Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#131

Post by throwawayhhakdl » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #47

blunderkid wrote: post #16

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inab…

I always disliked Facebook and still don't care much for it, but having worked on ranking there for a few months, comments like this just sound incredibly naive. Facebook is not "specifically designed to cause addiction". It's designed by a complicated process with many people trying to maximize many competing metrics, some of which might go up when people are "addicted". In fact the complete opposite is one of the m…

Time spent isn’t the same as addiction though. The grossness of Facebook is not that people spend too much time on it (though they may), but what content they see, how they are encouraged to engage with it, and the effect it has on people’s world views and psychological health.

The addiction component would be the constant concern with either how you are perceived on the platform or outrage with what others are saying.

I see precisely nothing they’ve done to increase the well being of people who are constantly tilted by the dumbest political garbage.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#132

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #96

alexis_fr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view it the opposite way: We underestimated as a society how many people were feeling bad. Addictions to alcohol is horrible, but their harm doesn’t scale. With social networks, we suddenly see what we chose to ignore before: The swathes of MGTOWs, Incels, doubters, we also see the swathes of “scientific studies” which were provably wrong, the lies of the medias when you compare the scientific study and how the art…

> we should have taken better care of so many people we’ve put in such horrible situations... Rather than assuming they were just crybabies. It may seemed callused, but they _are_ just crybabies. Just because social media facilitates the formation of certain identity groups now does not mean that the cultures formed from those identities are good or productive. Just look at the increase in suicides, depression, schoo…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#133

Post by zeveb » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #81

DanBC wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK it mostly was increased prices, coupled with free smoking cessation services, and with changes in law to make smoking illegal inside many buildings (workplaces, shops, pubs, cafés etc). Vaping was useful to move remaining smokers to different nicotine delivery mechanisms.

Pretty sure the pub change was huge. It also practically redefined what pubs are in the UK.

I really miss smoky pubs. They were nice and comfortable in a way the modern brightly-lit bars just aren't.

I don't mind that the modern bright bars exist, I just wish that I could have an old snug with a pint of bitter and smoke a pipe or cigar.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#134

Post by dokein » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #47

blunderkid wrote: post #16

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inab…

I always disliked Facebook and still don't care much for it, but having worked on ranking there for a few months, comments like this just sound incredibly naive. Facebook is not "specifically designed to cause addiction". It's designed by a complicated process with many people trying to maximize many competing metrics, some of which might go up when people are "addicted". In fact the complete opposite is one of the m…

I don't think Facebook is "evil" by design, but the end result is the same. The framework is as follows:

There were probably thousands of internet companies that competed to be the dominant sites in the 90s and 00s. By several orders of magnitude the predominant business model is ads for eyeballs, and the predominant network effect scales with number of users.

Several factors influenced success but, on average, sites that captured user attention more effectively got more views and a larger userbase. Thus there was overall selective pressure for addictive properties, and sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram won over sites that were less able to hold attention like Blogger, Digg, MySpace, etc.

We cannot know, for example, that Jack Dorsey was knowingly trying to maximize outrage with his character limit, which feeds into the "two-minutes-hate" emotional addiction. But we can be sure that he was trying to maximize several KPIs like # users, bounce rate, time on page, etc.

The result? The dominant sites today == the sites that are best able to capture attention!

How successful were they? Not only have they captured a huge portion of time people spend on the internet, the amount of time people are on the internet has itself increased! So they won over other websites and also grabbed attention away from traditional media, newspapers, random thoughts while standing in line, uninterrupted dinner, etc. time.

What's the problem? I think the major challenge is that these sites feel more effective at shaping attention than many drugs (no reference for this yet)!

This parallels the opioid crisis -- maximizing certain good pain relief characteristics (short onset, hits opioid receptors) just happens to be addictive. I doubt the Sacklers cackled during dinner and clinked glasses at the future misery they were causing, but it's pretty damn easy to convince yourself that you're doing the right thing when the money is rolling in.

