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Navigating the evolving social media landscape and what’s to come: From platform design to litigation that protects users online

This month, the Knight-Georgetown Institute convened two events during Georgetown University’s fourth annual Tech & Society Week. KGI brought together leading experts, academics, and other key stakeholders across the digital technology landscape to explore some of the most pressing topics around social media platform design as well as consumer protection litigation aimed at keeping users safe online.

As evidence and empirical studies increasingly highlight the link between social media and a range of health impacts, our Tech & Society Week panel “The Rise of Consumer Protection Claims Against Digital Platforms” underscored the importance of litigation in addressing health and safety harms impacting social media users, including minors. 

KGI’s Peter Chapman facilitated the discussion with experts including Meetali Jain (Tech Justice Law Project), Meg Leta Jones (Georgetown University), Matthew Lawrence (Emory University), and S. Bryn Austin (Harvard University), and discussed how the social media litigation landscape may evolve in the years ahead, with lawyers and judges playing an increasingly central role in the regulation of social media in the US and beyond.

The last five years have witnessed profound changes to the social media ecosystem. These include the rise of decentralized platforms like Threads and Bluesky, and platforms such as TikTok and Instagram turning to hyper-personalized algorithmic recommendations. 

Our second panel “Reckoning with the Evolving Social Media Landscape” noted the significance of these industry-wide shifts and grappled with what they mean for policy and regulation moving forward. KGI’s Zander Arnao facilitated the discussion with experts including Renée DiResta (Georgetown University), Sean Martin McDonald (Digital Public), Samantha Lai (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), and Prithvi Iyer (Tech Policy Press) – with the panel discussing how to mitigate harms linked to social media platform design, as well as exploring the risks and opportunities posed by new design trends.

[Featured photo: KGI panel “The Rise of Consumer Protection Claims Against Digital Platforms”. From Left to Right: Peter Chapman (KGI), Meetali Jain (Tech Justice Law Project), S. Bryn Austin (Harvard University). 

 

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