Photo Credit: Andrew Harnik/AP via Politico
In August, Meta agreed to new rules regarding teen safety on Instagram and Facebook.
Following legal proceedings launched by 48 state attorneys, each from different states, Meta settled to pay US$18 billion in annual installments over the next decade, according to BBC News.
Studies have found that Meta intentionally used features like endless scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications to keep teenagers engaged on its platforms, contributing to higher rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, eating disorders, body image issues, and suicide risk among young users, as reported by AP News.
Features like "infinite scroll" eliminate natural stopping points, while push notifications exploit variable rewards like a slot machine, making it even harder for undeveloped minds to stop scrolling, lawyers argued.
Victoria Hinks, who lost her daughter to suicide, told BBC News that Meta is “intentionally preying upon the fragile psyche of teens.”
“You have to be sixteen to drive, eighteen to vote, twenty-one to drink, twenty-five to rent a car but at any age you can see anything on the internet, and there are no guardrails and these companies know it,” she said.
In addition to the case that Meta settled for US$18 billion, the social media company is still being sued by thousands of individuals, school boards, and municipal governments who allege that Meta knowingly caused a mental health crisis among youth.
According to CTV News, the US$18 billion settlement is roughly three to four months of net profit for Meta. Had Meta kept going with the trial to the end and then lost, the price they paid would’ve been a lot more. CBC News says that the total liability could have been up to $1.4 trillion USD, which is nearly equivalent to Meta’s worth.
Apart from the US$18 billion settlement, Meta has also paid other large sums to due other lawsuits. In a case filed by the State of New Mexico, Meta was ordered to pay US$942 million to address the “youth mental health crisis its platforms helped create,” according to the Social Media Victims Law Center.
These financial liabilities go to pay for the rehabilitation of addicted youth, and they also serve as compensation for families who have lost children to depression and suicide. As Hinks said to BBC News, “no amount of money is ever going to bring my beautiful daughter back.”
The Social Media Victims Law Center concludes that “we see this ruling as validation of what we have argued for years: the youth mental health crisis is not an unfortunate byproduct of social media, but the direct and foreseeable result of design choices Meta made to maximize engagement over the safety of children.”
At the California federal trial this summer, Meta agreed to new rules to keep teens safe. As per BBC News, their new rules for teens, which will be implemented over the next few months in the US, include a two-hour time limit, no access from midnight to six a.m., no visible like or thumbs-up system for youth accounts, and muted notifications for school hours. Meta will also impose stricter age verifications.
However, imposing stricter age verifications may also have drawbacks, CBC News explains, since the more strict verifications there are, the more personal information Meta will have on every individual user.
Additionally, age-verification technology is not currently very advanced. Most large companies tend to verify age through biometric scans (like selfies), government ID checks, or analysis of behaviour patterns.
However, each verification method also has its flaws, according to TechCrunch. Behavioural analysis can misjudge minors as adults and some ID/biometric checks give personal data to third-party companies.
Concerns surrounding the privacy of users’ data previously surfaced in 2018, during the Cambridge Analytica case, a multi-million lawsuit where many Facebook users’ private data was leaked to a British consulting firm without any informed consent.
Dr. Alexis Ingber, a professor of communications at Syracuse University, commented, “This is a classic debate around prioritizing safety over privacy.” She told researchers at TechCrunch that if people wanted to keep their children safe on Meta platforms, they also have to conform to the age verification that is going to introduce new data privacy concerns.
Meta is also pushing other companies like YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and their respective parent companies to incorporate these new features, which could lead to a shift in the entire industry, not just Meta.
Value Add VC, an investor group that provides startups with operational support, industry expertise, and financial capital, suggests that Meta isn’t asking other companies to change from the goodness of their hearts, rather, Meta wouldn’t want to lose out on their market to other companies whose apps aren’t as restricted.
While these new rules were formed in American courts, some experts say that Meta’s new rules will soon come to Canada, as well.
Carmi Levy, a technology analyst and journalist, explained to CBC News that “Historically, whenever companies like Meta introduce significant changes to their infrastructure in a certain region, eventually, they do go global. We saw this with the European Union, where their regional changes eventually went world wide.” He expects that over time, Canada will see these changes as well.