\n<\/p>\n
The verdict in a landmark social media trial that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products has sparked calls for reform across borders. International human rights and tech freedom groups issued statements after the decision, praising jurors for holding social media companies accountable for harms to children and urging tech giants to change their design features to ensure children are safe.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International said in a statement Thursday that \u201cthis court decision is clear: these platforms are unsafe by design and meaningful change is urgently needed\u201d.<\/p>\n
The day prior, a Los Angeles jury found both Meta and YouTube liable for intentionally creating platforms that hooked a young user and led to her being harmed. The six-week trial was one of more than 20 \u201cbellwether\u201d trials that are expected to go to court in the next few years. The jury awarded the plaintiff in the case damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs have taken particular issue with the use of features such as infinite scroll and autoplay \u2013 arguing that they prioritize engagement over users\u2019 well-being. These elements are particularly harmful for children, they say; the plaintiff in the Los Angeles case, a 20-year-old who went by the initials KGM, testified that she became addicted to YouTube at age six and Instagram at nine, which began a long cycle of depression, self-harm and body dysmorphia.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than using blunt tools like banning young teens from social media, states must require a fundamental overhaul of how these platforms operate, including addressing their addictive design,\u201d said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International\u2019s senior director of research, advocacy, policy and campaigns. \u201cThis is the only path to a truly safe social media.\u201d Guevara-Rosas said the trial \u201claid bare\u201d the use of \u201cunsafe design features\u201d.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch described Wednesday\u2019s decision as a \u201ca rare accounting of tech companies\u2019 decisions to build products that have ignored the best interests of children\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren and parents have long known that social media platforms are designed in ways that result in children struggling to regulate their use, even as they\u2019re exposed to and suffer serious harms,\u201d said Hye Jung Han, senior researcher on children and technology at Human Rights Watch, in a statement emailed to the Guardian.<\/p>\n
The Business and Human Rights Centre, a global non-profit, said that Wednesday\u2019s verdict is a \u201cwatershed moment for corporate accountability in the digital age\u201d.<\/p>\n
Michael Clements, the group\u2019s executive director, stressed the verdict \u201creinforces longstanding concerns about the sector\u2019s business models, and highlights the urgent need for companies to undertake robust human rights, due diligence to identify, prevent and mitigate harm \u2013 and not to engineer it for profit\u201d. He stressed the need for regulators to take action to enshrine protections for children and other vulnerable users, though: \u201cThis shouldn\u2019t be only left up to the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, executive director at Tech Global Institute, a digital rights organization, told Rest of World that Wednesday\u2019s verdict sets \u201can important precedent as far as platform accountability goes\u2013and in recognizing the role of algorithms in scaling harm\u201d.<\/p>\n
The United Nations, which has laid partial blame at Facebook\u2019s feet for the spread of ethnic violence in Myanmar, declined to comment on Wednesday\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n
Not all tech freedom and human rights groups are on the same page, though.<\/p>\n
Fight for the Future, a US based digital rights group that advocates for global internet freedom, is viewing the verdict with more skepticism, according to a recent blog post. While the organization is in favor of successful lawsuits that \u201creduce the power of these companies and force them to change their policies\u201d, they worry the court decision is \u201calready being weaponized by lawmakers\u201d who are focused on legislative solutions, such as the Kids Online Safety Act (Kosa), online ID check mandates and attacks on Section 230. Fight for the Future views these measures as raising free speech concerns by \u201cforcing platforms to suppress certain categories of speech or getting the government involved in dictating what content platforms can show to which users\u201d. Advocates of these measures say they are necessary to enhance safety for young social media users.<\/p>\n
Diya, who praised the verdict as a milestone in accountability, noted though that the verdict may also result in challenges for free speech and privacy. \u201cWhile a landmark verdict, it does set a dangerous precedent by potentially risking an end to end-to-end-encryption [and] taking children completely off social media, or requiring backdoor data access to user data under the guise of child safety,\u201d she told Rest of World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The verdict in a landmark social media trial that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products has sparked calls for reform across borders. International human rights and tech freedom groups issued statements after the decision, praising jurors for holding social media companies accountable for harms to children and urging tech giants to change their design<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3151,2791,1860,761,205,702,204,722,2131,6130,24010],"class_list":{"0":"post-47481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-addiction","9":"tag-cheer","10":"tag-groups","11":"tag-human","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-rights","14":"tag-social","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-trial","17":"tag-verdict","18":"tag-watershed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}