Are We Going Backwards? The Impact of Algorithms and Government Inaction

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT [Host] (00:02)

Jas power of women, who do you think of when I say that?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (00:06)

Recently I’ve been following totally different women to those that I’ve been following in the past and these days I gravitate towards a lot of different generations. So either I would think of someone young like a Chanel Contos who’s pretty much, know, I would say, I don’t know, is this fourth wave feminism now that we’re in? Who’s just…

 

really championing so many things for think millennials and even ⁓ younger women. But also I would think of, there’s this incredible Instagram account called Glorious Broads that always celebrates women in their 60s, 70s and 80s and their stories. And I follow all of these ladies along and it just always makes my cup so full of stories that they have to tell.

 

I would say for me it’s not so much necessarily an individual, it’s the variety of women across different age groups that inspire me so much because it tells us the story of how we’re evolving and actually getting better potentially even with age which is something that I think is really…

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (01:33)

Yeah, to be celebrated.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (01:35)

I was about to swear because I’m so sorry. was like, that’s great. So it’s just really fucking cool if you ask me.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (01:38)

All right.

 

Yeah, fantastic.

 

and we’re a storytelling platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life. And there’s a question that keeps surfacing in boardrooms, in policy debates, in the comment section on posts that makes women look at each other and say, did that just happen?

 

The question’s not complicated, but the answer could make you uncomfortable because really the question is, are we going backwards? And joining me today from Sydney to interrogate this is the CEO of Inosian Australia, Jas Bedir. Jas is renowned for delivering fearless campaign work, but more than that, fearless opinions on media, marketing, and its impact on popular culture. JAS BEDIR

 

Welcome to the POWER of WOMEN PODCAST

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (02:52)

Thanks for having me, Di

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (02:54)

Jas, forgetting titles just for a moment, if someone hadn’t Googled you and doesn’t know who you are, what do you say? What’s the elevator pitch?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (03:07)

Hmm. It’s complicated. I think I’m a very left ⁓ leaning, ⁓ socialist feminist woman that is too good at capitalism. So I’ve got this dichotomy of me being wanting all of the good things for all the people in the world and wanting to.

 

⁓ fight for equality, but at the same time being quite instrumental in a hyper capitalist world where I run an advertising and media agency. So, you know, that brings up lots of complicated feelings.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (03:53)

I’m sure it does. But you know, I think that that plays out for so many of us that there would be many who would align themselves with those sentiments. But I appreciate the candidness of that Jas. So let’s start to interrogate just how far women have come or in fact whether we’ve gone backwards. Because as you’ve said, you’ve got this complicated world of

 

advertising and media, gender advocacy, and we can’t forget AI. Does that give you an advantage in the fight or in fact, does it make you complicit?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (04:36)

I think we’re all complicit because at the end of the day, we’re all consumers. ⁓ But I think I’m using the immense privilege that I’ve got and the power that I’ve got to actually extend the letter down sideways and I hold, or I’m trying to hold our industry accountable for most of the things that we are doing. ⁓ At the end of the day, there’s lots of people.

 

just trying to earn a salary. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with profit. ⁓ I always have a problem with things when they become so greedy and so exaggerated. You know, the whole conversation around do we need billionaires? You know, ⁓ you know, education, ⁓ health and everything else for the average person is suffering.

 

Just feels a bit off, you know, I’ve got, I’ve got some strong feelings around that, but yeah, look, ⁓ I think it’s better that I run a business like this over other people, because, you know, I can make sure that we’re doing the right thing. And ⁓ I believe that it’s my responsibility to bring us forward in, my industry when it comes to creating popular narratives for men and women, what kind of, you know, what kind of world we want to live in.

 

making sure that we’re educating our clients accordingly. think, I think there’s some good in everything that we can do basically. So it doesn’t have to be all bad, but when it comes to answering your question around if we’ve made progress, if you would have asked me two years ago, I would have said yes. And if you asked me today, I think we’ve just gone back 20 years.

