Earlier quoted context omitted.
Australians generally live in big dense cities. In fact, this is probably why the ban will work, they are also more into rule of law than the USA is. Also, vaping in Australia is illegal, making the ban even more impressive.
> Also, vaping in Australia is illegal, I assure that it isn't. (I'm Australian)
Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
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Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#92Wait till they find out about Hacker News …
I find FB and Instagram so unappealing that there isn't any risk of addiction, for me. The basic idea - sharing pictures and text telling your friends what you're doing - is brilliant, but in practice, most people I know are annoying, and their posts are tedious. Hacker News, on the other hand, can be slightly addictive, because every time I load the front page, there's a chance there could be something interesting a…
> Can [Meta] be sued for its algorithm, or is the content to blame for social media addiction?
Replace [Meta] with [Hacker News] and re-read it again :)
Personally, since I discovered HN about 10 months ago, I have to admit that I got addicted to it in a way that it totally replaced FB and in recent, maybe 60 days, it swallowed my YouTube time as well! Why? Because, every single day I visit HN (or just refresh), I learn something new from the community, whether it's a "spot on" question, an interesting article, some hacker built something cool and "Show HN'ed" it or.. that ”well-thought” comment with some links, otherwise undiscoverable.
Thanks to all of the above and more, HN consumes about 70% of my free online time.
Thank you hackers for this awesome community!
Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#93On the one hand, Meta is dangerously addictive.
On the other hand, I despise opportunistic class action lawyers. These articles are always titled as if people are going after someone, when in reality the lawsuits are solely driven by the lawyers behind them who collect huge fees.
Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their own leaked internal docs say that angry, love, sad, and wow reactions had 5x more weight than traditional likes. It should be easy to infer that this will promote more controversial posts than uncontroversial ones. It seems like their attention & engagement tweaks are spent on Instagram. One frustrating recent change was the introduction of a non-algorithmic feed, but it's not on by default, and it hides storie…
This is from when reactions where being rolled out. The intent was that choosing a specific reaction Carrie’s more meaning than a generic like. If love, laugh, wow, all positive carry the same as sad and angry why would that mean more controversial? People love having angry content as viral sire, but that’s human nature and existed much before the angry reaction was added.
Love, laugh, and wow aren't necessarily positive (and even hate can be positive in context). These are often used on clickbait posts that "dunk" on the other side, or uphold your controversial views, which then displays more of this content and helps contribute to society's political polarization.
Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a slippery slope, though, because then any provider of food with sugar in it would be a potential target.
Well, maybe they should, unless their food is clearly labeled as a dessert, and if their servings also have clear and obvious markings of how much of the daily intake is covered by them. More than that, food for which the average servings exceed the daily needs of the average person should have danger warnings. Maybe not that far off from what cigarettes show as health damage caused by them. Edit: Why is this downvot…
You're just asking for ineffective labels (eg California prop 65) or corruption.
Coca-cola has 10.6g of sugar in 100ml. Apple juice has 10g of sugar. Breast milk is about 7g of sugar. Cow milk is about 5g. Coke zero has 0g of sugar. Which of these would you label as dangerous?
French fries, hamburgers, pizzas etc tend to have relatively little sugar in them. Apples have about 50x the sugar content of McDonald's French fries. They're high in carbs, but not necessarily "sugar". Will they escape the label or will they get it for general carb content?
Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#96Have packaged food and fast food manufacturers been sued for deliberately making their products addictive, knowing full well that the addictive substances cause physical and mental harm?
No, not that I'm aware of, but I'm also surprised they haven't: they'd just need to follow the model proven to work by the case against Big Tobacco. Any business model that depends on exploiting their customers is inherently illegal and following the established case law to this conclusion is the only sane outcome. The only reason we haven't is that Big Sugar (or whatever it ends up being known as when they write the…
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Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#97>internal research showed that the app exacerbated mental health issues for teen girls in particular. This is twisting the truth. Specifically FB had found that for teenage girls with body image issues the ones they surveyed on average thought Instagram on average made it worse. 31% said worse, 22% said better, and 45.5% said it had no impact. For the other 11 other mental health issues they said Instagram made it be…
Self-reports of mental harm are not worth anything. Why do people keep quoting these useless stats?
