Class action

0:00Hello and welcome to Tech Life on the BBC World Service, the programme about technology and innovation that's making a difference to all our lives. I'm Shona McCallum. This week we're looking at social media but at two ends of the spectrum. One story involves claims being made about the impact that some online platforms can potentially have on younger children. In the other we'll be hearing from farmers in Africa, so-called agri-influencers, and how they're cultivating an online movement. Also today I test a maritime AI communication system. This is Mayflower 400. Weather at my location is clear skies with light winds and moderate sea state.

0:41And a Japanese tech company is trying to eradicate malaria with drones.

1:06We start today in Italy, where a legal first is underway. A class action lawsuit against two of the big social media companies, Meta and TikTok. Lawyers bringing the case at the court of Milan say Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are causing harm to minors. They want children under 14 to be banned from the platforms and want information to be provided about the risks of using social media. France, Greece and Spain are among several EU countries already pushing for restrictions on young people's access to online platforms. I've been finding out about the case in Italy by speaking to one of the lawyers involved in the lawsuit.

1:45I'm Stefano Bertone. I live in Turin. I'm an Italian lawyer. I'm a plaintiff lawyer. And in particular, in this case, we are involved as lawyers for the people who suffer from social media addiction. Can you tell me what the objectives are for this class action claim? Sure. The objectives of these class actions are essentially to protect the people as much as possible in the fastest way possible. Meaning that we want social media platforms to stop people who are under 14 years of age to enter social media and use social media. Second, we want clear, inequivocal information to parents, children, relatives, whoever it is, schools, that social media is addictive and can be damaging and very damaging to the youngsters.

2:41And we want this to be a start of a debate within the community that everyone has to be aware. Everyone has to be aware that it is not a game. It is something very serious that can damage the health of the people, youngsters, less youngsters and the entire social context around them. Some argue that this responsibility actually does rely on parents and not the platforms. so why do you think the social media platforms should be held responsible? Well I think this is a very very good question I think this is the heart of what we're doing and I think my response lies on this concept Parents, yes of course they must have supervision and have an educational task over their children however they must know how to exercise this function Let's say your son needs to take a drug and you will open the leaflet, the patient information leaflet.

3:45And it tells you what to do with that, how much, what levels you should not ever surpass. And what are the adverse reactions? So, oh, I can, I may get myocarditis. I may get cancer through this drug. I like the drug, I need it because my children need them. But at the same time, I'm very well aware of what are the risks. So I can exercise my functional test of being a parent. So without information, there is no good behaviour. It's just, you know, going in the dark in the night. Now you say that you would like social media warnings to be visible like the example you've just mentioned there with the leaflet that you get with medicines maybe like cigarette labels can you explain to me in detail then what you would like to see for social media in that regard what should parents expect?

4:46Well I think that the relationship between parents children and social media because it's so complicated it is so unclear unknown still in regards to the damages it can create i think it is a matter up to the court to decide with our own experts and maybe their own experts what is the way to you know practically transmit this from theory to practice but you know the screen of a smartphone is quite small and it's you know if you do it in inches it's like four inches per 10 inches and the space is there so i want social media platforms to be forced to say with pop-ups which are you know very clear beware this product can cause damage so i i want something like this.

5:42I believe this is what the people deserve to be able to decide yes or not. Have you spoken to the parents of children that are potentially affected by social media addiction as part of this case? Oh yes, yes I did. And the perspective of the fathers and the mothers is if you can do it it's very good because you alleviate us from doing something which is very bad is trying to get our kids out of the use of smartphones. Do the parents that you speak to feel like they don't have any power against these platforms? Yeah, I think this is the situation. And I think there is also, which is a fundamental element here, that there is the social context.

6:30So because everyone has smartphones and everyone is on social media, then you do not want to get your child off the social media context because then he will be seen as the you know the the isolated girl or guy boy in the group which you don't want you do not want because you want your child to be part of the group and because everyone is doing it then you don't want to make him a stranger than that so there are two elements i think this this has to evolve so it is true going back to one of your questions. Yes, of course, parents do have their own responsibility. But first of all, they must be aware of the risk.

