is somewhere, where is somewhere that's safe where they can interact? Look, I think platforms where they can, they can pick and choose and only invite people in that they choose. That would be in the perfect world, but being pragmatic, look, the right protections in place. I think a young person, particularly 16 and over, can benefit from social media if it's used for the right purposes and very strategically.

I mean, one, you put your privacy settings in place. I mean, that's a gimme. You know, everything comes down to our identity. If we haven't learned that our identity is worth more than gold now, I don't know what's gonna show us that. So privacy settings, to sort of try and control who gets access to your information, determining who can and can't connect with you.

Another big thing, and this happens to adults as well, a psychologist, a prominent Australian psychologist actually said to me that the human brain, particularly young people, when they see something that's out of the ordinary or concerning or violent, their mind's automatically drawn to it because it's not the norm. And that's what they will focus on. Like if they're being bullied by five people online, they think everybody's bullying them and they feel on their own. They don't see the billions of people who aren't bullying them, their attention's drawn to that.

So encouraging all people to move away from content that we know probably isn't the best for us. And that's hard to do sometimes. But it's all about surrounding yourself with good people. It's sort of that principle. You'll be happy if you surround yourself with good people. If you surround yourself with bad people, you're probably gonna feel like them.

There was some research done where they got a student who was very problematic. I think this was done in England. And they put him in a very exclusive school, into a friendship group of six high achieving, very well balanced students. Instead of them raising him up, he dragged all them down. So, which I thought was very, very interesting.

Look, technology in that way, if our kids are gonna expose themselves to negative content, that's what's gonna create, of course, a lot of mental health issues, and a distorted perception of the world that we live in. So, I think they can use it, but they're taught to distance themselves from negative content, not to get involved in it, put privacy settings in place, keep talking to real people, particularly if they have an issue online.

Because I sort of say to people, the internet's a bit of a paradox, whereby you're actually in the most public place you'll ever be, five billion people, at the same time you're in the most private you're up here in your mind, and that is a very lonely place.

Gareth King (41:25)

On the topic of vigilance and parental involvement and guidance, and even just from a practical perspective, what's the biggest challenges in regulating something like the internet to ensure kids are safe? So, we know that Australia is almost a leader at the moment with this legislation, and I've seen other countries start talking about implementing something similar. How does this work? Does that require potentially a cohesive global approach, or is it still going to be regional? How practical is doing something like this?

Brett Lee (42:02)

Look, it is such a challenge that I don't think humankind's ever seen something like it to try and manage technological use. I know in law enforcement, we really struggled with it because law enforcement before the internet was very geographically based. I mean, as a Queensland police officer, I couldn't even go across the New South Wales border. I lost all my powers. I wasn't licensed to carry a gun. So, we were always very geographically based.

The internet has forced police to change that. So, you know, you might have a child sex offender online in Canada, who's offending against a child in Queensland. How do you investigate that? So great leaps forwards have been made. There's a virtual global task force. I don't know whether that still exists, but there's, the federal bodies, law enforcement bodies of each country are working together.

And they could say, look, this guy has forwarded a, you know, a child abuse image. You know, what we need that as evidence. We can't forward that to the other police because that would be an offense. So, lots of changes has been made, and it was always a challenge. Now, when it comes to us as a community, managing, you know, child safety online, it is going to be difficult because we have not only different stakeholders, have stakeholders with different motivations.

We have our government, which is being represented in this case by the e-Safety Commission, who of course is a government body. We have social media companies who, of course their main objective is to make as much money as they can, and they can only really be the ones who are even half-based in this country and will work with the government.

Then we have internet service providers, of course, where people access the internet, they will be a stakeholder as well. I mean, it's possible to do anything. I mean, they could filter out bad websites, but they have said that that will slow the internet down and business just won't be able to operate.

So, they've had all these discussions, but there's also gonna be, there's gonna be other stakeholders like school representatives, parent bodies, and to actually manage it is I think a fair way off, because you're to have countries that aren't prepared to do it in first place, they're not interested. So, companies may then start to be run from there and they still get access into Australia.

Gareth King (44:23)

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a really interesting point. And I guess that kind of was leading into my next question. So, we know that the internet has a whole range of very negative and dangerous situations. We know there's a whole lot of positive and great opportunities and things that present itself for young people. How can we all either push for, or parents can help manage, or those service providers or the platforms, et cetera? What changes do you think are most critical for all of us to make, both individually and collectively, to ensure the safety of children everywhere around the world?

