CALE MATTHEWS, BTN REPORTER: Oh my gosh, I'm genuinely a little bit shocked by what gets shown to me.
I've set myself up here in one of our offices to run a little experiment. So I've logged out of all my accounts on this computer and opened up an incognito tab. For the next hour, I'm going to scroll through YouTube and some YouTube shorts and I'll screen record it at the same time and we can see what sort of content is being shown to me.
According to research from the eSafety Commissioner, YouTube is the most used social media platform for young Australians, with almost three-quarters of Aussies aged 13 to 15 saying they use it. It's also the place where kids experience the most harm, with 40 per cent of 10- to 15-year olds saying they'd been exposed to content including misogyny, violence, dangerous online challenges and content promoting disordered eating. These stats are part of the reason why back in July, after a bit of tossing and turning, YouTube was added to the federal government's social media ban for under 16s.
JULIE INMAN GRANT, ESAFETY COMMISSIONER: Very few of these technologies and platforms were created with children in mind or with safety as a primary goal.
But unlike other platforms like Instagram or Snapchat, teens will still be able to use YouTube without creating an account, and according to YouTube's own guidelines, that will mean they'll only see content that is appropriate for kids.
Alright, so I'm just gonna open YouTube now, and I should be signed out, which I am, and I'm going to go, so straight away nothing pops up on the homepage, so I actually have to search something to get started, but I'm going to go explore, and I'm going to go, let's start with gaming. I mean straight away, I click on gaming. The first thing that's featured is a thumbnail that says I accidentally joined a gang in GTA 5 and the thumbnail is the content creator and he's surrounded by people holding guns and knives, and they have a mask over their face. So the first video that's shown to me has a thumbnail with guns and knives. So GTA5’s age rating, GTA5 has a mature 17 plus age rating in North America. In Australia it is rated R18 plus. So straight away I'm getting clips of a game that is meant to be 18 plus in this signed out format which is only meant to show videos that are appropriate for people under 18. So immediately it's kind of questionable what I'm being shown.
STUDENT: There was a time when my Mum told me I couldn't have an account, so I didn't have an account and I was scrolling and there were some things that were like not appropriate for me to be seeing on there.
STUDENT: When I use YouTube, when I'm watching on the TV, we don't really use an account for it cause it doesn't really matter, but then when I'm watching it on my iPad, I have an account, but I don't think it impacts it too much because I can still find whatever I like.
STUDENT: I use it probably three times a day, or like when I'm eating just for entertainment.
STUDENT: I don't have an account. Yeah, I just watch whatever comes up and if I like it, then I watch it.
So the ban isn't gonna affect the way that you use YouTube at all?
STUDENT: Probably not, but I'll try to like stop myself from watching it as much as I do right now.
STUDENT: I just made another account so I could regulate what was going on and what I was seeing and it helped a lot, but more for me to see things that were actually age appropriate and good for me to see.
DR MARK JOHNSON, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: Given that the age restrictions on YouTube are not applied completely comprehensively, as YouTube does have more adult content which is not tagged as being adult and has content which I think most people would say is pretty harmless, which is tagged as being adult content. I don't think that reducing the capacity to have accounts is something which is, which, which is going to have a significant effect on accessing this kind of content.
Doctor Mark Johnson is a researcher on video games and social media at the University of Sydney. He says while YouTube is stricter in the content it allows compared to other sites...
DR MARK JOHNSON: If you're on Facebook, it's not too hard to find a lot of very objectionable content. If you're on Twitter, it takes 2 seconds to find that stuff.
These sites aren't publicly accessible without an account. YouTube is.
DR MARK JOHNSON: So I think based on how the algorithm works, I think that there is a very high chance people young people will still be recommended content which, which maybe we would think should be or we would expect to be age restricted.
Literally the first thing, the first thing this video says is five brutal knockouts not allowed on YouTube. Clearly it is allowed on YouTube and it's allowed to the point that it thinks it's appropriate for people under 18 because I'm not signed into this account.
Online, YouTube outlines that some of its content is age restricted, saying that sometimes content doesn't violate our community guidelines, but it may not be appropriate for viewers under 18. In these cases, they may place an age restriction on the video. According to YouTube, things that will be age restricted include, but aren't limited to, adults participating in dangerous activities that could be imitated.