7:17That's Stefano Bertone, one of the lawyers involved. And I want to quickly bring in Tech Life's Imran Raman Jones on this, because this isn't the only class action these social media giants have faced, is it? No, both TikTok and Meta have faced multiple class actions around the world, including major lawsuits in the UK, US, Canada, Brazil and across the EU. Many of them focus on harms to children, privacy breaches and mental health impacts from addictive platform design. And have we heard anything from Meta or TikTok? Well, we did ask, but neither would comment specifically on this Italian case.

7:55But TikTok says it has over 50 settings to help young people on their app. And it pointed to an optional screen time setting, which is by default limited to an hour a day for under 18s, and also to its family pairing tool, which means parents can put controls on their teenagers' use of the app. And as for Meta, as we record this, they haven't provided a response to our questions. Thanks, Imran.

8:29Here on Tech Life, there's no end to our interests, whether it's tech on land or at sea. And we've spoken before about developments in autonomous boats and ships sailing without any crew. Well, that's going to become even more common in the future. So imagine this, you're skippering your own vessel and you see another one coming towards you, but it's unmanned and completely autonomous. How do you stay safe? How can you talk to it to find out what its route is or what its intentions are? There's no captain to send a signal to, after all. Well, a British company called Marine AI think they have a solution.

9:07They're developing a way for human captains to talk over VHF radio to uncrewed boats. I've been speaking to Oliver Thompson, their Director of Engineering. So our system is sophisticated in the sense that it is able to deal with complex navigational scenarios. So if you imagine the rules of the road when you're taking a driving test, that's effectively the same system that all mariners need to follow when they're operating at sea. One of the big issues that makes a lot of people nervous when operating around these platforms is understanding what an autonomous boat will do in response to them. and one of the key areas that they typically rely on for crude vessels talking to another crude vessel is the use of VHF.

9:47VHF is a technology that's widely used by both commercial and recreational boaters and allows people to effectively call people up on distinct channels, ask them what they're doing, communicate their own intent and really start to close down any of that ambiguity so that people feel safe. And so if you have an autonomous boat, how do you get in touch with it? Can you use the VHF radio? Today, you can't. And that's part of what we're doing now with this programme. And its aim is to bring this natural language, so spoken word interface into autonomous craft across the industry. We are demonstrating this at sea in the near future.

10:28And this at the moment is building upon the technology that marine AI has been developing for a number of years now. So how does it work? So effectively, if I'm another seafarer or water space user, I will call up on what we call sort of the public channels. All vessels will listen on that. Our system will understand what its name is. And when somebody calls to speak to our boat, the autonomous boat, we'll then start responding and communicating our own intent, for example, answering questions about what we're going to be doing, where we're going, really just allowing other vessels to understand what we're doing and giving them more information because we are sort of acutely aware that our system, it's very obvious what the boat is doing but when you're actually on the water it's really not so clear.

11:14So we have a demo ready for us to test. This autonomous vessel believes that it's off the coast in Portugal. Can we give it a go? Absolutely, yes. So we'll be talking to a boat called Mayflower 400, which is a platform that Marini and I were involved in right at the genesis of the company. So you'll be talking to Mayflower 400. The vessel will believe that it's coming into port about sort of a few hours away in Portuguese waters. Mayflower 400, this is Portugal VTS. What are your intentions? TS, this is Mayflower 400, intending to maintain current course and speed en route to SESM report. We'll advise of any changes.

12:00Over. Mayflower 400, this is Portugal, VTS. What traffic can you see around you? VTS, this is Mayflower 400. Have detected a vessel one kilometre off Starboard Bow, bearing 270 degrees, approximately two nautical miles range. Vessel not yet identified. Over. we had a little go there and obviously it had the standard responses to what i was asking it i just wonder if things get more complicated how is it able to cope absolutely and i think that's the key element that we're working on over the next year and a half is to really integrate more tightly with our full stack autonomy system so being able to integrate with the low-level ship systems, for example, the machinery layer, and also to understand exactly where our autonomy engine, so the routing system, wants the vessel to go.

