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

cnn.com

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

#441

Post by gusgus01 »

riazrizvi wrote: post #421
munk-a wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal system has two goals - to compensate individuals harmed and to discourage further violations of the law. This lawsuit seems to have fulfilled the first goal but fell flat on its face when it comes to punitive damages.

I think there's an axis of perceived wrongdoing here, and you and I fall on different points. Yours is more extreme, you say Meta was doing broad harm by exploring this activity, and want to see greater damages to scare other businesses off from the general territory of addictive interfaces. Mine is where we want businesses to continue to explore and develop 'sticky', compelling, user experiences but Meta went too de…

This was about Meta's platforms not doing enough to protect children from sexual material (and allegedly ignoring employee warnings and lying to the public about it), not intrinsically their addictive interface and compelling user experience. I suppose the actions necessary to protect children from exposure to sexual material/exploitation could limit their ability to make certain changes to their platform, eg tighter moderation would reduce the amount of content that could be uploaded, but they could also have just not allowed children on the platform (like how Facebook started) and then not worried about child exploration?

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

#442

Post by munk-a »

riazrizvi wrote: post #421
munk-a wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal system has two goals - to compensate individuals harmed and to discourage further violations of the law. This lawsuit seems to have fulfilled the first goal but fell flat on its face when it comes to punitive damages.

I think there's an axis of perceived wrongdoing here, and you and I fall on different points. Yours is more extreme, you say Meta was doing broad harm by exploring this activity, and want to see greater damages to scare other businesses off from the general territory of addictive interfaces. Mine is where we want businesses to continue to explore and develop 'sticky', compelling, user experiences but Meta went too de…

To start off with my personal beliefs... I agree - I see a much broader harm in how platforms try and make themselves addictive as I've worked on such systems in the past. I think the public and even most technical folks that aren't deep into engagement metrics underestimate how studied the field has been and how many iterations of approaches to daily engagement reminders, friction removal and FOMO have been worked through to get to the point we're at today. In my opinion, which absolutely isn't fact, this work is broadly unproductive at improving our daily lives - I can understand that there are some compelling counter arguments that these developments can be harnessed for good but I don't share them.

But, specific to this article and ignoring my personal beliefs - I still find this judgement to be severely lacking. I don't think this judgement is nearly noticeable enough to Meta to actually provide a significant impact on the way they do business outside of tidying up some specifically egregious corners and making sure they internally communicate moving forward in a way that appears to comply with the judgement. The judgement was enough when applied to this pool of users to make these specific users unprofitable in retrospect (e.g. Meta would have more money if it had refused to even do business with these users) but I'm also concerned that the pool of considered victims was so narrow that it excluded a significant number of similarly harmed victims and that the amortized damages end up being negligible.

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

#443

Post by intended »

pixl97 wrote: post #180
benrutter wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish this take was more prominent. I really don't buy that mass-surveillance should be required for age verification. There are plenty of very smart people who have created much more complicated things than a digital age verification that doesn't track every time you use it. This also isn't helpful, but I think the sudden push of urgency isn't helping. The internet has existed without any kind of age verific…

>used that time to have a sensible conversation about policy trade offs, On HN itself, no way. Too many people here make far too much money on ads to want that. It seems the other part that want freedom also want so much freedom it gives huge corporations the freedom to crush them. >things than a digital age verification that doesn't track every time you use it. The big companies that pay the politicians don't want t…

> On HN itself, no way. Too many people here make far too much money on ads to want that.

Ya know, this might explain why the warnings seem to fall on deaf ears here.

New favorite person on the internet.

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

#444

Post by MildlySerious »

jimbokun wrote: post #219
MildlySerious wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things can be true, and I am in the same boat. Should the next generation have their brains fried by ad-tech corporations and their algorithms? Absolutely not. Should the overdue off-ramp from this trend be the on-ramp to mass-surveillance and government overreach? Also a firm no.

So you're saying these corporations are responsible for verifying the age of their users without verifying the age of their users?

I'm not saying that, nor did I allude to it in any way. I made no assertions as to what the solution should be.

The ideal scenario would be everyone choosing not to engage with these predatory platforms. Going from there, the right question to me is what steps we have to take as a society for that to become even remotely realistic and, subsequently, what role governments can or should have in that.

For starters, I would be in favor of fines that actually hurt the bottom line instead of this "cost of business" bullshit. We have handed these corporations unprecedented access to and control over our lives, to the point that they erode democracy and the social fabric itself. The inevitable abuse of that power when it comes with barely any strings attached needs to be punished in a way that makes it unattractive as a business model at the very least.

