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Op-Ed: Seattle schools vs Big Tech, but how do you make a case?

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Facebook owner Meta was fined for a data breach

Facebook owner Meta was fined for a data breach – Copyright AFP Justin TALLIS

The lawsuit filed by Seattle schools against a virtual Who’s Who of major social media companies is getting a lot of coverage. This is an extremely ambitious case. The problem is that it’s also an extremely difficult case for the schools. This is a true landmark lawsuit.

The schools are suing on the allegation of mental harm to students. A lot of people would agree with them. The brutal social media environment is leaving a very long trail of news stories, most of them pretty grim. There’s no doubt that rampant bullying and a truly vicious culture are a huge load on kids.

…But how do you prove it to the point of winning such a huge court case? The terms of the suit claim social media causes anxiety, depression, and mental harm. How do you prove that to the extent of getting meaningful legal results, and solving the problems?

The law is not in a good position here:

  • There are some precedents regarding specific cases. There are no precedents regarding an entire class of social media.
  • This case applies nationwide, not just Seattle.
  • You need to prove the companies were negligent, and/or legally at fault, causing harm.
  • Are social media companies legally responsible for user actions? To what extent? (If only this was a rhetorical question.)
  • The court’s finding must either provide a solution, or dismiss the lawsuit.
  • A solution would be difficult to put it mildly. Dismissal of the lawsuit would be a step backwards, and definitely not the end of such lawsuits.

Those are just the basics. The situation now gets a lot deeper and far more difficult:

  • The schools are without a doubt acting very much in the public interest to the best of their ability. They’re doing what they can to manage a gigantic problem.
  • Social media companies know all too well they have a problem. The fixes are likely to be laborious and expensive, and may not work.
  • Any number of civil cases may be generated by a finding for the plaintiffs in this case. Existing civil cases may also be affected.
  • There are extraordinary degrees of difficulty in even the terminology of the case. Try defining “mental harm”, for example. Even a psychologist would think twice about any glib definition.
  • There are also serious cases of suicide and massive harassment which have civil law ramifications beyond the case.

The argument for the schools’ case suffers from being so general. The scope of the lawsuit is truly vast. Nobody would deny kids frequently do have problems on social media. A lot of people would dispute the efforts of social media to manage the many known issues, too.

That, however, doesn’t quite add up to a simple court finding. What’s the court supposed to do? Can it simply order a remedy to all these things? How? When? What sort of oversight should be in place to make sure the order is enforced?

Solutions – Algorithms aren’t people

There’s a further problem here, whatever the court finds regarding the lawsuit. The mindless faith in algorithms on social media monitoring is already bad enough. It’s inefficient. It often doesn’t get context or even syntax in statements.

For example – I referred to Russian riot police as pigs on Facebook. I got a 3 day penalty for “bullying”. Bullying whom, you may ask? To this day, I don’t know. Nobody even replied to the comment. Only the Russian riot police were targeted by the statement. Yet someone was “bullied”. Any human would understand the context, but the algorithm didn’t.

The point is that this is how algorithms work and don’t work, and they’re likely to be the default solution in this case. Auto-monitoring can’t, won’t, and doesn’t, work. It simply can’t do the job. That means you need human oversight, and that’s expensive.

Any finding, in this case, has to deliver a practical solution. That may well be tougher than the lawsuit.

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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

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YouTube Adds New Analytics Cards, Simplifies its ‘Product Drops’ Feature

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YouTube Adds New Analytics Cards, Simplifies its ‘Product Drops’ Feature

YouTube’s making some updates to its Product Drops feature within live streams, while it’s also adding some new analytics cards, and testing a new format for its TV app.

First off, on Product Drops. YouTube’s changing the requirements for Product Drops in live streams so that more creators will be able to include drops to highlight their items.

Up till now, Product Drops have only been available to creators who’ve connected their Shopify stores, or have access to Google Merchant Center, while creators have also had to plan Product Drops in advance, and schedule them via Live Control Room. But now, YouTube’s giving more creators more ways to access the feature.

