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Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

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Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#181

Post by decide »

Groxx wrote: post #167
zepto wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, admitting that your product causes a medical problem makes it easy for people to sue you over it. You’re right that they could be sued even if they don’t admit it, but then they would have a defense which would be far weaker if they had already admitted it.

Especially true if you are holding evidence that you knew it caused medical problems, but ignored that evidence and continued doing stuff that made it worse because it makes more money . At that point you pretty much have to start bribing people to look away, like the cigarette industry is notorious for. Facebook has practically zero incentive to research damages they might be causing. Sure, they could do the ethical…

They have done causal research and they have hidden it from FBers asking for results of the study.

Members from the well-being team tried to conduct research but was refused do to it because of “legal and PR” reasons. The well-being team was shut down.

All this will come out in lawsuits if/when they happen. Likely through attorney generals and not individuals.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#182

Post by decide »

ipnon wrote: post #12

Note that Facebook does not have the choice to agree. To do so would be to open Facebook to unimaginable legal liability. So Facebook's opinion in the matter is moot. There are practically no inputs to this function that will change its behavior.

> Note that Facebook does not have the choice to agree.

To the requests made so far, you are correct.

Depositions and subpoenas would change that. And if you know who to ask inside FB, there are some ugly skeletons in their closet.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#183

Post by snerual »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #51

> "The correlational evidence showing that there is a link between social media use and depression is pretty definitive at this point," said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University. "The largest and most well-conducted studies that we have all show that teens who spend more time on social media are more likely to be depressed or unhappy." > Correlation is not causation, and one area of furth…

Isn't this a classic ethical problem in psychological research?

You can measure the correlation all you want, but to prove causation you have to be able to control the source (creteris paribus).

It's hard to get a study approved that intents to expose subjects to something you know is harmful.(?)

With sigarettes, researcher could just prove the material harm, and conclude causation, but proving purely psychological harm seems hard to prove

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#184

Post by baby »

azemetre wrote: post #52

It's very odd, I use to use Instagram and it would make me depressed. IDK how to explain, I don't even have any friends on there I follow. Just something about seeing everyone at their best 100% of the time, doing amazing things 100% of the time, never facing adversity 100% of the time. I know it's not realistic but it still gets to your head. I uninstalled it from my phone I feel better about myself after a few week…

Try watching tv all the time and you’ll feel the same. Now a bit of tv to relax from times to times is probably good for you.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#185

Post by JetAlone »

goldcd wrote: post #68

My post below got downvoted. That made me a bit sad. I thought I'd made a good point, hadn't meant to upset anybody, would have been open to discussion on it, but..

Your post made a comeback. People in different timezones feel different and strongly about what you wrote. The discussion is divisive and largely reinforces what we individually already believe. For people experiencing the problems of a new, unregulated cultural force it's just too real, too immediate. The problems of the past were real, but they're not that real to us anymore. Worth pointing at to reinforce our own ideas about today, but not worth equating to today's stuff as a means of settling ourselves down.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#186

Post by cycomanic »

reedjosh wrote: post #173
minikites wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How can I as an individual compete with billion dollar companies that literally hire neuroscientists/psychologists to make something as addictive as possible? You can't, which is the reason we need government regulation. This clearly isn't self-regulating (like most things) and the purpose of government is to act in these matters on behalf of society.

I quit. I self regulated. I don't like these companies, and I think they're evil. I still don't think it's the government's job.

Do you believe the government should regulate if alcohol should be sold (and advertised) to children/teenagers? What about other drugs?

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#187

Post by JetAlone »

mastrsushi wrote: post #87
pier25 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "social media as a whole"? Does HN count as social media? Where do you draw the line?

Sites where you can peek into other people's lives, or at least what you think is. To me HN is nothing more innocent than a virtual programming club.

I think they have something of a point...

On HN we can look into each other's post history to profile each other which does constitute something of a peek into however much of our lives we have decided to share, and I often see people mention it when disagreeing on each other. There's upvote/downvote/flagging wars on tribally charged matters, as much as Dang does his best to moderate it. All of this has to be driving up cortisol and furthering people's fear and suspicion.

But, on the other hand, HN's design is very web 1.0, and that does curtail the effects a little. You have to click instead of infini-scrolling. If you really want to profile someone, you again have to click through many pages of their post history. I think the warring that happens is endemic to the society and any medium would carry some of it, and I've seen it spilling over into "meat space".

Is HN use V.S. some other social media stemming the tide of poor mental health? I say probably not by much, if at all. Would annihilating all "engagement optimized" social media have positive results on our mental health? I say probably a considerable amount, but not enough to fix what's already broken in too many of us. Being highly optimistic it could drive some sort of "positive feedback loop" if the mental health benefits were somehow reinvested into further healthy decisions for society, but I think a lot of people would just end up in another vice because that's part of the current human condition.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#188

Post by nl »

zepto wrote: post #172
Kranar wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized maybe a week or two ago regarding subjects that I am an expert on and professionally trained that people on Hacker News discuss it in a very uninformed manner and out of ignorance and that this ignorance spreads across the site like wildfire. People make bold and categorical claims that one would only expect of a subject matter expert when it's clear that they're anything but that. The issue is that the nu…

> So given that I know that discussions in my area of expertise on this site is full of misinformation, I have now come to doubt the quality and reliability of conversations on this site on some other topics that tend to attract a lot of assertive discussion. Not just misinformation, but active disinformation. > physics, math, machine learning, things where I trust there are enough experts here that no one would make…

It's worth noting that in this case (and in most discussions around non-IP law) the consensus HN view is usually what an informed person thinks the law should be based on something they heard on the news once and extended to try to generalise to some new situation that has never been tested in court.

Kranar is basically right here. It isn't at all clear that FB would be liable, and there isn't even a particularly strong case.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#189

Post by [deleted] »

Kranar wrote: post #170
zepto wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earlier you said: > From my uninformed point of view that I am happy to be challenged on Now you say: > I think at this point it's quite clear that people are just speaking from a very superficial understanding or outright just making things up about this topic but are doing so as if they are subject matter experts How would you know, if your point of view is uninformed? Are you a lawyer?

I realized maybe a week or two ago regarding subjects that I am an expert on and professionally trained that people on Hacker News discuss it in a very uninformed manner and out of ignorance and that this ignorance spreads across the site like wildfire. People make bold and categorical claims that one would only expect of a subject matter expert when it's clear that they're anything but that. The issue is that the nu…

[deleted]

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#190

Post by scatters »

minikites wrote: post #138
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can I as an individual compete with billion dollar companies that literally hire neuroscientists/psychologists to make something as addictive as possible? If someone can't moderate their own consumption of something despite their best efforts, abstinence works. Similar story with alcohol: Plenty of people have no problem moderating their consumption, but a small percentage of people really struggle with limitin…

>If someone can't moderate their own consumption of something despite their best efforts, abstinence works. It doesn't work for sex ed and I don't see why it would work for this.

You can't see the difference between an activity that stimulates the dopamine reward pathways and the activity that is the reason those pathways exist?
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