Human rights groups cheer ‘watershed’ verdict in social media addiction trial
The verdict in a landmark social media trial that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products has sparked calls for reform across borders.International human rights and tech freedom groups issued statements after the decision, praising jurors for holding social media companies accountable for harms to children and urging tech giants to change their design features to ensure children are safe.Amnesty International said in a statement on Thursday that “this court decision is clear: these platforms are unsafe by design and meaningful change is urgently needed”.The day prior, a Los Angeles jury found both Meta and YouTube liable for intentionally creating platforms that hooked a young user and led to her being harmed.The six-week trial was one of more than 20 “bellwether” trials that are expected to go to court in the next few years.
The jury awarded the plaintiff in the case damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder.Plaintiffs have taken particular issue with the use of features such as infinite scroll and autoplay – arguing that they prioritize engagement over users’ well-being.These elements are particularly harmful for children, they say; the plaintiff in the Los Angeles case, a 20-year-old who went by the initials KGM, testified that she became addicted to YouTube at age six and Instagram at nine, which began a long cycle of depression, self-harm and body dysmorphia.“Rather than using blunt tools like banning young teens from social media, states must require a fundamental overhaul of how these platforms operate, including addressing their addictive design,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director of research, advocacy, policy and campaigns.“This is the only path to a truly safe social media.
” Guevara-Rosas said the trial “laid bare” the use of “unsafe design features”,Human Rights Watch described Wednesday’s decision as a “a rare accounting of tech companies’ decisions to build products that have ignored the best interests of children”,“Children and parents have long known that social media platforms are designed in ways that result in children struggling to regulate their use, even as they’re exposed to and suffer serious harms,” said Hye Jung Han, senior researcher on children and technology at Human Rights Watch, in a statement emailed to the Guardian,The Business and Human Rights Centre, a global non-profit, said that Wednesday’s verdict was a “watershed moment for corporate accountability in the digital age”,Michael Clements, the group’s executive director, stressed the verdict “reinforces longstanding concerns about the sector’s business models, and highlights the urgent need for companies to undertake robust human rights, due diligence to identify, prevent and mitigate harm – and not to engineer it for profit”.
He stressed the need for regulators to take action to enshrine protections for children and other vulnerable users, though: “This shouldn’t be only left up to the courts,”Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, executive director at Tech Global Institute, a digital rights organization, told Rest of World that Wednesday’s verdict set “an important precedent as far as platform accountability goes – and in recognizing the role of algorithms in scaling harm”,The United Nations, which has laid partial blame at Facebook’s feet for the spread of ethnic violence in Myanmar, declined to comment on Wednesday’s verdict,Not all tech freedom and human rights groups are on the same page, though,Fight for the Future, a US-based digital rights group that advocates for global internet freedom, is viewing the verdict with more skepticism, according to a recent blogpost.
While the organization is in favor of successful lawsuits that “reduce the power of these companies and force them to change their policies”, they worry the court decision is “already being weaponized by lawmakers” who are focused on legislative solutions, such as the Kids Online Safety Act (Kosa), online ID check mandates and attacks on Section 230.Fight for the Future views these measures as raising free speech concerns by “forcing platforms to suppress certain categories of speech or getting the government involved in dictating what content platforms can show to which users”.Advocates of these measures say they are necessary to enhance safety for young social media users.Diya, who praised the verdict as a milestone in accountability, noted though that the verdict may also result in challenges for free speech and privacy.“While a landmark verdict, it does set a dangerous precedent by potentially risking an end to end-to-end-encryption [and] taking children completely off social media, or requiring backdoor data access to user data under the guise of child safety,” she told Rest of World.
