← Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
'We're appeasing the tech bros': Beeban Kidron, from film-maker to lawmaker
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What links Bridget Jones to social media regulation?
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- [00:00]
BBC Announcer
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- [01:05]
Nick Robinson
hello and welcome to Political Thinking. One middle aged woman against Silicon Valley. That's how my guest on Political Thinking this week was described by none other than her husband. Baroness Beben Kidron has spent the past 13 years warning about the unregulated, concentrated commercial power of giant US tech companies. She led the campaign to force them to alter their products to protect children. But now she wants them to go much further and indeed to protect us all. A multi award winning documentary maker, director of TV dramas like Oranges Are not the Only Fruit and the Hollywood blockbuster the sequel to Bridget Jones, she now directs events in the real world from her seat in the House of Lords where she's a crossbencher that is not a member of any political party. Baroness Beeben Kidron, welcome to Political Thinking.
- [02:04]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Great to be here.
- [02:06]
Nick Robinson
Your husband's words. You against the tech companies. Is that how it's felt for these long 13 years?
- [02:12]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I think it has. I used to someday say if you, if they find me at the bottom of the Thames, it's Facebook what done it. But yeah, no it has. And, and I think it, you know, it has been a remarkable journey in the sense of I think everyone's caught up now. You know, we all know there's a problem with tech and so now we're moving to what are we going to do about it.
- [02:32]
Nick Robinson
Yeah, what? Not the weather. When you heard the Prime Minister this week say no platform gets a free pass, he said, trying to sound tough, it seemed to me against those tech companies. Did you welcome a sinner repenteth or do you think it's all a bit late?
- [02:47]
BBC Announcer
Really?
- [02:48]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Oh, you know, I mean, fantastic Great. Put his shoulder to the wheel. Why not? We need everybody, but a bit late to the party. And I have to say, a lot of the things they announced on Monday are sitting in legislation in the Lords and they could accept next Monday.
- [03:06]
Nick Robinson
That's presumably part of the reason he gave the speech. He did. He's nervous that you. That others, like the Conservative Lord Nash, are trying to rush the Government, trying to get a change passed and passed straight away.
- [03:19]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah, but I think this is the point. You said it in your introduction, we're 13 years too late to this, and so we're not rushing. And what's really difficult is that again and again we hear ministers saying, oh, it moves so fast, it's so difficult, we can't do it. And yet they're rejecting things that would have stopped grok, that would have stopped aic, Sam, child sexual abuse, that would have stopped things that people out there once stopped.
- [03:46]
Nick Robinson
But some of what he said this week, I imagine, was, well, can you talk the Prime Minister, of bringing new powers, giving us the ability to crack down on the addictive elements, social media. He said, if that means a big fight with the big social media companies, then bring it on. That's the words you want to hear, isn't it?
- [04:02]
BBC Announcer
It is.
- [04:02]
Baroness Beben Kidron
And I do think in politics, we really have to be careful, you know, just because you're late to the party and just because we wish it had happened before. Yes, yes, we welcome it. But now get on with it, because this is a government that has 81 open consultations, and if you look at the small print, you. It was a consultation. He was announcing, not real powers. And he could do that. He could do that next week when we get back.
- [04:30]
Nick Robinson
He reminds us from time to time that he's the parent of teenage children. Have you had this conversation with him?
- [04:36]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I haven't had that conversation with him. I've had other conversations with him, but I don't think that anybody is an expert because they have their own children. And I think it's one of the big mistakes we make is we have to look at it at population level, we have to look at all children and see what's happening to all children as a generation, as a group. And I think his children are very particularly sheltered. He is the Prime Minister. He has two working parents with education and access to all the information in the world, and nothing that untoward might happen to his individual children. That's not the experience of children at large. And I think he's careless in putting it through the lens of his own children because that shows a lack of imagination and a lack of political understanding of the realities of many people's lives.
- [05:36]
Nick Robinson
So spell out those realities. We'll come on later to what might be done about it. But what is the reality we're confronting as a society, as a country that you think we really have to wake up to?
- [05:47]
Baroness Beben Kidron
So I think if you start in early years, we are literally addicting babies and toddlers to very fast cut, very deliberately addictive products that actually inhibits their ability to access language, to move, to socialize and so on. So we have a development, sort of almost like a pandemic awaiting us. And if you talk about early years, you go, government, where are you on that piece of the conversation? So busy thinking about teenagers now. So that's the first thing we are putting tech into, into the hands of very young children. We're putting tech into our schools that is untried and untested and we are taking away the places and spaces that children need to grow up. Then we move on to the actual harms. There are the addictions to which you've already referred to. And I think that people need to understand that this is deliberately designed to be compulsive. I doubt if there's anyone listening to this who hasn't had the call of the phone, feeling that they must just touch it, actually pick it up and realize you just touched it a second ago. Of course you haven't got another message.
