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‘The era of invincibility is over’: the week big tech was brought to heel | Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products marks possible watershed moment for social media
>At $6m, the damages in the California suit were relatively small, but the consequences of the double verdicts will be much greater. It was a week in which a years-long campaign to shift the balance of power between big tech and children finally seemed to gain momentum.
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>Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok are facing thousands of similar lawsuits in US courts, testing if their platforms were designed to be addictive. If they lose, the damages could be crippling.
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>Internationally, governments are starting to curb big tech’s grip on children’s attention. From this weekend, the Indonesian government is following Australia in mandating the deactivation of “high-risk” social media accounts belonging to children under 16. This month Brazil enacted an online safety law to protect children against compulsive use, and in the UK the prime minister, Keir Starmer, responded to the LA verdict saying: “We need to do more to protect children.” He cited a potential UK social media ban for under-16s and curbs on addictive features, such as infinite scrolling – the apparently bottomless supply of new material when a user reaches the end of their feed – and autoplay videos.
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>The trials’ verdicts have also coincided with a shift in the geopolitics of tech. A fear of upsetting Donald Trump, held by countries otherwise keen to tighten the leash over social media, seems to be subsiding. Leading figures on the conservative right of the US president’s Republican party are now among some of the most vocal in demanding protections for children.
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>“For a long time governments deferred to the EU and to the United States to set internet policy,” said Matt Kaufman, the head of safety at Roblox, a gaming and messaging platform affected by the Indonesia ban. “Now everybody else is catching up and saying: ‘We want to do things that are right for our country.’”
It will certainly be interesting to see if the number of jurisdictions looking to rein in social media platforms begins to increase after this.
[OP] Hrmbee | a day ago
One of the key sections from this piece:
>At $6m, the damages in the California suit were relatively small, but the consequences of the double verdicts will be much greater. It was a week in which a years-long campaign to shift the balance of power between big tech and children finally seemed to gain momentum. > >Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok are facing thousands of similar lawsuits in US courts, testing if their platforms were designed to be addictive. If they lose, the damages could be crippling. > >Internationally, governments are starting to curb big tech’s grip on children’s attention. From this weekend, the Indonesian government is following Australia in mandating the deactivation of “high-risk” social media accounts belonging to children under 16. This month Brazil enacted an online safety law to protect children against compulsive use, and in the UK the prime minister, Keir Starmer, responded to the LA verdict saying: “We need to do more to protect children.” He cited a potential UK social media ban for under-16s and curbs on addictive features, such as infinite scrolling – the apparently bottomless supply of new material when a user reaches the end of their feed – and autoplay videos. > >The trials’ verdicts have also coincided with a shift in the geopolitics of tech. A fear of upsetting Donald Trump, held by countries otherwise keen to tighten the leash over social media, seems to be subsiding. Leading figures on the conservative right of the US president’s Republican party are now among some of the most vocal in demanding protections for children. > >“For a long time governments deferred to the EU and to the United States to set internet policy,” said Matt Kaufman, the head of safety at Roblox, a gaming and messaging platform affected by the Indonesia ban. “Now everybody else is catching up and saying: ‘We want to do things that are right for our country.’”
It will certainly be interesting to see if the number of jurisdictions looking to rein in social media platforms begins to increase after this.
JasonZep | a day ago
Oh I’m sure it will. It’s like the Wild West right now and the technology will have to be brought under some kind of control.
xixbia | a day ago
$6m is an enormous penalty for a single person.
Of course class actions will be lower, but even if the payout is 1% of that you only need 15 million people to get to a trillion.