 

in the last 18 months and it’s very notable and it’s very scary.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (06:36)

What’s the main reason do you think for that regression?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (06:44)

This sounds really kind of almost oversimplified and it’s, it is more complex than my answer is going to be, but it’s a political change from the U S ⁓ it’s basically the, the, the right wing conservatism that ⁓ got Donald Trump into power that then led into

 

⁓ I mean, it’s probably been coming since for about 10 years now, a dog whistle, it opened the gauge, a dog whistle ⁓ to ultra conservative views and basically just combined with hyper capitalist attitudes just got us there very, very quickly so that

 

people feel emboldened to say things out loud that they wouldn’t have said out loud. And you can see now seeping it. You can see it seeping into every aspect of culture.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (07:51)

Yeah, yeah. So mainstream culture would tell us that women have never had it so good. Is that in fact true?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (08:03)

I think multiple things can be true at once in terms of it depends on what, in what context did we have it good, like what, so because we can now have an education, open bank accounts and work, you could also do the, hold a mirror to that and say, women are doing everything now, you know, like we’re doing everything now. And if you

 

If you speak to some women in particular, know, like Gen X’s, cetera, they are, they’re like, well, you know, I’m, done. I’m done with doing everything, including all of the labor, because basically we were told, you know, that would be a great thing that we could be working, et cetera, which is amazing. But then no one else stepped in and actually partnered with us to lessen the load at home and everywhere else. So what is good? You know, what, what, what we’ve never had it so good.

 

Yeah, sure, there’s been progress in lots of things, but ⁓ violence against women is at an all-time high. I mean, yesterday I opened my browser and did you read that CNN report, that investigation with the 62 million men that hit that rape academy website in one month?

 

So this happened, I think, in March already. they found, and CNN undercover investigation found this rape network, so similar to the Giselle Pellico thing, you know. ⁓ But so basically it’s a forum where men online are debating how to drug their wives, their girlfriends, etc., and then film them ⁓ while they are basically ⁓ drugged out, unconscious. ⁓

 

and sharing their content online, debating how to do it, how to, how to invite other men in, et cetera. So they found this network and then it turns out 62 million men in one month.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (10:06)

52 million.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (10:09)

So in many ways, women, the sentence like women have had it never better is, okay, we can have independence in terms of having bank accounts, we could work, we can decide if you want to get a divorce, we can in many ways kind of be in control of our destiny, but are we safer?

 

Yeah, I don’t think so. This stuff has just gone more insidious. It’s now exacerbated by tech.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (10:45)

Has it replaced what Playboy and the like used to do and it’s filled that gap or?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (10:53)

There’s no gap because if you look at the rise of porn, if you look at the rise of porn, you know, ⁓ so this tells you, know, the, the, when they introduced the age verification for porn a couple of weeks ago. ⁓ so all of a sudden you cannot, you cannot get onto you. You have to register. You have to disclose your details. All of sudden the downloads of VPNs through the roof.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (11:20)

When

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (11:22)

highest amount of downloads ahead of any AI tool that you could possibly see. and we know that porn consumption is a majority male. So I don’t think there is, this stuff has just always been there. It’s the narrative of, ⁓ it’s just a few men.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (11:45)

It’s not.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (11:46)

It’s not just a few men. It’s not just a few men.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (11:51)

This isn’t just satisfying a reasonably voracious sexual appetite. This is depraved.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (12:02)

Yeah, it’s not just a probe, but I think there was another survey this month where I think it’s an Australian one, we must find it, where they asked and rephrased in a questionnaire and Australian men around their attitudes towards ⁓ sex with young women. And I think it was actually underage, so kids basically, basically paedophilia. And it turns out that one in three men would then in the questionnaire admit to

 

having no issue with that.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (12:37)

Okay.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (12:39)

Yeah, we might need to trigger warning.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (12:41)

We

 

might need a trigger warning and back to that question, have we gone backwards according to the two examples you’ve just played out? There’s no progress there.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (12:52)

There’s no, there’s no progress. I think the progress was, ⁓ it was rights in terms of, yeah, we got rights, but with that, also got all of the accountability. Do you know what mean? Like it’s, it was very much like, well, you want it to work if you’re then still not happy because you know, you have to do everything at home as well at the same time. You know, that’s where the tread wife movement comes in and goes, maybe we didn’t need a job.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (12:56)

rights.

 

See you.

 

Yeah.

 

And you said it before, Jas, because you said we got the rights but we didn’t get a partnership. And that’s the big piece that’s missing. And I keep talking about the need to level the playing field and leveling the playing field and partnership go hand in hand. But there’s a real imbalance there.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (13:28)

No, we did not.

