By Giselda Vagnoni<\/p>\n
ROME, May 14 (Reuters) – An Italian parents’ group and a number of families faced off against Meta and TikTok on Thursday in the first hearing \u200cof a lawsuit that seeks to restrict minors’ access to social media platforms.<\/p>\n
The hearing \u200ctook place before Milan\u2019s business court and concerns a class injunctive action brought by MOIGE, an Italian parents\u2019 movement, and \u200ba group of families against the companies that own Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit asks the Milan court to require the platforms to adopt stronger age-verification systems for users under 14.<\/p>\n
It also seeks to make the platforms remove potentially manipulative algorithms and provide transparent information on the possible harms of \u200coveruse.<\/p>\n
MOIGE said it wants to \u2060protect some 3.5 million Italian children aged between 7 and 14 who it says are illegally active on social media platforms.<\/p>\n
TIKTOK FLAGS SAFETY MEASURES<\/p>\n
TikTok said \u2060the litigation was still ongoing and that it applies its Community Guidelines rigorously, including those aimed at protecting mental and behavioural health, and proactively removes more than 99% of content that violates them.<\/p>\n
“We also continue \u200bto \u200binvest in safety measures to diversify recommended content, block \u200bpotentially harmful searches and connect vulnerable \u200cusers with available support resources,” a TikTok spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
In its statement, MOIGE said lawyers for Meta and TikTok raised preliminary objections, disputing the competence and jurisdiction of Italian courts to rule on their conduct.<\/p>\n
The companies also challenged new documents submitted by MOIGE’s legal team, which the parents’ group said showed the firms were aware of \u200cthe potentially harmful effects of their algorithms on minors, \u200bincluding features designed to increase user engagement.<\/p>\n
MOIGE’s lawyers argued that \u200bItalian courts have full jurisdiction over \u200bthe matter, which they described as an issue of public health, and urged \u200cjudges to ensure a fast\u2011tracked procedure given \u200bthe alleged risks to \u200bchildren.<\/p>\n
The court is expected to set a calendar for further hearings at a later date.<\/p>\n
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this week that the EU executive was \u200btargeting addictive and harmful design practices \u200cby social media firms in its upcoming Digital Fairness Act.<\/p>\n
Amid similar moves by Australia, \u200bFrance and Greece, Spain in February announced plans to ban social media use \u200bby teenagers.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Giselda VagnoniEditing by Gareth Jones)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Giselda Vagnoni ROME, May 14 (Reuters) – An Italian parents’ group and a number of families faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11952,11951,11948,5,11950,11949,11947,7922],"class_list":{"0":"post-16043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-italian-children","9":"tag-italian-courts","10":"tag-italian-parents","11":"tag-italy","12":"tag-milan-court","13":"tag-moige","14":"tag-social-media-platforms","15":"tag-tiktok"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}