Seeing ads shown to my 3 year old when they do basic supervised web browsing on educational websites seems wrong.
Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
151–160 of 335 posts
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#152It is insane to me that we allow any advertising to young children at all, whether online, on TV, or anywhere else. I think deliberately manipulating kids is heinous and I genuinely don’t understand why this isn’t the consensus opinion.
I can’t really think of harms I suffered as a child from watching ads. It probably made me want to buy more stuff but since I was a kid I had to ask my parents and they usually said no. I was slightly sad but then I got over it. So if anything it probably taught me to be a more discerning consumer that wouldn’t buy anything just because of an ad. If we hide the real world from children too much then how do we expect…
The sticking point for me is informed consent. We don't consider children to be capable of giving informed consent, which is why they generally can't enter into contracts. It feels like advertising has become so omnipresent that we don't even consider that to be entering a contract, but it is.
They're handing away their data or having their desires manipulated, and I don't think children can be reasonably asked to make a judgement on whether that's a good decision for them or not.
I do see the point that you're making about turning 18. Fortunately, I think that's somewhat of a self-limiting problem. If kids turning 18 genuinely can't withstand the ads, they'll start filing for bankruptcy and credit card companies will stop issuing them lines of credit.
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
...Wait, so you thought there was ever a point when "good for Facebook" == "good for society"? IMO "bad for Facebook" ~= "good for society" has always been true. It's not a "sad place to be as community", they are a corp and their bait-and-switch was expected ever since they got created, at least from the people who don't idolize corporations that is. It was extremely obvious they'll position themselves as helpful, p…
I'd say Facebook was on-the-whole good when it was limited to .edu users. It had a purpose, it solved it better than previous options, and (critically!) it had a ceiling on total addressable userbase. Once it metastisized into "extract maximum revenue from maximum number of people," I think its soul was lost to greed.
To be fair, many, many corporations start out as a tiny kernel of something that solves a problem for people, and then metastasize into "extract maximum revenue from maximum number of people" cancer once Wall Street takes over. So, honestly, you can generalize this to "bad for corporations" ~= "good for society."
A topic for another discussion is why society allows corporations to become parasitic and cancerous without any checks or balances.
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#154Mark Zuckerberg himself seems to understand the importance of privacy very well, taping over the microphone and camera on his MacBook Pro, keeping his trash can from being scavenged by others, and FB spending heavily to protect his security, so why does he have the exact opposite attitude towards others?
He isn’t forcing you to use Facebook. If you go into a store and they have a security camera that records you is that also violating your privacy? Not saying everything FB does is ok but I think we are going too crazy with the government intervention. I don’t exactly see that FB was committing deliberate fraud based on this latest report (but a lot is redacted). It seems more like there were just some bugs? As a dev…
> He isn’t forcing you to use Facebook. If you go into a store and they have a security camera that records you is that also violating your privacy?
Maybe not in America, but WhatsApp is basically mandatory in some countries. Schools will send out communications exclusively over it and many businesses exclusively use it for payment. 92% of Israeli phones have it installed. For some, the option is Facebook or not participating in society.
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#155How can a corporation be furious? After reading the article, they don't say anything about the company or people inside the company being furious. The closest thing I could find is that a Meta spokesperson said they plan to fight it vigorously and expect to win. Maybe the headline should be "Meta opposed to proposed FTC ban on monetizing youth data".
I thought corporations are considered people in US.
fun fact: the word "corporation" is related to the latin for "body", as in "human body". Kinda interesting how the meaning here has gone full circle.
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Snap is more of a messaging app afaict. I'm pretty sure the biggest harms from social media come from algorithmic targeting of content, echo chamber creation, and the ability to hugely amplify fringe opinions and destabilise debate. If your only concern is data handling, though, then fair enough.
Children become addicted to Snapchat streaks and their peers in school shun them socially based on whether they have big streaks with popular kids or not. It's like Lord of the Flies mixed with an episode of Black Mirror. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lets-talk-tween/2017...
Is the social pressure for kids to be popular somehow new or?
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#157Breaking things was a core mantra of theirs for a while, right?
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#158I would caution against believing “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” when that would make the government your friend. Yes, Facebook has been awful and done great harm in some ways, but crucially it is not the case that Facebook was only able to do such harm because the FTC lacked the ability to unilaterally and without oversight deploy extreme powers like “you may not monetize this data” or “you may not release fea…
In what ways are you worried about the FTC using it's powers for things you thinks are harmful? What things specifically?
The FTC has no power to create law, just interpret existing laws. Any “bans” would already need to be illegal based on current law enacted by congress. In the past Chevron Deference used to assume executive agencies had broad authority on law interpretation, but that seems to be a crumbling precedent.
If there are already existing laws that cover this, the FTC is just doing their enforcement job.
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have we gotten to the point where "bad for Facebook" ~= "good for society"? It's both a good indicator for progress and a sad place to be as a community.
...Wait, so you thought there was ever a point when "good for Facebook" == "good for society"? IMO "bad for Facebook" ~= "good for society" has always been true. It's not a "sad place to be as community", they are a corp and their bait-and-switch was expected ever since they got created, at least from the people who don't idolize corporations that is. It was extremely obvious they'll position themselves as helpful, p…
Considering that the precursor to Facebook was a site that ranked pictures of women obtained without consent whatsoever, it was inarguably evil from the very start.
Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say Facebook was on-the-whole good when it was limited to .edu users. It had a purpose, it solved it better than previous options, and (critically!) it had a ceiling on total addressable userbase. Once it metastisized into "extract maximum revenue from maximum number of people," I think its soul was lost to greed.
To be fair, many, many corporations start out as a tiny kernel of something that solves a problem for people, and then metastasize into "extract maximum revenue from maximum number of people" cancer once Wall Street takes over. So, honestly, you can generalize this to "bad for corporations" ~= "good for society." A topic for another discussion is why society allows corporations to become parasitic and cancerous witho…
Well, in a global sense it's a race to the bottom: if X doesn't claim efficiencies of scale then Y will, and put X out of business.
Germany would probably be the best counter-example to look at? Re: how to create and maintain medium-sized businesses that are still efficient.