 

There’s a real about so partnership for me is also so if we don’t get more men in the workplace demanding paternity leave and understanding that nurturing and caring for kids is something that adds to their life and they are not willing to fight for it. Yeah. Nothing will change for us. Right. So you know, it’s it’s if you don’t get the men on the journey and if you don’t get good men, this always just just makes me makes me so angry. The good men.

 

that define themselves as the ones that are saying, it’s not all men. You know, I’m not raping anyone. I’m not doing anything horrendous. I’m always like, but you’re not doing anything. You’re not doing anything. I’m not outraged. I don’t hear anyone outraged about what I just told you. You know, where are you? Why are you not on the streets with pitchforks? Why are you not demanding this change? So if you’re not doing anything, you’re not a good guy. You’re just a guy.

 

You are literally enabling the patriarchy and you’re very happy with the status quo as it is because nothing is wrong for you because you don’t care. That’s it. That’s literally it. And when you look at it that way, it’s not good.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (14:56)

No, no, it’s not. It’s not because it’s, it’s, it’s like complaining about anything, but not being prepared to step forward and do do something about it. But again, it’s not a partnership because it’s the women calling out these horrendous scenarios. And to your point, men who aren’t complicit standing by and still letting it happen.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (15:18)

Yeah, ⁓ they’re letting it happen. And then if you look at the dismantling of abortion rights and how we’re going, I mean.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (15:29)

Yeah.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (15:31)

And you can see it, you can, you can see it everywhere. All of the women that I talk to, all of my kind of feminists, I got, they’ve all gone quiet and they’ve gone quiet because we are also in an economic contraction. women are the first ones to be managed out, you know, your maternity leave, all of a sudden your job gets made redundant or there’s other reasons. So it’s like boys protecting the jobs for the boys. The women are the first ones to go. Everyone knows this and also all of a sudden it’s no longer palatable.

 

It’s no longer, it was du jour and it was somewhat being seen as progressive to ⁓ have women in leadership positions and do all sorts of investment in that. That’s now gone because we have the tech bros, like the Zuckerbergs of the world saying that we need more masculinity in boardrooms and all of this bullshit basically.

 

everyone just says, okay, this is what it is now. So D and I is done. You know, it’s done. So we’re no longer investing in that. and also, look, we’re too wide women talking about this, right? Let’s just be real. This also, I mean, for us, being white, I’m not really that wide, though, but

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (16:46)

Well, you’ve got more cultural diversity in your lineage than I do.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (16:50)

But still, you know, like basically, I’m cosplaying as white anyway, right? You know, because I’m half German, half Turkish. went with the, I’m German because it’s more palatable and cute in this country than, know, and so efficient apparently. But I digress. You know, it’s, but it was basically a, we’re done with D and I. So imagine being a woman of color in particular, when you’re looking at the U.S. what’s happening there.

 

In particular where they are like literally taking night to debating birth rights and everything else, then abortion rights, then being dismantled from basically systemically removed, women’s achievements removed from websites.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (17:39)

Well, cancer coaches alive and well.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (17:43)

And then again, you know, it just makes me laugh. I mean, it’s sad, but you know, we’re looking at Epstein, the person that’s in prison is a woman.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (17:52)

Yes. mean, yeah. Yeah. And we’ve, and we’ve, and we’ve got complicit men already named and called out still doing what they do. I mean, the irony, the irony in that I haven’t actually thought of it like that before of, all of, all of the shit that’s gone down and the person in prison is female.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (18:05)

Nothing.

 

Yeah, it always is. It’s like you find this all the time. find there were situations in Australia where you had like a female news channel host who had a little bit of a scandal happening, do anything illegal. She got fired immediately. But meanwhile, you have like the likes of Ben Cousins, know, convicted domestic violence offender who was given a TV gig, you know, you’re like, you know, but hey, you guys are

 

Yeah, I mean, what do I say?

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (18:50)

Yeah.