- [07:04]
Nick Robinson
I don't actually know why you did it.
- [07:06]
Baroness Beben Kidron
You don't know why you did it. That unconscious attraction to your phone is deliberately pushed in. And I was recently in Berlin and someone from one of the big tech companies said, oh yes, we're working on dopamine loops. Eight seconds now. Every eight seconds we send you a dopamine rush that helps you stay addicted. And then you've got all the harmful, actual harmful things. And they go into different sets of things from radicalization to gaming to self harm to all sorts of content things. And then finally, and I think maybe most importantly, ultimately, we're looking at a sort of a destruction of democracy and an interruption of economic life at scale, at scale that is really extracting money out of the UK and landing it quite happily in Silicon Valley.
- [08:02]
Nick Robinson
I want to come on to what you do about all of this in a second, but I want to start with what you wouldn't do. Because it seems to me what's really given it a push now is what the Australians have done, the ban on social media for the under 16s and I remember doing interviews, news interviews, about that. At the time, it was pretty clear, even as they passed the law, they didn't really know what they were doing there. I don't mean that rudely. It was like there was a headline initiative without the detail and the policy work having been done. You think it's not the right approach, don't you?
- [08:32]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Why? Listen, I think it's really important to be nuanced, so can I just start by commending all the parents and all the activists who have brought this forward because they're desperate and they don't want their kids to have this stuff, And I think that that is something that we all need to listen to very carefully. Now, my own personal view is that we are in a digital world. We have an AI future and we can't uninvite the next generation. We have to let them participate in that. But I do think that access to children should be conditional, and it should be conditional on respecting their rights, on keeping them safe, on actually not addicting them, and not extracting economic value out of their behaviour.
- [09:19]
Nick Robinson
So, put simply, you don't want to ban the phone, you don't want to ban social media, you want to change the product. The product for all of us, but particularly for the under 16s under 18.
- [09:26]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah, it's almost like, ban the company, not the kid. You know, if you really want it down to basics. But I think that my colleagues in the Lords are actually very keen on that. And sometimes you have to have a public campaign that says enough in order to get exactly where you need to be.
- [09:43]
Nick Robinson
Let's talk about how you got here before we talk about the detail of policy. Now, it's a route that takes you through documentary making, through filmmaking, into the House of Lords. And you've compared your two lives, if it is only two lives, and said that in a way, in a film, when you're directing a film, you need to know the end point before you start to raise the money. But the same is true of a political campaign. So what's the end point? What are you hoping for if Beben Kidron and others succeed?
- [10:15]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I think we need a digital world that actually reflects our values, reflects our laws and actually looks after the people who use it. And it's not some fantasy, you know, of a perfect world. It's actually just really normal. It's like taking a technological advance. This is what always happens. The robber barons go in first, they make a lot of money, they tell you why they are different this time, and then gradually and surely the Mass of people, whether it is a democracy or some other system, says, oh, actually, you're hurting us. I think we'll stop you doing this, we'll stop you doing that. We'd like you to do this. And actually, you can't take all the money. We'd like a bit for ourselves and that is where we have to go. So it's a concerted effort to demand that we the people, have a say on the technology development and deployed in our world.
- [11:17]
Nick Robinson
It's fascinating to hear you talk about the robber barons, about taking on the companies, joking about being filmed in the bottom of a canal. You're your father's daughter, aren't you? I mean, for those who don't know, Michael Kidron, your dad was a famous economist, Marxist economist and theorist, one of the founders of what used to be called the International Socialist, then went on to become the swp, the Socialist Workers Party. Did you grow up in a house and your mum helped run a radical publishing house where the idea of the robber barons, the idea of the corporates, the ideas of the downsides of capitalism, was that being discussed over milk and biscuits when you were a toddler?
- [11:55]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I feel my father turning in his grave, so I have to say that he split when, at the point at which it became the swp, he left. I feel I must say that otherwise he will spin. However, I think the most important inheritance that I have, and I'm really proud of my inheritance, it wasn't easy, Nick. You know, a lot of. A lot of parents at school didn't like having the red diaper baby round for tea, I can tell you.
- [12:21]
Nick Robinson
The red diaper baby? Is that what you were talking about?
