MNHQ here: AMA with Baroness Beeban Kidron - leading digital rights campaigner, member of the House of Lords and former Hollywood film director, 23rd June, 7-9pm

[RhiannonEMumsnet]

Hi there,

We’re delighted to announce an AMA with leading digital rights campaigner, member of the House of Lords and former Hollywood film director Baroness Beeban Kidron, on Tuesday 23rd June, 7-9pm.

She’ll be discussing her new book USERS: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back:

“One of the earliest and most relentless advocates for online protections for children - and a prescient voice on the risks of AI – Beeban Kidron takes readers on a journey from the halls of Parliament and the UN to the White House and Silicon Valley. Through her encounters with specialist police officers, bereaved parents, lobbyists and tech bros, Users demonstrates the unchecked power of Big Tech, as they avoid rules and regulations, and capture governments that are meant to protect us.

“The issue is not technology itself, but its use and abuse. How tools built to connect people are redeployed to divide, punish, distract, and control; while our tech overlords come to own everything – but continue to be held responsible for nothing. Now that we know their game, it's time to fight back.”

Please post your questions below and join Beeban on the thread on Tuesday evening to hear the answers. Everyone who posts will be entered into a draw to win one of five copies of USERS*.

As always, please remember our guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil.

Thanks,
MNHQ

*Competition Ts and Cs apply.

Thanks for coming, Baroness Kidron.

Following the government's announcement of a ban on social media for under-16, I'd like to ask about methods of age verification, please. I know this is a major concern for a lot of people.

The age-verification model most frequently discussed is to identify the user of an app, website or device by name (or pseudonym) and then compare that name to some database somewhere containing their DoB.

However that is not the only way to do it.

For example, smartphones typically use facial ID to unlock, and the data never leaves the machine. It's not stored anywhere else.

Surely it's possible to build facial-age-recognition software which keeps the data on the machine and then sends a token to the website or app, to state the current user is over or under 16 years old?

There would always be people for whom it didn't work well and probably some haziness around older adolescents, so other routes would also be needed.

But for the majority of the population at a time this would be a privacy-preserving method which identifies a user to a website or app as of permitted age, without needing to identify them as an individual to the website or app... or to the government.

An adult would still have the ability to "scan in" for a child to allow the child access to an individual video, then when the session expires so does the access. So the child can still use websites and apps but it's no longer friction-free, and this system builds adult supervision into the loop.

I'd like to ask whether anything like this is being considered, please?

What is the point of this whole shebang when men who make child abuse images are routinely never given any jail time for this crime? Its like child abuse image making is effectively decriminalised. Why not tackle the harms to actual children by taking a stand against child sexual abuse directly?

Looking forward to being in conversation with you all, and answering questions tomorrow.

Beeban
Baroness Kidron

a major challenge with regulating big tech is that so many platforms are headquartered overseas, and users can easily bypass local rules using VPNs.
Since your work focuses so heavily on making platforms safe by design, how can countries actually enforce their laws on companies based across the globe? And as tech evolves, how do we make sure our domestic protections aren't just easily bypassed by everyday users?

Hi Beeban. Now that the Government have announced a social media ban, which I'm delighted about btw, I'm worried about where Big Tech is going with LLMs and kids. We know that they try everything they can to get kids hooked on these platforms and, given how powerful AI is, how can we possibly expect kids to be able to resist it? Any thoughts on what we can do about this?

Beeban - I work in the creative industries and think it's an absolute scandal that these companies have been able to steal so much content to train their LLMs without having to pay the creators for it at all. I can't really understand why there's not more outrage about it. Do you think there's any hope for a world in which creators have to be paid or do we just have to accept that this is going to happen now?

When I look at the power of social media platforms, AI companies and tech bros, especially in shaping politics in a negative way, it really feels as though ordinary people and governments are losing control. Is there anything you've seen in your campaigning that makes you genuinely optimistic that we can push back against some of this?

What's the thing that shocks you most about BigTech behaviour?

If you were the parent of a 12-year-old today, what rules would you have around smartphones, social media and AI chatbots?

What do you say to the concerns that this is just a way to bring in Digital ID?

I've started reading your book and I'm really enjoying it. I'm sure I'll get to it but I'm eager to know how you managed to break into Hollywood as a Director at such a young age especially as a British woman. And also your experience of MeToo behaviour - you mention Harvey Weinstein early on, what was your experience like?

I'm interested in your career move from making movies to the House of Lords. What made you switch - was the Lords your idea or did someone suggest it to you. And how do you find being a cross-bench peer? How often are you there and do you tend to vote with any particular party?

I'm trying to cut down my own social media use because I don't think it's particularly good for me, but I keep finding myself drawn back in. I try and remind myself that by using it I'm basically lining the pockets of people like Zuckerberg... Do you have any specific rules about social media or screens for yourself that help you feel in control, or is there anything you've learnt over the course of your work that's particularly helpful for putting you off social media etc?

Hello and thanks for being here. I think so many parents feel they’re expected to manage the risks of smartphones & social media almost entirely on their own, while tech companies make the products as addictive as possible. We are essentially battling against billionaires.

Do you think we’ve put too much responsibility on parents, and not enough on the companies designing these platforms? What would meaningful accountability for Big Tech actually look like?

