GoKawiilThe fallout of an $18 billion lawsuit against Meta, announced on Wednesday, is already here. A new announcement from Meta is designed to meet the terms of the settled lawsuit while helping to prevent teen social media addiction.
In its post, Meta outlined a series of changes to both Instagram and Facebook that will apply only to those under 18. Most of the changes were required as part of the lawsuit settlement, notably the creation of daily limits and night mode controls for teens, as well as the adoption of age-assurance measures to help prevent cheating the system. As part of the agreement, Meta has denied any wrongdoing.
There’s been worldwide pushback against teens and children using social media, including the EU restricting access to social apps for kids under 13, and Australia banning apps like Instagram for anyone under 16. But some advocates worry Meta’s changes won’t be enough to fully protect teens.
In an interview with Democracy Now on Thursday, attorney and co-director of the AI Now research institute, Amba Kak, said the changes don’t address the platform’s architecture, which is designed to addict teenagers with features like infinite scroll. “It’s the business model of surveillance advertising, where it is the optimization of engagement and attention at any cost,” Kak said. “And I think if we don’t get at those root cause fixes, we’re going to be stuck playing whack-a-mole.”
A representative from Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Time limits for kids
Chief among the upcoming changes to Instagram and Facebook are time limitations for teens. A new default time limit will set the social media scrolling time to 2 hours a day for those under 18, and it can only be extended by parents.
An additional night mode will block most access to content such as feeds, stories, explore mode and reels between midnight and 6 a.m. and a school mode will mute notifications between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Meta is also adding a feature to give 15-minute warnings to teens if they’ve been on the apps for an extended period of time, as well as 60-minute and 90-minute warnings they’re daily allotment is running down. To further reduce constant scrolling, autoplay for videos and clips will also be turned off by default, but like most features, it can be adjusted by parents.
Protection against toxic content
... continue reading