- [12:24]
Baroness Beben Kidron
That's what. There's a generation of people whose parents were very radical, who grew up both in America and here, and we are called the red diaper babies, Literally. It wasn't that easy, but I think I want to. To really hold on to the one thing. That was a sort of a mantra between me and my father. And he used to say, you have to live in the world as if it is the world you want it to be, not the one it is. And you have to walk towards that. You have to believe that it can be different and it can be the one you want it to be.
- [12:58]
Nick Robinson
What's fascinating about that is he clearly brought you up to believe in the possibility of change, because there are people of his politics, critics of capitalism, critics of change on the left who somewhat despair, think there is a dream out there, but it may never be achieved in their lifetime. He made you believe change was possible, didn't he?
- [13:15]
Baroness Beben Kidron
He absolutely did. And he was a very sophisticated thinker and economist. And what he was interested in was how structures and levers in society could change the lived experience of people. And I think that's what I got from him. And I have to say, you know, I was one of three, and I'm the only one in polit, so it wasn't a given, but I found it very compelling. And I think because of my childhood, you know, I was surrounded not just by him, but, you know, through our kitchen came people from the apartheid movement, people came coming out of China, people from Europe and so on. And they were at the dinner table and they were planning a better world. And so it was a time of great political optimism. And I think that's what I take rather than the politics of that particular kind of left.
- [14:10]
Nick Robinson
Tell me about one of those dinner parties. Who was at that dinner table that you look back at in the anti apartheid movement or elsewhere and think, wow,
- [14:21]
Baroness Beben Kidron
do you know, it's a funny thing, because as soon as you said, tell me about the dinner party, the thing that I thought of was that there was a man whose name I still don't know, and we used to call him Shush. And every time Shush was coming for dinner, the water would be put on and the telephones would be taken off the hook. And the idea was, as I understood it because I was very young, was that Shush was in some sort of danger in coming to talk. But at the table was always. Everybody talked about their day. And so we talked about our school day, we talked about what we'd seen on telly, and they talked about the world that they were going to build.
- [15:07]
Nick Robinson
So you, as a child, were treated in that sense as an equal part of the conversation.
- [15:11]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Always, always. And I think that's been very, very important to my campaigning on behalf of children, actually.
- [15:17]
Nick Robinson
How interesting. This character you remember, you don't know their name was called Shush because those who know you well know that a formative experience for you as a child was the need to Shush, having no voice. And you had no voice for not one or two days, but for many, many months as a result of an operation.
- [15:36]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yes, that's right. I was born actually with a cleft palate. And then when I was about 10, I had a voice that sounded like this. And in fact, my vocal cords were. Had a lot of notes on them and they had to be stripped. And because I was so young and they were worri about it. I actually had to go on a diet of no talking before my operation and then, indeed, after my operation.
- [16:01]
Nick Robinson
Days? Weeks?
- [16:01]
Baroness Beben Kidron
No, no, months. I mean, nine months. And it fell sort of really cruelly because it fell between primary school and secondary school. And so I arrived the first day of secondary school with a little pad around my waist and a pen tied to my belt and a horn, like harpoon marks to get attention.
- [16:25]
Nick Robinson
What, literally?
- [16:26]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Literally a well, and then pick up
- [16:28]
Nick Robinson
your pad and write things.
- [16:30]
Baroness Beben Kidron
And I'm still excruciating. I'm actually a bit dyslexic and I cannot spell to save my life, but I'm still excruciated. When I remember being asked by very kind teachers who wanted to include me to go up to the board to write the answer, it was always an absolute disaster.
- [16:47]
Nick Robinson
They thought they were helpful, but they weren't. I can't imagine. I mean, well, I can imagine because I had no voice for a period of time, having had cancer, but days. And I still am traumatized by having no voice at all for a few days and then not much of a voice for about a year. But at that age, going to secondary school, it must have been. I mean, do you still feel. I don't want to laugh about it. Do you still feel it's a trauma that you're kind of wrestling with?
- [17:13]
Baroness Beben Kidron
You know, it's interesting because I'm not going to deny it was huge and it was quite overwhelming. But. And there is a big but here, which is that I also wasn't allowed to run. I couldn't do sport. And a friend of my parents gave me a camera and I started to take photographs. And on Wednesday afternoons, when everyone else went to sport, I was allowed to go to the art room and do my photography and so on. And that began the rest of my life. And one of the things I feel so passionately about was that during that period, I saw power play out who was talking, who was moving towards who, who controlled the space and the place. And I think it was a lesson not only in, you know, how to frame something and how to record something and how to occupy yourself when you couldn't be in a community, but it was something about looking at the world as a pattern of power. And so for me as an adult and quite, you know, getting on in my years, now I look back at it and go, wow, wasn't I lucky?