Brett Lee (45:14)

Yeah, look, I really don't think the main change is going to come from social media companies, internet service providers, or the government. Now I say this and never do I judge a parent, it was a hard enough job as it was without dumping technology on top. But I think it's going to come down to the grassroots of each family. I think we're doing a pretty good job.

You know, Gareth, we have been talking about some of the negatives, but I think we're doing an amazing job as a community. Every school now has acceptable user policies. So, kids are getting used to rules and contracts at school. Every single school is doing some form of cyber safety education. It may be even how to, if you're going to have a social networking site, how to set it up safely. Some of the things to look out for.

So I think it is ultimately going to come down to the parent body appreciating the importance and the value of playing that role, which will give them the courage to sometimes say no, so they can manage it. But also that they understand, because every family is different as well. So, they understand that technology can play an incredibly effective role in a young person's life. And I believe it's essential.

What I say at schools is when these kids leave this educational environment, there is almost no chance that they're going to be involved in a job, a pastime, an occupation, study where they're not gonna have to use technology. I think we need to embrace that, start the education as early as possible. And most schools now, you know, kids in year one and two, they're getting online at school, and it gives them a great opportunity to let them know the pitfalls.

Like you said before, I don't think it'd be healthy to cut young people off the internet totally till they're 15 and give them a device. I mean, then they're to be like a kid in a candy shop when they're probably at the most vulnerable stage in their life. So yeah, I think there's lots of positives. I think the parent, the parent body at this time is the crucial stakeholder that probably needs to move forward when it comes to understanding that world, understanding that role and being that parent. A lot of parents are doing it. I speak to them. A lot aren't. They just wipe their hands and say, well, the technology is the kids thing. That family will have issues.

Gareth King (47:25)

Yeah. So, it does, it sounds like it needs to be a very concerted effort from every angle to kind of do this. There’s something not hilariously ironic, but something very ironic in the fact that it's going to take a bit of community building, and everyone kind of coming together to focus on the positives and create something positives, when to an extent community building is something that the digital world strips away as we get so more narrow and narrower into our own little worlds as we've touched on.

All right, jto finish up then, what's one piece of advice you'd offer concerned about their child's risk online? They're not really sure about how they can approach it, how they could bring it up with their kids, and just something that might be comfortable for them to do that they could do right away.

Brett Lee (48:25)

Right away, I have lots of advice. No, look, I know the key, whether it's adults or whether it's young people, is communication. What that specific communication looks like, I think a parent is probably fairly adept at talking to their kids, knowing the personality of their kids, because every child is different.

I can say this to a parent is that the very first question a potential child sex offender would ask me online would be, do you talk to your parents about what you do on the internet? If the answer is yes, they're gone. They will not touch me. Bad things only happen in one place online and that's in private. If they think that someone else is gonna see or find out or get involved, they leave that child alone. They need that perception of privacy. That's why I always say open communication.

Kids aren't the greatest of detectives when it comes to hiding their emotions. So, I've lost count the amount of children who've been saved because someone, a teacher, a parent, an uncle and auntie, one of their friends' parents has asked them a question. And just because of that response, that adult felt instincts within themselves, nothing to do with technology. They felt an instinct that something wasn't quite right. When we talk to our kids, it gives them a feeling of support that they're not on their own.

Letting them know that if you ever have a problem come to me, I'm on your side, we can fix it and you can get on having a good time. So, I'd like to make it more complicated, but it really comes down to never underestimating the value and the power of having those lines of communication. Hey, what programs are you using? Is everything going okay? Hey, have you been chatting to your friends online? You know, have you seen anything that confuses you or upsets you? Just simple questions about them as a person. So that would be my one piece of advice. Communication.

Gareth King (50:16)

You know, it makes a lot of sense as we all know that, there's certain things that you can only learn through life experience. And as we mentioned earlier, unfortunately, young people or lucky for them, they're not old enough yet to kind of have experienced enough life and wish they were younger again. But thanks so much for that, Brett. What's on the horizon for you and where can people follow what you're up to?

Brett Lee (50:29)

We have a website called internet safe education dot com. We do have a Facebook page, Brett Lee and internet safe education. And we do have what's called a cyber safety hub. So, if you go to our website, that's a 365 days a year, 24 hours a day where we do live webinars for parents on different topics, different programs. We've done one on Fortnite, we've done a couple on Roblox, anything parents want to find out about. You can contact e-Safety through there. We have little courses for kids, we have resources for parents, we've got a parent course, it only takes about 20 minutes. So that's how you can connect, internet safe education, all one word, sorry it's so long, .com. And thank you, Gareth, it's been a great chat. Thank you.