FEED: You mentioned policies vs practice. Can you explain why trying to action laws in this field is so challenging?
DAISY SODERBERG-RIVKIN: Online safety is an ever-changing and nuanced area. The reason is, it’s easy to put a red line on things that are completely illegal – like CSAM for example, where there isn’t really much need for a debate over whether it’s good or bad. It’s something that society deems wrong. Where it gets difficult are those grey areas, so things that are not necessarily illegal, but some deem harmful. That’s where things get complicated because it’s subjective. What that comes down to is how that
company you’re working for looks at that type of issue. I break things down in terms of having three groups: the company, the public and the government, which ultimately comprises three different perspectives. From a company perspective, private enterprises can allow or not allow whatever they want – short of anything illegal. Governments then come in and say, ‘but these things are harmful to kids. We’ve seen studies, we’ve seen this – we’ve seen that’, trying to pressurise those companies
into doing more. They subsequently try to come up with these regulations that reflect the determination that things related to children’s safety online are important. But what they don’t think about so much is how it will go in practice. The conversation often falls short at ‘what do you think is enough?’ because the answer will be different from one regulator to another, right? Because of personal preferences. Someone who might be religious may have a different idea of what should be shown, versus someone who isn’t.
“WHERE IT GETS DIFFICULT ARE GREY AREAS, NOT NECESSARILY ILLEGAL, BUT DEEMED HARMFUL”
SPREADING THE WORD Daisy Soderberg-Rivkin speaking at Mediatel’s The Future of Gaming event in 2022, which the FEED team was fortunate enough to attend
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