France: top court blocks social media ban
France's Constitutional Council has blocked the social media ban for under-15s which was passed by parliament in July, ruling that it constitutes a "disproportionate infringement" on freedom of expression and communication. French President Emmanuel Macron has now asked his government to rewrite the legislation to make it "legally viable". The European press draws its own conclusions.
Counterproductive decision in favour of freedom
This is bad news for young people in France, writes author Abel Quentin in Libération:
“The height of absurdity is that such a vital piece of legislation which serves the public good is being blocked in the name of freedom. ... The fact that millions of young people suffer from attention deficits, that the digital flow of information impairs their cognitive abilities and contributes to mental health issues – all this is regrettable, to be sure, but it is the idea that a 12-year-old might be barred from posting on online gaming platforms that makes the constitutional judges shudder. ... What kind of freedom is it that the Council invokes? A freedom that protects mass manipulation destroys true freedom.”
Tackle the problem at its root
Le Temps says we can learn from the impact of the ban in Australia:
“Studies there show that the number of young people still active on social media remains huge. ... Age verification mechanisms are not working, and children are clever enough to get round most of the far too lax measures. … What can be done? The EU could tackle the problem at its root: by banning these platforms from using and abusing mechanisms that foster addiction, but also by preventing the dissemination of any content aimed at young people that is deemed toxic. ... Taking such measures – and, above all, trying to enforce them – is far more difficult than simply imposing a ban. But in the long term it will undoubtedly prove far more effective.”
A policy of ineffective gestures
Bans attract attention but won't solve the problem, Expresso points out:
“Macron has made the ban one of his top priorities. This is the kind of policy pursued when gestures take the place of action. Regulating from the outside is the easy way out. You require users to show ID, set a minimum age, generate headlines and encounter no resistance whatsoever. Regulation from within is expensive: you have to go up against companies that have lawyers, lobbyists and revenues to protect, for years on end without anything to show for your efforts. Governments that can't manage the latter resort to the former and call it child protection.”
Hold platforms to account
AI lecturer Michalis Kritikos warns on website Oikonomikos Tachidromos:
“Online child protection cannot be solely a matter of parental supervision. It must also be a matter of corporate responsibility and digital services design. As Greece prepares to introduce a new age limit, it has the opportunity to do more than simply put in place a digital age restriction. It can require platforms to demonstrate that guaranteeing the safety of minors in their digital environments is a bigger priority than maximising the amount of time they spend in front of a screen. Because ultimately, the crucial question is not whether children will use technology. That is now obvious. The real question is who is developing this technology, and for what purpose.”
Corporations are shaping how we think
Former Turkish Minister of Education Mahmut Özer warns in Milliyet against the unchecked power of digital platforms:
“For the first time in human history, billions of people – particularly children and young people – spend most of their day interacting with systems that know their users' psychological vulnerabilities down to the smallest detail, and whose economic success depends on capturing users' attention for as long as possible. ... Corporations that can determine what billions of people see, what they read, what information they access and where they direct their attention are amassing social power on a scale that few institutions in history have possessed. ... Meanwhile, the algorithms used by digital platforms remain largely opaque.”