- [18:35]
Nick Robinson
How fascinating. So the loss of voice for Baroness Bieber and Kidron, now campaigning to deal with the tech giants, gave you a route to Use your camera, yeah. Then moving into documentary, making moving films. And your first powerful documentary, perhaps your first really political documentary, was you Going to Live with the Women. And it was Women of Greenham Common campaign in the early 80s, a thorn in Mrs. Thatcher's side. And they campaigned against the location of American cruise missiles on British soil. Now, you didn't pop there for, you know, a day or two filming. You lived there.
- [19:12]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I did, I did. I mean, it's sort of, I think, my life, if you really want to put a sort of a crude thing on it. I always start walking before I think. And that was one of those occasions. I had arrived at film school. I was going to be a cinematographer. I was the only woman in the department. And all the boys appeared to have come out of the womb with a camera in their hand because they knew what they were doing. And I did not went to Greenham for the weekend. And I stayed seven months because I thought, hang on a minute, this is important. And in fact, the thing that always makes me laugh is that Colin Young, who was the head of the film school at the time, said, okay, you can do it. I did it with a woman called Amanda Richardson. She did the sound, I did the camera. He said, so long as the camera is behind a locked door at night. And so we took the Mini that I had and we slept in the Mini for seven months. So it was technically behind a lot.
- [20:15]
Nick Robinson
Did you think that you were observing people trying to make change, or did you think by making that film you were going to make change? Had you already taken a first step to being an activist?
- [20:27]
Baroness Beben Kidron
No, I think I thought I was watching them. If you're somewhere like that for seven months, day in, day out, you know, there is a point in the film where there's a bit of a row and I start joining in and the camera goes blank. And I think that's my admission that at that point I had something to say about what was going on. But in fact, the real moment of change for me was when I saw how the press started behaving towards the women. And you probably remember there was a summer at which their sexuality, their smelliness, their clothes were everything. And I remember thinking, hang on a minute. I have something much richer, much more nuanced and much more important to say about these women than we're seeing in the press.
- [21:18]
Nick Robinson
But I was. I was struck by. You said at one stage that you. When you had a viewing, every viewing would end in a wave of optimistic certainty that if only the world knew what we knew. The Greenham women's victory would be assured. Do you think they did succeed? I mean, lots of, you know, conventional wisdom is they failed. You know, essentially Margaret Thatcher plowed on, Michael has the time as Defense Secretary, and on they went. Eventually, the cruiser missiles were moved because of a deal that the United States did with Russia over nuclear disarmament, but they did not succeed.
- [21:50]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah, I think that that's where my politics and coming from a more sort of investigative place really comes to play, because it's more nuanced than that. And I can tell in your face it's more nuanced than that. You know, that actually they brought together a piece of peace movement. They brought together something about protest and about, you know, these things that were happening to communities without their consent. And actually, for a long time, indeed they were not there. But we're in a time where we're all remilitarizing again and a lot of things that we may feel had been one are going in a different direction. So I think one has to be just a little bit more.
- [22:34]
Nick Robinson
Well, don't be binary about success or failure when it comes to.
- [22:37]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Don't be binary, because it is a constant. And the one thing I'd love to tell you is that when we first showed that film, it was in Berlin, and the entire audience, and the Berlin before the wall came down and the entire audience stood up in tears and someone took off their shirt and got money from the audience. We went back to Greenham with £2,000 from one screening. They were like, you're speaking for us girls.
- [23:08]
Nick Robinson
Powerful story. Now you move into drama famously. I remember oranges are not the only fruit. Coming onto BBC now would not be controversial, I suspect. But the depiction of two women, teenage girls, kissing, soon after the Thatcher government brought in what was called section 28, banning in inverted commas, the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities. Did you feel then making that drama, that this wasn't just a drama, this was also a political statement?
- [23:42]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I think my interest is in the voiceless, if that's not too ironic. But, you know, so I felt. I mean, first of all, it was a wonderful tale and I had read Jeanette's other books and I just thought, you know, this was just a story that needed to be told. And rather than concentrating on whether two young girls kissed, the actual idea that you can love who you need to love, but that actually you can get out, you can come of age in whatever way you need to come of age was really powerful. And it's amazing. I think that I Have had a bit of luck getting to see ministers every now and again because their assistant came out because of. Oranges are not the only fruit. There is not a week in my life that people. And it's 30 years or 35 years, I mean. And, you know, since we made it, there's not been a week where I haven't either. Had someone whisper in my ear, bring a photograph from the film and ask me to sign it, send me a note.
