Speeches by Hinds.

“There are unanswered questions about definitions, what should be in and what should be out, and exactly where the boundary lines are. Parents sometimes talk about social media in a way that professionals might not; parents might exclude certain messaging apps, for example. There are questions to be resolved, but the Go…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I think I just heard the Minister say, “We have already solved this problem.” I do not know if any other colleagues heard that. She said that she has written to every headteacher in the country, and it is absolutely the right thing to be in contact with them. Has she heard back from any headteachers or headteacher repr…”

“Other people estimate it. You have no estimates?”

“You are sure?”

“Okay. How do you feel about this change in the way that the news is—”

“I realise that you are a TV guy and not a doctor, but in your professional judgment, you spend a lot of time thinking about children and what children watch and consume. You have both used the word “enriched” and talked about how you enrich children’s lives. Do you think that it is a good development for our society to…”

“I think these are dated terms these days, but you are familiar, I take it, with the terms finsta and rinsta.”

“I appreciate that. I know why. I am trying to gauge, and not just about your programme—”

“This is about the change overall. Maybe it is a misty-eyed look back at a world that is long gone and we cannot do anything to bring it back, but I think it is not a bad thing to ask whether we think the change, even if it is irreversible, is a good thing or a bad thing—and not just in news but in general. There is a m…”

“Louise, you run channels. Give us a good defence of channels.”

“But you have a product that presents a curated set of content, with some variety and balance. Do you think there is a benefit to that compared with a totally self-selected world?”

“Are channels worth having? Are they worth defending? In a world where you can do video on demand, even if it is a parent with a child under seven and the parent can set the controls in advance, is it worth defending the concept of a channel—and how are you doing that?”

“You were asked why it so often seems to be you in the frame. Right at the start of this session, you were at pains to stress that you have a different algorithm, which is not the classic Facebook, as was, social graph. You can be somebody who is instantly all over the internet in a way that you cannot even on other soc…”

“But you are not immune to charity scams, for example, where people are presumably making money through the creator fund. “Unmute this video, play it for 30 seconds”—these are all ways to make money out of your platform.”

“You are saying that you do not have charity scams, for example, on your platform.”

“Really quickly, can you talk us through the criteria or the triggers for getting payouts from the creator fund for a video? Things like unmutes, duration time and so on—what is the summary, very quickly?”

“That is to sign up. That was not the question. The question was: if you are in the programme, what are the triggers for being paid out on video watches?”

“What counts as a watch? I realise that these are leading questions, but you could scroll past a video, you could dwell on it for two seconds, you could watch it for five seconds, you could unmute it, you could watch it for 20 seconds, and those do not all have the same effect on how much money you get, do they?”

“I appreciate that. I know why. I am trying to gauge, and not just about your programme—”