Government v the internet: Albanese eyes algorithm ‘off switch’

It’s the Australian government versus big tech yet again in parliament this week, with Labor planning to introduce a bill that would tackle online harm and hand back control of social media algorithms to users. It comes as toxic online content is increasingly linked to violent sexualised behaviour in young men.But is what we see on social media a matter for a government? Or has the algorithm become so out of hand that guardrails need to be put in place? Today's guest is federal bureau chief Michelle Griffin.Background reading: Hardline free-speech campaigners demand Coalition block Labor’s latest social media plan   The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your podcasts.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a dramatic fall from grace for a brand that had taken the world by storm by making sunscreen sexy, with influencers around the globe extolling how flawlessly the products wore under make-up and felt virtually undetectable on the skin.Today, lifestyle reporter Lauren Ironmonger and business reporter Jessica Yun talk about the fallout a year on from the Choice findings, and whether the safety of sunscreens in Australia has been improved. Further reading: 'It took two Aussie entrepreneurs six years to build a cult sunscreen brand. Then it came crashing down ' The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week’s episode, we dissect Labor’s brutal loss to One Nation in a supposedly safe seat in Western Australia. Does this byelection really signify, as victor Luke Herdegen put it, that no MP is safe from the “orange tsunami”? One Liberal MP who is worried is Andrew Hastie. Liberal strategists have been telling us his stance against accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith may cause voters in his electorate to defect to One Nation. Also, this week One Nation leader Pauline Hanson claimed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s rhetoric was fuelling violence towards her. Is this a bit rich coming from someone who is so divisive? Or should we be looking at threats to politicians more seriously? Today’s episode is hosted, as usual, by Jacqueline Maley with chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal. Today's guest is WAtoday state political reporter Hamish Hastie. Cut through the noise of federal politics with host Jacqueline Maley and chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal on Inside Politics, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, every Friday. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In terms of criminal jury trials, what unfolded in the infamous death cap mushroom case was unique.Because when the jury was locked away from the outside world to consider a verdict, they were staying in the same hotel, in the same country town, as the police who investigated the case, the lawyers who prosecuted, and the media reporting on it. This strange arrangement has opened the case to suggestions that the jury was tainted – a central tenet of Erin Patterson’s appeal against her conviction. Patterson was sentenced to life imprisonment last year, with a non-parole period of 33 years, for serving a poisoned beef Wellington lunch to her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson and her Baptist pastor husband Ian Wilkinson. Today, crime and justice reporter Erin Pearson and senior reporter Chris Vedelago on the curious case of the mushroom murder jury.   Background reading: Erin Patterson, the jury hotel and the curious case of the missing CCTV   The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fashion designer John Galliano announced yesterday that he would step away from being honoured with a retrospective at next year’s illustrious Met Gala, the so-called Oscars of the fashion world.Many had hailed Galliano as one of modern history's most important fashion designers, but he was also, as fashion insider Amy Odell puts it, "the industry's most famous antisemite”. Today Odell, author of Anna, a biography of former Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, and the host of The Back Row podcast, talks about whether Galliano’s cancellation was fair and if it was a wider rebuke to an industry known for tolerating bad behaviour.   The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Six days ago, a massive flash flood descended like an avalanche through villages and towns on the Nepal-Tibet border, sweeping away homes, roads and bridges.Hundreds of people are dead and thousands are missing, including 43 Australians.Joining us today is South-East Asia correspondent Zach Hope, who is reporting from the disaster zone in Nepal. Background reading: ‘I must look for my sons’: A farmer’s extraordinary survival in Nepal   The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’ve applied for a job in the past few years, you may have been humiliated by an AI program. Maybe while it interviewed you. Or threw out your CV.But lately, as AI recruitment programs have become way more sophisticated, so, too, have job hunters, enlisting AI agents of their own.Today, freelance writer Stephanie Wood on new ways that AI can discriminate against workers. And the best way to nab a job.Read Stephanie's feature here.The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Egg freezing has become a popular choice for more and more young women, many of whom are looking for something of an insurance policy against missing out on becoming a mother.It’s become big business, which means fertility companies are beholden not just to their patients, but also to their shareholders.Today, reporter Bronte Gossling and deputy lifestyle editor Courtney Thompson discuss the latest data on egg freezing, as well as what it’s actually like for the women who undergo it.Background reading: ‘Social egg freezing’ is on the rise, but at what cost? The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am.If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we reported on some interesting polling that grappled with what makes One Nation voters tick, and one issue stood out. There’s also been an argy-bargy in the party this week over immigration numbers, the net result of which being, perhaps, that One Nation is not totally against migration.  Meanwhile, the Labor government is yet to announce its migration plan and which visa classes it may cut, but the early talk of deportation of migrants sent shockwaves through some communities. Finally, we also talk about the AI data centres cropping up in Australian communities. Are they worth the investment and the energy drain? Today’s conversation is hosted by Jacqueline Maley, with chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal.   Background reading:  1000 One Nation voters said why they were voting for Hanson – and what it would take to switch Albanese tells Queensland to get with the program on AI revolution   If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.    Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When news broke last week that America’s national debt had surged to a record high of $US40 trillion, it was notable enough. If the US economy shakes, the rest of the globe feels it. And then came the kicker: Donald Trump suggested he could use the military to stage an “intervention” on bond markets. Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher discusses the declining global confidence in the American dollar and the US Treasury – and what Trump will have to do to avoid a global financial crisis.   Background reading: How is Trump weakening American power? Let me count the ways   The Morning Edition brings you the story behind the story with the best journalists in Australia. Join host Samantha Selinger-Morris, from the newsrooms of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, weekdays from 5am. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, rate, review and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or whichever platform you find your pods.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.