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TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

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Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#101

Post by ajam1507 »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #97
ajam1507 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate that this needs to be said, but giving kids free food is not illegal.

This requires many asterisks, as once you hit any appreciable size of "giving out food" you tend to hit tons of local ordinance about food safety, permits, and just general distrust of directly interacting with other people's kids at a playground (depending on the age we are talking about, but since we said playground, I'm assuming pretty young).

You don't need all the asterisks if you don't stretch the metaphor beyond its breaking point.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#102

Post by xboxnolifes »

ajam1507 wrote: post #101
xboxnolifes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This requires many asterisks, as once you hit any appreciable size of "giving out food" you tend to hit tons of local ordinance about food safety, permits, and just general distrust of directly interacting with other people's kids at a playground (depending on the age we are talking about, but since we said playground, I'm assuming pretty young).

You don't need all the asterisks if you don't stretch the metaphor beyond its breaking point.

I'm not stretching it at all. The context was McDonalds, and the added context was giving food to children at a playground. I'm completely bounded on that context.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#103

Post by SirMaster »

nunez wrote: post #80
dankwizard wrote: post #75

Not sure why poeple don't just put the phone down? We really are the most sheltered gentle generation. Oh no, this app is taking up my time, we need to BAN IT.

Not drinking or gambling works so well for alcoholics and gamblers. Who needs rehab anyway?

And are their laws about how much I can go gamble at the casino right now or how much I can go buy at a liquor store and drink tonight?

Pretty sure too much gambling and too much alcohol is worse than watching too many short videos. So how can we say that spending time on figuring out how to block people from watching too many short videos is a better use of our time and resources than limiting gambling and drinking.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#104

Post by rtpg »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #53
jader201 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I feel the exact same about cheeseburgers. The problem with analogies to things like cheeseburgers, gambling, drugs, cigarettes, etc., is: 1. Availability -- you have to go somewhere to acquire/participate in these things* 2. Cost -- you have to have money to spend. That is, it's not something you can consume/participate in for free -- you have to have money to spend. * Gambling is theoretically freely availabl…

To your points I would add the following difference between TikTok on the one hand and cheeseburgers, drugs, cigarettes, etc. on the other. 3. Targeting -- even under the (debatable) premise that they are intentionally designed to be addictive, cheeseburgers, drugs and cigarettes do not actively target each addict by optimising their properties to their individual addiction. If I am addicted to smoking, the tobacco i…

case in point: lots of places have lots of restrictions (either through legislation or just industry norms, usually a combination of both) about advertising for alcohol or tobacco.

And those efforts seem effective to me, at least anecdotally. I don't feel particularly bad about those restrictions either.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#105

Post by davewritescode »

dankwizard wrote: post #75

Not sure why poeple don't just put the phone down? We really are the most sheltered gentle generation. Oh no, this app is taking up my time, we need to BAN IT.

Nice straw man.

Nobody is talking about banning anything, we’re talking specifically about holding social media companies accountable for marketing to children a product that is knowingly addictive and potentially harmful to their health.

Part of the issue with social media is that no reasonable parent lets their 12 year old watch porn or drink but Instagram and ticktock are on a lot more 12 year old’s phone’s than you realize. Social media has network effects and creates tremendous social pressure to not make your kid “different” when half the classroom is sharing TikToks.

I’m not conservative in the slightest but I see no reason to treat social media any differently than alcohol, tobacco or gambling. Available without restriction to adults but limited to children under a certain age.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#106

Post by spiderice »

ajam1507 wrote: post #91
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Should I be able to sue McDonald's if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting? If RJ Reynolds was handing out free cigarettes to children, even though the parent either consented to this or simply didn't know about it, would you consider RJ Reynolds' responsible for the adverse effects of children smoking?

If it was legal to hand out cigarettes to children and the parents consented I don't see how the company could be held liable. The state should not be doing the job of parents, and the judicial branch should not being doing the job of the legislative branch.

That seems like circular logic.

You're saying parental responsibility should govern because TikTok is legal, while cigarettes require state intervention because they're illegal. But they are only illegal because we made them illegal (for minors). And isn't that exactly what is being discussed here?

For the sake of consistency, do you think cigarettes should be legal for minors if they have parental consent? If not, what is the distinction between TikTok and cigarettes that causes you to think the government should be involved in one but not the other?

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#107

Post by basilgohar »

The elephant in the room of all of this is that TikTok was the social media platform that allowed for the genocide taking place in Palestine by Israel to reach audiences directly. All other major social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) heavily censored this information or outright deplatformed and canceled accounts of prominent dissemination of information about the war crimes being committed by Israelis.

TikTok, outside of the US and Zionist-controlled sphere of influence, remained the one place for this information to be available widely far beyond what was possible on other platforms.

All the other platforms have the same concepts of algorithms and targeting and bubbles. TikTok was uniquely not under Western control, and thus, needed to be pressured to conform.

The significant shift in young people's opinions about Israel in recent years is heavily attributed to the unfiltered information about their ongoing genocide against the Palestinians that they could uniquely see on TikTok and must not be understated, especially in light of all the major shifts in news, media, and social media over the past few years as they grapple with the fallout of losing the narrative.

I don't deny that social media as a whole has many harms and negatives, but there's no action like this being taken against Meta, Google, or Twitter despite the exact same harms present, sometimes even more so, on their platforms. They're already in the same overall group that supports the narrative and have done so by self-censoring their platforms accordingly. TikTok didn't play ball and got trampled.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#108

Post by eigencoder »

ajam1507 wrote: post #95
nunez wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not drinking or gambling works so well for alcoholics and gamblers. Who needs rehab anyway?

And yet we're talking about a case against social media companies and not a case against casinos or distillers.

Yeah because casinos and distillers already have laws regulating their use

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#109

Post by ares623 »

rtpg wrote: post #104
Mordisquitos wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your points I would add the following difference between TikTok on the one hand and cheeseburgers, drugs, cigarettes, etc. on the other. 3. Targeting -- even under the (debatable) premise that they are intentionally designed to be addictive, cheeseburgers, drugs and cigarettes do not actively target each addict by optimising their properties to their individual addiction. If I am addicted to smoking, the tobacco i…

case in point: lots of places have lots of restrictions (either through legislation or just industry norms, usually a combination of both) about advertising for alcohol or tobacco. And those efforts seem effective to me, at least anecdotally. I don't feel particularly bad about those restrictions either.

nooo those restrictions aren't perfect. And if it's not perfect then it needs to be abolished! /s

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#110

Post by ares623 »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #53
jader201 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I feel the exact same about cheeseburgers. The problem with analogies to things like cheeseburgers, gambling, drugs, cigarettes, etc., is: 1. Availability -- you have to go somewhere to acquire/participate in these things* 2. Cost -- you have to have money to spend. That is, it's not something you can consume/participate in for free -- you have to have money to spend. * Gambling is theoretically freely availabl…

To your points I would add the following difference between TikTok on the one hand and cheeseburgers, drugs, cigarettes, etc. on the other. 3. Targeting -- even under the (debatable) premise that they are intentionally designed to be addictive, cheeseburgers, drugs and cigarettes do not actively target each addict by optimising their properties to their individual addiction. If I am addicted to smoking, the tobacco i…

Don't forget the most important part. Attempting to opt-out means social exclusion for a vast majority of the population.
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