Regulating social media for children

India’s large catchment of young users means business-as-usual can cause serious harm

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Several studies and surveys speak of the harm that social media can do to users, especially young people.

Yet, social media companies have minimised this in their narratives or outright denied it. Recent court filings in a case in the US indicate companies may have been aware of such fallout and, in some cases, deliberately overlook adverse findings from their own research. According to a Reuters report, the documents talk of the termination of a 2020 internal research by Meta—the social media bellwether — after responses pointed at mental health gains that followed deactivation of the social media platform.