Council asks social media giants if they will implement teenage safety measures in Europe

It comes after the Meta settlement unveiled last Wednesday in which the social media giant agreed an $18 billion payout, and pledged to implement a series of changes to Facebook and Instagram following a lawsuit brought by 29 US states against them. File photo: AP/Thibault Camus

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has written to Meta asking the social media company if it intends to introduce the teenage safety measures agreed in a lawsuit in the US to users in Europe.

The council’s enforcement unit has also written to Tiktok and YouTube to ask if those companies also intend to implement similar measures, as a result of the Meta settlement unveiled last Wednesday.

Under that settlement, Meta agreed an $18 billion payout, and the tech giant also pledged to implement a series of changes to Facebook and Instagram following a lawsuit brought by 29 US states against the social media tech giant. The states had accused Meta of designing products that contributed to youth addiction and harmed mental health.

Following the payout, Meta issued an open letter calling on YouTube and Tiktok to mirror its newly announced teenage safety measures, saying it wants to “ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone".

"These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers — TikTok and YouTube — to put the same measures in place," it said. “All platforms should empower parents and support teens in these ways because we know that when teens are restricted on one app, they simply move to another. For meaningful progress to happen, we urge our peers to join us."

While Meta denied any wrongdoing, the company will impose measures including limits on usage time, restrictions on notifications, stronger age-verification tools, the option of non-algorithmic feeds and hiding "likes" and similar engagement metrics for younger users.

Now, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties has written to Meta’s Irish head of public policy, Dualta O Broin, asking if it intends rolling out the measures planned for the US to Europe. 

The council’s AI expert, Louise Hooper, asked the company for the timeframe if it intends to echo the measures in Europe. But Ms Hooper also asked the company to give a reason if it doesn’t intend to introduce the measures in Europe. 

She is also the signatory on similarly-worded correspondence to the Irish headquarters of both Tiktok and YouTube. She described the settlement as a “landmark moment for Big Tech and the harms they have been wreaking on children and society more broadly".

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“However, instead of agreement to change the platform design for the benefit of all children everywhere, the settlement appears restricted to the states participating in the litigation. It would seem that the platforms used by children in Ireland and Europe will be unchanged.

“We are also concerned that the measures will not result in fundamental change to provide ‘safety by design’ but instead push responsibility onto parents and caregivers to control children’s access to social media. Some measures such as the option for under 18s to have a non-personalised feed exist already."