Earlier this month, the U.S. surgeon general issued an extraordinary warning: social media is an "important driver" of a mental health crisis among young people.
For Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, that came as no surprise. A former data scientist for the platform, in 2021 she released documents that laid out how Facebook prioritized profits over tackling harmful content like misinformation or human trafficking and dealing with its impact on children's mental health.
Yet even though social media's harms are well known, the announcement marked a shift in the global push to regulate these companies that could open the floodgates to "the most public debate we're going to have in the next 15 (to) 20 years," she said, speaking at a Monday event co-sponsored by Canada's National Observer and McGill University's Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, where she is a fellow-in-residence this year.
The big question will be whether the policies that emerge from those discussions will bolster democracy by protecting social media users' "autonomy and dignity" online instead of using an authoritarian, censorship-based approach.
"I'm a little scared about what's being discussed right now," she said. Utah recently passed laws that effectively eliminate children's online privacy, while Montana has moved to ban TikTok entirely. Both approaches take a heavy toll on people's freedom that more "moderate, sensible laws" could avoid.
The early fixes are relatively easy, she said....
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