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Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

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Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#111

Post by reactordev »

ryandrake wrote: post #55
stocknoob wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And countless employees happy to take a paycheck while looking the other way.

A fact that gets glossed over too often on HN. It's not just company leadership making these harmful applications: Everyone in the org chart down to the individual engineer is actively doing this--maybe even you, reader of this comment. Did your last "git push" contribute to the problem or help solve it? Will you be proud to tell your teenage grandchildren about what you're creating? You can't just hide behind "boss…

I agree. We all want to hire FAANG until we really look closely at what they do. No thanks. I’m fine getting paid half to have my soul in tact.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#112

Post by [deleted] »

gmiller123456 wrote: post #31
barbazoo wrote: post #3

> Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. I hope the money…

Kids have been having those problems well before social media came along, so it's quite a bold claim to say they know social media made them worse. But it's a fair bet to say not a dime from the lawsuit will go to a single victim. So I'd take a really skeptical look at both sides.

[deleted]

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#113

Post by dmbche »

slowhadoken wrote: post #103

It is creepy how much social media wants to monitor kids.

I wonder if ads shown to kids "make more revenue" over the lifecycle of the kid than ads aimed at adults. Like the Youtube videos for kids that are nonsense but rake millions of views

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#114

Post by gunapologist99 »

justrealist wrote: post #78
barbazoo wrote: post #3

> Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. I hope the money…

Google is actually fairly safe due to their utter inability to build a successful social media platform.

Youtube.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#115

Post by bazmattaz »

nlh wrote: post #92
23B1 wrote: post #9

To the product managers, strategists, and designers at Meta: you know, you could just decide NOT to create harmful, exploitative applications.

Preface: I'm basically on your side on this. But: I know some PMs and designers at various social media companies. There are also probably many among us here on HN. The thing is, I don't think most of them think to themselves "I am going to build a harmful, exploitative application". I think most of them, like many of us, wake up in the morning and aim to do a good job. To do good work. To design and build to the bes…

I was at a talk awhile back where a designer for a large gambling corporation was asked in the Q&A if they had any ethical concerns working for a company that preys on the vulnerable.

The designers answer was…… interesting. They basically said (and I’m paraphrasing) that their aim every morning was to go to work to ensure that users were not being mistreated by dark patterns and unclear design. Their aim was to was to design the best experience for their users to ensure that their users could find an easy way to stop gambling if they wanted to.

I was on the fence about their stance. However they truly believed that they would never intentionally do harm to users, they always wanted the best for their users.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#116

Post by justrealist »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #114
justrealist wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is actually fairly safe due to their utter inability to build a successful social media platform.

Youtube.

Ah fair as a general risk. Not sure I'd call it social media though.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#117

Post by B56b »

gmiller123456 wrote: post #31
barbazoo wrote: post #3

> Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. I hope the money…

Kids have been having those problems well before social media came along, so it's quite a bold claim to say they know social media made them worse. But it's a fair bet to say not a dime from the lawsuit will go to a single victim. So I'd take a really skeptical look at both sides.

There's been a significant increase in anxiety and depression among adolescents since ~2012. It's not just business as usual, and it's significant enough that the same increase is visible in hospital admissions for self-harm. Social Media seems to be the only explanation that fits the timing and scale of the issue:

https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/13-explanations-mental-...

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#118

Post by KittenInABox »

LtWorf wrote: post #97
KittenInABox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> young adults/teens will drone on about "mental health" because its fashionable (if social media is giving you an eating disorder or making you anxious, how about putting down the phone?) To be fair, for many young adults and teens the parents are demanding the kids have their phones so that the parents can track their location and other surveillance shit. Additionally, we know for a fact that these social media com…

For every parent demanding that, there's 100 kids asking for a device.

See my second point: how is a young teen supposed to handle something designed by teams of psychologists to keep them engaged in? It's why we don't let children play slot machines or don't allow tobacco advertising to children... they're children. Literally don't have the kind of judgement capacity as adults.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#119

Post by Manuel_D »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #6

The FTC is looking to hire child psychologists to evaluate the affects of these platforms, so expect more of this to come https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/23/ftc-plans-to-hire-child-psyc... There's a thin line to be walked between privacy and regulation, but Facebook's own research has pointed at the harmful effects of Instagram on the mental health of children... so I think some scrutiny here is overdue. https://www.the…

Here's the original Facebook internal research, if people want to compare and contrast the actual results with the media coverage: https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Instagram-Te...
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