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A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

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Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#61

Post by jondwillis »

theossuary wrote: post #54
Syonyk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely internal opinion based on observed external actions: > Of course not. They're on the platform using it, viewing ads, aren't they? > I mean, it's a shame that some people die, because they won't be able to view ads, and the negative press might impact other people's opinion of the platform leading to potentially reduced ad view, but, heeeeeyyyyyy it's easy enough to prevent certain platform-hostile opinions fro…

It's so strange to me that HN has this view of social media, but not other things, like fast food. Fast food uses deceptive advertising and purposefully tries to get kids addicted to their product; which slowly kills them over time. But I remember HN being against sugar taxes, and other laws to help prevent it. But for some reason social media is different? I don't see why it would be. Are the people on HN pushing fo…

I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I think you have presented a false dichotomy, re: meta fast food ads sugar tax opposition. HN also isn’t a monolith…

Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#62

Post by moritzwarhier »

theossuary wrote: post #54
Syonyk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely internal opinion based on observed external actions: > Of course not. They're on the platform using it, viewing ads, aren't they? > I mean, it's a shame that some people die, because they won't be able to view ads, and the negative press might impact other people's opinion of the platform leading to potentially reduced ad view, but, heeeeeyyyyyy it's easy enough to prevent certain platform-hostile opinions fro…

It's so strange to me that HN has this view of social media, but not other things, like fast food. Fast food uses deceptive advertising and purposefully tries to get kids addicted to their product; which slowly kills them over time. But I remember HN being against sugar taxes, and other laws to help prevent it. But for some reason social media is different? I don't see why it would be. Are the people on HN pushing fo…

It's because its on an entirely different level, a meta level you might say.

As gp correctly put it, they are brokers for human mindshare.

Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#63

Post by jondwillis »

api wrote: post #53
jimt1234 wrote: post #51

This story is absolutely horrible. I feel so bad for that kid's parents. I had no idea this kinda thing was happening to dudes; I thought it was all teen girls being tricked into sending nudes, and then being extorted. I don't know what the solution is here. However, every time I think on it, I keep coming back to parent and personal responsibility, which sounds like victim blaming. I kinda hate myself for that, but…

There are organized "boiler room" operations doing this to kids at scale. They'll trick a kid into sending nudes or even lie and claim to have them or use AI to generate them, then will try to get the kid to steal their parents' credit cards and send money. Today's dark forest hellscape Internet is not a safe place for young people, and it's getting worse with AI automation of scams and fraud. I wouldn't even post pi…

Do you have any links detailing these kinds of boiler rooms?

Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#64

Post by sojsurf »

MeImCounting wrote: post #8
giantg2 wrote: post #2

Maybe if we weren't so puritanical, this would be less of an issue. So you have a picture of my junk? Ok... nobody wants it and it isn't worth anything. Should I be embarrassed that I have something 50% of other humans have? It'd be interesting to see the differences int his sort of crime in more open cultures.

It really does come down to our society having a sick relationship with sex, our bodies and interpersonal relationships in general. I think we are really going to go through some growing pains in the near future when it comes to our 18th century morality in this 21st century world. Hopefully we can move past restrictive religious ways of looking at the world and actually prevent things like what happened in the artic…

The foundation for healthy interpersonal relationships seems deeply tied into the core values of (some) "restrictive religious ways". "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." I would posit that the closer people walk to those ideals, the healthier their society will be.

That said, Christians, in general, would agree with you that law by its very nature has no power to bring about good in people. That's pretty much one of the core tenets. In the end, laws serve only like the double yellow line in the middle of American highways. It's a guide that helps us share the road without hurting others.

The guard rails of commitment, love and genuine care for others brings about an environment where relationships can flourish. They provide stability and care that children need to thrive emotionally. They keep us from swerving into relational "oncoming traffic" when we get frustrated or angry, instead encouraging us to stay in the lane and figure out how to work together.

Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#65

Post by rurp »

theossuary wrote: post #54
Syonyk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely internal opinion based on observed external actions: > Of course not. They're on the platform using it, viewing ads, aren't they? > I mean, it's a shame that some people die, because they won't be able to view ads, and the negative press might impact other people's opinion of the platform leading to potentially reduced ad view, but, heeeeeyyyyyy it's easy enough to prevent certain platform-hostile opinions fro…

It's so strange to me that HN has this view of social media, but not other things, like fast food. Fast food uses deceptive advertising and purposefully tries to get kids addicted to their product; which slowly kills them over time. But I remember HN being against sugar taxes, and other laws to help prevent it. But for some reason social media is different? I don't see why it would be. Are the people on HN pushing fo…

For one, HN isn't a monolith. There are plenty of people on here who agree and disagree on each of the topics you listed.

On the topic of social media, I think that there is a widespread belief that we could have tools that give us the social benefits of social media without including all of the toxic manipulative tracking and algorithmic feeds. Unfortunately the market has become dominated by a few maximally greedy companies, which sucks but doesn't have a clear solution.

Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#66

Post by pxeboot »

theossuary wrote: post #54
Syonyk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely internal opinion based on observed external actions: > Of course not. They're on the platform using it, viewing ads, aren't they? > I mean, it's a shame that some people die, because they won't be able to view ads, and the negative press might impact other people's opinion of the platform leading to potentially reduced ad view, but, heeeeeyyyyyy it's easy enough to prevent certain platform-hostile opinions fro…

It's so strange to me that HN has this view of social media, but not other things, like fast food. Fast food uses deceptive advertising and purposefully tries to get kids addicted to their product; which slowly kills them over time. But I remember HN being against sugar taxes, and other laws to help prevent it. But for some reason social media is different? I don't see why it would be. Are the people on HN pushing fo…

> But I remember HN being against sugar taxes, and other laws to help prevent it.

Aren't sugar taxes what led to the use of high fructose corn syrup, which is arguably worse than sugar?

Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#67

Post by sonicanatidae »

annexrichmond wrote: post #5

> After his death, the scammers sent Guffey a laughing face emoji and a message using a pseudo account on Instagram after the original one was shut down. “It said, ‘did I tell you your son begged for his life?’” Guffey says. They also demanded money in exchange for the photos. I wish there was a special prison for these types of people. Jesus Christ.

I would go to Taken levels of "yeah, I'm coming after you" if this happened to me.

Yet again, Humans are the problem.

Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#68

Post by jondwillis »

GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #44

Another Black Mirror episode that has come to life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shut_Up_and_Dance_(Black_Mirro...

S3 is truly the chefs kiss vintage Black Mirror season for me. I mean, San Junipero comes directly after it. Even in the quaint year of 2016 though, we unfortunately already had some close examples:

Amanda Todd https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd

Tyler Clementi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Tyler_Clementi

Re: A South Carolina lawmaker is suing Instagram after his son died by suicide

#70

Post by colpabar »

theossuary wrote: post #54
Syonyk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely internal opinion based on observed external actions: > Of course not. They're on the platform using it, viewing ads, aren't they? > I mean, it's a shame that some people die, because they won't be able to view ads, and the negative press might impact other people's opinion of the platform leading to potentially reduced ad view, but, heeeeeyyyyyy it's easy enough to prevent certain platform-hostile opinions fro…

It's so strange to me that HN has this view of social media, but not other things, like fast food. Fast food uses deceptive advertising and purposefully tries to get kids addicted to their product; which slowly kills them over time. But I remember HN being against sugar taxes, and other laws to help prevent it. But for some reason social media is different? I don't see why it would be. Are the people on HN pushing fo…

> But for some reason social media is different?

Correct! They are completely different things. Cheap unhealthy burgers != social media platforms. Just because you can draw an analogy between two things does not make them the same, and so having different opinions about them does not make one a hypocrite.

But the better point to make, as the sibling comments have, is that saying "HN thinks X" is entirely meaningless because HN is not one person.

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