'Can't Look Away' Filmmakers on Harm From Social Media

Bloomberg

Watch 'Can't Look Away' Filmmakers on Harm From Social Media - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00As we work through those numbers on snap and talk about social media, some of those social media

00:04companies need to prepare themselves. Thousands of plaintiff complaints out there, millions of pages

00:08of internal documentation and transcripts of countless hours of deposition set to land in

00:13U.S. courtrooms that could threaten the future of the business model for some of those social

00:18media companies. That is the focus of a new documentary released on October 30th called

00:23Can't Look Away, The Case Against Social Media. It's now available on Bloomberg platforms

00:29and it exposes the real world consequences of harmful algorithms. I'm pleased to say that

00:34the co-directors of Can't Look Away join us here in studio to Matthew O'Neill and Perry Peltz. Great

00:39to have both of you. Thanks for having us. I wish this was a more happier topic to talk about,

00:43but I think all of us with kids have sort of looked at social media and really sort of asked

00:47ourselves, what are we giving up here? When I watched this investigation, the main thing I was

00:54struck was just how much documentation is out there already about some of the harmful effects.

00:59Why hasn't there been any change yet? You want to talk about the change a little bit?

01:03Sure. I think that change is hard and long coming. And Section 230, which you've probably talked

01:09about a lot on this show of the Federal Communications Act of 1996, essentially protects

01:14these social media companies from lawsuits. However, what you'll see in the film, Can't Look Away,

01:20and interesting that you were just talking about SNAP, is that one of the main arcs of this story

01:25is a lawsuit that parents bring against SNAP because of harms that their children suffered

01:32linked to their use of SNAP. And that is progressing right now because that is in the system right now.

01:38They are in discovery and the lawyers are getting lots and lots of documentation that they hadn't

01:43had access to before. So we're expecting real change to happen in short order.

01:47For the folks that you have, and I'm talking about the parents and some of the kids that you talk to

01:51in this piece, what is their general sense here as to their ability to, I guess win is in the right

01:58word, but I guess get some sort of a justice or compensation for what happened?

02:02It's a great question. We know that these parents are doing this because they want to make change.

02:06They don't want to have happen what happened to them, to other families in this country and around

02:11the world. However, even with the victories that they're having step by step, it doesn't bring

02:17their kids back. So I think it's a real double-edged sword in terms of progress that they're able to

02:22make and what it's not able to do for them. So as you mentioned, I mean, the perspective

02:28that change is coming, but even still, I mean, it feels like technology, social media, it advances

02:33every single day. I mean, we were just breaking SNAP earnings. They're announcing this partnership

02:38with Perplexity AI to bring that search onto their platform. And it's just another avenue

02:44in which, you know, these apps become more and more a part of those younger users' lives.

02:50So, I mean, how do you sort of outrun that if regulation can't quite keep up with it?

02:56Well, you can't outrun it. Regulation, legislation is never going to move as fast as technology.

03:01technology. Litigation, no matter how strong our civil justice system is, is never going to move

03:07as fast as technology. However, what does shift is culture. And a lot of what these parents are

03:14fighting for, whether it's trying to hold SNAP accountable or any of the other social media

03:18companies accountable for harms to young people, is change in the way these platforms work, change in

03:24the way these platforms are allowed to engage with young people. And how that occurs, whether it's

03:30because there's outside enforcement from the legal system, like in Australia or the United Kingdom,

03:35or it's because kids won't use the platforms. But is it going to be too late? And I don't want to

03:40make this too personal, but, you know, I've got a teenager at home. And this is something my wife

03:43and I talk about all the time. And I've seen parallels being drawn now to what eventually happened

03:48to big tobacco and maybe what happened in pharma. But that was after millions of deaths and countless

03:54other maladies from those incidents. And I, is that the, do we have to get to that stage

04:00before we get the real change? Unfortunately, there are real parallels with tobacco and with

04:06the opioid industry in that these companies know what they're doing. We see that from the

04:11internal documentation and you see that in the film. Do we have to lose the number of lives that

04:17we did in both of those epidemics before there's real change? We're really hoping not. This seems to be

04:22on a faster trajectory. And there seems to be more outcry from parents, from teachers,

04:29from aunts and uncles to make real change. So we were hopeful. Well, continuing, you know,

04:34those parallels to the tobacco industry, to the opioid industry as well. I mean, how do you make sure

04:40that some of the change that's being talking talked about is lasting? Because something that we see in

04:44social media and these apps all the time is that, you know, what's hot today isn't necessarily going

04:50to be the app of tomorrow. Certainly Snapchat has stuck around for a while, but you could see

04:56something coming up in the pipeline that could rival a TikTok, for example. So how do you make sure that,

05:02you know, whatever is being enacted is going to be sustainable and lasting?

05:09Well, I think that sense of sustainable lasting change is probably about holding these companies

05:14accountable. Again, this section 230 that keeps them from being held to justice in the civil

05:19justice system is where these companies are protected. So without that changing, there can't

05:24be real lasting change for internet service platforms or social media companies. So there is one sort of

05:31skeleton key that could lead to anything coming down the pipeline, having the ability to be held

05:36accountable, including these new artificial intelligence driven apps.

05:40So what do parents do in the interim? Those who have kids and whose kids are now reaching an age

05:45where social media will be a part of their lives, whether the parents want it to be or not?

05:49Yeah, thanks for asking that question, because what we hate to do is scare everybody and then not give them

05:53anything that they can actually do. The most important thing is there has to be limits on the use of these

05:59phones and these apps. And the best way to do that is to delay giving your child these these apps, the ability to get

06:07there. So hold back on giving phones and have conversations with your kids. Oftentimes we as

06:13parents think, well, how can we have these conversations? We don't understand social media

06:18like they do. And we don't. But we need to keep talking about it. We need to keep these devices away

06:23from them for as long as we possibly can. And we need to see changes in the school.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended