TikTok has turned off notifications for children past bedtime, Instagram has disabled targeted adverts for under-18s entirely and YouTube has turned off autoplay for teen users: moves seemingly triggered by Britain introducing a new set of regulations aimed at protecting children online.
On Thursday, the UK introduced a new set of regulations aimed at protecting children and at a stroke, became a global leader in the field, with the prospect of multimillion-dollar fines for companies that breach its new “age appropriate design code” leading to a cascade of last minute changes across some of Silicon Valley’s largest players.
Rather than applying the changes just to the UK, as they would be legally required to, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube have made the changes global.
That proves, said Beeban Kidron, the crossbench peer who introduced the code into law, that a mid-sized country such as Britain can have a meaningful effect on the global internet. “If one code can create societal change,” she said, “then actually, what it means is they’re not exempt. This tech exceptionalism that has defined the last decade – ‘we are different’ – just disappears in a puff of smoke.”
It ought to be something the government, which has been outspoken about its desire to make the UK the “safest place in the world to be online”, is championing from the rooftops. But instead, the code came into effect with little fanfare or attention, except from those deep in the world of child safety regulation...
Read Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/05/social-media-giants-increase-global-child-safety-after-uk-regulations-introduced
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