UK’s CMF warns Meta fine is not solution to protecting children from online harm

The Children’s Media Foundation (CMF) in the UK has welcomed the recent court judgment in the US against social media giant Meta, but warned that “handing out fines after the event is not the solution” to protecting kids from online harm.

Greg Childs

Meta has agreed to a US$18bn settlement with US states and territories to resolve claims that Facebook and Instagram harm children. It has also been ordered to implement a set of safety features.

The CMF’s statement echoes the views of Siobhán MacDermott, founder and CEO of TeenAegis, a platform designed to protect children online. Posting on LinkedIn after the ruling, MacDermott said: “Money paid after children have already been exposed to products engineered around compulsion, comparison, recommendation and engagement is not prevention.

“A real win for kids would require independent safety testing before major products and design changes reach them; meaningful data access for researchers and regulators; public disclosure of known risks; an enforceable duty of care; and penalties large enough to make prevention more profitable than concealment.”

The CMF also criticised YouTube VP and head of EMEA Pedro Pina’s James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday, in which the exec argued that British broadcasters and online platforms should be seen as complementary rather than competing forces.

“This takes, as usual, no account of the children’s audience and industry,” the CMF commented. “Revenues are 90% lower on Made for Kids content on YouTube, offering minimum viable business options for creators or producers. This imbalance leaves the broadcasters or producers funding content while YouTube captures the young audience and does nothing to redress the imbalance in ad revenue.”

Pina also confirmed in his speech that YouTube will invest £3m (US$4.08m) over three years to support new talent entering the industry and retrain mid-career professionals, which the CMF dismissed as simply “a nice gesture.”

“In the kids’ sector, this is just training to join an industry with a broken financial model that is struggling to pay creators a living wage,” the foundation said.

Greg Childs, director of the CMF, added: “We welcome YouTube’s offer of collaboration with the traditional TV industry – broadcasters and producers – bringing them closer to the maker/creator community. But this is worthless unless YouTube also addresses the funding of children’s content. Without sustainable funding of content, our children are doomed to a cycle of viewing dominated by cheap, high-volume, fast-turnaround and increasingly AI-generated content.

“YouTube’s algorithmic recommendation system is a double failure. It’s set up to reward attention when it should reward the value of the content to the young person watching. It’s crazy.

“The algorithm prioritises audience attention to serve the ad market, but then advertising revenue is depressed because of the way YouTube is forced to sell ads around children’s content to comply with data protection laws. It’s a classic catch-22. A lose/lose for kids, and for the people who want to make quality content for them.”