- [24:53]
Nick Robinson
We're talking in the BBC's headquarters, Broadcasting House. Please tell me the story, because I've read it and I love it. About the reaction of the late, great, Alan Yentaub, one of the great people behind television who used to run this building, who watched the first episode. He had an interesting response.
- [25:14]
Baroness Beben Kidron
He did. And I have to say, I'm in the Yentob love, I love Yento crowd. And I, you know, knew him very well later in life, but at the time I'd never met him. And he was, you know, he was the power. He came in, he watched it, he stood up and he went, well, that's not very BBC, is it? And he walked out and that was it.
- [25:36]
Nick Robinson
But he broadcast it. But he broadcast and it was a triumphant success. Now, look, there's a bit of a journey still from that filmmaking drama to setting up your charity that promoted the viewing of films in schools Film club. And that takes you into the House of Lords. It's that, I assume, that explains why this filmmaker suddenly finds herself in the House of Lords with not that many women and not that many people, I guess. What, you're about 50 at the time?
- [26:05]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah, I can't remember. Yeah, I guess I was. Yes. So, I mean, I had, you know, in between that I'd been to Hollywood and back and so on, so on. And in fact, I was one day invited as a guest to a very smart dinner that took place in Downing street. And I happened to sit next to someone and the conversation got to why boys wouldn't read books. And there was a lot of conversation about it. And I woke up in the morning and I thought, well, I bet they watch films, though. And that was it. Once I'd had the thought I was unstoppable and I was at the time on the, you know, involved with the. The UK Film Council precursor of the bfi. I was.
- [26:54]
Nick Robinson
So the idea was that there'd be film clubs in every school, or as many as you could form them after school. People could watch great movies.
- [27:01]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah, exactly. And we. And we had. We raised a bit of money. We opened 25 clubs. And I went forward and I said, I am telling you, this will make children excited to be at school. There's only one condition. I said, don't ask them to write anything, don't ask them to speak about anything, just make sure that they watch it together. And I think that's a really important point here as to where we're going.
- [27:30]
Nick Robinson
Shared experience, but also, don't turn it into work.
- [27:33]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Don't turn it into work. Have a shared experience. And we did have a phenomenal success. By the time we did our 25 pilots, there were a thousand people waiting. And I won't tell you the whole story, we don't have time. But it was picked up by the then government, it was supported by Gordon Brown and it was then available in all schools. And it was somewhere in there they thought, oh, maybe she'd be good in the Lords, because she seems to be creative and.
- [28:04]
Nick Robinson
And wants to make change, wants to make change. But the thing that took you from campaigner, member of the House of Lords to the campaign, you are now specifically trying to change the law, trying to change our approach to tech, was one more documentary, wasn't it? It was a film about the early days of the impact of tech on kids.
- [28:25]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah. So it was 2012 and it was the exact point where a smartphone became a price, that an adult might give one to a child. And I walked into my own kitchen and there were five young people, I think they were 15, on a sofa and they weren't talking. And I thought, wow, that's funny. But they were, you know, rustling, tapping away. And I thought, that is interesting. I had a thought. It was literally this. It was, I wonder what it's like to grow up here. And also there. Oh, I wonder where there is. And.
- [29:12]
Nick Robinson
And so you filmed the there with.
- [29:13]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I filmed the there.
- [29:14]
Nick Robinson
What, in the bedrooms of teenagers?
- [29:16]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah. Hundreds and hundreds of hours in the bedrooms of teenagers.
- [29:20]
Nick Robinson
What, doing what?
- [29:22]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Gaming, falling in love, watching pornography, going on, chat, roulette, talking to strangers. You name it, I did it.
- [29:33]
Nick Robinson
So you're the fly on the wall and they get used to you. They get used to quite something being filmed while you're falling in love. Or indeed, looking at pornography.
- [29:41]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah, no, it absolutely is. And just to be really clear, I told the parents what I was doing. I had, you know, I had support. And in fact, the final film is a little bit of a bumpy film because at the last minute I decided two of the characters were too vulnerable to be in it and I cut them in the final edit, literally at the last moment. So it's. It wasn't the most extraordinary film, but it was the most extraordinary experience.
