Will Meta’s massive settlement in a landmark US suit spur it to implement age restriction measures worldwide?

It urged TikTok and YouTube to join them in adopting the new standards “for meaningful progress to happen”. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OTHER PLATFORMS?

Whatever Meta chooses to do, the landmark settlement puts pressure on other social media platforms to implement similar measures, experts said.

For example, the settlement will be made over 10 years and part of it will be paid only if other social media companies agree to settlements in the future, said Dr Soon.

This pressure adds to the ongoing lawsuits facing YouTube, TikTok and Snap, she added. “This is the beginning of what could be a reparation era for social media companies.”

According to the agreement, the last 30 per cent of the US$18 billion, or about US$5.3 billion, will be released only after two conditions are met – for YouTube and TikTok to implement similar measures including a one-hour daily limit, as well as for each to match half of the 30 per cent figure.

The landmark settlement signals that the threat of liability can lead to product changes for tech companies like Meta, said Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) Assistant Professor Andrew Yee.

Other companies that rely on similar features and business models will consider what changes their own products need to ward off regulatory pressure and liability, he added.

He also noted that YouTube and TikTok implementing similar measures is one of the conditions for this settlement, which means the offer is already tied to other companies also making these changes.

This settlement will inform future litigation and regulation, which would apply to other companies, said SMU’s Dr Hartung, adding that Meta’s competitors, like those behind YouTube, TikTok and Snap, have shown very similar behaviour in the past.

These other companies will likely want to settle their cases too, he said. They would have a hard time arguing that the restrictions Meta agreed to will not be workable for them, added Dr Hartung.

The US case is unlikely to spawn more legal trials against social media companies elsewhere, he said, noting that outside of the US, enforcing social media regulations through a trial is unusual. 

Most jurisdictions, including Australia, the European Union and the United Kingdom, have already passed relevant regulations that safeguard young people online, said Dr Hartung.

Instead, this case and other similar ones in the US all indicate the growing awareness of the harms caused by social media as a business, he said.

“While unlikely to itself trigger more trials, it does express a general sentiment of regulators and the general population to regulate this behaviour. I am certain that these countries will enforce their legislation rather strictly as this seems to align not just with the rule of law but with the general sentiment of their population,” he said.

Nevertheless, Mr Fong noted that other social media companies might not react to Meta’s settlement because there is no guidance from the courts.

Because the case concluded with a settlement, there is no resulting written judgment that would have clearly spelled out what the platform was liable for, he said.

In agreeing to settle, Meta denied any wrongdoing. The total payout also represents about three to four months of profit and about one month of revenue.

A court judgment can be used as a precedent, and may have put pressure on other social media platforms to follow suit, the technology and digital media lawyer added.

But without a written judgment, there is no visibility on whether what Meta allegedly did is actually against the law, said Mr Fong. As such, he added that other platforms may stick to the status quo.

HOW SIGNIFICANT ARE META’S PROMISED MEASURES?

In the US settlement, Meta agreed to, over the next decade, restrict teenagers’ use of Facebook and Instagram to two hours a day and block all usage from midnight to 6am, in the absence of parental consent.

These limits could be tightened if Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube adopt similar terms. Meta will also disable most push notifications to teenage users during school hours of 8am to 3pm and enhance measures to prevent children from accessing age-restricted content.

Teens will be able to choose a non-algorithmic feed and turn off autoplay. They will also be blocked from using extreme makeup filters, and will not see the numbers of likes and reactions on posts by default.

While the two-hour limit is an attempt to enforce a break from perpetual scrolling, it does not tackle the underlying addictive mechanisms, said Professor Gemma Anne Calvert from NTU’s Nanyang Business School.

Disabling notifications during school hours is important because they act as attention cues. This measure will likely work best for pupils whose habit of checking for notifications is still triggered by them, she added.

The overnight block is the strongest measure, said Prof Calvert.

Adolescence brings a shift in circadian timing, so teenagers are biologically primed to be awake at the hours when these platforms are most rewarding, she added.

“Sleep displacement is one of the better-evidenced routes from heavy screen use to low mood, so this measure is hitting a real causal pathway rather than a proxy for one,” she said.

For NTU’s Asst Prof Yee, the proposed changes are noteworthy because these design changes are more substantive than opt-in features.

But since the underlying incentive to maximise engagement has not changed, tech companies may find other features that can also effectively capture engagement and attention, he added, stressing that there is more to be done.

On paper, the changes Meta have promised seem significant and will mainly impact how much time young users will spend on the platform, said NUS’ Dr Soon.

“These product changes aim to put to rest people’s concerns over the two platforms’ addictiveness and exploitation of young people’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities,” she added.  

But these requirements will not dramatically change young people’s experiences online in the near future, said Dr Soon.

Meta will take up to 10 years to introduce the changes, and their effectiveness is contingent on how effectively it can implement age-gating, or age verification, she added.

Countries like Australia that have implemented age bans have flagged persistent gaps in age assurance measures, and the harm young people face stems not only from how much time they spend online but what they are exposed to, said Dr Soon.

“The new requirements do not fully address the problem of harmful content and the personalised targeting of users via platform algorithms.”

A big part of the settlement puts what Meta was already doing voluntarily into writing, Dr Hartung noted.

This includes special accounts for teenagers, default settings that favoured privacy, content control, age restrictions and nudges to take a break, he added.

The public learned during the trial that Meta was internally aware that many of these settings did not work or affect users meaningfully, with less than 0.2 per cent to 2 per cent of users using these features, he noted.

Other elements like the time limit and the night-time block are more meaningful, said Dr Hartung.

“Whether that is enough to counter teens’ creativity to circumvent them and Meta’s financial incentives to make that possible, will remain to be seen.”