It doesn't matter what the stats are. The point is that that specific line is often mischaracterized to imply something that it doesn't imply.
Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#98This is lame. Is an addictive algorithm an illegal substance of some sort? Is personal responsibility not a thing people care about anymore?
This trope of "personal responsibility" needs to go away. Only a minority of people can withstand an onslaught of determined, highly paid professionals, working together to basically harm them. Our brains have flaws. These people know those flaws and work actively every day of their working lives to exploit them. What hope can the always tired, always stressed out average person have of resisting, long term? Personal…
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Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
20 years ago the sugar lobby told everyone that sugar was good and fat was bad. I'm all for banning specific ingredients and processes that are known poisonous (like BPAs for example are banned in many countries, deservedly) but unilaterally deciding what's healthy and having quotas for healthy foods is extreme. It will be the sugar vs fat thing all over and only the rich will benefit. Just to make sure I understand…
> 20 years ago the sugar lobby told everyone that sugar was good and fat was bad. And we're 20 years from that and now we know better. Which lobby is it this time, the healthy living one, that's lying to us? ... > Just to make sure I understand what you’re proposing, taco trucks and ice cream shops would be illegal in your ideal world yeah? Did I stutter? Did I propose bans anywhere? And why is having quotas for heal…
>And why is having quotas for healthy foods extreme?
Because there is no such thing as a universally healthy food. "Healthy food" is a buzzword used to make people feel good about the food choices they make that (usually) don't taste that great.
The primary concern with healthy eating is to eat enough and in a decent balance of a laundry list of things: protein, fats, (carbs), vitamins, minerals and probably some more. You can't eat all of them at once either, because some of the vitamins and minerals can end up blocking each other from absorption. Missing any of these for long enough in large enough quantities (or large enough imbalances) is going to cause health issues.
Some people like calling foods that have few calories and little nutritional value as "healthy", but the value those foods provide comes from limiting the average person from eating something else. Eating a cucumber doesn't give you much, but you're less likely to have those fries after you've had the cucumber. But you certainly wouldn't be fine with only eating cucumbers long-term.
Re: Meta sued for social media addiction caused by its algorithm
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
How far does personal responsibility go? what if there are 100 psychologists working to undermine your self control? do you stand a chance?
You stand far more than a chance - you have complete control over whether you use Facebook or not. I've had, at different points in my life, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit, and Facebook installed on my phone. At no point did I ever feel like I was somehow compelled to use any those apps. Android has operating-system-level controls on notifications . If you don't want to get Facebook notifications, and you turn…
> You stand far more than a chance - you have complete control over whether you use Facebook or not.
Ah, but what is full control? If I miss out on events and face passive ostracization... do I really have full control? We do not live in vacuums and self-control isn't solely concerned with the self, there are myriads of external factors that can have significant impacts.
I have the control to not give my 13 year old a cell phone, but I do not have control over the social consequences that creates for them. Therefore... could I claim to have full control over that situation? no, just a narrow aspect.
> This clearly shows that Facebook-checking is purely a discipline problem.
Maybe... but we know that Facebook attempts to undermine self-discipline. The average user spends an hour a day on Facebook. Are they all conscious of how much time they're wasting? are they conscious of the ways that Facebook attempts to get them to waste more time? are they aware of what it's doing to them psychologically? can one be expected to exercise control when the stakes have been intentionally obscured?
> But this isn't that. You can't survive without food. Facebook is entirely optional. You don't want to be addicted? Don't use Facebook.
Is this not true of drugs as well? I don't need caffeine to survive, but if I stop tomorrow I'm going to have some serious headaches.
I don't need Facebook to survive, but not having it may harm me socially, and I might even feel a psychological absence. Do I have full control at that point?
Sorry if this is too abstract or philosophical... but I don't think it's a binary situation at all. Reality is much more complicated. It's hard to say that anyone living in society has full control over anything, especially when they're deceived.
I'm sure many obese people would prefer not to die young, yet they do. Should I only blame them for the lack of self-control? Is it not fair game to scrutinize the powerful societal mechanisms that undermine their self-control?