12:58And that way, we can then respond with much more complex responses to more complex scenarios. So for example, if we've got multiple vessels encroaching on our location, all involved in some form of collision avoidance, we need to be able to determine how our system and the underlying system with the rest of the autonomy is sort of interpreting each one of those vessels. And I wonder how big of an issue is this? Could you give us who don't have an expertise in boats, how many vessels are autonomous? So in the UK at the moment, the regulatory space does not allow for fully autonomous craft. What we have instead is defined testing areas.

13:41The regulatory guidance is evolving every day. But at the moment, we see this as being a significant blocker to the wider adoption of this technology. There's a lot of different aspects where autonomous craft have a lot of applications. And breaking down the language and the communication barriers between fully uncrewed, zero personnel on board type platform and other crewed boats is going to be absolutely key to achieving that. So really future proofing? Certainly, yes. Future proofing the whole system. So if we can start to embed this technology now, then this system will become a new benchmark and a core requirement of autonomous craft to be able to have this type of function.

14:22That's Oliver Thompson from Marine AI speaking to me from Plymouth in the UK.

14:37This is Tech Life on the BBC World Service with me, Shona McCallum. It's that time in the programme where we get to say hello to our listeners. This week, hi to Raghu, who WhatsAppped us from India. Raghu was listening to our end of AOL dial-up internet bit on last week's show and said the clips of the dial-up tones that modems used to blare out brought back memories. Yes, Raghu, I think we were all feeling the nostalgia last week. Scott in Manchester in the UK emailed us about his cat called Tom. Tom has a GPS tracker and one day he got stuck in a neighbour's old shed that hadn't been opened for 20 years.

15:17Luckily Scott was able to find Tom on his tracker app, but unluckily the temperature was more than 30 degrees Celsius and the shed key was missing. Scott says I had to cut a hole in the side of the panel to get the cat out and without the tracker I fear he could have died in that shed and I'd never known where he was. Well, we're glad Tom the cat is okay. If you've got a mini-adventure with tech that you want to share or have thoughts on this week's programme, get in touch with us. Email techlife at bbc.co.uk. Or you can WhatsApp us. The number is plus 44 330 1230 320. And still to come a little later, the Japanese tech company trying to combat malaria with drones.

16:13To West Africa next, where there's a social media revolution underway, on farms. We're talking about so-called agri-influencers and how millions of young farmers are transforming apps into vital business tools. And for using Instagram or Facebook, this is a big opportunity, you know. Moussa Diouf owns a farm in Senegal. Right now we are producing vegetables that we sell on the local market. He's also an expert in sustainable management, specialising in rural farming, soil and irrigation and food security. How important is social media for farmers in Africa? Social media has fundamentally transformed agriculture, knowledge sharing, you know, acting as a powerful, immediate and geographical unbound platform for farmers to learn new skills and exchange information.

17:09And of course, Moussa posts regularly on his own Instagram. So you have to post every day. I take pictures, I take videos everywhere. It is not just sharing, you know. We give advices for young people who want to involve themselves in agriculture. When I use social media, I don't use, you know, just for joking or just entertainment. I use social media to give advice to young people, to give advice to people, to farmers, to my followers, because I want to build a trust between me and my followers. A new report from global consultancy Caribou explores the intersection of agriculture, social media and young people in Africa.

17:49Abhi Fatih Joby is the author of the report. We're a team that's based around the world and we work with governments, private sector, NGOs to deliver on particular projects and programmes that we identify with them. It looked at the Ivory Coast and Benin in detail. We wanted to understand how young people in Africa are using social media to enhance their agriculture livelihoods. And this is what we refer to at Caribou, social agriculture. So social agriculture depends on a very layered skill set, from being able to use smartphones, to being able to access digital finance, being safe online, and also those emerging tools for AI such as messaging and analytics.

18:26She found that social agriculture is growing and spreading across the continent. To access markets, to share information and also to build supportive communities. However, the adoption of social agriculture is uneven. Men are more connected than women and urban residents are also more likely to be online than their rural counterparts. Urban peers are using more advanced solutions and even engaging things like AI. There's also an issue around digital infrastructure and a fragmented ecosystem. Challenges such as poor connectivity, unreliable electricity, and then the high device and data cost is limiting the use of social agriculture.

