Does social media need laws or labels?

Hi, it’s Aisha in San Francisco. Advocates and policymakers are struggling to find ways to protect children from the harms of social network [Bloomberg]( Hi, it’s Aisha in San Francisco. Advocates and policymakers are struggling to find ways to protect children from the harms of social networks. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Amazon plans a discount web store [to take on Temu and Shein]( • Micron drops after failing to [meet lofty expectations]( • Hackers stole data on newborns and [cancer patients]( in the UK Warning signs Last week, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said all social media platforms should be required to add [warning labels](, the way cigarettes were decades ago. But would that actually protect kids from the dangers of social media? Child safety advocates I spoke to don’t think so. “The warning label is fine, but we don’t just stick a warning label on alcohol,” said Tim Estes, the founder and chief executive officer of children’s app Angel AI, and a consultant on the proposed Kids Online Safety Act in the US. “We card them.” Other advocates cautioned that focusing on warning labels could distract from solving social media’s deeper problems: excessive data collection, addictive video feeds or poor enforcement of [age restrictions](, for example. Instead of labels, we need legislation, they told me. Both can be true. There’s at least some evidence that warning labels can influence behavior. [Nathanael Fast](, a behavioral scientist at the University of Southern California and the co-director of the Psychology of Technology Institute, said warning labels are “probably not effective on their own,” but research has shown they can grab people’s attention and change attitudes. “It’s maybe a little less effective at changing your actual behaviors, but in some cases it does,” he said. New data from [Snap Inc.](bbg://screens/SNAP%20US%20EQUITY%20FA%20), for example, shows that after the company added a pop-up warning to Snapchat giving teens the option to block strangers who messaged them, it led to [12 million blocks](. The photo-sharing app didn’t disclose the number of times the warning popped up in total or the number of people who rejected it (Snapchat has about 800 million users worldwide). But the feature at least protected some teens from potentially harmful interactions. Snap announced this week that it plans to expand the pop-up warnings to appear on messages from people who have been blocked or reported by others, or who are from a region outside of a teen’s typical network. In some cases, the Snapchat app will automatically block messages and friend requests. Warning labels of course, aren’t always enough. Earlier this year, the chief executive officers of social media companies Snap, Meta Platforms Inc., TikTok, Discord and X [testified]( before Congress about protecting kids online. During the hearing, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas pointed out an obvious flaw with the warning labels on Meta’s Instagram. When a user searched for child sex abuse material on the site, a warning label popped up with a link to get resources. But at the bottom, it still allowed the person to see the material anyway. “Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?” Cruz asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “How many times did that user click on ‘see results’ anyway?” Zuckerberg didn’t have an answer. Warning signs and pop-up messages clearly don’t remove the need for broader change. But adding one more layer between a child and harms like sexual abuse, financial scams and body shaming seems worth the effort. At the very least it reminds children and their parents just how dangerous social media can be. We’ve been warned.—[Aisha Counts](mailto:acounts3@bloomberg.net) The big story Bill Gates says AI’s green benefits will [outweigh the costs in emissions](. The Microsoft co-founder said Wednesday that data centers will become less energy-intensive in the future as artificial intelligence makes computation more efficient. Gates believes the technology may one day use as much as 6% of global electricity but feels that estimates of higher than 10% are wrong. One to watch [Watch Stephanie Valdez Streaty of Cox Automotive interviewed on Bloomberg Television about Volkswagen’s $5 billion investment and joint venture with electric vehicle maker Rivian.Â]( Get fully charged The US Supreme Court backs the White House on engaging with [social networks]( to urge the removal of posts officials see as misinformation. One in five public EV chargers in the US don’t work, a study found. A startup’s ‘fentanyl vaccine’ aims to [block overdoses](. 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