Instead of lowering the attack surface by locking out kids, and in turn introducing mass surveillance which at best also lends itself to abuse, the root issues of ruinous greed and lack of accountability need to be addressed. The whole concept that there is no price too high for profits needs to burn. Social media is just one of the more recent manifestations of it.

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

#445

Post by riazrizvi »

munk-a wrote: post #442
riazrizvi wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an axis of perceived wrongdoing here, and you and I fall on different points. Yours is more extreme, you say Meta was doing broad harm by exploring this activity, and want to see greater damages to scare other businesses off from the general territory of addictive interfaces. Mine is where we want businesses to continue to explore and develop 'sticky', compelling, user experiences but Meta went too de…

To start off with my personal beliefs... I agree - I see a much broader harm in how platforms try and make themselves addictive as I've worked on such systems in the past. I think the public and even most technical folks that aren't deep into engagement metrics underestimate how studied the field has been and how many iterations of approaches to daily engagement reminders, friction removal and FOMO have been worked t…

I guess we have deep deep divisions on what everyone is doing in society, and what makes a 'good' society.

As I've aged, I've entered new-to-me territory where a good society needs to reflect the world as it is, so that its members have high survivability.

At the local family level for instance. When my kids were young. I had dreams of being super financially successful so that I could give them lots of nice things. I just don't want that for them anymore. Protection, and pandering, does not make a good lineage IMO. It's something of a leap I'm asking of you to connect this to my position here on Meta, but I've got other work to do, and I hope it's enough to convey my point.

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

#446

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

Another item on the subject of this verdict that, at present, has more points is

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47519625

One is a story by a journalist at CNN, the other is a story by a journalist at the LA Times

Multiple articles on the same topic can sometimes offer different facts and opinions, different perspectives

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

#447

Post by nclin_ »

riazrizvi wrote: post #439
nclin_ wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The function of a system is what it does. Meta knowingly hurt children for profit. It worked. If we are in any way serious about technocratic solutions to social problems, this would be untenable, the company would be bankrupted, a new company would fill its place. No tears would be cried, nothing of value would be lost, half of hacker news would be chafing at the bit to build a better alternative for the newly opene…

Not hurting children is a pretty popular idea. So why don't you make that technical product for children based on this foundation, and blow Meta out of the water? I love your conviction. Good luck.

Not taking this as good faith, if you're devolving into sarcasm I assume you have no insight to offer.

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

#448

Post by crystal_revenge »

dwedge wrote: post #108

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical but, while I think current social media is bad for children, I'm very suspicious of the current international agreement that it's time to take action, especially with all the ID verification coming from multiple avenues

> I'm very suspicious of the current international agreement that it's time to take action

Especially since, when you look at the behavior of younger people, they're way more careful about social media than millennials were. My teenage child an their friends keep all of their conversations in a massive but private group chat. Any social media consumed by them, is basically 'read only'. They don't post online, none of them of have social media accounts where they post pictures of themselves etc.

Same with all of my younger gen-z coworkers. If they have socials the post very selectively and all content is work friendly.

The people I see that need "protection" are aging millenials that don't really understand how wildly they're exposing themselves and families. I cringe when I see the amount of personal photos and information shared by the view millenials I know who still need their ego-boost from these platforms (and that number itself is much smaller).

Younger people don't share their opinion and anything resembling private photos online any more.

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

#449

Post by [deleted] »

gusgus01 wrote: post #441
riazrizvi wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an axis of perceived wrongdoing here, and you and I fall on different points. Yours is more extreme, you say Meta was doing broad harm by exploring this activity, and want to see greater damages to scare other businesses off from the general territory of addictive interfaces. Mine is where we want businesses to continue to explore and develop 'sticky', compelling, user experiences but Meta went too de…

This was about Meta's platforms not doing enough to protect children from sexual material (and allegedly ignoring employee warnings and lying to the public about it), not intrinsically their addictive interface and compelling user experience. I suppose the actions necessary to protect children from exposure to sexual material/exploitation could limit their ability to make certain changes to their platform, eg tighter…

[deleted]

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

#450

Post by Quarrelsome »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #342
Quarrelsome wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah I'm sure an immensely powerful and shadowy conspiracy trusted their most critical operation to a 20 year old college dropout. Makes sense to me.

Have you ever considered the idea that Zuck is just an actor / a face?

sure. I don't think its a strong argument. You can control someone for a bit, but giving a 20 year old that much power and resource over this long an amount of time is far too loose a leash to constitute a robust plan. If we're going full tin foil then I think its more likely he's literally a robot than a front man for some shadowy cabal.
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