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Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

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Re: Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

#71

Post by troyvit »

Barrin92 wrote: post #29
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fundamental difference is that smoking actually shortens lives by years. On the other hand, Facebook's privacy violations have . . . made people feel a little squicky? What concrete harm has been done? Nothing to rival even a hundredth of tobacco's death toll. That's not to say we shouldn't have laws and regulations around privacy, but personally I think it's a bit of a stretch to compare Facebook and Phi…

the suicide rate, especially among adolescent women has increased by almost 70% from 2001 to now, self-harm has increased, rate of depression, anxiety and related illnesses has increased in that demographic. Among young men as well, albeit to a lesser extent. While it will take more time to figure out precisely how social media impacts the development of teenagers and young adults, the relationship is pretty unambigu…

Correlation doesn't equal causation, and even if you could blame that high increase in suicide rate on Facebook (or social media in general) that is still peanuts compared to tobacco, and Facebook hasn't to my knowledge tried to stifle studies of social media's impact on people in nearly the same way big tobacco has tried to stifle research on its direct effects on people.

Re: Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

#72

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

chillacy wrote: post #68
tosser0001 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the election of Donald Trump was the triggering event for the backlash. There are a significant number of people that feel it was one of the principal reasons why he was elected. I know several people that quit in direct response to that. I find it odd that it is simultaneously a dying platform and an all-consuming monstrosity that must be destroyed. Anyone who reads these types of threads and didn’t know wha…

I’m afraid that line of logic is going to lead the democrats to lose 2020 if they keep blaming Russia, Facebook, etc instead of trying to actually appeal to swing state voters.

Agreed. I right now can't name a single on Democrat policy that is being pushed heavily by any candidate except "TRUMP MUST BE STOPPED".

That's not going to work unless the economy is figuratively on fire right at the election.

Re: Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

#73

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #44
mapt wrote: post #12

I think it may be more appropriate to treat them like Big Asbestos. All it should take is them knowingly handing our private messages in full to other corporations. They were not a party to these messages, they were a network service provider. This actually happened. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/19/facebook-... Regardless of what may or may not be on the TOS, that's federal wiretapping. Fuck you, g…

Yeah totally. Building a website is exactly the same as giving hundreds of thousands of people lung cancer.

Some might argue a form of figurative brain cancer.

Re: Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

#74

Post by troyvit »

throw20102010 wrote: post #27
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fundamental difference is that smoking actually shortens lives by years. On the other hand, Facebook's privacy violations have . . . made people feel a little squicky? What concrete harm has been done? Nothing to rival even a hundredth of tobacco's death toll. That's not to say we shouldn't have laws and regulations around privacy, but personally I think it's a bit of a stretch to compare Facebook and Phi…

While we can't point to any direct causation right now, it also took a long time for us to have proof that smoking was harmful. In the following hypothetical scenario, think about how much blame you would be willing to assign Facebook. It may be none, but they may not be blameless: Facebook's poor privacy practices allow a malicious actor to influence the outcome of an election- they may have only swung a few thousan…

Smoking a cigarette triggers a physical addiction akin to that of heroin. It destroys free will. Social media? I dunno man if people can't look away from insta or FB long enough to watch their kids play on the floor then maybe that's their problem and not their app's. At some point we have to assign personal responsibility to ourselves and admit that the reason FB can take advantage of weak wills is because we let our wills get weak.

Those malicious actors who helped affect an election only got away with it because we began to thoughtlessly slurp the spoon-fed pap that the media (MSM, fake news sites, social networks, all of it) gives us. Facebook isn't a bad actor: it's a symptom of a society that gave up critical thought. If we regulate FB it will just be something else that comes along and manipulates us. If we work together to elevate critical thinking and skepticism then we stand a chance of owning our consumption again.

Re: Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

#75

Post by rock_hard »

sytelus wrote: post #55

First, you need to look at human attention as a commodity just like gold - available in fixed quantity and everyone wants piece of it. It turns out that FB managed to conquer large portion of human attention after it emerged. This also meant massive attention transfer from news media to FB. However until year ago, FB benevolently gave back significant pie of its attention share to news media by heavily promoting thei…

Spot on analysis!

"Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics."

To me, facebook is this amazing place where I get to stay in touch with all my friends and family, get to plan events with them, laugh about cat gifs and live through the highs and lows of life together.

So much good has happened to me through facebook...friends, jobs, love (I met my wife on FB).

And the fact that every day there is millions more joining facebook means more people get to have these super powers of hyper connectedness I got to have for over 10 years already!

Re: Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

#77

Post by edmundsauto »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #73
anonuser123456 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah totally. Building a website is exactly the same as giving hundreds of thousands of people lung cancer.

Some might argue a form of figurative brain cancer.

What does that even mean, in concrete terms? How does it affect my health, and what causal evidence is there to support that link?

Re: Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

#79

Post by rat9988 »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #78

What's the worst thing Facebook can do to me? Sell me shit I don't want? That's nothing in comparison to what the government can do to you.

It can give your information to the government. Now it's as bad as the government.

The argument isn't that strong though. I admit it.

Re: Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco

#80

Post by Something1234 »

chillacy wrote: post #68
tosser0001 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the election of Donald Trump was the triggering event for the backlash. There are a significant number of people that feel it was one of the principal reasons why he was elected. I know several people that quit in direct response to that. I find it odd that it is simultaneously a dying platform and an all-consuming monstrosity that must be destroyed. Anyone who reads these types of threads and didn’t know wha…

I’m afraid that line of logic is going to lead the democrats to lose 2020 if they keep blaming Russia, Facebook, etc instead of trying to actually appeal to swing state voters.

I completely agree.

The democrats need to get their act together, and create a unified front if they want me to view them as anything more than a fragment who can't get anything done.

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