Meta Agrees Child App Changes

By now you've almost certainly heard the news that Meta has settled with 52 state and local Attorneys General who had sued the company in some form or another over child safety on Meta's platforms. The headlines are all covering the basics: the years-long case these states filed against Meta ends, and Meta pays somewhere...

Meta Platforms reached a settlement to resolve claims brought by states across the country that the company designed Instagram and Facebook to addict children, misled consumers about their safety, and improperly collected personal data of children who used its platforms.

Meta is being sued for up to $200 billion over allegedly harming children. That would be a good start.

Meta has agreed to pay up $17.1 billion in a landmark settlement over social media addiction claims, pledging to limit the time teenagers can spend on its platforms and ban features that stoke mental ...

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]

US tech giant agrees to establish further protections for teens such as daily usage limits and blocks on night-time use

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The social media giant also agreed to make sweeping changes to Instagram and Facebook.

Meta’s $17 billion settlement would impose new limits on teen accounts, including time caps, nighttime blocks and parental controls.

The social media giant settled with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, and agreed to make major changes to its products over claims its platforms endangered children.

US tech giant agrees to establish further protections for teens such as daily usage limits and blocks on nighttime use