Next says Middle East conflict could raise clothing prices by up to 10%
The boss of Next has said clothing prices could rise by 4% to 10% if conflict in the Middle East extends into the autumn and factories are hit by higher fuel and fabric costs.Simon Wolfson said the clothing and home retailer had so far seen little disruption to its supply chain.While container ships are being delayed by up to two weeks as they travel slowly to save fuel, he said the company already held enough spare stock to prevent gaps on shelves.He said these costs could amount to £15m if the conflict lasts three months and prices could begin to rise by about 1% from June or July if disruption dragged on until then.Lord Wolfson added that Next was offsetting additional costs on fuel and air freight with savings elsewhere and it did not expect any effect on profits for the year ahead
There are solutions to Britain’s energy crisis | Letters
The Iran war has exposed the cost of successive governments’ fixation on short-term, vote-winning policies, leaving Britain increasingly vulnerable to strategic coercion, particularly in energy (The UK sleepwalked into this energy price shock, 23 March).British companies currently lead a new, technologically proven, job-creating industry which, had it been supported earlier, would have strengthened security of supply and reduced costs. It is tidal stream energy.Britain has about 50% of Europe’s tidal resources, all within our territorial waters and flowing at different times. It is predictable, inexhaustible and can be operational within three years of consent, independent of global energy prices and weather variability
Two salon owners wanted to go zero-waste. Could they do it and keep their business afloat?
Scisters Salon & Apothecary in the San Diego area is committed to sustainable beauty and going low-wasteThe first thing you notice when you walk into Scisters Salon & Apothecary is what isn’t there. No wall of glossy plastic bottles promising “repair” or “shine”. No sharp chemical tang or aerosol haze. The only trash can is a tiny basket that mostly collects coffee cups and gum wrappers clients bring from home.Instead, the shelves of this southern California salon are lined with large refill containers of shampoo and conditioner, houseplants dot the space, hair clippings are swept away for compost, and the air carries a trace of bergamot and vanilla
Ministers vow to spend record £8.4bn on road maintenance in England
Ministers have pledged to spend record amounts on road maintenance as part of a £27bn five-year investment plan for England’s major roads and motorways.The government said it was aiming to “fix the foundations” with almost a third, £8.4bn, of the spending going on maintenance, including resurfacing a quarter of England’s strategic road network.However, campaigners said the plan – the government’s third road investment strategy, known as RIS3 – was still building needless new roads, with funding approved for 16 schemes.That includes £1
Ticketmaster quietly raised other fees after US crackdown on hidden charges
Following a wave of regulations banning the surprise fees that appear at the end of a transaction, Ticketmaster stopped charging the extra few dollars it added to each order at checkout. Typically shared with the venue, the order processing fee was a boon to a global platform that sells hundreds of millions of tickets a year.But documents obtained by the Guardian show that while Ticketmaster eliminated this fee to comply with the rules, the company simply raised the cost of different fees in a number of its venues to ensure it didn’t lose money.“To account for the loss of order processing revenue, we must adjust fees to offset the revenue loss,” Ticketmaster wrote in an email to the Findlay Toyota Center in Arizona last year. The venue eliminated a $6 order processing fee, but raised the service fee on each ticket by $2 instead
Co-op boss quits after year marked by cyber-attack and claims of ‘toxic’ culture
The Co-op Group has announced that its chief executive will step down this weekend after a difficult year that included a cyber-attack and recent claims of a “toxic” culture at the business.Shirine Khoury-Haq will depart on 29 March and Kate Allum, a board member and former boss of the dairy group First Milk, will step in as interim boss while a permanent replacement is sought.News of the exit came as the company, which owns more than 800 funeral parlours and an insurance and legal advisory business, as well as operating more than 2,000 convenience stores, dived to an underlying loss of £125m.The drop from a £45m profit the year before came after it took a £107m profits hit from the damaging IT hack, which forced it to shut down some systems.On Thursday, Khoury-Haq denied that her resignation was linked to the allegations of a toxic culture
Spanish woman who won legal battle for right to euthanasia has assisted death
Labour failing to shift power from Whitehall to local areas, analysis finds
London has England’s highest levels of child poverty, data shows
Coming across a terrible dilemma | Brief letters
Resident doctors in England to begin six-day strike after rejecting offer in pay dispute
Fifteen new councils to be created in south and east of England