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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

#171

Post by ryan93 »

numair wrote: post #113
ryan93 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont get the framing of facebook as master manipulators of women. Kids feel bad on instagram because they can compare themselves to other.

Let’s start at the beginning: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creat... You can work your way forward from there.

Im aware of facemash. I just dont get why kids feeling bad is somehow facebook's fault. Fucking absurd to think you couldnt survey any groups of kids at anytime in history and not find some who contemplate suicide or feel inadequate.

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

#172

Post by DSingularity »

aogaili wrote: post #10
DSingularity wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart people want money and prestige. There is always a perspective to justify anything. They will sleep fine at night.

"Smart people want money and prestige." I'd question your definition of the word smart in this context.

What do you think all those new CS professors want after earning their PhD? What about the PhDs that join the big-tech research labs? Why do you think they joined big tech?

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

#173

Post by genericacct »

hiptobecubic wrote: post #123
dylan604 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To be fair, isn't this how every generation looks down on the next generation? If we're talking about music, movies, fashion styles, etc, I'd say yes. However, no previous generation has had the juggernuat that is FB to compare to. FB has had more (at least potential) than any other source of influence on the younger generations especially those that are young enough to never know life without FB.

I'd say tv and radio were both comparable.

You didn't use the radio or TV in bed or in between classes, on the bus (ok maybe you used radio on the bus).

I would say FB's reaches deeper into our lives than previous media did.

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

#174

Post by matheusmoreira »

wyre wrote: post #51
matheusmoreira wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> software "engineering" doesn't have any certification / professional credentialing that "real" engineering (e.g., civil engineering) apparently does have Yeah and I hope it stays that way. Imagine needing a license to write software. It would mean the end of free and open source software as we know it. > Does anyone have any information about how effective such training / indoctrination is in preventing bad situati…

> If society finds they're causing harm, it will hold them accountable for it. Our society does a really bad job at holding people accountable for the harm they do. What makes you think it would be any different for software?

It seems to work with doctors.

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

#175

Post by edgyquant »

numair wrote: post #117
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #114

"One Facebook researcher said a colleague was contacted by the legal team in the past week and was asked about a research report that he published more than two years ago. The legal team appeared to be hunting for any potentially incriminating research that might be shared with reporters, he said. His manager had advised him not to run any queries searching for specific terms on his old work or do anything that could…

Yeah, what this article doesn’t talk about is the pretend-FBI that Facebook employs as its security team. They go out of their way to intimidate employees and make them think that Facebook is some quasi-governmental institution where leaks will have you end up in a situation similar to Julian Assange. (Feel free to say hi to those losers, because they’re definitely reading this thread.)

While I agree with a lot of what you’re saying you seem to be a former disgruntled employee and so you don’t seem to be bias free here. You’re also doing a lot of insinuating throughout this thread that were supposed to not question and take your word for.

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

#176

Post by yyyk »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #169
yyyk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we urgently need liability for for-profit software in order to stop software's race to the bottom. If we're going to do that, there's no good reason to give a special exclusion for not-for-profit software.

Of course there is. A programmer writing free software in their bedroom is completely different from a professional writing softwafe for corporations and making 6-7 figures. Society expects a lot more from the latter.

That doesn't make any sense. The reason regulation is suggested is effect on society, and the effect is the same regardless of the engineer's personal status. An engineer designing bridges is liable regardless of his salary, and same must apply to a programmer.

Besides, it's trivial to launder everything if you give such an out. The regulation can apply equally to everyone, or don't expect it to go anywhere at all.

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

#177

Post by legutierr »

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…

> nor does he seem particularly well educated tbh

He did drop out of university in his sophomore year, after all, and has working virtually non-stop on his company since then. Very little time to catch up on reading the classics.

I know there is a whole contingent of people who think it is good enough just to be admitted into a place like Harvard—that the name matters more than the experience—and surely it's Zuckerber's raw talent that has allowed him to build Facebook into what it is today, not anything he learned in school that he couldn't have just taught himself.

But if he had actually completed his education, how might the world be different today? Might just that little bit of wisdom and perspective that we hope a liberal arts education will transmit to its recipients have made him think twice about implementing any of the strategies that Facebook has pursued over the years? Might have some of the horrific societal consequences been anticipated and avoided?

Perhaps. But if Zuckerberg had cared enough about his education not to drop out of school, the Facebook of today probably would never have come to exist at all. A world with a Mark Zuckerberg that completed his education is likely not a world with Facebook in it.

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

#178

Post by dylan604 »

genericacct wrote: post #173
hiptobecubic wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say tv and radio were both comparable.

You didn't use the radio or TV in bed or in between classes, on the bus (ok maybe you used radio on the bus). I would say FB's reaches deeper into our lives than previous media did.

>You didn't use the radio or TV in bed

This might be a cultural thing, but it is not uncommon to have radios/TVs in the bedroom.

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

#179

Post by matheusmoreira »

yyyk wrote: post #176
matheusmoreira wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is. A programmer writing free software in their bedroom is completely different from a professional writing softwafe for corporations and making 6-7 figures. Society expects a lot more from the latter.

That doesn't make any sense. The reason regulation is suggested is effect on society, and the effect is the same regardless of the engineer's personal status. An engineer designing bridges is liable regardless of his salary, and same must apply to a programmer. Besides, it's trivial to launder everything if you give such an out. The regulation can apply equally to everyone, or don't expect it to go anywhere at all.

> The reason regulation is suggested is effect on society, and the effect is the same regardless of the engineer's personal status.

Amateur programmers are not professional engineers. A profession is an activity people are compensated for. If you're not being compensated, it's not professional work. If it's not professional, you should not be held liable for it.

Someone publishing a personal project should not be held liable for anything. A professional software engineer deciding to use that project at work without thoroughly reviewing it and causing a security breach due to vulnerabilities in that software should absolutely be held liable for negligence.

> An engineer designing bridges is liable regardless of his salary, and same must apply to a programmer.

I'm not an engineer but I can draw up a bridge right now. Would it stand or collapse? Who knows. I think it looks nice though so I post it online. Then an actual engineer sees my drawing and makes an actual bridge out of it. The bridge collapses and kills thousands.

Who's liable? Me, a random guy who drew a bridge? The engineer who should have known better?

> Besides, it's trivial to launder everything if you give such an out.

That would require companies to not only refuse to compensate their programmers for their labor but to also open source their source code. Doesn't seem trivial to me.

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

#180

Post by treis »

lm28469 wrote: post #150
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…

> 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 I hate this absolute relativist stance, "something was supposed to be bad once but is now accepted hence anything that comes to exist must be good". > Every generation has complained about the impact of some technology on kids. Don't you think t…

Again, you can substitute any of the things I mentioned for Instagram in your post and find contemporary people making the same complaint. And yes, I'm sure there were pointing at Luther to decry the evils of the printing press.

Maybe this time all the naysayers are right and Instagram type sites make us worse off. But I doubt it.

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