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Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

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Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#251

Post by reaperducer »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #111
ferminaut wrote: post #65

Facebook (and much of social media) is the modern day Philip Morris peddling addictive experiences...except the harm is way less obvious. Folks arent getting cancer, but they are wrecking their mental health. The difference is social media falls under the first amendment and is much harder to regulate. It's a borderline national security issue, too.

I think it’s a plausible argument. But shouldn’t we regulate the whole industry then instead of going after a single company? Also there are clearly some benefits from social media so I wouldn’t want to get rid of all of it. For example messaging doesn’t seem so bad in terms of harm vs value. Or things like Facebook Groups that are more like discussion forums (even HN itself falls under this!)

But shouldn’t we regulate the whole industry then instead of going after a single company?

You go after one company to establish legal precedent. Then you go after the whole industry.

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#252

Post by Spivak »

p0pcult wrote: post #201
Brystephor wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to reverse this, if kids were shown advertisements about vegetables and gyms or other physical activities, then there would be no child obesity?

If they featured celebrities and cartoons and vegetables came with toys, as well as stopping the ads for garbage food...I'd guess more likely than not, we would go back to more typical levels of child obesity.

In these kinds of moments I wish we had a parallel universe simulator because I would put pretty much any amount of money on that not being true.

The fact that kids crave fat, protein, and sugar and don't like vegetables isn't some mystery or a product of Cap'n Crunch and is as old as refined sugar. What do you think those visions of sugar plums were all about? They're growing and their bodies are sending them the "more calories" signal 24/7. When I was in HS I could put down two Chipotle burritos without breaking a sweat. When I bake for my nephews I have to make them sickeningly sweet to my own pallet but they practically unhinge their jaws to eat it faster. Little kids also haven't developed a taste for bitter and sour which adults for some reason forget and act shocked they don't like broccoli. It stopped being bitter to you.

I put all my chips on the fact that I had nowhere to expend all the excess energy. My neighborhood didn't have a park, I got a 30 minute recess, and the only entertainment that was readily available growing up was books, tv, and video games.

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#253

Post by [deleted] »

hospitalJail wrote: post #112
medler wrote: post #55

It 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.

Nintendo and Disney are the most egregious for this. I see the effects on adults, people completely obsessed with their corporate mascots. Seems like every Zelda game is described by their fans as the 'Greatest Game of All Time', despite flaws that would be called out if the corporate mascots were not in the game. On a similar note, seeing the iphone use in teens due to the bubble color makes me think this is manipul…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#254

Post by ferminaut »

JohnFen wrote: post #239
ferminaut wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I agree. Singling out the largest player is silly. We've basically given different nations the ability to control the thoughts of society. Social media hasnt been organic for a long time. Organic social media grows until it is consumed by bots and bad actors. I dont think removing social media is a solution. I do think some sort of realID for social media that could identify every user is real & a certain age wo…

> (think Worldcoin but not done by a private entity) The problem with what Worldcoin was doing wasn't that they were a private entity.

yeah -- the concept of world ID if it worked is actually pretty interesting. I just dont trust Sam Altman/crypto/private industry to do it safely.

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#255

Post by AndrewKemendo »

wirthjason wrote: post #16

Since there is bound to be a lot of Facebook bashing I’ll point out that they occasionally do some good. In the case of software they can be good stewards of FOSS. I listened to this CoRecursive episode about the history of Zstandard compression algorithm and how FB allowed the author, Yann Collet, to fully open source it while other companies wanted to keep it proprietary. https://corecursive.com/data-compression-ya…

I’m earnestly curious, what do you think is the root of your reaction or desire or instinct to defend Meta?

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#256

Post by Lord_Baltimore »

p0pcult wrote: post #204
skizm wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no fan of organized Religion, but I think there is a clear distinction here. Religion is opt-in (by the parents) where most advertising to kids isn't. You could argue that parents could take away their access to [phone|youtube|instagram|etc.], but kids will get access at school, or through their friends one way or another. The internet is too ubiquitous at this point to actually opt-out.

You shouldn't be allowed to opt others in, especially those under the age of legally informed consent, to brainwashing.

