Social media sector liable for addiction: a turning point?
A US court has ordered Instagram and Youtube to pay substantial compensation in a civil court case concerning the addictive nature of social media platforms. The two companies can appeal the ruling. Other platforms, such as Snapchat and Tiktok, avoided going to trial by reaching a settlement. The European press sees opportunities for new regulation of the sector.
The ruling could soon go viral
The Economist hopes that the decision will set a precedent:
“Some lawyers have compared the claims to the cases brought against tobacco companies in earlier decades, which led to widespread regulation of the industry. America is not the only place where social apps are facing greater scrutiny. ... A 30-country study last year by Ipsos, a pollster, asked whether under-14s should be excluded from social media, and found a majority in favour in every single country. The verdict in California may soon go viral.”
Turn off the toxic algorithm
It would be possible to turn things around, Corriere della Sera writes:
“This is the end of the era of the toxic algorithm. Social media was not always like this: in the early years Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter were not designed to manufacture addictions by amplifying content that exploits our weaknesses and darkest sides. Engagement algorithms were introduced a decade ago. And the development only accelerated with the rise of TikTok. This shift has produced business empires, but it has also bolstered populism and eroded democracies. And the brunt of the burden has been carried by those young people and kids whom some psychologists have dubbed 'The Anxious Generation' [Jonathan Haidt, 2024].”
Architects are responsible for the spaces they build
The Independent reflects:
“For years, Meta and other companies were able to get away with presenting themselves as the architects of a kind of unruly town square: they just provided the space, they suggested, and it wasn't their fault if some people used that to bully, abuse and trick people. But any good architect knows that the things you build decide how people behave: a badly-designed space leads to badly-behaved people in it. And, more importantly, it is about what you choose not to do: if you put a vast, swirling, malevolent and unknown void in the middle of your city, you have to take a little responsibility when people fall into it.”