The addiction economy and a new era for online safety | Commercial Awareness Compass #67

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And then it just kind of brings up this debate around sort of safety of young people, mental wellbeing, online protection, and safeguards that need to be put in place in where the responsibility sits for that. And it's largely with the social media forms, they're kind of by design, create these apps to be as addictive as possible to keep you scrolling, to respond as soon as you see the red circle, to say you've got a new notification, or designed to trigger parts of our brain that say I need to spend as much time as possible on this app, because commercially, the more time we spend on these apps, the more money these platforms make. Yeah, definitely. And I know there's obviously been quite a lot in the news about kind of the addictive nature of these apps, kind of what it's doing to young people. I know Louis Thru's got his documentary coming out this week on the Manusphere, which I think I'll be watching this evening because anything he produces, I do quite enjoy. But obviously it's become a huge topic of debate on the internet, so MPs have got to focus on this because it's such a widespread thing. Yeah, and I don't know how far reaching this went in the UK, but in a lot of schools, there was a huge, just the Manusphere thing reminded me of it. A huge kind of thing that was exacerbated because of the use of social media platforms. Like it's around what's out around sort of red schools and blue schools and that schools are all going to meet up and have these big like fights and everything. It turned out to be nothing, but because of social media and people kind of catch on the wave and it being whatever socials, TikTok, Instagram, whatever, that could put online harm in an online space to actual worldwide physical harm. So the implications of that are huge. Yeah, definitely. So if we move into the intermediate section, we'll kind of look at the client side of this and kind of what practically this will mean. So this is a lot to do with tech regulation and compliance. What changes for platforms even without a ban? I think what we may see is with tighter or as it's being kind of floated, we're going to see sort of different mechanisms to kind of protect young people online. So social media companies may face tighter sort of obligations and restrictions being put on them under the UK's or the sort of England and Wales that online safety act, which we know recently came into effect not too long ago. Another related sort of regulations that kind of apply to that. So if you're a lawyer, a big city firm and you're acting, one of your clients is a social media platform. What are we going to be advised? And we're going to be saying, well, actually by design, let's increase our age verification. Let's change how the platform's designed. Let's do it. So when you're scrolling, you kind of, as some platforms do it, some don't. When you get to what or everything you've seen since your last access to the app, it says, you have now seen everything. You have been on this app for an hour. Take a break, as the young people say, to go out, touch grass, all of those things, do you make sure they're actually by design this app isn't going to be as addictive? Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because it is one of those things where you used to see it. Maybe a few years ago, where it's like you've seen your feed now. If you need to reset it to another one, that's maybe the case. But you've never seen that anywhere anymore. It's obviously every no matter what you're even, I'm sort of like vented. Like you never get to the end of vintage. It's always something to buy on vintage. This is my bank account is sadly found out. But you know, it's putting these measures in place to go right. You've reached not even your threshold. It's just kind of take a step back. You know, just to let you know how long you've been on an app or stuff like that. It's quite interesting. And obviously the big thing around this is with data protection and children's privacy. Where does age assurance collide with privacy law? Yeah, we need to be making sure that. Obviously you've got personal data, but then you're also your processing children's data people under 16. And then the targeted advertising that's linked around that. That's when we start coming to issues and that's where the ICO want to be involved. That's what we wanted to make sure that we have got the data protection regulations being compliant with complied with. And also we have this thing called the age appropriate. Let me just make sure I've got the acronym correct age appropriate design code. Which is sort of built around what the ICA have been developing. It's kind of code of practice where those that are being those services that are being offered to those that are under 16 and access to by children. Sorry, those under 18. They're designed in a way that prioritises the best interests of those young people. Their safety and also their data privacy. And that's all done by design. It has to be designed appropriately for that age category. And I guess with these new things are being brought in. There's a greater sense of liability and litigation risk if you don't comply. What sort of claims might grow out of this area? Yeah, we could have claims from sort of consumer rights groups or children safety protection like groups parents, whatever it may be where it relates to algorithmic harm. That's when your algorithms tailored towards a certain thing that you're consuming, whether that be. What are some examples for young people around sort of how they look in terms of weights. Because now you can access certain weight loss jobs online. Assthetics in terms of again how we're looking sort of inappropriate kind of muscle builders like enhances that again young people shouldn't be doing or even some parts of the way that young people access relate to self harm and suicide, which of course. causes major concern in harm to young people, where there are online