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Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#91

Post by hef19898 »

tjpnz wrote: post #42
hkaly wrote: post #3

Irony is Facebook will not attract the talent it needs to work constructively on these unsolvable problems. It will attract thd clueless and the most ambitious. People who are ready to defend it for their own profit. Its a trap where the hole they are in just keeps growing deeper.

>Irony is Facebook will not attract the talent it needs to work constructively on these unsolvable problems. At some point the brand will become so toxic that engineers who've worked there could find themselves persona non grata in many tech roles.

Unfortunately I think other companies would still be happy hiring ex FB developers. They still are ex FAANG, and they showed to give moral and principle the rear seat when it comes to revenue and business. Why wouldn't these folks be hireable?

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#92

Post by fallingknife »

pjmlp wrote: post #81
hahajk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the US computer engineering degrees require licensing and are different than “software engineering”, which is actually a specialty within computer science.

Except everyone calls themselves "engineer" after a 6 weeks bootcamp, is is rediculous.

I went to bootcamp and outperform people with master's degrees that don't even understand why a hashmap is amortized O(1) every day. You got ripped off paying for school so take your degree and shove it.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#93

Post by pjmlp »

fallingknife wrote: post #92
pjmlp wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except everyone calls themselves "engineer" after a 6 weeks bootcamp, is is rediculous.

I went to bootcamp and outperform people with master's degrees that don't even understand why a hashmap is amortized O(1) every day. You got ripped off paying for school so take your degree and shove it.

State pays for our degrees, and ensures that are actually market worthy.

Also not everyone and their dog gets in unless they prove their skills.

Most private university are seen as scams.

You should start by shooting down all the university scams in US to start with.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#94

Post by hef19898 »

LatteLazy wrote: post #61

I have no strong feelings on Instagram. That said, i find it interesting how suddenly people care about teen mental health when it aligns with their opinions on big tech. And how little they care about (say) school shooting drills or advertising or education funding or a dozen other issues that affect mental health in kids...

From what I see, from the other side of the big pond, there is a party that cares about that stuff to some degree at least. At least for those, caring about Instagram and teen mental health is just a logical consequence.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#95

Post by maram »

cblconfederate wrote: post #53

We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it. Is this how you want the next generation to be? Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company, and it has always been, and it's just sad to see the support it gets among technologists. Zuck doesn't strike me as particularly deep thi…

>> We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it

I wonder why Snapchat is never included in any discussion regarding behavioral experiments.

Facebook/Instagram to Snapchat stories is like Time/Vogue Magazine to tabloids. (This is not to defend FB)

I’m just curious why Snapchat and its stories is never mentioned.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#96

Post by DrBazza »

amelius wrote: post #84
DrBazza wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been approached by FB recruiters 3 times and turned them down 3 times. I've removed FB from all my devices except one. The only thing keeping me on the platform is that my sports clubs use it to organise matches and runs. I check FB once a day. All notifications are off. I really don't want anything to do with them. I'd still work for a military software developer. But not Facebook. Frankly, I was also surprised…

> I really don't want anything to do with them. I'd still work for a military software developer. But not Facebook. Would you use open source packages developed by them?

Interesting. I probably would. Though I haven’t knowingly done so, so far.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#97

Post by Nextgrid »

numair wrote: post #82
Nextgrid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company I don't want to defend Facebook, but this is not specific to Facebook. We have legitimized the modern concept of targeted advertising and Facebook just happens to play the game perfectly. Facebook is not 100% fault here (in fact there are others in this space). The fault is that we don't have regulation against something that is clearly detrimental to society.…

I ask this sincerely: what makes you an expert on the motives and culture of Facebook, where you feel you can authoritatively state that their problems are “not specific” to them? Because, as someone who has spent time with the founders and early executives, I think you’re flat-out wrong. These are people who were way more obsessed with manipulating people and society than any other group of people I’ve encountered —…

I was approaching the problem from the financial/business angle of it. Facebook and similar businesses work on the basis of "engagement" - the more you get people to "engage", the more they look at ads and the more money you make, so your incentive is to maximize this engagement by any legal means possible. This isn't specific to Facebook.

Whether there are more sociopaths in Facebook than a typical social media company is another question on which I don't have an answer, but if you look at it purely from a financial angle the problem would apply to any social media company.

> If you want to defend Facebook, please provide context — and any conflicts of interest.

My intent is not to defend Facebook and I don't have any conflicts of interest, but I just wanted to set the record straight because I believe the proper way to solve the Facebook problem is to outlaw/make unprofitable the underlying business model, otherwise if you kill Facebook something similarly scummy will simply take its place and you're back at square one.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#98

Post by [deleted] »

amelius wrote: post #83
cblconfederate wrote: post #53

We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it. Is this how you want the next generation to be? Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company, and it has always been, and it's just sad to see the support it gets among technologists. Zuck doesn't strike me as particularly deep thi…

> Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it. Is this how you want the next generation to be? To be fair, isn't this how every generation looks down on the next generation? > We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Sorry, we can't leave this to armchair psychologists.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#99

Post by Nextgrid »

stanleydrew wrote: post #88
Nextgrid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company I don't want to defend Facebook, but this is not specific to Facebook. We have legitimized the modern concept of targeted advertising and Facebook just happens to play the game perfectly. Facebook is not 100% fault here (in fact there are others in this space). The fault is that we don't have regulation against something that is clearly detrimental to society.…

Facebook's terribleness runs much deeper than targeted advertising. It's been hostile and condescending to its users from day one.

I don't disagree - but being user-hostile aligns perfectly with their business model. The problem isn't a given implementation, it's the business model itself.

IMO it should be outlawed to profit off intentionally wasting people's time and promoting inflammatory content for the sake of "engagement", but drafting a law that would effectively cover this would be a major challenge (you could argue that the people doom-scrolling Instagram want the engagement-generating inflammatory content they are being fed), so my next alternative is to simply strengthen privacy regulations to make this kind of business unprofitable.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#100

Post by treis »

Invictus0 wrote: post #87
treis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that [radio, movies, magazines, TV, video games, the internet, cell phones] has a bad effect on teens. Just observe a teenager Every generation has complained about the impact of some technology on kids. I don't really see a causitive link between teenager happiness and Instagram. It's an easy target to blame for sure. Especially compared with the stark increase in econom…

What a lazy argument. I suppose nothing then can have a bad effect on teenagers.

Did you even read my post? I cited two things that I think have a bad effect on teenagers.
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