- [30:16]
Nick Robinson
Well, it's extraordinary in one sense, the film, for what you said, because although what I'm about to read you will not sound remotely surprising now, I think in 2013 it would have done. You said in this film, one of the things I resent is corporations and the government saying parents have to regulate. What a ludicrous idea, he said, when there's this humongous world designed to addict our kids. That was not a very common thought at the time.
- [30:44]
Baroness Beben Kidron
No, it wasn't. And you started this interview by quoting my husband. And in fact, that's what happened. I started to show the film and I rather stupidly said I would show it to any school that wanted. So I ended up going to dozens and dozens of schools, and then it spread to Europe and I even ended up in Brazil showing it in schools in Brazil, you know, but what I learned was that I was ahead of the game, but so were the teachers. The teachers who were seeing, you know, hundreds of kids, scores of kids, rather than their own children, were seeing a shift, shift in behavior and they were worried and I was worried. And at the time I thought if I just tell someone, they'll sort it out.
- [31:31]
Nick Robinson
Yeah, you don't think that anymore. But critically, it seems to me, you come to this insight, don't expect the kids to regulate it for themselves, but also don't expect the parents or even the teachers to do it for you. So if not them, who?
- [31:49]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Well, I mean, and this is where we get back to the issue of like, you know, we've got a technology, it's being designed deliberately in certain ways, it's optimized for certain outcomes, and it has certain values, and I mean values both in terms of what it extracts and how much money it makes and so on, but also values in terms of what it leaves behind. And we have all kinds of levers in society, whether it is polluter pays, whether it is consumer rights, whether it is product safety, whether it is a competition. And one by one by one by one, all of these levers have been knocked aside by the tech industry. And I think that when people want a silver bullet, I'm going to tell you today, banning social media for 16 year olds until they're 16 is not a silver bullet. Should we make some things out of the purview? Should we take under 16s away from some of those companies unless they behave themselves? Absolutely. But there's no Silver bullet. We have to go absolutely from the beginning, and we have to say product liability, duty of care, mandatory standards, you know, director liability, you name it. Everything that everybody else suffers, so too must tech.
- [33:17]
Nick Robinson
So essentially, you're saying to tech companies, you can't hide behind this idea. You're a mere platform. What happens on your platform has nothing to do with you. You need to be held liable. What, in the way that a manufacturer of cars is held liable if the car doesn't keep you safe in the event of an accident?
- [33:35]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I mean, absolutely. You know, I mean, I have said this a few times, but, you know, if it was a fridge, it would be recalled by now. You know, I. There are some very simple ideas now. It's a complex system, but I think there's something else that has now developed and we're beginning to see some of the fractures, which is, you know, you mentioned Australia, but it's not just Australia. It's Malaysia, it's Indonesia, it's Brazil, it's France, it's, you know, everywhere. And in fact, even in America, which we think of as being, you know, out of bounds currently, it's not. It's in California, it's in Texas, it's in Nevada. You know, the truth of the matter is that actually companies and governments do ultimately, you know, engage with us via our consent, and consent is beginning to be withdrawn. And I think we're at an interesting moment to actually push back.
- [34:37]
Nick Robinson
Now, you gave us a little list of the things you want to do.
- [34:41]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Half my list, forgive me.
- [34:44]
Nick Robinson
Let's translate that into fluent human, though, because for some of those will not be familiar to people.
- [34:48]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Okay.
- [34:49]
Nick Robinson
Watching or listening. So there's a broad principle. You want to hold companies to account, you want to hold company directors to account. But what specifically do you want to do? Do you want to change the algorithm to say it shouldn't be as addictive? If it's addictive, we'll come to that debate in a second. Do you want to say there's a whole series of things that young people shouldn't be allowed to see? It should be something that over time, your experience changes. What is it ideally, you would see?
- [35:19]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I would start on the very basic premise that each product is working in its own environment. So what I mean by that is actually, if you are publishing, that means you are editor editorializing your feed. Whether it's algorithmically, whether it's via an editor, whether it's by, you know, changing the nuance. Yeah. That you should be responsible for what you publish.
