In response to EU’s strict regulations, Meta announced this week it will halt ad displays for teens and instead use a subscription-based model for social platforms. However, while Meta plans to start this November 6th, it also said it will be temporary as the company assesses implications of new EU regulations and there will be further updates forthcoming.
While we don’t agree on much, there is laudable consensus behind a massive Meta lawsuit, which declares addicting kids to social platforms and causing a youth mental health crisis is deceitful and must be stopped. The lawsuit has been filed in California by 33 states and supported by 9 attorneys general and the District of Columbia. It claims that to maximize profit, Meta also misled the public about how dangerous its Instagram and Facebook platforms are and that it concealed how it manipulates children and teens.
This includes a role for the federal government and provides oversight over safety tests companies use to evaluate conversation bots, such as Chat GPT and will introduce industry standards for identifying AI driven products.
It barely feels like news when industry giants add AI features, since that’s what they’re expected to do. But lots of people use their products, so their announcements are probably of higher interest than most. With that in mind, let’s note that Adobe has just announced general availability of agents for audience creation, journey orchestration, experimentation, journey insights, website optimization and agent support.