press

📰 The following is a selected snapshot of press coverage of my work, such as interviews, ‘explainer’ pieces, and investigative journalism pieces.

• ABC News - “As AI influencers storm social media, some fear a ‘digital Pandora’s box’ has been opened” (15 August 2024)
  Long-form article (ABC News Story Lab) by Geraden Cann on virtual influencers and online harms.

• 9News - “‘Flawed approach’: Experts weigh in on Dutton’s pledge to ban social media for teens” (17 June 2024)
  9News followup article by Adam Vidler on the AusSMC Press Release, quoting me on “How would an age ban work?”.

• AusSMC - Joint Press Release - “EXPERT REACTION: Should we ban social media for under 16s?” (14 June 2024)
  Issued a press release with other academics via AusSMC, the Australian Science Media Centre, commenting on the technical feasibility on plans for “restricting children’s social media access”. This has been picked up by OpenForum as well.

• Choice - “How much of your personal data does Spotify collect?” (8 May 2024)
  Joint work with Xanthe Lowe-Brown, interviewed by Brendan Kearns, investigating the metadata collected by Spotify.

• The Mandarin - “Avoiding bias in automated decision-making” (6 May 2024)
  Interviewed by Joshua Gliddon for The Mandarin as part of their 2024 Digital ID and Privacy Special Report.

• Centennial World - “What We Owe Each Other: The Dark Side of the Digital Bystander Effect” (30 April 2024)
  Interviewed by Rebecca MacFarlane on the ethical duties of “social media influencers” being “role models”.

• The New Daily - “Environmentalists and academics ÿee Elon Musk’s Twitter nightmare” (22 March 2022)
  Interviewed by Parker McKenzie on Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X) acquisition and how “researchers and environmentalists … [are] fleeing the site”.

• Pursuit, University of Melbourne - “‘Anti-hero’: A philosophical take on Taylor’s existential authenticity” (8 February 2024)
  Popular philosophy piece on ‘authenticity’ on social media, and how “…the notion of authenticity in an online celebrity’s public persona needs to be reconsidered in 2024”. Written as part of Swiftposium, “…an academic conference for scholars discussing the impact of Taylor Swift.”

• Pursuit, University of Melbourne - “When it comes to jobs, AI does not like parents” (23 July 2023)
  A research explainer piece to investigate issues of biases in CV analysis in earlier versions of (Chat)GPT. Coauthored with Lea Frermann, Sheilla Njoto, and Leah Ruppanner.

• Pursuit, University of Melbourne - “The flawed algorithm at the heart of Robodebt” (10 July 2023)
  Coauthored with Toby Murray and Jeannie Paterson, to analyse the findings of Australia’s Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

• JOY FM - Radio Interview (29 May 2023)
  Interviewed by Dee Mason on the JOY Drive Radio Show Interview, as a follow-up media engagement on The Conversation’s Explainer piece.

• ABC Saturday Breakfast - Radio Interview “The bad - and good - of algorithms with digital ethics expert Dr Marc Cheong” (27 May 2023)
  Interviewed by Alice Zaslavsky on the segment: “The bad - and good - of algorithms with digital ethics expert Dr Marc Cheong”.

• Triple J Hack - Radio Interview “how to control your algorithm” (11 May 2023)
  Interviewed by David Marchese on “how to control your algorithm” as a follow-up media engagement on The Conversation’s Explainer piece.

• The Conversation - Commissioned Explainer Piece “Feed me: 4 ways to take control of social media algorithms and get the content you actually want” (11 May 2023)
  Commissioned article on “how society is being shaped by our digital interactions with each other” focusing on social media algorithms – “Feed me: 4 ways to take control of social media algorithms and get the content you actually want”. Impact: 3 follow-up media engagements and a readership of ~28.5k global reads (as of July 2023).

• The Age/Sydney Morning Herald - “Dress code: Does AI technology belong in fashion?” (12 November 2022)
  Interviewed by Nell Geraets on the article “Dress code: Does AI technology belong in fashion?”, concerning the use of generative AI for fashion and design, as well as its ethical impacts.

• The Royal Institution of Australia’s COSMOS - “Is Google’s AI chatbot LaMDA sentient? Computer says no” (16 June 2022)
  Interviewed by Evrim Yazgin on Google’s AI chatbot LaMDA, as well as addressing issues of ‘sentience’ raised by a Google employee.