Yeah, I don't think you should be able to opt children into atheistic teaching.

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#257

Post by RangerScience »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #255
wirthjason wrote: post #16

Since there is bound to be a lot of Facebook bashing I’ll point out that they occasionally do some good. In the case of software they can be good stewards of FOSS. I listened to this CoRecursive episode about the history of Zstandard compression algorithm and how FB allowed the author, Yann Collet, to fully open source it while other companies wanted to keep it proprietary. https://corecursive.com/data-compression-ya…

I’m earnestly curious, what do you think is the root of your reaction or desire or instinct to defend Meta?

Not GP - While I think your question is polite and otherwise undeserving of a downvote, I don’t think it’s a fair question. I don’t read GP as defending Meta, and I think there’s substantial problems that arise if pointing out good things equates to defending associated bad things. IMHO it’s the strict inverse of disallowing pointing out the bad things within otherwise good things (afaik, a main component of toxic positivity)

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#258

Post by bastawhiz »

optymizer wrote: post #248
snarf21 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All things in life is grey. But I think we should ask about is the MAIN thing they do net good or net bad. Most philanthropist spend their lives amassing massive fortunes built on exploitation and then leave a (large?) percentage of their ill gotten gains for good. As an extreme example, we shouldn't absolve a serial killer just because they volunteer for Meals on Wheels each week. Facebook has revenue greater than t…

"Some crap for free". Come on now. Give credit where credit is due if you're going to talk about balanced scales. React PyTorch Flow React Native Folly RocksDB llama HHVM Relay Fresco zstd Buck Sapling Redex JSX infer

In fairness, Flow is OSS in name only and almost all major adopters have switched to Typescript after they committed to ignoring the community. Jest was wildly neglected with serious issues for a long time. Yarn shipped with major issues that made it unusable for years, then was handed off to the community. Prepack was "shipped" and immediately killed. JSX has been stagnant despite the community wanting to move the (existing) JSX 2 spec forward. HHVM pivoted to ~abandon PHP and focus exclusively on Hack, leaving many companies to switch away (see: Box).

If you're a front-end engineer or dealing with web technologies, Facebook has repeatedly pulled the football away.

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#259

Post by JohnFen »

vkou wrote: post #250
sgregnt wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Built on exploitation? In my opinion built on utility supplied to customers.

Actually, it's built on users supplied to advertisers. --- Facebook's utility for me is now near zero, possibly negative. I'm only there because mom is there. Mom's only there because her friends are there. Moving out of that morass - at least, until mom stops using computers is impossible. At least with Amazon, Google, Netflix, Apple, Microsoft, etc, I (currently) have meaningful alternatives. Network effects suck.

> I'm only there because mom is there.

Why should that keep you there, though? She's your mother. Surely, you can talk with her directly even if she is on Facebook.

Re: Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order: FTC

#260

Post by jrsdav »

hospitalJail wrote: post #112
medler wrote: post #55

It 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.

Nintendo and Disney are the most egregious for this. I see the effects on adults, people completely obsessed with their corporate mascots. Seems like every Zelda game is described by their fans as the 'Greatest Game of All Time', despite flaws that would be called out if the corporate mascots were not in the game. On a similar note, seeing the iphone use in teens due to the bubble color makes me think this is manipul…

> Seems like every Zelda game is described by their fans as the 'Greatest Game of All Time', despite flaws that would be called out if the corporate mascots were not in the game.

The first (and only) Zelda game I played was Breath of the Wild, and it was indeed one of the best games I've ever played. Certainly Nintendo is guilty of peddling mascots as monetary vehicles, but there is substance in the occasional great video game they develop, so I wouldn't necessarily put them in the same category as Disney...

But Disney, on the other hand...they are a merchandise company -- full stop. Everything they do funnels directly into the licensing and selling merchandise (and not just to children -- those Loungefly backpacks are basically a contagion for adults). This made them $56.2 _billion_ in 2021.

If you have young kids, it's incredibly hard to avoid the gravity well of toys, apparel, and all the other merchandise that Disney vomits out. And the funnel is the entertainment they produce, which is often feel-goody to the point where you begin to pass them off in your head as benign.

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