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Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms

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Re: Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms

#391
post #383

lol. And you think we will ever legalize drugs (and people can take responsibility), when large companies are being sued for being addicted to social media?

There's a vast difference between accurately advertising the effects of drugs and the risks involved in taking them, versus lying to you about the drugs and creating an environment that furthers addition.

It all boils down to consent.

I might want to take some drugs that have some harmful side effects. But i knew about them and i willingly made the choice because I valued the high more.

Contrast this with, I knew about the harmful side effects and told you they didnt exist and you should take more. And then i change the drug so its even MORE harmful because it also makes you BUY more. That's what these social media sites do.

They use engineered sociology and psychology to create addictive products, and then refine them to maximize profit at the cost of anything they can pull a lever on.

What bothers me the most is not the vampires at the top sucking out every dollar they can extract out of vulnerable people, but the fact that so many engineers are supporting this. So much for engineering ethics. Why even bother teaching it anymore?

Re: Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because we should be regulating the social media industry rather than regulating social media users. Unfortunately, social media users don't have billions of dollars to spend on lobbying and related activities around the world.

The ask is to treat users differently based on age. How can they do that without verifying their users age?

You honestly think facebook has no idea that the children using their website are children? The combination of the children's selfies, social network, GPS coordinates, and posts make it very clear. Facebook already knows who the children are and they've been explicitly targeting them accordingly.

Re: Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms

#395
post #4

Many will cheer for any case that hurts Meta without reading the details, but we should be aware that these cases are one of the key reasons why companies are backtracking from features like end-to-end encryption: > The New Mexico case also raised concerns that allowing teens to use end-to-end encryption on Instagram chats — a privacy measure that blocks anyone other than sender and receiver from viewing a conversati…

Centralized organizations with proprietary software can never offer meaningful end to end encryption because they can just ship an app update to disable or backdoor it at any time.

It is better for them to be forced to turn off the security theater so people that need actual privacy can research alternatives.

Re: Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms

#398
post #366

As part of the ongoing enshittification of the internet, tragedy of the commons etc., these big centralized internet platforms decided that instead of being responsible and making their products *slightly* less terrible it was better to maximize short term engagement metrics, and that, egotistically, the chance of there being real consequences for their actions was near zero. (Or, even more cynically, that their year…

Mass surveillance 'for your own good' instead of regulating social media in any way.

You can purchase a scam ad it'll be up in 10 minutes. Lie to every anxious child they have ADHD and need meth, lie to every dejected boy that they just need to manosphere up and buy supplements.

They think the public is stupid. They might be right.

Re: Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms

#399
post #371
post #366

As part of the ongoing enshittification of the internet, tragedy of the commons etc., these big centralized internet platforms decided that instead of being responsible and making their products *slightly* less terrible it was better to maximize short term engagement metrics, and that, egotistically, the chance of there being real consequences for their actions was near zero. (Or, even more cynically, that their year…

Watching Mark testify before the senate it honestly appears like it may have never occurred to him that it is an option to have not offered a feature. He treats the product as if it is some kind of inevitable outcome that was destined to exist.

It's not just avoiding any responsibility?

Re: Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms

#400
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Meta’s revenue in New Mexico? Also, “the total civil penalty of $375m was reached after the jury decided there were thousands of violations of the act, each with a maximum penalty of $5,000. Meta is also involved in a separate trial in Los Angeles, in which a young woman claims that she became addicted to platforms like Instagram and YouTube, owned by Google, as a child because of how they are intentionally d…

Wait, what? This case's central argument was about propagating and promoting child sexual abuse material, but the maximum penalty was set to only $5000 per violation? Why?

> The jury found that Meta was responsible for violating New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act because it misled the public about the safety of its platforms for young users

“The jury found that Meta was responsible for violating New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act because it misled the public about the safety of its platforms for young users.”

So the penalty is for misleading around CSAM. Not CSAM per se. (My understanding is the latter are still being adjudicated.)

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