Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 549 posts

Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

#11

Post by slopinthebag »

idle_zealot wrote: post #10
fraywing wrote: post #5

I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species. Anecdote, but it does seem like a lot of younger folks I speak with are exhausted by the dark patterns and dopamine extraction that top-k social media platforms create. If agents/AI/bots inadvertently destroy the curr…

> I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species Do you have a mechanism for this in mind, incentives-wise? I can't see this making money.

It doesn't need to make money directly (and probably shouldn't).

The incentives would be those which have motivated people throughout history: to create something which benefits humanity.

Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

#12

Post by strongpigeon »

There is a fairly low amount of details about the case in the article. This NPR article [0] has a bit more, but it's still fairly sparse. Though it's interesting how Zuckerberg thought it was a good idea to say: "If people feel like they're not having a good experience, why would they keep using the product?".

Given that this is a case about addiction, that feels like a shockingly bad thing to say in defense of your product. Can you imagine saying the same thing about oxycodone or cigarettes?

[0] https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5746125/meta-youtube-so...

Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

#15

Post by asim »

fraywing wrote: post #5

I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species. Anecdote, but it does seem like a lot of younger folks I speak with are exhausted by the dark patterns and dopamine extraction that top-k social media platforms create. If agents/AI/bots inadvertently destroy the curr…

It will come. The problem is. So will the addictive stuff. The key is going to be real meaningful connection. Social media wasn't about community. Web 2.0 was. In 2005 we were connecting with real people we knew and probably up until 2011-2012 maybe we still were, but I guess friends of friends, colleagues, people in our network. Then it got really bad.

Getting back to community is key.

Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

#16

Post by benoau »

idle_zealot wrote: post #10
fraywing wrote: post #5

I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species. Anecdote, but it does seem like a lot of younger folks I speak with are exhausted by the dark patterns and dopamine extraction that top-k social media platforms create. If agents/AI/bots inadvertently destroy the curr…

> I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species Do you have a mechanism for this in mind, incentives-wise? I can't see this making money.

I guess the real question is whether a website where you communicate with friends and close ones needs to be a multi-trillion dollar company in the first place... historically most of them have not been worth very much at all.

Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

#17

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #2

Notably a different case from the other one in New Mexico: Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509984

And one with much deeper implications on how they operate. It's easy for Meta to just hire more moderators or treat reports of exploitation with higher priority; if this verdict stands, I think they have no realistic choice but to abandon usage targets.

Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

#18

Post by pixl97 »

benoau wrote: post #16
idle_zealot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species Do you have a mechanism for this in mind, incentives-wise? I can't see this making money.

I guess the real question is whether a website where you communicate with friends and close ones needs to be a multi-trillion dollar company in the first place... historically most of them have not been worth very much at all.

The question then becomes how can you make a website with all your friend (and by association all their friends) make enough profit to run itself?

Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

#19

Post by pixl97 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #11
idle_zealot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species Do you have a mechanism for this in mind, incentives-wise? I can't see this making money.

It doesn't need to make money directly (and probably shouldn't). The incentives would be those which have motivated people throughout history: to create something which benefits humanity.

Ah yes, I too love free servers and bandwidth.
Post reply on HN