Legal Design Sprint

Terms and Conditions for Social Media

Dr Liz DowthwaiteHorizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham

Legal Design Sprint

The Project

• Bias and fairness in online systems that are mediated by algorithms

• Included “Youth Juries” with 13-17 year olds (250 in total)

• What do you know about how the online world works?

• How is your data used online?• Transparency:

• What do you want to know?• How do you want to be informed?

Legal Design Sprint

Terms and Conditions for Social Media

• Also Terms of Service, Terms of Use etc

• Rules users must agree to in order to use a service

• Usually include• Definitions of key terms• User rights and responsibilities

(including proper use, privacy policy, and accountability)

• Disclaimers, clarifications of legal liability

Legal Design Sprint

“You also grant us a perpetual licence to create derivative works from, promote, exhibit, broadcast, syndicate, sublicense, publicly perform and publicly display Public Content in any form and in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).”

“You will not use the Services in a way that could interfere with, disrupt, affect negatively or inhibit other users from fully enjoying

the Services or that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the functioning of the Services”

“These Terms do not confer any third-party beneficiary rights. All of our rights and obligations under these Terms are freely assignable by us in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, or by operation of law or otherwise.”

Legal Design Sprint

The Problem• One third of internet users are under 18• Three quarters of 10-12 year olds have their own social media

accounts• Length and readability are often major issues (even for adults)• If people cannot understand what they are signing up to, can they

really consent?

Legal Design Sprint

Terms and Conditions in the News…

Legal Design Sprint

Legal Design Sprint

Who are you designing for?

• All internet users, especially those under 18 years of age• Terms are presented on joining a social media site

• Must be agreed to before continuing• No opt-out or choice of terms to accept

• Also available on the website at any time• Usually hidden in Settings…

Legal Design Sprint

What our Young People said

“I wouldn’t read it because like… it’s just you want to get on the app.”

“It’s definitely like made purposely hard to read, like it’s a lot of legal speak rather than they don’t put it in terms that, especially for people

our age, they definitely don’t target it towards us.”

“They deliberately make it impenetrable because they know that it doesn’t matter if a few people actually read the terms and conditions

but the vast majority of people will not.”

Legal Design Sprint

Legal Design Sprint

Thank youliz.dowthwaite@nottingham.ac.uk

@Lima_India_Zuludowthwaite.wordpress.com

unbias.wp.horizon.ac.uk