19:05My name is Ajaratu Kosfei. I'm a farmer. The research that we do in Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana was very, very, very insightful. For us youngers who were just seeing social media like not really a full-time job, but now we can create jobs by social media. Content creation can create jobs in agriculture sector. It's a huge market because Africa is growing. Do you resonate with what Abi was saying about the difficulties in the rural areas and how useful social media is there where it's difficult to get access to real experts? It's like totally true. The first barrier is the connectivity. You don't have network.

19:51after you have access to the smartphone. Most of the people who live there, like five years ago, it was not more easier to have a smartphone and having a platform like TikTok or Facebook on your phone. So they don't have access to information. So what would Caribou like to see happen following this research? Formal recognition of social agriculture for governments, for NGOs, for development partners and even training partners to recognise social agriculture as a viable way for changing the narrative of agriculture on the African continent and inspiring a generation of young people to take up agriculture and farming as a viable career path and livelihood.

20:32And in the meantime, agri-influencers like Musa... So after the harvest, we really use those Instagram platforms to promote our product. ...will keep transforming digital content into important learning resources for aspiring farmers.

20:57our last story today is about a clever use of drones and artificial intelligence to deal with these they're malaria carrying mosquitoes now malaria is a disease which affects hundreds of millions of people a year in 2023 an estimated 600 000 people died from it nearly all of these cases were in Africa. Now one Japan-based company is doing its bits to help combat the illness by using drones and AI to identify and eliminate high-risk mosquito breeding grounds. These are bodies of water like pools or puddles. Marina Ishikawa, the head of global management at Sora Technology, told me about their work.

21:42What we do mainly as a business is we use drone and AI to tackle malaria. So in African countries, malaria is a severe problem and that is killing many people. So what we do is we fly drones, we create a map of the landscape of the land that we're trying to target, and then we take the water bodies. So we basically capture the photos of the water bodies there, especially the puddles. and we send that landscape data to our AI and the AI tries to see if that water body is a high-risk malaria-born water body or not. And then after our AI decides that it is a high-risk water body, then we spray the larvae sides there so that we can kill the mosquito larvas there.

22:38So how does the AI identify high-risk bodies of water? We look at temperature, depth, the size of the water body, the vegetation around, and there's so many factors that I cannot say all of them. We have a lot. And how we collected those is we took the data of the drone to the AI, and we also have sent the people to check each of the water body that we captured to see if our AI was precise or not. And we have a data that more than 80 % of our AI has accuracy. So it's currently shown that it is very high accuracy. And are the drones piloted or are they autonomous? The drone is manually operated by people.

23:30We have three types of drone that we use. The one that we capture the land is one is the multicopter drone. That is like a small drone where the person operates to take the landscape. We also have a fixed wing drone, which can fly 100 kilometers range. So it can fly a very wide place. And also we have our drone that can spray the lava sites. So that can be used in agriculture and also for spraying the larva sites to the water bodies. And before drones and AI, how were people looking at potential malaria sites and bodies of water? Was this work being done at all? In the traditional way, they were spraying to every single water body they can find.

24:22we have figured out that 70 % of the water bodies that is there does not have the malaria mosquitoes, mosquito larvas. So by using our solution we can just figure out the water body that actually has the mosquito larvas with malaria and then we can just spray the 30 % of those water bodies that actually has a high risk. So therefore, the cost of larvacide and also cost of the labour has been dramatically decreased using our solution. How else can your technology be used to treat diseases then? At the moment, our main solution is to fight against malaria, but the same solution can be used for other infectious diseases such as dengue mosquitoes.

25:14So dengue is also a disease that can be carried by mosquitoes. Dengue is spread in East Asian countries. So now we have already started piloting in Philippines to see if we can eliminate the number of dengue mosquitoes. That's Marina Ishikawa from Sora Technology speaking to me from Tokyo.

25:42We've run out of time again, but there are a few seconds left to remind you that you can contact us. It could be about something you've heard in today's programme, or maybe you can tell us about your mini-adventure with technology. Email us techlife at bbc.co.uk, or you can send us a WhatsApp on plus 44 330 1230 320. We look forward to reading your messages. Today's Tech Life was produced by Tom Quinn and presented by me, Shona McCallum.