Does Anyone Read This?

The Terms and Conditions of Tech Companies
A Reflection on the Consumer Need of Acceptance the Terms of Use of Social Media Platforms

All social media platforms require, as a precondition of usage, the ticking of a little box - commonly under the title "acceptance of terms and conditions of use" - and it's about the significance of such an acceptance that we are going to elaborate.

The average consumer that wishes to access a social media platform must, in order to sign up to it, answer a predetermined number of questions that allow the platform to collect data that will inform it about the potential user.

We all answer this questions lightly - even replying to questions that are not a mandatory requirement to adhere to the platform - and at the end we meet one box that must be ticked in order to complete the registration process: the acceptance of the terms and conditions of use.

Needless to say that all that has been stated is obvious. Nevertheless, it's important, for the purpose of this article, to point out how a simple gesture - such as ticking a box - can relevantly impact our rights.

The first - and most obvious - aspect to highlight is that the access to these platforms depends on the acceptance of these terms and conditions and if there's no acceptance there's no access to these platforms. 

Since this is the only way to access the platform, the average consumer - who wants to be part of the social media platform - is forced to tick the box where he accepts the terms and conditions of use of it, otherwise the registration process won't go through.

Social media platforms are means of exercising fundamental rights - these platforms promote freedom of speech, help fight social exclusion, allow for the search of job opportunities, and are even used to provide access to justice - and people may be deprived of basic human rights if these conditions are not accepted.

This, should make us ponder if the freedom of stipulation of such clauses should not be limited in order to protect these fundamental rights, by this we mean to question if the market is enough to self-regulate the protection of human right when it comes to social media platforms. 


Francisco Maia Cerqueira

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