 

So if we consider there is potentially a backlash for the idea that the progress women have made could trigger a counter movement, are we at that inflection point, are we triggering a counter movement because our progress is not readily accepted by the other sex?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (19:15)

Yeah, I think it’s, but this is also largely now driven by tech and economic.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (19:22)

That’s the core culprit.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (19:23)

Yeah,

 

1. it’s it’s I don’t necessarily tech in itself is great. It’s tech. It’s the lack of regulation of

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (19:32)

Yeah,

 

which we’ll talk about further.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (19:35)

And together then with it’s basically the worst human attitudes exacerbated by algorithms and technology and exploited for capsule gains. is.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (19:50)

So we

 

are at an inflection point where we have the potential to go way backwards if we’re not regulating that again. We’ll get into that shortly. But this is the moment where we’ve all got to act.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (20:03)

⁓ but a hundred percent, this is the moment that we all got to act. And this is the difficult bit because, you know, also in times where people have mortgage stress, all sorts of cost of living worries. everyone’s got so many problems. The focus is diverted and we’re all addicted now to, ⁓ to our phones and to that quick dopamine release. And you have to be really, really strong.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (20:17)

Heard it elsewhere.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (20:30)

and resilient to practice restraint. You really have to be courageous and have conviction to do something and speak up about it because that could be potentially be risky, you know, so it would be amazing. What we really need is female billionaires that are progressive and want to do good.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (20:33)

Yeah.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (20:59)

and use their money and power to dismantle these hyper capitalist patriarchal structures.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (21:12)

Yeah, and we need female tech fems because we’ve only got tech bros.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (21:18)

The funding for tech startups, for female tech startups has gone backwards year on year, every year. I think we’re now looking at something ridiculous like 2 % now. It’s going backwards. It’s not going forwards. Because we must all be so terrible, right? We must be so terrible what we’re doing in all of our jobs as women, you know, that we can’t get funding. And they can’t, you know, the bias is outrageous.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (21:33)

Yeah, I’ve spoken

 

Yeah, well I was speaking the other week with Jane Smarovna Ková who founded WELTERY 10 years ago, 10 years ago almost to the day. And no funding available ⁓ for females, had to go to low. Now 10 years on, doing well, reaching millions of users, but it’s a classic example of a female tech-led platform that couldn’t get funding.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (22:14)

It’s awful.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (22:15)

Yep, that’s ridiculous. Well coming up, we’re going to name What’s Driving Discrimination.

 

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcasts, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode.

 

So I’m talking with Jas Bedir CEO of Innocean in Australia and founder of Fck the Cupcakes. So Jas, we’re going to talk about the continuum of progress that women are on. Where are we on that continuum of progress?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (22:58)

⁓ Di you got me on a bad day today. know, could say I was like…

 

I don’t know, like, you know, it’s it.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (23:11)

We keep going up and down. It’s not static. Like anything, it’s not a straight line, but it’s certainly not statically going forward.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (23:20)

Right now we’re going backwards real quick. That being said, I get my energy from rage. It’s probably, it tells you everything about my childhood trauma. ⁓ it’s probably not a healthy way of, I, I start writing and doing activism when I’m angry, when I’m like, something needs to change, something needs to happen. This is not right kind of place, right? Obviously it would be much more wholesome if it came from a place of positivity.

 

but at the moment we are regressing really quickly. That being said, if we all band together on this, we might be able to turn this around again.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (24:10)

Yeah. Yeah. That’s the reality. So, so let’s talk about the intersection of, of technology and, and gender. we touched on it earlier. but this is where I really want to sort of peel it open a bit further. Do AI algorithms actively discriminate against women?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (24:34)

⁓ Yes and no. So it’s more complicated than that. So even before AI or any of the AI palaver that we had over the last couple of years in chat, GPT, et cetera, algorithms are one problem. And when you then overlay algorithms with AI and all of the biases that AI has pretty much ingested,

 

It gets worse. So the majority of biases are coming from proxy bias. So the data that the large language models have ingested are going back decades and decades and decades. So, you know, the idea of what a successful person looks like from the 1950s to the 1960s, then kind of biases it because there’s not enough data of the current status quo in the sheer scale.

 

that would kind of level the playing field for us. So therefore we had this whole, there’s this LinkedIn algorithm problem where LinkedIn came out and said, no, there is no bias against women. I’m currently a man on LinkedIn. I’ve had to change my gender so you can’t see it in the back. Yeah, I’ve got no reach anymore. And when I’m talking about diversity and inclusion, that would immediately get down weighted. That’s a topic that is not popular or that they believe

 

Is not popular and their algorithm gets down weighted. So when I talk about business, gets a lot of attention. If I’m talking about business as a man, I immediately get like.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (26:11)

And

 

if you write in range, you buggered.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (26:14)

Yes.

