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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

#221

Post by username332211 »

ianai wrote: post #214
Zufriedenheit wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The comparison you're making is nonsensical.

My home kitchen doesn't routinely serve strangers. The forum I host trough a server in my cupboard does.

If you want to make a comparison, it's between a small family restaurant and a giant fast food chain. It may surprise you but food inspectors treat both in roughly the same way.

Face it. Nothing meaningfully separates my forum from giant social media companies apart from scale.

Hence, small forums hosted by hobbyists and volunteers should be shut down.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#222

Post by edgyquant »

olalonde wrote: post #208
glimshe wrote: post #129

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…

> a factory that wants to dump harmful chemical on water people use for drinking Your example is describing an externality, a cost imposed on a unwilling third party. Facebook is a platform that individuals can choose to avoid or restrict their children from using if they deem it harmful. These situations are not comparable. > no business has a right to exist independently from its standing in the system of laws and…

> Your example is describing an externality, a cost imposed on a unwilling third party. Facebook is a platform that individuals can choose to avoid or restrict their children from using if they deem it harmful. These situations are not comparable.

Yeah just like alcohol and drugs, you can easily restrict your children from using them so companies should be free to sell to whomever. Good parents ensure their children aren’t doing this.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#223

Post by firecall »

Zufriedenheit wrote: post #204
glimshe wrote: post #129

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.

I frequent the OCAU forum here in Australia.

Moderating the News board became too arduous and carried potential legal liability.

So they turned the board off.

It’s really not that hard.

And anyway, just because you can’t fix everything, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and fix something.

All or nothing thinking leads to inaction.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#224

Post by edgyquant »

yodsanklai wrote: post #155
glimshe wrote: post #129

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.

We actually do restrict children from driving cars. It’s pretty common in most countries

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#225

Post by Spivak »

mcpackieh wrote: post #52
hutzlibu wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know the downsides already and most think the downsides of crminalization is higher.

> We know the downsides already In the sense that the downsides are documented in the relevant scientific literature, sure. But popular perception of those downsides is very different. A whole lot of people think those downsides are a pack of lies: that cannabis isn't habit forming, that it doesn't make the average user lazy and complacent, that it doesn't increase the risk of schizophrenia, that driving under the in…

You started down a path that was sane then took a sharp turn.

People recognize that cannabis is habit forming, it's just not as physically addictive as the things we label "dangerous addictive drugs." Most people are addicted to caffeine and we generally accept that it's fine. In the same way that moderate drinking for almost everyone doesn't turn into alcoholism it's the same for cannabis. In contrast everyone who smokes nicotine with any regularity at all will become addicted to it.

"average user lazy and complacent" -- That's like why we're here man.

I don't know a single person who thinks it's fine to drive while high, I do know some stoners whose tolerance for "sober enough to drive" is suspect but that happens when we hit the bars too.

I think you're applying the word harmless to a degree that no one else does and then are arguing against that. Like that cheeseburger increases your risk of heart disease but no one's out here being like "cheeseburgers considered harmful."

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#227

Post by ghaff »

haltist wrote: post #72

I remember when Facebook was restricted to folks with college domain emails. I used it for a year and decided I wasn't interested in algorithmic online stalking of people I barely knew and cared about. I'm still surprised social media turned out to be such a big hit. I guess people wanted some way to keep track of social news and the usual outlets like blogs and RSS feeds were too "nerdy" for the average internet con…

Tons of people used things like alumni addresses (or were somehow loosely connected to a college) well before Facebook was opened to all emails. Except at the very beginning, membership wasn’t that exclusive.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#228

Post by olalonde »

edgyquant wrote: post #222
olalonde wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a factory that wants to dump harmful chemical on water people use for drinking Your example is describing an externality, a cost imposed on a unwilling third party. Facebook is a platform that individuals can choose to avoid or restrict their children from using if they deem it harmful. These situations are not comparable. > no business has a right to exist independently from its standing in the system of laws and…

> Your example is describing an externality, a cost imposed on a unwilling third party. Facebook is a platform that individuals can choose to avoid or restrict their children from using if they deem it harmful. These situations are not comparable. Yeah just like alcohol and drugs, you can easily restrict your children from using them so companies should be free to sell to whomever. Good parents ensure their children…

Talking from personal experience growing up, I would generally agree. The prohibition from selling alcohol/cigarettes to minors was pretty ineffective. The only effective prevention was having stricter parents and facing consequences. That said, I wouldn't say Facebook is at all comparable to alcohol or drugs...

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#229

Post by megaman821 »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #181
wcarron wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I like social media or tech companies (I detest them). But it's not a special case. Media companies, cable companies, newspapers, etc. They've all enjoyed the ability to manipulate and 'guide' what people see and what opinions they form, for a long time. It's nothing new.

Really, it's extremely new. The feedback loop for old media was very coarse. They knew how many newspapers they sold and had an idea of who the repeat customers were. Editorial could be said to be linked to bumps in opinion polls, but only very loosely. Nobody knew how or if anything worked. It was all theories and snake oil and "conventional wisdom". The old adage was that 50% of marketing was effective but nobody k…

Yeah, what's the worst that old media could do? Print uncritical, false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq than lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#230

Post by bertil »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #144
gabeio wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing them to find friends which have similar positions/situations who understand what they live with.

Hmm that's any piece of connected software on the internet though. Shutting down instagram wouldn't compromise that.

Connected software, with very few exceptions, doesn’t attract a very large audience. For rarer situations, you aren’t going to find that person easily. Having worldwide interest groups (like subreddits, like thematic Discord channels) helps, but is conditioned to people using either Reddit or Discord. Facebook and Instagram still win compared to those two contenders.

That’s of course assuming that Reddit and Discord wouldn’t get much bigger if Meta were to close, but I’m not sure the negative effects would vanish because the owner is different.

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