Oooooh Hollywood. I’m really interested in the fact that you used to work in tinseltown before moving into campaigning and politics. What led you to that to what you're doing now? And can you give us any celebrity insights... 🤔😃

Did that experience make you more alert to the way tech companies work to hook people in and get what they want? And are there similarities between Hollywood and silicon valley in how powerful people avoid scrutiny?

Thanks for doing this. I've been watching the news closely since the social media ban was announced.

Do you think we’ll look back on giving children smartphones in the same way we look back on riding in cars without seatbelts?

Hello - glad to be here!

The short answer is – YES.That is an option, and I have long been an advocate of ‘privacy preserving’ age checking. Here is a report I wrote some time ago which sets out the various options, and while many of them have got a lot more technically advance over time (with their pros and cons) remain the same.
https://5rightsfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/But_How_Do_They_Know_It_is_a_Child-1.pdf

One thing worth watching as the plans for restricting access for under 16’s are fleshed out, is to make sure the government insists on privacy, and does not let either the tech companies or age assurance providers use it as a data land-grab. Governments are too quick to listen to arguments about ‘technical feasibility’.It is absolutely feasible to use private tokens for age checking – but commercial incentives mean that they always looking for ways to capture behavioural data.

It is not a choice between making tech products that are be safe by design and punishing those who commit crimes against children. I have worked a lot with specialist police and organisations that pursue criminals, but amplifying sexual violence, creating nudification tools and spreading and monetising a version of sexual relationships that hurt women and children – creates an appetite for sexual violence and makes it more prevalent. But ensuring perpetrators are dealt with by the law is non-negotiable.

Yes my point is they are not being dealt with by the law.

I agree completely. I have argued repeatedly for changing the way we enforce our laws. Disrupt businesses more quickly, put Executives who flout laws in prison, give the public the ‘private right of action’ like the United States so we can sue businesses, set up and e-safety commissioner that has the powers to take down in hours not months, and automatic fines (like a parking fine) – this would transform the way that the tech companies behave. It boils down to not negotiating but insisting. I have seen it work, in Brazil, Indonesia, and in some of the States. And it works here ....to a degree... but we need a permanent committee in parliament to lessen chance of government and regulator being lobbied.

Policy makers have been too worried about the tech companies ‘going away’ if we insist on our laws.But in fact, their dominance gets in the way of competition, innovation and UK plc. If we had more robust regime it would allow for some challenger companies to offer different – better services. But we have to be clear that we are willing to turn our back on companies that treat us or our kids badly.

What (if anything) is going to happen to regulate age verification around the use of AI? They can generate and link to adult content and currently there seem to be no age checks on them. Sometimes they come out with really inappropriate things and having worked in AI testing, I really don’t see the companies taking any responsibility for this behind the scenes. It’s a massive loophole that kids can currently access adult content this way.

We should not expect our kids to 'resist it'. We should not be foisting it on them - and in particular I note, that their is nothing inherently 'addictive' about AI. It is being designed that way it is not a technical requirement! So that seems like the first place to start! there is also an arms race to be the biggest - but most experts now think that their are huge opportunity is narrow, smaller, more specialised LLM's - so it is not a zero sum game - we dont have to chose between AI as it is being offered and a technological wilderness.

I am FURIOUS – that the government rejected my attempts to make it a crime for a chatbot to offer illegal advice, harm children, be sycophantic, or plan a crime – with all the relevant enforcement.

I will probably say this more than once this evening, but its not the technology, but what we have allowed it to become. I write in my book about our choice over futures – we have to start now and build the future we want. The one being built in the race for power will hurt us, our kids and our economy.

Hello Beeban and thanks for being here :)

I feel that the government is putting all the emphasis on safety for the under-16s (which is understandable) but failing to tell the rest of us that we will need to prove we are adults in order to access any website that has social interactions, which is a lot of sites! This means we'll have to provide personal data such as a passport or driving license, or face scans, and once this data is stored by third parties it will be liable to being hacked, as happened on Discord a few months ago with private details from 70,000 users stolen. Central databases will be at huge risk and once our data is 'out there' we can't get it back.

What are your views on this?

This is interesting because I was going to ask why you think government has been so reluctant to take on Big Tech. Is it the lobbying? I feel also there's some fear of being seen as anti-innovation, and obviously the money... How would the permanent committee in parliament you suggest work?

Scandal indeed.

I hope you saw all the work we did in parliament to stop the government giving away your work!

We are still in the middle of this battle, and we have not lost yet, but we need public support.

Three things –

1. creative copyright is not nice to have, it is people’s work, livelihood and property
2. as a nation we have 2.4 million people in creative industries and it is the second biggest sector in the UK – we cant afford to lose it.
3. songs, pictures, movies, design, books – are not just artefacts they are the things that hold our history, culture and conversations – they reflect what is important and they mark our moments from birth to death.

That is worth saving.

I know I am bigging up my book, but there is a good story about my being hidden in Elton and David’s living room, when he called the Minister a moron. It is a serious fight but it was a funny moment. But we cannot trade culture for data centres, child safety for inward investment, and UK business for crumbs from Silicon Valley’s table. The end game of that is dependence on US values, and transfer of wealth from us to them.

Its important that you & everyone else on this thread – write to their MP and tell them to change direction on tech policy - we cant afford to give away childhood, creativity or the NHS....