• The New Daily - “Choice blasts Airbnb for using ‘secretive algorithm’ that judges if users are ‘trustworthy’” (22 March 2022)
  Interviewed by Steffanie Tan on the article “Choice blasts Airbnb for using ‘secretive algorithm’ that judges if users are ‘trustworthy’”, concerning automated decision making systems.

• AusSMC - Joint Press Release - “EXPERT REACTION: TGA cracks down on social media marketing of health products” (28 February 2022)
  Issued a press release with other academics via AusSMC, the Australian Science Media Centre, on the Australian Therapeutic Goods Association crackdown on social media marketing of health products.

• The Age - “Victoria’s QR codes badly made, developers say” (18 June 2021)
  Interviewed by Liam Mannix about digital ethics issues affecting the Victorian “Service Victoria” Contact Tracing App. The most-read article for two days online (weekend 18-20 June 2021) and a double-page feature spread in the Friday 18 June print edition.

• New York Times - “Facebook Agrees to Pay for Murdoch’s Australia News Content” (16 March 2021)
  Interviewed by Livia Albeck-Ripka about the reversal of the Facebook News ban in Australia, in “Facebook Agrees to Pay for Murdoch’s Australia News Content”.

• Surf Coast Times - Newspaper Interview (4 March 2021)
  Interviewed by Emile Pavlich on apps and usability, smart devices and privacy, as well as community and social media during the pandemic. An expanded version of the piece for SYN Panorama (“News Talks #4”).

• SYN Panorama - Radio/Podcast Interview (25 February 2021)
  Interviewed by Emile Pavlich on “human/technology interaction and the emergence of apps to inform the public” (per release) under the “News Talks #4” show

• The New Daily - “Australians urged to break up with Facebook over news blockade” (19 February 2021)
  Interviewed by Samantha Dick about the Facebook News ban in Australia, under the title “Australians urged to break up with Facebook over news blockade”.

• AusSMC - Joint Press Release - “EXPERT REACTION: Facebook’s news site ban” (18 February 2021)
  Issued a press release with other academics via AusSMC, the Australian Science Media Centre, on Facebook’s news site ban. Story was picked up by NYT and The NewDaily above.

• Ticker News TV - News Interview (1 February 2021)
  Interviewed live by Adrian Franklin on the suspension of Donald Trump on social media, the role of gatekeeper that social media plays, and its connection to care ethics and diversity in the computer sciences.

• Pursuit, University of Melbourne - “Trump, nipples and the hypocrisy of the social media giants” (27 January 2021)
  Co-authored with Gabby Bush, Mariam Nadeem, Kobi Leins and Simon Coghlan - on social media companies’ role in removing hate material (cf. Trump’s Twitter ban), on the back of CAIDE’s work in FAccT 2021.

• RPP FM (Radio Port Philip) - News Interview (9 December 2020)
  Interviewed live by Brendon Telfer on the implications and results of the UniBank study, with emphasis on research methodology, implicit gender bias, and actionable insights for the future.

• UniBank Media Release - YouTube (2 December 2020)
  Interviewed on the implications and results of the UniBank study, to be communicated to a general audience. Project was featured in top Australian and international media outlets.

• “Politics vs Policy” Podcast - “Episode 14. Surveillance Capitalism: The Illusion of Freedom and Democracy” (29 September 2020)
  Invited speaker on podcast (hosted by S. Njoto and J. Rose) on freedom on the current state of the internet, filter bubbles, diversifying viewpoints, and “impact of algorithmic predictions on democracy” (per public release).

• Pursuit, University of Melbourne - “A little bird didn’t tell me” (17 July 2020)
  Co-authored with Kobi Leins. An expanded piece from the original by Leins on the 2020 hack attack on Twitter - from a security, human factors, and epistemic point of view.

• Pursuit, University of Melbourne - “Do we really need a tracking app and can we trust it?” (24 April 2020)
  Co-authored with Kobi Leins & Simon Coghlan. News Article in Pursuit (University of Melbourne) on the privacy implications, ethical concerns, and potential alternatives to app-based tracking during the Covid-19 pandemic.

• NewPhilosopher Magazine - “Virus views: Freedom in the time of COVID-19” (April 2020 edition)
  Popular philosophy article for NewPhilosopher on existential freedom during the Covid-19 pandemic.