 

So that’s the thing, but that’s not because the algorithm itself is not discriminating. It is the data that has gone into the training of it. So the proxy bias around what a successful individual looks like, which is therefore, I mean, it biases therefore against women, but it will also be people of color, et cetera. So all of the isms that you could possibly imagine would be in that data.

 

and will be now being used against us.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (26:46)

So how do we correct that? I mean that in itself suggests that we’re going to regress further because it’s delving back into history that we’ve had to re-validate and approve. how do we take that sexism out of what it’s ingesting?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (27:07)

So there is a couple of really, ⁓ first of all, ethical AI ⁓ is probably the usage of ethical AI is probably a good starting point, know, you only need to look at, know.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (27:20)

Can you one versus the other platform to start with for that? You can.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (27:24)

You know, if you look at the Amodase and how they’re running Anthropic, that’s probably a very different kind of approach to Sam Oldman who literally wants to end the world. Correct. So that’s, that’s one way, but also with ⁓ women using AI themselves and training large language models and making sure that the right data gets ingested. That’s what we will need.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (27:35)

I which one I’m not using.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (27:54)

Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (27:55)

God, we’ve got a lot of writing to do. ⁓

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (27:58)

We’ve got lot

 

of writing creation, et cetera, to do. there we need regulation. We need the disclosure. We need governments to regulate the disclosure of what is in the tech and what it’s doing and actively forcing organizations to do something about it and adjust things. Right. So, but I think the, the, so that’s the whole AI thing. If you talk about algorithms, algorithms in it,

 

in themselves are also as a problem, right? It’s this whole, people don’t actually understand the entire media supply chain, which is for me, it’s quite interesting, because that’s what I every day, right? So we buy media, we create messages and media. If you look at social media, used to be social media. ⁓ And that was great, you know, find your friends around the world when it all started. and then it became

 

so commercial and it was all about selling more things to more people and reaching them. And algorithms were supposed to be a way to work for you. So you would get a curated feed based on your interests. But it’s now gone to a point where it’s about exploiting all of your vulnerabilities and selling to you no matter what.

 

So if you are worried about your looks, there will be a sea of beauty solutions coming your way, which are mostly unhinged, which you could not do in a broadcast environment. could never put ads like that on TV or sell products like that. But on the internet, it’s entirely possible. you’re to teenage…

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (29:41)

11

 

year olds putting retinol on their skin. Correct.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (29:45)

We

 

have got nine year olds beauty regimes, right? We have lonely men that haven’t had great role models in their life that are being sold the manosphere as a, know, it’s all products with credit cards. You know, it’s all selling. If you, I don’t know, you developed, you have a new hobby. I mean, I’ve got 75 different variations of golf shoes coming at me at the moment, you know, and so

 

So that’s happening. And then the algorithm does something else as well. It just basically just you click on the one thing. So it’s all it’s all basically about commercialization. But then it keeps feeding you the same stuff. Right. So you click on one donkey, all of a sudden, I’ve got donkeys everywhere. So, ⁓ you know, if you look at what my feet would look like, you can’t you would think like, this is a schizophrenic version, ⁓ a person but

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (30:40)

He used to golf shoes, yes.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (30:42)

Donkeys to golf shoes and feminist content, right? So if I wasn’t actively, actively seeking other opinions, I would just be surrounded in my feminist echo chamber. imagine this being the menosphere or imagine this. Because this stuff is mimetic, right? After a while, I’m thinking I need a donkey and I need golf shoes and I am going deeper into my echo chambers.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (30:56)

That’s where it

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (31:08)

So it actually is the opposite of social. brings us further apart. That whole ecosystem is funded by brands. So because all of that.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (31:20)

to the culprits because that’s what I was going to ask who are the who are the major culprits

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (31:25)

So that it’s a structural it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s hyper capitalist right but because social media took away from news media legacy news media so from the broadcast is from the TV’s from the TV shows etc. So if the audience no longer watches TV brands need to find a different way to sell right so everyone gravitated towards social media then also the little I don’t know let’s say smaller brands.

 

had a success or had the opportunity to grow through social because you didn’t need the large budgets that you had as a massive FMCG ⁓ company to sell your stuff. But it’s also completely unregulated. Like no rules around what you can say, et cetera. But that’s then where the money went. So that all of a sudden big brands went, okay, I also need to now be in social media. So funneling more money into that to get eyeballs. Then big tech companies closed it all off and said, this is a walled garden.

