Live data from Hacker News

Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

bloomberg.com

211–220 of 483 posts

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#211

Irrespective of the incidental value "Meta" provides, let's keep in mind that no business has a right to exist independently from its standing in the system of laws and the health of its users - especially children. Social media companies argue that they can't monitor every post and do appropriate age verification online because it would be "impossible to scale". Well, tough luck. Not being able to scale is YOUR prob…

But what about all the small, independent forums in the internet? For them it would really be impossible to comply with monitoring every post. Often they are hobby projects.

To paraphrase the GP - Well, tough luck. [This] is YOUR problem, not MINE.

If hobbyists can't comply, maybe it's about time we prevented small independent forums from existing.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#212

Irrespective of the incidental value "Meta" provides, let's keep in mind that no business has a right to exist independently from its standing in the system of laws and the health of its users - especially children. Social media companies argue that they can't monitor every post and do appropriate age verification online because it would be "impossible to scale". Well, tough luck. Not being able to scale is YOUR prob…

But what about all the small, independent forums in the internet? For them it would really be impossible to comply with monitoring every post. Often they are hobby projects.

[dead]

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#213
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it safe to assume that you've worked at meta at some point? because this comes across as a little defensive The post is about instagram so I'm talking about instagram, feel free to post an article about magazines if you want to talk about magazines... legislation aimed towards instagram will create precedence to pursue other platforms like tiktok and can also become ingrained as policy. Just because we're focusing…

The post isn’t about Instagram at the exclusion of the fashion ecosystem: it’s an argument that truncates research that does find that posts that the drop in self-esteem is directly related to seeing posts either from fashion professionals or peers trying to emulate those. You can’t read those studies and think that detail is not part of the key findings. Those are not two similar but separate problems. This is like…

the post office did actually implement stricter screening, including x-rays, chemical detection, and GPS tracking, due to mail bombs... in a way mail bombs sped up the process of implementing package tracking systems for everyone — they took a very serious approach to safety despite not being the direct cause of the problem

from my perspective, this is the kind of regulation the FTC should seek out — so for different reasons I agree with your analogy

magazines are an entirely different beast and it's strange to not address that — I have to physically go out of my way to purchase a magazine or have one delivered... that's something I opt in to

people opt-in to instagram, but for teenagers there are much larger stakes involved... instagram has become an integral part of many teens' social life (by design) and they're constantly getting targeted and personalized ads fed to them directly

the fact that the goal remains engagement makes it pretty clear where meta's priorities lie, and it's not on the side of safety

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#214

Irrespective of the incidental value "Meta" provides, let's keep in mind that no business has a right to exist independently from its standing in the system of laws and the health of its users - especially children. Social media companies argue that they can't monitor every post and do appropriate age verification online because it would be "impossible to scale". Well, tough luck. Not being able to scale is YOUR prob…

But what about all the small, independent forums in the internet? For them it would really be impossible to comply with monitoring every post. Often they are hobby projects.

Thats obviously not a primary concern. Similar to how your home kitchen isn't going to have a food inspector show up and close it.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#215

Irrespective of the incidental value "Meta" provides, let's keep in mind that no business has a right to exist independently from its standing in the system of laws and the health of its users - especially children. Social media companies argue that they can't monitor every post and do appropriate age verification online because it would be "impossible to scale". Well, tough luck. Not being able to scale is YOUR prob…

> Not being able to scale is YOUR problem, not MINE. Following your reasoning, anything that could possibly harm children should be banned. Cars sometimes kill children, shall we ban them too? Now, suppose we do ban Meta. Where should we stop? should we ban open decentralized social media too? You may not like social media, but a lot of people use them without any particular issues.

Meta is not being banned, though.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#216
post #90

AKA: Dozens of states' attorney generals could petition legislatures to pass laws saying under-18's are not allowed to use Facebook in their state, knowing it'd probably fail because of freedom of speech trespasses, but instead would rather sue the deep-pocket corporation for profit and reelection-time bennies.

The lawsuit asks for injunctive, not monetary, relief.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#217
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in their bio: > Help me get to 1000 karma and I’ll stop posting forever. Maybe we should give them that last 50 karma.

You really believe their promise to leave, and that they won't, say, bump the threshold to 1500 and keep posting?

fair point. couldn't hurt to try?

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#218
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often again do you hear billionaires say "Oh no, I wish I had been more ethical and not made mountains of cash off by shitty behavior", because I'm not having any recollections of this. The fines are just a cost of doing business for them.

What people think and feel in private is often not what they admit in public. For many of these individuals, there is massive incentive not to admit such things. Doesn't make it right, but we shouldn't assume the people responsible don't feel responsible simply because we aren't hearing about it.

[deleted]

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#219
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really believe their promise to leave, and that they won't, say, bump the threshold to 1500 and keep posting?

fair point. couldn't hurt to try?

Optimism, defined. Alternative strategy: downvote, flag where appropriate, and they'll eventually be shadowbanned.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#220

Irrespective of the incidental value "Meta" provides, let's keep in mind that no business has a right to exist independently from its standing in the system of laws and the health of its users - especially children. Social media companies argue that they can't monitor every post and do appropriate age verification online because it would be "impossible to scale". Well, tough luck. Not being able to scale is YOUR prob…

But what about all the small, independent forums in the internet? For them it would really be impossible to comply with monitoring every post. Often they are hobby projects.

What? How do you figure? I run a small hobby forum for a niche interest and it's very easy to monitor every post. We have five moderators, a couple hundred registered users and we get maybe 3 or 4 posts a day.
Post reply on HN