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New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

theguardian.com

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Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#391

Post by prepend »

cwmoore wrote: post #318
Analemma_ wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? If it’s taken away from Meta and can no longer be used to build more technologies for Meta, that’s a massive upside to kids all by itself. Doubly-so if the fine incentivizes Meta to stop doing this shit. You could put the money in a big pile and light it on fire and it would still be a net win for society.

It is not a net win when Justice is solely a destructive force. The absence of restoration to those harmed is a mutual burden.

It’s a penalty.

Just years in prison, it’s not about restoration, it’s about punishment.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#392

Post by prepend »

EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #369
paimapi wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is true and the knock-on effect of this is that other states with intrepid AGs and consumer protection bureaus now have a case law example to cite in their arguments the hope is that if other AGs pursue these measures that they do their due diligence of creating a case that FB's corporate lawyers won't be able to defeat in subsequent trials. otherwise case law will ultimately let large, unaccountable corporation…

The New Mexico AG behind this case is Raul Torrez. He's a fascist/authoritarian asshole who has been using this case to try and force mandatory online age verification on everyone while also banning encryption. The last thing we need is for other state AGs to try to copy him.

People can be wrong about one thing and right about other things.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#393

Post by prepend »

Theodores wrote: post #192
safety1st wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One third of porn consumers are women. They are hardly immune.

Erotica != porn... What is the difference between erotica and porn? I am no expert, however, the former requires and stimulates the imagination, whereas the latter doesn't do that, everything is shown and nothing is left to the imagination. From my experience of the 'stumbleupon' (a link-sharing site from many years ago), I would describe the saucy pictures women collected/liked as erotica rather than porn. Clearly p…

> Fundamentally, Western culture objectifies women (for profit) whereas other cultures don't necessarily do that

I don’t know if this is true. I’m fairly certain that all cultures have prostitutes. And porn is more a function of technology and income rather than geography. Lots of exploitation of women in Asia, Africa, and other non-Western cultures.

Of course, this is something that all culture need to work on improving. But understanding reality is a big step to stopping or reducing this objectification.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#394

Post by prepend »

spoonjim wrote: post #69
krapp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Playboy magazines" are part of the problem. Fetishes aren't what has distorted mens' ideas of intimacy and sexual relations. Fetishes can be a perfectly healthy and consensual form of sexual expression. The problem is the lack of proper sexual education in schools and open dialogue in society because we're limited by Christian taboos to only ever mentioning abstinence until marriage, so porn becomes the only way men…

The first two videos listed on PornHub.com are "FUCK THE CONDOM! Skinny Blonde Girl Opens HER LITTLE ASSHOLE FOR MY BIG COCK" and "2 Friends Want to Try an African Dick in the Ass for the First Time While They're Pissed On and Humiliated." The First Amendment makes this kind of stuff borderline impossible to regulate in the US, but it's pretty obvious that this stuff is harmful to people's brains and that society wou…

Those results are personalized based on your marketing history and surveillance capitalism.

So it really is just a reflection of your proclivities than anything societal.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#395

Post by anigbrowl »

graceful6800 wrote: post #380
tristanj wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This analysis actually understates how massive and outsized the penalties are. The court ruling only applies to children in New Mexico under age 18. New Mexico has ~450,000 people under age 18, of which roughly 140,000 are between ages 13-17 (Meta officially requires age 13+ to use their platforms). Recent Pew surveys of U.S. teens ages 13–17 show ~70% of teenagers use Instagram and ~30% use Facebook. In New Mexico,…

No matter how you want to rearrange and inflate the numbers, it doesn't change the fact that the total amount does not cause any harm to Meta. This isn't a fine, its a tax . It's the cost of doing business. Meta certainly made more than $7.25k over the lifetime of each of those accounts. Maybe $7k will help these kids, but I doubt it, even if they receive the full amount. But Meta remains unaffected and free to conti…

Meta certainly made more than $7.25k over the lifetime of each of those accounts.

From those accounts? Doubt. Sure they make money from other things too, but I don't mind them making money from legitimate business activities. I am not a fan of the company but plainly they provide value to a lot of their users even if I consider their products mediocre and boring.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#396

Post by alex1138 »

EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #368
voncheese wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with anything said here, but it sure would be nice if Meta (and any other companies building social media applications) focused more on what's right for children, both short and long term, than the math of what is profitable.

The problem is that "what's right for children" should be better parental controls, and better enforcement of treating self-declared ages under 18 separately. Instead, the New Mexico AG and other assholes believe it means we need more mass surveillance, mandatory age verification, bans on encryption, and other insanity.

