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Our Agreement With Bipartisan Attorneys General: Calling on TikTok and YouTube to Join Us in Supporting Teens | Tama Leaver
Meta have clearly started to pay attention to the global sentiment that the company have never done enough to protect their youngest users, and have settled the massive court case in the US, agreeing to make significant changes to their apps (Facebook and Instagram), but escaping the legal precedent that would be set if they'd lost the case.
The changes agreed to include time limits for teens (2hrs max, but that can be disabled by parents), blocking notifications at night and during 'school time', the choice to have a feed "that isn’t personalized by our recommendation systems", the option to disable autoplay on videos, likes/reactions hidden by default, and some smaller changes.
These changes are a significant step in the right direction. They also put a huge onus on parents to actively have parental supervision set up and be on top of what might be a quite complicated parenting dashboard. That presumes a level of digital literacy not all parents have, so a lot of support (ideally funded by Meta) will be needed as parents take this on.
Meta also tried to make their problem also TikTok and YouTube's problem by having over $US5 billion that's conditional on those platforms making similar changes. It very strategically distributes the load and is there to stop teens just going to less regulated spaces. It's cynical on one level, but may actually do a lot to help teens have better experiences across more of the big platforms, which is probably a net positive.
Lots more to digest, but the big takeaway is that Meta is now responding to global calls to make their platforms safer for under18s. That's so important. Other platforms should follow and perhaps competing to have the best balance of safety and privacy should be the new competitive advantage to seek!
Many adults will likely want these options, too.
Meta's Post about the Settlement: https://lnkd.in/gndY9kGy
Clear Summary of the Settlement from The Verge: https://lnkd.in/ges2aeQb
[#meta #settlement #childrensrights ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child Curtin University Faculty of Humanities]
