‘Polluter Pays’: A Tax on Big Tech to Reduce Online Harms
Mihaela Popa-Wyatt and Ajinkya Deshmukh from The University of Manchester.
That platforms like X, Instagram, and Facebook operated by Big Tech companies cause harms to their users is now a well-established fact. The US Surgeon General has repeatedly warned that adolescent mental health and body image are adversely affected by social media. Large-scale studies from Canada and the UK show that this is not specific to the US. The thornier issue is: how do we mitigate these harms? A popular policy solution has been banning social media for young people. Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia have done this, while France, Finland and several other countries are considering it.
72% of children aged 8–12 are still accessing sites and apps with a minimum age of 13
– Ofcom
The problem is that bypassing age-restrictions is trivially easy for many children. Ofcom research shows that “72% of children aged 8–12 are still accessing sites and apps with a minimum age of 13”. Unless there is a concerted global effort such that even technologies like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) cannot circumvent bans, this bypassing is unlikely to stop. We think a better solution is to tax the companies that build these products based on how their algorithms amplify harmful content. Here is why this is better than bans.
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