> bans on encryption

It's a bit of a tangent, but Meta actually really annoys me

Is the general war on encryption bad? Yeah

Meta? Meta forcibly upgraded people on Messenger. Now chats are broken. First they took away your friends https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433 and then they REALLY took away your friends, by doing this

They actively want to be a monopoly https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198. I don't trust them with fucking anything

(Messaging was already unreliable using Messenger, even for friends. Let alone people trying to reach you https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6090712)

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#397

Post by asadotzler »

mcmcmc wrote: post #377
59percentmore wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of a fine is to change behavior. It's not outsize if it's enough to do that. >If this fine remains, and Meta pays out to the affected parties, these kids could end up rewarded with thousands of dollars for just for having a Facebook or Instagram account. Good. https://www.thefader.com/2015/12/03/on-fleek-peaches-monroee... These platforms are so profitable precisely because they fleece users for way more va…

> The point of a fine is to change behavior. It's not outsize if it's enough to do that. This is definitely not true, or legal. Would a billion dollar fine for speeding change some behaviors? Yes. Is it completely out of proportion? Also yes. There’s a reason punitive damages are capped. Yeah one way to stop bad corporate behavior is fining them into insolvency, but that doesn’t really help anyone unless the company…

Even a few tens of billions in fines doesn't come close to putting Meta into insolvency. The histrionics are entirely uncalled for.

A billion dollar fine is entirely unnecessary to dissuade a typical driver from speeding. The fine needs to be enough to change the behavior, not 500,000,000% that amount.

Meta is worth $1.5T while most of us getting tickets are worth less than $200K. Meta brings in $200B/yr. Taking 10% of that, even 20%, would hardly slow the company down in most of its business.

I think 15% of revenue per year of uncorrected behavior is about the right amount. After a few years of that, I'd wager Meta would start to change how it treats children, probably by screwing over adults even more, but that's fine with me. Adults get what they deserve. Children deserve better than being handed over to a mega-corporation for monetization.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#398

Post by fooker »

pasquinelli wrote: post #375
tristanj wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This analysis actually understates how massive and outsized the penalties are. The court ruling only applies to children in New Mexico under age 18. New Mexico has ~450,000 people under age 18, of which roughly 140,000 are between ages 13-17 (Meta officially requires age 13+ to use their platforms). Recent Pew surveys of U.S. teens ages 13–17 show ~70% of teenagers use Instagram and ~30% use Facebook. In New Mexico,…

> If this fine remains, and Meta pays out to the affected parties, these kids could end up rewarded with thousands of dollars for just for having a Facebook or Instagram account. Which creates some bizarre incentives, minors get rewarded for signing up for the platforms that are harming them in the first place. what does this really mean? you think kids in other states are going to rush out to make a facebook account…

> you think kids in other states

Parents of the kids, realistically.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#399

Post by mcmcmc »

asadotzler wrote: post #397
mcmcmc wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of a fine is to change behavior. It's not outsize if it's enough to do that. This is definitely not true, or legal. Would a billion dollar fine for speeding change some behaviors? Yes. Is it completely out of proportion? Also yes. There’s a reason punitive damages are capped. Yeah one way to stop bad corporate behavior is fining them into insolvency, but that doesn’t really help anyone unless the company…

Even a few tens of billions in fines doesn't come close to putting Meta into insolvency. The histrionics are entirely uncalled for. A billion dollar fine is entirely unnecessary to dissuade a typical driver from speeding. The fine needs to be enough to change the behavior, not 500,000,000% that amount. Meta is worth $1.5T while most of us getting tickets are worth less than $200K. Meta brings in $200B/yr. Taking 10%…

My point is that saying “there is no unreasonable fine if it works” is naive absolutism. Even with proportional fines, does fining someone 99% of their income count as too high? If proportionality is irrelevant than there is no way to differentiate which crimes deserve what punishments.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#400

Post by Gunax »

tristanj wrote: post #5

Per the court ruling [0], the specific law that Meta violated was New Mexico’s public-nuisance law, NMSA 1978 § 30-8-1. The relevant section that was violated is [1]: A public nuisance consists of knowingly creating, performing or maintaining anything affecting any number of citizens without lawful authority which is either: - A. injurious to public health, safety, morals or welfare; or - B. interferes with the exerc…

After reading your comment, I am very concerned.

This is a very general law. Saying something is 'injurious to public health, safety, morals, or welfare' is such a broad category.

Let's remember what we started with. It's a website where people chat and share images. Some people found information that caused or exaserbated consitions. If that is injurious to public health, then just about anything is.

I think this is very dangeous and it leads to any business or organization being potentially liable.

Doesn't every bar cause piblic nuisances? How about libraries? I can find all sorts of dangerous information at a library.

I think the real piblic hate is because people lost their minds when Trump won. People blamed Facebook for allowing that to happen (ie allowing free speech).

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