As per YouTube:

“Any creators who have connected to their first party stores, or are participating in the YouTube Affiliate Program can set up Product Drops in the live control room on YouTube. This means that more creators will be able to use Product Drops to boost sales and engagement on their live streams.”

YouTube will also now enable creators to implement Product Drops at any time during a live stream, eliminating the pre-planned requirement.

“This will give creators more flexibility to react to the moment, and drive excitement in real time.”

YouTube says that many creators have seen good response to their Product Drops, with the interactive, engaging process helping to drive hype, and spark more response from viewers.

Product Drops are available via the Live Control Room in YouTube Studio. You can read more about how they work here.

YouTube’s also updating its Community Posts creation flow, in order to simplify the process, and ideally get more channels posting text-based updated in the app.

Community Posts remain a lesser element, though YouTube’s been working to make them a bigger focus throughout the year, by adding additional engagement elements like pollsquizzesdisappearing updates, and more.

Simplifying the creation process is another step in boosting awareness, and potentially driving more interaction with you YouTube audience.

YouTube’s also adding some new revenue analytics cards, including “Total Members” insights (which includes subscriber data) and “Where Members Joined From”, which will provide more insight into what’s driving channel growth.

YouTube’s also adding new data on why users have canceled their membership within the insights tab in YouTube Analytics.

YouTube analytics cards

As you can see in this example, the new card will show the reasons why people have opted to stop their subscription to your channel, based on responses provided in the cancellation flow.

Finally, YouTube’s also experimenting with a new format for its TV app, which will make it easier to access different elements.

YouTube TV app

As you can see in this example, shared by 9t05Google, the new format will include bigger buttons to access different elements, and further customize your YouTube experience on the bigger screen.

Connected TV is the fastest growing viewer segment for YouTube, with more and more people now looking to consume YouTube content on their home TV set. As such, it makes sense for YouTube to roll out more updates aligned with big screen viewing in order to feed into this usage.

Some handy updates, across various elements, which are worth noting as you go about managing your YouTube presence.

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Musk regrets controversial post but won’t bow to advertiser ‘blackmail’

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Elon Musk's comments at the New York Times' Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence

Elon Musk’s comments at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Slaven Vlasic

Elon Musk apologized Wednesday for endorsing a social media post widely seen as anti-Semitic, but accused advertisers who are turning away from his social media platform X of “blackmail” and said anyone who does so can “go fuck yourself.”

The remark before corporate executives at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence.

Earlier, Musk had apologized for what he called “literally the worst and dumbest post that I’ve ever done.”

In a comment on X, formerly Twitter, Musk on November 15 called a post “the actual truth” that said Jewish communities advocated a “dialectical hatred against whites,” which was criticized as echoing longtime conspiracy theory among White supremacists.

The statement prompted a flood of departures from X of major advertisers, including Apple, Disney, Comcast and IBM who criticized Musk for anti-semitism.

“I’m sorry for that tweet or post,” Musk said Wednesday. “It was foolish of me.”

He told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin that his post had been misinterpreted and that he had sought to clarify the remark in subsequent posts to the thread.

But Musk also said he wouldn’t be beholden to pressure from advertisers.

“If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money?” Musk said. “Go fuck yourself.”

But the billionaire acknowledged that there were business implications to the advertiser actions.

“If the company fails… it will fail because of an advertiser boycott” Musk said. “And that will be what will bankrupt the company.”

Musk, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Israel earlier this week, insisted in the interview that he holds no discrimination against Jews, calling himself “philo-Semitic,” or an admirer of Judaism.

During the interview, Musk wore a necklace given to him by a parent of an Israeli hostage taken in the Hamas attack on October 7. The necklace reads, “Bring Them Home.”

Musk told Sorkin that the Israel trip had been planned earlier and was not an “apology tour” related to the controversial tweet.

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TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

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TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

With a need to expand its advertising business, TikTok is now fully focused on the output of long-form videos.

A new report by The Information shows the company’s recent efforts to convince
creators to put out longer videos in order to provide more room for ad placements.

According to the …



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