safety features that aren't fit for purpose, there could be claims around that. Um, all this leading safety features, for example, you could say, our actors this, but actually, when it's tested, it doesn't do that at all. So claims come as a result. Yeah, and I, as you've mentioned before, kind of the use of like drugs and for aesthetics and stuff like that. That's one of the big things that's been pushed. One of my friends, a little brothers had his 18th birthday and my friend invite me and the amount of terms around. Like maxing and mocking and then talk about your drugs and stuff like that, where it's like, you've gone, where is all this come from, but obviously I'll stand from like stuff like social media, see your Instagram, TikToks and then you've got your other ones are a bit more. Like a bit less mainstream, that's like rumble, I think that's the one that a load of, you know, Trump's influence of friends are all on. Yeah, you know, you get all these sort of platforms that are pushing these sort of things and it's like, what are these reasonable steps that they need to put into to make it as little less harmful as it can be. No, exactly that and there are so many, like I'm 33, so I'm not down with like the link over the 12, the odds are saying. But there's so much around language that perhaps children may be saying to each other, they've learned from socials. But actually their parents have no clue what this means, their school teachers don't know what it means, but their algorithm is just feeding them all of this stuff, so they're just doing it because they think, actually I need to do that because everyone else is doing it. And children have enough pressures from school and everything that. Most of the time they just do what everyone else is doing because they want to be in the end crowd and if there's all being pushed on social media, then of course they're going to be influenced in that's where the apps need to be doing more in MPs need to be pushing the ice in to be pushing these platforms because there's all well in good saying. Let's do more age verification to make sure you are all X age. But actually, what if we do all of that then they get on the platform and they access all of this content, there's actually harmful for them anyway, corporate really fantastic you've done your age verification tick, but then how are you actually mitigating the content that's harmful to them that they're consuming. How are you mitigating that 13 year old that you've approved an ID checked if and spending all day every day on these apps isn't doing scrolling isn't spending their time damaging them and so well being a physical wellbeing as a result of staying on these platforms. Yeah, and not sound like we're two old, but obviously as I mentioned before, all these new phrases and stuff that are coming back how will they how will kind of compliance keep up to date with those things move so fast way you don't know what certain term or regulation means how's it going to kind of been monitored look to the because I guess in the last month, you know, hundreds of new terms will have come up that we've we've got absolutely no clue, but you know in these certain groups it could be spread this from that really. Harmful rhetoric, especially if you've mentioned kind of like body image or risks or like safety mental health, you know, it's it's it's interesting to see how you know when when it's level of governance over looking over this how they're going to keep up state with the fast pace of social media gosh I sounded old saying that. Oh, I'm all in a new worry and I think that lawyers that operate within sort of the education sectors, the school sectors, they may be under pressure as well by their their clients, he paying schools institutions or otherwise. That actually their policies need to be updated the safeguarding policies need to be updated should we have a ban on phones and school. What digital use rule should we have within this space and that could also become impactful or be forced kind of upon them lawyers to be having this conversation with their schools or clients. Just to operate in the regular education sector due to like regular repressures due to MPs lobbying due to the ICO pushing X Y and Z so that's another angle bit. Whilst the blanket ban isn't being put into effect whilst social media platforms may be being. So we're making change but also where are these children existing a lot of their time there in school what can schools do around this as well. So we'll move on to the advanced section now and we've talked about quite a lot in a domestic context, but we see the internet is absolutely everywhere so when we look at the kind of the global way that this is going to move. So the multinational platforms going to manage overlapping regimes. I think obviously Australia with the first like major country to say or recent times to say there's a social media ban UK tried to follow that. And it got rejected but I think we may see continued pressures and also if more countries implement similar bands. Then actually the UK might have to introduce stronger like rules. Platform liability rules age restrictions or it may come up again there actually let's opt for blanket ban for under 16 to under 13 or 13 to 16 year olds or 8 to use social media. And I guess you know we've talked about it the way that companies are going to work be working cross broad cross border many of these companies that are social media is having to work in different sort of territories. How do you advise when you know if you've got a company that's maybe based in the United States where they're sort of somewhat relaxed on these sort of issues. Whereas if they're operating Australia they're they're tightening up a lot more. So it will be for these organizations to sit down and discuss with their lawyers. How can we because they're not going to want to spend time and resource and money on developing apps from just by design from the ground up for different regimes. So they'll want these apps to be. As compliant as possible in as many jurisdictions as possible