From deepfakes to AI-generated child sexual abuse materials, online threats are rapidly evolving and governments are racing to respond. What protections do children actually need in today’s digital world? And how can young people, policymakers, and tech companies co-create digital spaces that are safe and informed by children’s actual experiences? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Dr Chew Han Ei, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, where he leads the Governance & Economy cluster, focusing on online harms, digital trust, and technology adoption.
00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:15where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day. As online
00:20harms facing children continue to grow, experts are meeting this week at the 2025 ASEAN ICT
00:28Forum on Child Online Protection to push for smarter, evidence-based safeguards. Tonight
00:35on the show, we'll ask, what does real child safety online look like and what should guide
00:42policymaking in this area? Well, joining me on the show to help us think this through
00:47is Dr. Chiu Han Yi, who is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies at
00:55the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in NUS, where he leads the governance and economy
01:01cluster. His work focuses on online harms, digital trust and technology adoption. Han, thank you so
01:08much for joining me on the show today. If I may begin with some relevant news or news that's
01:15happening quite timely, is that in December, we have Australia enforcing a world first law
01:23banning children under the age of 16 from having accounts on major social media platforms. I'm
01:29wondering, Han, what this signals to you in terms of how countries are responding to child safety online
01:37and how they're thinking about platform responsibility?
01:42So, Melissa, thanks for having me. I thought I would do a quick intervention on the use of bans because we've heard it so much in the past couple of years when Australia was talking about age restrictions for social media. And today, when we heard the E-Safety Commissioner talk about it, it's actually an age assurance and
01:55minimum age, so we don't use language like bans and bans and bans." And I think that signals how countries are tackling the issue and looking at the issue instead of going very hard-line on bans and bans and bans and bans and bans are bans and e-assurance. inflation in the age. Erasing
02:25and age restrictions they are talking about so Australia is talking about a
02:30minimum age so so the use of language is important here it's a minimum age
02:36requirement rather than a ban so with that in mind how are countries thinking
02:44about it I think there is a growing momentum in the region to think about
02:50age restrictions and minimum age requirements so and and I and I spoke
02:56about it at the forum this week that when we think about new technology that
03:05we adults don't understand right there is this phenomenon in media research
03:09called moral panic and with every wave of technology the adults in society will
03:16think of reacting they need to react to the moral panic by the way I shared in
03:221920s the moral panic was about crossword puzzles because women were not gonna get
03:27any housework done because of crossword puzzles and then in the 1930s it was
03:32movies and then what else we have video games and then in the 1970s it was rock
03:38and roll so we need to recognize that the impulse of the instinct to want to ban
03:44the the new media that adults don't understand so that I think was what I
03:51addressed and then to what the policymakers are thinking about I would like to
03:59implore all the stakeholders to think about what the actual scientific evidence is
04:07is showing us I think when different countries or policy makers think about banning and restrictions
04:19it is responding to the actual anxieties and very understandable anxieties from parents the well-meaning
04:27adults in society who think that their children are being harmed I think these are well-meaning intentions
04:33but what does the scientific evidence say right the scientific evidence is saying that in general across
04:39all the studies that the moderate use has positive and small impact on young people's lives it is only
04:50when you know there are egregious harms such as child sexual exploitation that we need to respond more strongly
04:59so I think the responses they were thinking about also need to be calibrated to the harms that we are
05:08considering I mean thank you so much for bringing up that point of moral panic because I do feel that
05:14sometimes you know the governments and even the public feel pressured to respond quickly or they want a
05:22a quick response almost reactive response especially when online harm to children makes the headlines right
05:29so when we think about how we have to ground ourselves in an evidence-based response talk to me a little bit
05:36about what children lose or what they risk to lose when our reactions are that reactive when regulations and
05:46policy and the safeguards we want to put in place are almost overly broadly punitive measures if I may use that phrase
05:58how do we think this through yeah I want to I want to first respond to where I think we can be punitive
06:05right I think at the conference at the forum we've heard from many many stakeholders and attendees that child
06:13protection is top of mind is top of mind and certainly when we think of protecting children the most egregious
