Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, will from now on inform parents in a number of countries as soon as their child regularly enters search terms related to suicide or self-harm. The tech company reports this to the Reuters news agency, among others.
The measure will not (yet) apply in the Netherlands. First up are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Only parents who participate in Instagram’s monitoring program are eligible for the notifications. They receive a message via their own Instagram account, email or WhatsApp account.
Meta announces the measures while it is involved in several legal proceedings because the company is said to damage the mental well-being of children. Parents of children who committed suicide are demanding damages because their children were bullied or blackmailed via Instagram.
There is also a critical response to the new measure. According to the British Molly Rose Foundation, which is committed to suicide prevention, the “clumsy” measure will do more “harm than good”, said one spokesman to the BBC. “Every parent wants to know if their child is having a hard time, but these reports leave parents panicking and ill-prepared for the sensitive and difficult conversations that follow.”
Live blog
Economics blog
Odido refuses to pay ransom, Hacker collective ShinyHunters started leaking hundreds of thousands of data