 

We’re not telling you what we’re doing here, but you need to give us all of your money to reach your consumers, your own consumers to reach them. We are raising year on year the price. Just like, because they can, because they have massive amounts of audiences. So brands all of a sudden became kind of, help are being held hostage by the big tech companies. It’s actually, it’s the Google submitters, the everyone, the TikToks, the

 

What have you not the Amazons and now in the future also the AI platforms because they’re now going to be introducing ads and make, you know, so you’re like, all of a sudden brands have to feel like they have to pull more money into this because they can’t reach their own customers anywhere else. by funneling more and more into it, news media gets eroded even further. Independent journalism gets eroded.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (33:17)

try selling a TV in 10 years time.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (33:21)

⁓

 

it’s just a screen where you consume everything and now you’ve got the glasses and everything else. That’s weird. We all collectively have let that happen because the government didn’t regulate it. Didn’t put on the same rules that we have. We have ad standards for us to make an ad and get it onto TV is actually really difficult. You know, you’ve got to make sure that you are in the right age slot. So you’re not doing, saying anything harmful to children.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (33:27)

But yeah.

 

because we’ve

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (33:49)

You gotta make sure that you’re not depicting anything dangerous, cetera. You can put anything on social media or non-digital, you know, like.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (33:57)

I know if I look to do Google advertising on YouTube, the only thing it regulates is politics. Everything else is open slather.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (34:08)

The algorithm goes where it’s a rage-baity and optimized for engagement. So it favors, it wants to keep you on platform at all costs. And you know that sometimes you’re like, how did I just look 20 for 23 minutes at donkeys and golf shoes?

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (34:26)

Well, it’s like, why do I shop via Instagram at 11pm at night?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (34:31)

Did I really need this dress or this swimsuit or whatever it may be, right? So that is exploiting our human behavior and selling is all of our vulnerabilities, but it also does it with the most outrageous content and it’s short click-baity kind of stuff and it’s designed for that. Hence TV shows are now following the same thing because people, that clearly works. So everyone’s now mimicking this

 

kind of outrageous behavior. So we are just creating, this is getting worse and worse and worse.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (35:06)

You can buy an ad space for $550 to do it. Yeah.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (35:10)

Yeah,

 

that’s the problem. So the problem is complex. It’s the entire supply chain of media advertising, marketing and brands. It is much bigger than that. It’s the entire construct. But ⁓ if we had regulation and the government would say, okay, we’re asking the tech companies to disclose their algorithms and make it, ⁓ make it not the default. So basically you would need to opt in.

 

And you can toggle in and out of it if you want to, because maybe sometimes you want donkeys and golf shoes and just coming at you like on this sushi train of stuff coming at you. If that’s what you want, sure. But there needs to be a version also where this is switched off. So we’re leveling the playing field and making sure that we’re protecting people from this avalanche of stuff.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (36:04)

So coming back to the question of how do you describe yourself and you said it’s complicated, there’s why. mean, God forbid, it’s complicated, but at least you’re inside an industry that is talking directly to the marketplace that you can start to be the point of change. think.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (36:27)

I

 

don’t know if I, to be honest, I don’t think me little Jasmine here is not going to make a difference. My hope is that.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (36:34)

but hopefully it is a lot more than just you.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (36:36)

us band together and just no problem with tech, but get our government to put the guardrails in the same way that we were protected by seat belts, alcohol regulations and everything else and ad standards. Can we please have this for the tech platforms? You know, it’s so

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (36:59)

What

 

specifically then, if that be the case, what specifically should government be mandating right now? Can you give us a non-negotiable list that could address

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (37:09)

Disclosure

 

disclosure of algorithms and the option to not make it make that the default. So I’m actually to be honest, I’m not the right. I’m usually the one that is really good and saying this is a problem. And I’m the one that brings people together and create some noise. there’s these, you know, I mentioned Chanel contos earlier, she’s at the moment she did teachers consent, you know, she was she’s an activist in the consent space that led her down to doing fix our feeds.