CALE USING YOUTUBE: Okay, this is just like a guy loading guns and showing how to hide guns.
Violent or graphic content.
CALE USING YOUTUBE: And now I just feel like I'm gonna get a lot of UFC and fighting videos.
Including focusing solely on the most graphically violent part of a film.
CALE USING YOUTUBE: So that is literally just a video of people getting shot in the head in movies.
Vulgar language, including profanity in the title or thumbnail.
CALE USING YOUTUBE: I'm just looking at a swear word right now in the thumbnail that I'm not going to show you.
And videos promoting drugs.
CALE USING YOUTUBE: It specifically talked about drugs and I'm getting videos about drugs now. Not many of these videos, I would think, are appropriate for under 18s now. YouTube says age restricted videos are not viewable to users who are under 18 years of age or signed out, meaning they don't have an account.
STUDENT: It just means there'll be a lot more things that are out of our control from seeing cause we can't like we can't dislike, we can't report or anything like that because we don't have an account. It's kind of like taking the control out of our hands on what we can and can't see. Like obviously, if we see something and we don't like it, we can just scroll, but it's takes us a minute to process what we're seeing. So we can't like just scroll immediately.
In just under an hour of scrolling through YouTube without an account, I was recommended videos with content including, but not limited to, how to make homemade weapons fighting compilations, clips from R18 movies and videos promoting drug use.
DR MARK JOHNSON: So YouTube keeps track of what you watch in essence, and it tries to judge what videos you might want to watch based on a number of things. It's based on the titles of videos that you watch. It's also based on comments. It's based on the other videos, people who watch those videos watch. So the specific system by which it's done is not publicly known, but what is clear is that YouTube's algorithm, it doesn't distinguish between the types of content. So what I mean is that if you're watching a video gaming video, let's say, and lots of people who previously watched that video also watch some thing of from a kind of extreme right influencer, YouTube doesn't distinguish in the algorithm between safer content and far more concerning content.
I reached out to YouTube Australia to ask why this content was being recommended to me and whether they will implement any changes to their age restriction once the social media ban is put in place. They didn't respond, but earlier this year Rachel Lord, Senior Manager of Public Policy at Google and YouTube Australia, told a Senate committee that teens who were made to use YouTube logged out would be less safe and exposed to more adult content because it limits parental safety features like teen and preteen accounts on the platform that YouTube says has stricter moderation.
DR MARK JOHNSON: We need to keep in mind that all of these sites are owned by multi-billion dollar people, and you don't become that wealthy by caring about people, you just don't. Again, moderation. It costs money and it reduces views, and that's why these platforms have no interest in it because it costs money and it reduces views.
Do you think YouTube care about young people?
DR MARK JOHNSON: I don't think any social media platform cares about young people to any significant degree. I think we need to always kind of keep in mind about what the, what, what are the profit models and what the profit motives of these sites are, and the profit models of these sites are maxing out how, how many people see everything and maxing out how many people spend time on that site and how much time they spend on that site. And any restriction by definition reduces those numbers a little bit and thus reduces how much money that website gets from its viewers and from the time which they spend there.
In a statement sent to us, a spokesperson for the government said that ‘YouTube needs to explain why this content was hosted on their platform’ and that eSafety will be implementing industry codes under the online safety act to limit content online that may cause harm to children. These codes will be enforced in April and will mean social media sites like YouTube will have to take steps to better moderate the content on their platform so that kids won't be dished up similar stuff to what I was getting. If they don't, they may face fines of up to $50 million dollars. In its statement, the government also said that the social media ban is about reducing online harms experienced by young Australians, but experts reckon it's too early to tell whether this will be the case when it comes to YouTube.
DR MARK JOHNSON: So what it doesn't do is, is, is that it doesn't address the foundational issues of online safety and those foundational issues come down to the platform owners, who have shown to have very little interest in keeping these sites in general safe and well moderated places, and, and that's the real issue. And so something like this social media ban for young people, it tackles the effects. It doesn't tackle the cause.