The Tech Shock podcast returns with season 4
10 Jan, 2023
2 minute read

The Tech Shock podcast returns with season 4

Season 4 of Parent Zone’s Tech Shock podcast hits the ground running. 

This week Vicki and Geraldine are joined by guest Damon De Ionno from Revealing Reality to discuss who is most disadvantaged by nude-image sharing, the to-and-fro of the Online Safety Bill, and the pitfalls of an age-gated internet.

Conversation starts with Damon introducing Revealing Reality’s research paper ‘Not Just Flirting’ – a study which uncovers just how widespread ‘nude’ sharing is among young people, and what the consequences are for both sender and recipient. 

Damon explains the divide between the way adolescent boys and girls talk about, respond to (and interpret) nude-sending. Sadly – yet unsurprisingly – disadvantaged young women are most negatively affected by the practice. 

Discussion then turns to the latest iteration of the Online Safety Bill and the controversial definition of ‘legal but harmful’ content. 

Vicki, Geraldine, and Damon weigh up the importance of a regulated internet – with reference to the inquest into the suicide of 14 year old Molly Russell – and question how best to decide that something is ‘harmful’ enough to warrant intervention.

This leads onto algorithmic amplification. For Damon, single instances of upsetting content might not require regulation, but when young people are “seeing 5000 of them, it’s a different matter” to which Geraldine agrees, suggesting that the sheer volume of content can be the primary cause for concern.

Finally, the group cover age assurance. Vicki introduces the idea that age-gating the internet will only result in excluding children from spaces they want to use, and that – as with many age-limits – they will be bypassed anyway.

In fact, shielding children from the potential risks of the internet might even negatively impact how they go about building their digital resilience.

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Next week Vicki and Geraldine are joined by Callum Hood, Head of Research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate. they'll be covering disinformation and the more toxic sides of internet culture – be sure not to miss.