 

because young boys have been targeted misogynistic content within 23 minutes on a tech lab.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (37:42)

Yeah, well the menace fear tells us that.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (37:44)

So she is doing Fix Our Feats, which is a project to demand algorithmic regulation from the government. So basically saying what I’m saying. So she’s got a specific campaign around that. There’s some really, really smart. Yes, she’s really impressive. And we need more of that. There is some laws being passed down in the EU now that also have to do with privacy regulation.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (37:59)

aggressive.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (38:12)

So there’s stuff happening around the world and there is a tipping point at the moment where, ⁓ you know, Metta was sued for ⁓ being addictive in the US, have been some court cases. So there is a moment, I think in particular with us in Australia to keep pushing. So educating yourself on what algorithms are doing to you. ⁓

 

would be the number one thing. And the second thing is let’s all support fix our feet because even if it’s her ankle is around misogyny, but if that gets regulated, this will have an impact on everything. All of the stuff, all of the hideousness.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (38:54)

I’m going to add a link in the show notes to that Fix Our Feeds, because that’s powerful. Because if I said to you, collectively, what can women do today? Supporting that. Yep. Yep. I am taking the notes down to make that happen. That’s part of an action. Okay.

 

Some rapid fire questions to either keep you in the sense of rage, Jas, or try and alleviate it. I could go either way here. So government regulation of AI, real within five years or are we dreaming?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (39:41)

think it’s real.

 

I think it’s real if we all ask for it.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (39:48)

Yeah. Yep. And keep pushing. You said we’re at that point. Let’s keep pushing. Yep. Can you name a prominent male figure who gets this from, when I say gets this, what we’re facing as women?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (40:06)

Yes, there’s a few in Australia that give me ⁓ some hope. I’m just not sure where they’re going to take it. There’s a couple of sort of social media figures. Will Hitchens is one. He’s a comedian. He does incredible posts. There’s Luke Bateman ⁓ who is, I mean, there’s this, I think he’s in his 30s, this guy that

 

reads books, likes reading books, is a former NRL player and talks a lot about masculinity, etc. ⁓ There is a few. There’s also a couple of the radio hosts. ⁓ Fitzy from Nova, he’s a good one.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (40:55)

Which is incredible because they could have gone the other way. People like that could have so easily gone the other way.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (41:00)

But is it enough? No, it’s not enough. It’s…

 

It’s not enough by any stretch of the imagination. There is a bit of a ground movement with ⁓ kind of younger men, men in their 30s that are now having children ⁓ that are more progressive that where I’ve got some hope. ⁓

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (41:26)

My last question today, you’re in a room full of 25 year old women who are just starting out. One sentence for them.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (41:36)

You don’t have to do the things that you were told you have to do. You don’t have to get married. You don’t have to don’t fall. Say no. You can say no to all of the societal nonsense that has been ⁓ served us or served up to us as the

 

as a blueprint of what a woman is.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (42:09)

and wrap that all back to your cultural heritage and you must be going like this half the time. And what you do. I’m not going to ask you what keeps you awake at night, Jess, because I don’t know we’ve got long enough.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (42:23)

To be honest, you’d be surprised to hear my answer to that. I actually sleep really well. Surprisingly, all things considered, it’s like I’m at peace. I’m at peace with what I can do. you know, I do my bit.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (42:30)

There you go.

 

Yeah, yeah, well, you’re certainly not sitting back. mean, we, we, know that. So yeah, I am pleased with that. Jas, if somebody wants to engage your services, where do they find you?

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (42:51)

That’s also true.

 

They find me always on LinkedIn disguised as a man.

 

they find me, ⁓ at an ocean on our website or also to fuck the cupcakes. So if anyone wants to hate on some baked goods, performative baked goods, ⁓ you might come and find me. We can do that together. And.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (43:23)

I’ve never called somebody a performative baked good before, but I think I’m going to start.

 

JAS BEDIR [Guest] (43:29)

How good is that? Performative baked goods, right? Yeah. That’s where you find me.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (43:35)

Brilliant, and we’ll put that in the show notes and we’re also going to our feeds into the show notes too because if this episode lit something in you, don’t go quiet and take some action. And I think exactly to your point, Jas, getting behind initiatives such as that is exactly what more of us need to do. And I mean, that’s why the power of women exists, to have these type of conversations.

 

to be heard, be shared and to be acted upon. So please be sure to follow the podcast. And I do think this is one of those ones where you need to share. And despite the fact that I believe I’m interviewing a woman, I might just not be according to her LinkedIn profile. So let’s see how that plays out on the algorithm and see what it does with that.

 

But thank you so much for joining us today, Jas. Loved the conversation. Could keep going, infinitum. Until next time.