06:20kinds of harms are child sexual exploitation and abuse and if we can agree then you know the the bans are
06:29probably not the the most effective solution to reduce the child sexual or exploitation material or acts right
06:41what we can do is look at all our legislation and see which ones do we need to update which ones can we make
06:50more punitive to signal that we are serious about the taking the perpetrators of taking the perpetrators of
06:59these online harms to task we need to update our existing legislation that says if you think that you can use
07:07synthetic material to skirt the laws no child sex child sexual exploitation and abuse also includes image
07:17based sexual abuse deep fakes and gen ai materials are all out of bounds and then I think it's where
07:24legislation or legislators can strong send a very strong signal that these acts are wrong and we protect
07:31the children um from the perpetrators who are for me personally doing the most egregious act of robbing the
07:41children of their innocence right so and now can you run me yeah the second the second half of that
07:48question was how important is it that we don't become overly broadly punitive what what do our children
07:56risk if we design online child protection frameworks that are too broad too reactive yeah thank you for
08:04that I get very passionate when I talk about appropriate response and um I think I've heard we've heard quite
08:11a lot from um the wonderful folks at the child rights coalition they've done research and I I um I am
08:20definitely a proponent of evidence-based position and policy making so they have come up with a very
08:27strong research they ask young people and I think the um that's the conversation that we're not having
08:33enough of asking the young people and if you speak to the young people in our region they need the space to
08:40create to connect with people even at 12 years old or 13 years old from different contexts different um countries
08:50right I'm not saying that it should be allowed or it's it's it's okay for everybody but if you hear the
08:56stories of the young people they are connecting online they are finding more importantly they are finding
09:03support where they cannot find um offline we've heard stories of how um a young artist uh cannot find uh people
09:16who appreciate the artists for for who they are uh in real life but online they find support they find um you
09:26know they're the sponsors for their art and they they find a community and if we legislate uh with these
09:33blunt uh tools we take away those opportunities for them to learn we take away the opportunities for
09:39them to relate uh to other young people so we take away the positives as well as the possible negatives
09:46all right so in the minutes that we have left I want to ask you you know based on the um Australia
09:53example so looking at what we can draw from Australia's move uh you talked a little bit just now you
09:59mentioned that it has to be applied in different countries different contexts so when you think
10:05about that um the fundamental contextual differences are there lessons still to be drawn from Australia's
10:13move um in December um I think there is a place for communicating there is a minimum age for using
10:25parts for different uh digital activities and again I return to the research right um if you're talking
10:32if you listen to the pedagogical researchers the child psychologists we know it's clearly um if the
10:40child is too young like below two years old it's best not to expose them to too much screen time none if you
10:48can uh avoid it so um so because it does hamper their the development of their neural pathways physical
10:58activity social activities are more formative at that age and then at two or six they are they are they
11:04are still developing so you expose them um to different digital activities slowly and have a conversation
11:12right I told that story um of how andrew um zabilski so he is professor andrew um zabilski he gives
11:24his children um mobile phones at three years old and then I was like gobsmacked like you he does this is
11:31a professor of technology giving um his children mobile phones at three years old but but there's a caveat
11:38when he gives them the mobile phones at three years old he only allows for the features of viewing
11:44photos so they get the device but they also get to view photos it's like you know leaving through a
11:50photo album in real life and then slowly he adds the features of taking pictures and making calls um but
11:57each feature that he adds comes with a conversation and it's scaffolding the child's um ability and the
12:05developmental stage I think that is the lesson that um uh this phrase came out quite a lot in the forum
12:13which is age appropriate uh measures and for me uh professor zabilski really embodies that right and
12:22he knows that okay at this age this is what I shouldn't do this at this age this is what we can help
12:28scaffold the young people into the digital world that they are going to be living working and learning in
12:36i love that that's a great story thank you so much for sharing that with us uh dr chiu han he there
12:42from the um lee kuan yu school of public policy at nus we're going to take a quick break here and
12:48consider this we'll be back with more on this topic so stay tuned we'll be back
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