Social media firms like Facebook, Instagram and others are forced to turn off their like button to ameliorate internet safety for the children in the UK.
Removing the like button, and limiting data collection and geolocation tools on social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram, are among a 16-point list of recommendations for age-appropriate design unleashed by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Tactics such as the like function and Snapchat’s streaks are used to keep under 18s online for longer. The Information Commissioner has taken umbrage such a technique, viewing it as an understated mechanism to keep out children and as well conforming them to desired outcomes and also keeping them out from more extended and open up a fresh source of data.
We shouldn’t have to restrain our children from being able to use it, but we must see that they are protected when they do use it. This code does that – Elizabeth Denham, the Information Commissioner
The mechanism has swiftly grown to become a key plank for both Facebook and Instagram, as well as rival Snapchat. This list, now under consultation, includes a ‘high privacy’ setting to be activated by default and the scrapping of nudge techniques designed to encourage children to forfeit their privacy or hand over personal data without good reason.
Consultations will continue through to 31 May with the report expected to come into force from 2020.
Via: Sky News