Jack Dorsey similarly thinks he's saving the world but he's probably the single most responsible person for the "populist politician" phenomenon.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#135

Post by raziel2p » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #59

mgraczyk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always disliked Facebook and still don't care much for it, but having worked on ranking there for a few months, comments like this just sound incredibly naive. Facebook is not "specifically designed to cause addiction". It's designed by a complicated process with many people trying to maximize many competing metrics, some of which might go up when people are "addicted". In fact the complete opposite is one of the m…

On what basis are you claiming that that most teams at FB are optimising the product for well being as opposed to ‘engagement’ (addiction)? Do you have first hand knowledge? Do you know the people involved? Do you have citations? I stopped using FB a few years ago after I had an argument with a friend on the platform. The algorithm decided to keep showing us one anothers’ content - I assume so we would both write mor…

If facebook only shows content you agree with, it's creating social bubbles where everyone is cheering each other on and criticism is not allowed, and you end up with anti-vax groups.

And if facebook emphasizes content you engage with (albeit negatively), you end up with anecdotes like yours.

Facebook is a tool, use it as such rather than being entitled and feeling disempowered. You can hide people from your timelines, get "less messages like these" and more.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#136

Post by coding123 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

blunderkid wrote: post #16

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inab…

It might sound crazy but the govt DID this for cigarettes. Have you read the warning on cigarettes?

I mean just look at the suggested box design here: https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/labeling-and-warning-st...

I mean really look at that, and fully take in the notion that our government required that. That, that takes balls.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#137

Post by ahallock » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

winrid wrote: post #46

blunderkid wrote: post #16

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inab…

I would argue this site can make you feel the same way :)

HN is addictive, but I think we're dramatizing things. Is a product that people like to use a lot a bad thing? Maybe that just speaks to having a good product that gives people what they want, rather than some insidious mind-control scheme where people have no agency to stop using it. Are creators supposed to make their products worse so people don't use them as much? I don't get it.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#138

Post by ethbro » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #78

adventured wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted, and you're correct. The single most important thing they did to turn the tide against smoking, to create a strong disincentive, was to make it a lot more expensive of a habit. Cigarettes used to be inexpensive when I was growing up in the 1980s. Now you'll nearly spend a car payment on just a pack per day. Chain smoker? There went your rent for the month. Chinese men are the most voracious smo…

I doubt the imagery campaign made much difference. How long has their been an anti drug campaign? Has it helped? Marijuana use has become more socially acceptable and the number of people who want it legal has increased. Just as an aside, the number of people who smoke weed regularly is about the same as people who smoke cigarettes. http://pics.mcclatchyinteractive.com/news/nation-world/natio...

By definition, everyone who does illegal drugs is somewhat flexible with regards to suggestions from authority.

One of the core propositions of cigarettes was always that they were legal. They catered to both the rule breaker and (substantially bigger) rule follower markets.

So it seems apples and oranges with regards to imagery / warning effectiveness due to the only partially overlapping consumers.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#139

Post by EGreg » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #47

blunderkid wrote: post #16

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inab…

I always disliked Facebook and still don't care much for it, but having worked on ranking there for a few months, comments like this just sound incredibly naive. Facebook is not "specifically designed to cause addiction". It's designed by a complicated process with many people trying to maximize many competing metrics, some of which might go up when people are "addicted". In fact the complete opposite is one of the m…

Actually, we are addicted because of the tragedy of the unmanaged commons, where the commons is human attention and the mechanisms are Notifications and Updates from Your Contacts.

If Facebook doesn’t do it, then LinkedIn or Twitter will. So Facebook is like Microsoft - do whatever it takes to win.

Re: Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets

#140

Post by AlexandrB » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #111

Maybe it’s a sign that we shouldn’t want government bureaucrats to invade every area of our lives and let grown people make their own informed choices.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Google bureaucrats have already invaded every area of our lives. Oh, and they're monopolies so good luck "choosing".