- [35:49]
Nick Robinson
If you're literally responsible because what the publishers would say to you, what the tech companies would say, it's literally impractical. They would say to you, look, this is a free space. It's like the town hall, it's like the town square. And by the way, it's had huge benefits. There have been the opportunity for people all around the world who are attacked as individuals to feel strength. Because although I can't find a thousand people in my town who are like me, I can find a thousand, ten thousand, hundreds of thousand globally. And as soon as you put in the hands of politicians or regulators, the power say, you can't say this, you can't say that, we lose all the
- [36:29]
Baroness Beben Kidron
benefits, I think we've got to go. I think there's two really important things you've raised there. I mean, first of all, you know, it's not free speech, it's managed speech. And I think that we have so much evidence now that outrage goes faster than kindness. And you know, when Grok changes, when X changes owners, it changes its political outlook. And when TikTok got handed over to its new owners, suddenly it discovered all sorts of right wing sympathies that it didn't have before. So it's not free speech. Somebody, you know, wizard of Oz behind the thing is actually determining the speech. And so I think we have to really kill that, kill that baby. I think the other thing is I'm really interested in this idea of benefit and cost. There is no other situation where we are constantly told that we have to accept the downside, to have the upside. So, you know, I'm sure we'll get there. But in AI, how many ministers, Nick, have you interviewed where they go, well, it's going to help us cure cancer. Oh, so it has to actually make young people, young women naked into a bikini to cure cancer. It has to steal, you know, the, the creative copyright of artists to go. Of course it doesn't. This idea of a free for all is a lobbyist paradigm and it is their manner from heaven that our ministers keep on repeating it.
- [38:03]
Nick Robinson
And that's the key to lobbying, is it in your mind? I mean, it goes back to those ideas you learned in the kitchen table when you were a kid, which is what ministers fall for. Commercial threats do they? Sort of, if you regulate us, we won't invest in Britain, we'll withdraw this or that.
- [38:20]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I mean they definitely do and they, and that definitely goes on. And in fact, the lobbying is much, much more pervasive and worrying than anything that bold. But I think that, you know, if you look at, I think there's a couple of different things here. First of all, you know, we have to look at the economic reality of what they are offering. And I think if you look from the high street to childhood to our own democracy, it is all being fractured. So we have to just really look at those perceived benefits.
- [39:04]
Nick Robinson
And the other argument I want to raise with you, which people raise, is, well, you can't do it one country on your own. It's too risky. Because if we do it in Britain, they'll invest in Ireland or Hungary or the United States or elsewhere. So give us time, they'll say to you people, give us time. We'll get some allies.
- [39:23]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah, first of all, there's plenty of allies. And you talked about Australia and I have to say you're right, they didn't know what they were doing. But do you know what they had? They had a Prime Minister who said, we have sovereignty, these are our kids and we'll treat them how we like and you can go and whatever. Yeah. And the political will behind that then got translated into political will to look at actually newspapers. And then it became political will to look at creative industries. And suddenly you had a Prime Minister who was going to. Hang on a minute. This deal is a bad deal. They are taking our kids, they're taking our news, they're taking our democracy and they're taking our art and they're making money over there.
- [40:11]
Nick Robinson
So Michael, I think will start listening now. What do you tell him?
- [40:15]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I'm sure he listens to your show, Nick. Why wouldn't he?
- [40:17]
Nick Robinson
Who's been on it for what?
- [40:21]
Baroness Beben Kidron
You know, I think, and I'm not one to normally quote Churchill, but, you know, he did say something and I have to paraphrase, you know, the appeaser thinks that, you know, they feed the crocodile in the hope they'll be eaten last. You know, I don't think rubbing up against, you know, kindly against the tech
- [40:43]
Nick Robinson
Bros currently, we are appeasing.
- [40:45]
Baroness Beben Kidron
We are appeasing. We are definitely appeasing. We can see it, we can feel it. And I think that we need to build British. And I cannot believe that I'm saying that as an internationalist, but I think we need to look and say, what could we have in the tech space? What could we be really good at? What are our choke points and what can we then negotiate? And I'm fed up of seeing the government not negotiate. You know, they're not scrappers, this lot. And I think this is a fight
- [41:17]
Nick Robinson
and it's not just social media. You want them to have a scrap about. You think in a way, I think that we're dealing with the problem of a couple of years ago was the, the new problem is AI.
- [41:28]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Exactly. And I think this is. We, we've already touched upon this, but you know, this idea that we can't see it coming, that we don't know it's coming. I have been laying amendments about AI for at least three or four years. Yeah. And the government, successive governments have been pushing them back right down to this government pushing back things that would stop the grok. Yeah. Actually creating child sexual abuse or stripping women. And I think we have to say is our special relationship worth it? And they think it's going to kill them on the tariffs. But actually if we really look at it, and I know you look at it day in, day out, that actually the tariffs come and go and come and go as and when they wish and the people who push back do not necessarily come out any worse off. And I think this is what we're doing. We're giving away our kids to Silicon Valley to please.