without running the risk of if we operate the US version in. Another country actually that's not going to be approved so we're working with the lawyers in the various jurisdictions to make sure that actually where they operate they are compliant. With the regulatory remit and also that the lawyers are almost horizon scanning for changes to say actually this is coming into effect we need to be looking at this this and this. I guess you know for these companies there they're providing these services for profit. What will happen to sort of companies growth models and their monetization streams if protections tighten. Well I think it's interesting because whenever you have something being offered for free you are generally your data is what's paying for it. So whilst they may have tighter restrictions on young people there will still be the apps will always be looking at different ways to monetize push ads and X Y and Z but I think there will be business model changes particularly where they're sort of stronger use protections being push. So I think that there have to be redesigns to the algorithms and so on all in engagement features but I think regardless of that in a sense social media platforms aren't going anywhere and there are new ones popping up all the time. People want to use these platforms so I think it may just be an adjustment but I think that they will still be monetizing on these platforms. I think that there may be a shift towards more verified accounts or paid tiers of accounts or more like age segmented experiences of the same sort of apps. That's a really interesting proposal actually in a way that sort of people have their vacation for like a political figure or whatever it may be. So these verification badges change depending on your age category so then you can only access certain content or within certain times depending on your time zone but ultimately that will be for the platforms to design to make sure that they're building these apps so that they are compliant or if there's any future pressures or requirements from the government here in the UK to say we need to be doing this that actually they're operating in that way. And I know it's one of those things that's frustrating with the pace that things move but with these sort of flexible powers. I feel like there's a lot of room to maneuver and maybe to adapt to these changes. I imagine that maybe a blanket ban at this point one could have a lot of political backlash but two it would have kind of a hard and fast rule when things are moving so fast. Can you mean that by the time that you've put a ban in place it's already redundant. Yeah exactly that and I just think maybe we might see more platforms develop kids on the screen. alternative versions like YouTube kids, for example, I have my Tunisys, they're sort of 7 and 6 and they use TikTok and they're saying things like 6, 7, don't know what it means, they're watching all this content around like their favorite like YouTubers are Canadian. So they're accessing all of this content so we want to make sure that the content that they're accessing isn't damaging their mental wellbeing isn't stopping them from enjoying like being a kid and playing and going outside but also to think that they don't need to be like these people on the internet, they don't need to look a certain way or be acting a certain way or pressured into doing something and that's where there's a real responsibility on these platforms to ultimately because the young people consuming this content now in how many years time it's going to be so interesting to see the study on how consuming content on social platforms YouTube, ETC at a young age impacts their wellbeing, self-esteem and overall mental and physical health 10, 15 years later. And kind of one last thing obviously outside of the like policy changes, there has been a big shift recently in people stepping back from like social media, like very much anti social media, anti-dews growing, anti, you know, these sort of things that would be interesting to see whether companies kind of follow suit and adapt to bring that market back in a more controlled manner. I think a lot more sorry like community focus in wildlife, community focus but I do think like when you go into these events, we're going to whatever outdoor class session fun thing is being put on, you're using your phone on the way on the tube, on the bus, whatever it may be, you're still scrolling, you're going to probably want to take pictures of the event, you might share that. But we are seeing more like digital detox retreats but I think that's people that fall the other end of the under 16s around that it's sort of your mid 20s sort of I've had enough of socials that I need a break, I need to get out the city rather than sort of your 13 year old at school where everyone's on Snapchat, everyone's sending messages. Bullying continues outside of the school because of the internet and that's where we need to have sort of platform liability rules, we need to have changes, we need to have restrictions to make sure that young people are protected in sort of the online social environment. Well I'm glad to announce that I'm I've digitally detoxed from my SQE app from doing the thousands of SBA Qs a week, that's done and I've put that I've put that life behind me. That's cool, it has an app, I didn't know that, that's real cool. Yeah, a lot of providers have different apps so they have their own internal banks. So I've signed out of that and if I ever see it again it will be too soon. So I think that now it brings us to the end of this week's commercial and this compass. So thank you so much Harry for joining us. The takeaway is simple, MPs didn't go for a blanket under 16s ban but they've signal that regulation is going to keep chatting in and platforms should treat this as a design and governance problem, not just a legal checkbox. So as always ask yourself how does this affect clients and what can a law firm do to help join us next week to keep building your commercial awareness and until then prepare without the panic. Thank you.