APAC Ad Market to Grow 8.5%; New York Governor Signs Social Media Bills; TikTok Makes First Amendment Case

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 24th Jun 2024 in News

On today’s news digest: APAC Ad Market to Grow 8.5%; New York Governor Signs Social Media Bills; TikTok Makes First Amendment Case

The APAC ad market is expected to see growth of 8.5% this year to reach USD$289bn (£223bn). Similarly to recent forecasts for Europe, digital pure players are expected to lead the growth with their ad revenues forecasted to rise 11.1%. As 2024 progresses, Search remains responsible for the largest portion of digital ad revenue growth. In comparison, traditional media ad revenues are predicted to see growth of only 0.8%.

In the US, Kathy Hochul – governor of New York – has signed two bills into law which aim to mitigate the negative impacts of social media on children. The first bill will give parents the right to stop their children from seeing posts suggested by social platform’s algorithms, preventing platforms from suggesting content from accounts children do not follow. The second bill will enforce further limits on the collection, use, sharing and selling of children's data. However, children will be able to turn off these measures by obtaining “verifiable parental consent”. Following the governor’s signing of the bills, the state attorney general is now responsible for determining the mechanisms that will be used to verify a user’s age and parental consent. Once this has been finalised, social platforms have 180 days to introduce updates to comply with the new legislation.

More in the legal landscape: TikTok has made its First Amendment case challenging the bill which will ban it in the US if not sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance by 19th January next year. TikTok claims that the US government failed to consider the viable alternative options they presented to address concerns before passing the law. TikTok said that an extensive plan detailing how they intended to mitigate the supposed national security risks had been largely ignored. On Thursday, TikTok and several of its creators made their case regarding how they believe the new legislation is in violation of the First Amendment. Now, the court will be tasked with considering whether the US government should have considered a different approach in addressing security concerns. The court is set to hear oral arguments for the case in September.