- [42:32]
Nick Robinson
I think there's one last criticism that people might have of your position. It's look, Europe, Britain, it's always talking about regulating tech. That's why we don't create any of the big companies. All the big companies are American. There's one that was successful here, DeepMind, that's then bought by the American. But it's because we don't allow creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation. We're always trying to suppress it.
- [42:58]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I actually think that's so wrong. And I know you're putting a position rather than saying what you think, but I mean our creativity is second to none. What we don't have is a risk appetite in our markets. And what we don't have is, and it's not that regulation that is pulling them back. But I also will say watch this space. The maga, the maga, you know, group is not unified on this issue. And I have a lot of friends in America and you said at the beginning, I'm a crossbencher, I work with the right, with the left, anybody who wants to work on this issue. And I have some friends within the Republican Party who do not like this tech bro business that's going on.
- [43:47]
Nick Robinson
You're an optimist then.
- [43:49]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I'm not. I think it's a matter of survival. I mean we are really in a space where we are letting machines go ahead, you know, that may or may not obey their masters. And I sit here And I say to you, you know, 13 years ago, I put up the white flag about kids. Yeah. And now we're all discussing it. Five years ago, I went, whoops, AI. And we're beginning to look at it. And I'm really saying that politically, we've got to stop managing our opposition and we've got to start acting in our own self interest.
- [44:27]
Nick Robinson
There'll be people listening to this who don't know you.
- [44:30]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Yeah.
- [44:32]
Nick Robinson
She doesn't look or sound like a baroness, like a member of the House of Lords. Is it a place you believe in? Is it a place you think works? Is it a place where you can make change?
- [44:45]
Baroness Beben Kidron
I think the House of Lords has been stuffed to the gills with political favours and political interests. And I think that a lot of people in the House of Lords are very saddened by that. But I will say these two things. It's indefensible on a democratic basis to have an unelected House that is so easy to curry political favor. But there is something magical about having people in a place committed to public service who can't be fired so suddenly when you get an issue like this. As I say, we work across the House.
- [45:27]
Nick Robinson
Patronage doesn't matter.
- [45:28]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Patronage doesn't matter. And we have what we jokingly call the Lords tech team. And we are everybody and from all sides, and we're very powerful because we don't take no for an answer.
- [45:38]
Nick Robinson
I have to ask you one last question, which I think will be in the minds of people listening and watching. How does Bridget Jones fit in with all this? You mentioned Hollywood. You direct the Bridget Jones sequel. It's the only bit that doesn't slot into this very political life.
- [45:56]
Baroness Beben Kidron
It's funny because, you know, I made a couple of films in America. One was about falling in love with, you know, in your 80s. And one was called To Wong Fu. And it was about, you know, Wesley Snipes with a. As a drag queen and Patrick Swayze, you know, and then I make. I think there are two things. One is, yeah, you gotta have a sense of humor, Nick. You know, life is tough for a lot of people. And, you know, I am very graced in that. A lot of people write to me in Parliament and say, thank you for what you're doing. You know, it really means a lot. We don't hear ourselves reflected and you're doing it for us. But actually, I also get a lot of sadness. There's a lot of tragedy. Parents, kids, you know, all sorts of people who are suffering because we have let a global set of companies take over, you know, our, our values and our way of life. And I think that, you know, Bridget Jones, I love Bridget Jones. You know, she is the woman who says everything that you think in your interior brain that you should never say in public. And it makes me laugh and I was asked to do it and I had an absolute ball doing it. But I did make a lot of comedies in my career and I just do hope that people always laugh and they always fight.
- [47:19]
Nick Robinson
Baroness Bieber, thanks very much for joining me on Political Thinking.
- [47:23]
Baroness Beben Kidron
Absolute pleasure.
- [47:32]
Nick Robinson
What is fascinating about interviewing Beben Kidron is to interview someone who chose to go into politics much later in life, turning down the glamorous life of being a Hollywood movie director. And you know what? She thinks it's just as exciting and a whole lot more important. Thanks for listening to this edition of Political Thinking. The producers were Daniel Kramer and Flora Murray. The editor was Giles Edwards. You can find our full back catalog of Political Thinking episodes on BBC Sounds, and if you click subscribe, you get each new episode dropping into your feed as soon as it's published. And if you like this interview, you might like last week's episode of Amal Rajan's podcast Radical, when he spoke to Jonathan Haidt, the author of Anxious Generation, about the impact of social media on the mental health of young people.
- [48:21]
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Nick Robinson
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