Safer Phones Bill
Since the arrival of smartphones and tablets, parents have been caught between a rock and a hard place when trying to police their children’s usage. Governance in this fashion therefore seems like a sensible move for all to help cut screen time without the draconian move to ban phones for young people altogether. For brands, less content consumed will mean less data to target this segment – however, ethically, teenagers shouldn’t be targeted in the same way as older shoppers. Advertisers, social networks, and publishers should welcome and back the move. Like any changes, the new measures will become the new normal very quickly and everyone will have to adapt.
“In practical terms, the largest challenge will be the overhaul of registration for platforms for both new users and current users below the age threshold. However, financial services have been doing this for several years, so the blueprint is clear. As ever, a sensible and ethical approach by all parties to collaborate will be key to making the bill work.”
This new bill should be welcomed by all. We can’t expect teenagers to self-police their already high levels of usage, let alone what content and individuals are exposed to them. And as we know too well, access to unlimited information online can rapidly escalate to extreme violence in the real world as we witnessed across the UK in August. Governance can only be a positive move.
Practically, the social networks will need to completely revise their registration process for new users and retro verify existing users in this age group, likely via their parents or caregivers.
I don’t think there will be a ban on phones for teens. This would be a draconian measure that doesn’t make sense on all levels as ironically, devices do provide modern levels of safety when it comes to communication between families.
Since the arrival of smartphones and tablets, parents have been caught between a rock and hard place. In an age where these devices are part of our daily life it’s difficult to manage usage and especially algo driven content that can lead to long user sessions. Parents will welcome this move and so should everyone.
There will be resistance from Tech companies and parts of the AdTech industry, but that is purely fuelled by commercial motivations. Like any changes, the new measures will become the new-normal very quickly and everyone will have to adapt.
Could there be unintended consequences?
Commercially, there will be less content consumed, less target data and so ultimately, a reduction in associated monetisation.
But ethically, it makes sense to avoid targeting teenagers at such an impressionable age. Platforms that lead this change have the opportunity to win valuable trust and loyalty with large audiences of people who care about making the internet a safer place.
Brands, social networks and publishers should welcome this and back the move.
How would it work in practice?
Registration to social networks will need to be fully overhauled and that should not be difficult as the financial industries have been using onboarding processes that verify user age. No excuses there!
Raising the age gate on more general content across the internet that is deemed to be age-inappropriate will be more difficult. Alcohol brands currently request the user’s age to access content but any age can be entered with content readily available thereafter and we know that teenagers will do what most people would and that is to lie about their age. The only option would be for users to register on such sites with some form of verification, which could actually work in the favour of such publishers as they will immediately get access to rich data about their audiences and in the process protect teenagers.
Further Observation:
Instagram have launched their ‘teen accounts’ limiting the content young people see and how other users can communicate with them which is a first step of acknowledgement and action from Meta to better protect young people online. Time will tell when it comes to the take up and success of this potentially revolutionary feature but adds needed pressure for other platforms to follow suit.
As ever, a sensible and ethical approach by all parties to collaborate will be key to making this work.
jason.warner@sbs-sourcing.com
