Tech’s ‘toddler problem’ and why Meta’s move to restrict teens on Instagram came a ‘decade too late’: Kara Swisher

Big tech has promoted privileged and ‘quirky’ employee perks for years, but there's cause for concern in indulging childlike behaviour says prominent commentator Kara Swisher.

Kara Swisher says tech people ‘were coddled and treated like children or adult toddlers. And so they behave like adult toddlers’.

Tech workers are over indulged and treated like “adult toddlers” while Instagram’s belated attempt to restrict teen accounts came a decade late and shows the need for a sweeping regulatory clampdown on the industry, prominent commentator Kara Swisher says.

The big tech players had promoted privileged and “quirky” perks for its employees over the years, with Swisher suspicious of the industry’s attempts to indulge childlike behaviour.

Tech people “were treated like toddlers. These people were coddled and treated like children or adult toddlers. And so they behave like adult toddlers. What you’re seeing today – indulged by venture capitalists and everything else – is badly raised children … affecting us all.”

Ms Swisher also took aim at the “don’t snitch” culture put in place by many of the tech giants, saying it created a fear of speaking out among staff.

“Facebook is the most porous company, and it doesn’t seem to work expecting no snitching,” Ms Swisher told Hubspot’s Inbound conference in Boston. “Apple is a better example because Steve Jobs never said don’t snitch. It was in the DNA of the culture because he created that culture at the beginning.”

“I think I always find it really interesting when companies do that, because one, it begs the question, what do they have to hide? And what are they doing badly?”

Social media app Instagram belatedly introduced restrictions on teenagers’ accounts last week after widespread criticism it had failed to adequately protect child safety on the platform.

Kara Swisher says Meta move to restrict teen access on Instagram came too late.

But Ms Swisher said the industry had opened itself up to more heavy-handed regulation, given its failure to put effective policies in place to head off threats against young users.

“Some of the stuff they just did on Instagram should have been done because, like, imagine in the real world, some of you had a gathering where you had young women, young girls under 16, and then you invited a whole bunch of 55-year-old men in to say hi to them. Like you wouldn’t do it.”

The US Federal Trade Commission found social media giants – including Meta, YouTube and TikTok – had not protected users, including young people, from a “host of harms”. The industry’s efforts to self-regulate had not worked, with the FTC calling for federal privacy legislation.

The co-founder of tech customer platform HubSpot, Dharmesh Shah, said an attempt to introduce new restrictions on the social media industry faced challenges. Anthony Albanese has signalled his preference for increasing the minimum age when teenagers can access social media platforms to 16, amid a federal government push to legislate an age-based ban by the end of the year.

Asked it was too late to introduce restrictions, Mr Shah said: “It probably is. As the parent of a 13-year-old boy, there’s the technologist in me and there’s the father in me. And the father in me believes social media applications can be risky without some form of regulation. And that the companies should take it upon themselves to make it easier to have parental controls,” he told The Australian. “I don’t think they’re doing enough yet. It’s a hard problem, but they’re big companies, and they have funding, and they can do better.”

The lack of transparency on how tech giants are managing privacy and the handling of users’ data, particularly children and teenagers, was also a problem, according to Mr Shah, HubSpot’s chief technology officer.

“We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past. We have no idea what data they’re collecting or how they’re using that data, who they’re selling or licensing it to and how those people are using it. I think there needs to be regulation, and it needs to have teeth and be enforceable for people to actually follow the rules.”

An online safety bill is being pushed among law-makers but faces pushback from internet lobby groups saying the bills erodes American families’ rights and privacy.

The reporter travelled to HubSpot’s Inbound conference in Boston as a guest of the company.