A court in Los Angeles County has found Meta liable in the endangerment of children on its multiple social media platforms. Supporters and families of the plaintiff rejoiced outside of the courthouse following the verdict in the landmark case.
On Wednesday, a court in LA County found Meta — the parent company of Facebook — liable in the endangerment of children on its platform.The day before, a landmark $375 million ruling against Meta in New Mexico had already given a new sense of urgency to the ongoing global showdown between child safety and privacy advocates.
Lawyer Mark Lanier, of the plaintiff Kaley G.M., leaves the court after the jury found Meta and Google liable in a key test case accusing Meta and Google’s YouTube of harming children’s mental health through addictive social media platforms, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.Meta was found liable on all counts — including the central allegation of that case, that child endangerment was baked into the very design of Meta platforms. At the heart of the debate is the question of encryption: Can adults enjoy the peace of mind afforded by snooping-free communications, without allowing child predators to take advantage of the same technology? Part of this allegation related to Meta’s personalized algorithms, which in the words of one Meta engineer-turned-whistleblower, helped connect child predators to their victims. “The product is very good at connecting people with interests, and if your interest is little girls, it will be really good at connecting you with little girls,” is end-to-end encryption, the technology that enables secure messaging on platforms like WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, and Facebook Messenger. End-to-end encryption ensures that, so long as both devices used to communicate aren’t compromised, nobody — including the company providing the service — can snoop on a person’s messages. Meta, admittedly, is not the most sympathetic company. As the case has revealed, it was clearly cavalier in the design of its personalized algorithms, giving scant attention to how those technologies could assist bad actors. Maybe if the company hadn’t spent so much time and resources building now-shuttered features to censor and “fact check” disfavored political speech between 2017 and 2024, it could have prioritized actual safety concerns — instead of the complaints of politically motivated “counter-disinformation” activists. But the question at the heart of the trial goes beyond Meta, with the potential to impact many companies, like Signal, which are far more sympathetic. The question is this: Will end-to-end encryption, and the privacy it guarantees, be allowed to exist? How can it, when courts are using its very existence to hold companies liable for child endangerment? We seem to be sleepwalking toward a true panopticon society, in which nothing communicated digitally — even in “private” messages — is truly private. There must be a middle ground. Demanding companies end encryption and monitor all user messages is a little like asking the electric company to check which devices its customers are powering up — that it is, in fact, a microwave and not a glow lamp for marijuana farming. A woman holds a framed photo of a boy in a suit and blue tie holding a Coca-Cola bottle; a pin with another photo of a boy is on her black shirt, along with a “Stop Online Harassment” ribbon.The answer will most likely be found in the age verification technologies that companies are rolling out. If minors are banned from using encrypted technology, it will at least be easier to make the case that adults should be allowed to use it. There’s little point age-verifying to use end-to-end encryption if your private data is just going to leak anyway. , in which trusted third-party verifiers separate information about a person’s age from other identifying information, like names and addresses. That enables users to prove their age while retaining online anonymity. Tellingly, however, the governments around the world that are now demanding age verification are not packaging those demands with technical standards that mandate privacy-protecting methods. This is totally at odds with what governments — notably in the European Union — have been asking of tech companies for well over a decade: that they do more to protect user privacy. Governments and courts want to protect children and protect privacy at the same time. Both are important aims. But they need to think seriously about the technical means that enable both. Allum Bokhari is managing director at the Foundation for Freedom Online, an online censorship watchdog. His previous work can be found at Disgraced cop chokes up describing how she lost 'everything in 15 seconds' before she was shot in chestResidents irate after LI town sticks homeowners with shock $7M bill after losing lawsuit to golf course: 'They're f--king us'Families are fed up with social media — and this week's legal double whammy is just the beginning for companies like MetaLawyer Mark Lanier, of the plaintiff Kaley G.M., leaves the court after the jury found Meta and Google liable in a key test case accusing Meta and Google's YouTube of harming children's mental health through addictive social media platforms, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A woman holds a framed photo of a boy in a suit and blue tie holding a Coca-Cola bottle; a pin with another photo of a boy is on her black shirt, along with a"Stop Online Harassment" ribbon. Stream It Or Skip It: 'Bait' On Prime Video, Where Riz Ahmed Is A Struggling Actor Who Helps Start A Rumor About Him Being The Next James Bond
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