Commentary: Will Meta’s US settlement change how Singapore regulates social media?

SINGAPORE: Meta’s US$18 billion settlement with US states and territories, alongside its agreement to implement new child-safety features, came as a surprise. The federal lawsuit was expected to be a drawn-out affair but concluded one week after the trial commenced.This latest development is significant as it adds another layer of duty of care by social media companies to young users.It also guides policymakers on how they can enforce safer design. Singapore plans to introduce laws in early 2027 requiring social media platforms to roll out stronger safeguards for teens – and for platforms that do not comply, Singapore aims to raise the minimum age of access to 18.PLATFORMS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE “HOW”Meta and other social media companies have come under heavy regulatory scrutiny in recent years. Earlier this year, Snap and YouTube settled lawsuits over their impact on users’ mental health ahead of trial. In legislating against social media, governments have focused on the “whom” and the “what” – young users, and harmful content. This approach has informed policies like the under-16 social media ban.Meta’s settlement in the US extends platforms’ responsibility to the “how”. What Meta agreed to – limiting the amount of time children spend on their platforms, banning access from midnight to 6am, and removing push notifications during school hours – will change how young users engage with social media. Meta previously said its existing tools like screen-time warnings and parental controls make their services safer for children. However, experts highlighted that such features are rarely used as they are not automatically turned on. The reality is that social media companies, being profit-making companies, make deliberate architecture choices to attract users and keep them on the platforms. What’s more, history shows how Meta tweaks product features for different markets for this purpose.For instance, the company introduced Facebook Lite for developing countries that run on slower networks. A different set of tools usable with lower data bandwidths were introduced for Facebook Lite. Other country-specific rollouts include Facebook Marketplace and the tweaking of Newsfeed after the 2016 US presidential election so users would see more posts from their friends and family, and fewer from brands, businesses and media. While this adjustment might not have been made for revenue purposes, it was a response to the scrutiny the platform faced for the spread of election mis- and disinformation. These architectural changes point to social media companies’ ability to not just change product settings quickly but also for markets of their choice.WILL SOCIAL MEDIA BE SAFER?On paper, the changes that Meta said it will make to Facebook and Instagram aim to limit the amount of time young users spend there and make the platforms less addictive.However, the new features do not fully address the problem of harmful content and the personalised targeting of users via platform algorithms. The harm posed to young people does not just stem from how much time they spend online but also what they are exposed to. Moreover, making social media safer should not happen only after it is rolled out to users. User safety considerations must be made upstream, when a product is designed and being developed.According to the World Economic Forum, “safety by design puts user safety and rights at the centre of the design and development of online products and services”. The intention is for technology companies to “minimise online threats by anticipating, detecting and eliminating online harms before they occur”. WHAT THIS MEANS FOR SINGAPOREMeta’s lawsuit has made clear that if left to their own devices, social media companies are unlikely to take necessary drastic steps.Regulators will have to shoulder the responsibility of defining safety standards for children and take action should social media companies fail to meet the standard. The community, comprising users, parents and educators, will have to remain vigilant and step up to call for accountability. Singapore’s approach to improving online safety for users has been a multi-pronged one. Since 2022, the government has introduced a slew of regulations which seek to mitigate the negative repercussions of social media use at the content, platform, and system levels, and more recently, at the victim level. At a forum organised by the Ministry of Digital Development and Information and the Institute of Policy Studies in July, Minister Josephine Teo said that safety is not just about content, but also how much time children spend on social media and the nature of their interactions. Besides addictive features, policymakers should also be concerned with product features that put children in dangerous situations such as chat functions. For example, platforms could be required to restrict messaging from strangers and notify parents and guardians of accounts that send messages to their children.While Meta’s product tweaks will be made for the US market only, the settlement is likely to nudge similar considerations in other jurisdictions, which could leverage their regulatory frameworks to impose obligations on Meta and other platforms. And they should, because children all around the world, regardless of their nationality, deserve so much more.Dr Carol Soon is Deputy Head and Associate Professor (Practice) in media policy and regulation at the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore. She is also Vice Chair of the Media Literacy Council.