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Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case

nytimes.com

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

#351

Post by hnlmorg »

anon84873628 wrote: post #324
hnlmorg wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone would disagree with you there but that requires changing the nature of humanity. Which is a much less realistic outcome.

I don't think it requires changing humanity. Just put a 100% wealth tax after 1 billion. And step letting money run politics.

Yeah, but who is going to lobby for it? Certainly nobody with actual money to pay for the lobbying.

And which politician would want to vote that in? Certainly no one with any rich friends who donate to their campaigns. Which means no politician that supports this is ever going to have the budget to get elected in the first place.

And then you have the problem that you cannot just fix this in one country. Because then all these rich people will find tax loopholes to claim they’re not nationals and thus exempt from this tax. So you have to convince every rich person and every politician in every country to change.

And now that you’ve created a wealth vacuum, you need to ensure that nobody rises up to flip the system again, using their wealth to manipulate everyone into repealing these new laws.

And now we are at the stage of having to change the nature of humanity…

The problem we have is that economics is driven by scarcity and consumption; and humans are largely driven by greed (or at the very least, a desire to make life comfortable). And we can’t have a future where rich people aren’t greedy, without changing the entire way economics works. Which also requires changing human nature too.

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

#352

Post by freshtake »

Short form video is a different beast altogether, and much more concerning. The fact that these platforms don't offer a way to avoid short form altogether is a big issue.

YouTube allows you to "show fewer shorts" but what if you don't want them popping up at all?

AI Slop is the best thing to happen to these platforms - because it will lower trust and engagement as people (hopefully) become tired of inauthenticity. Rage bait is potent when the event in the video _actually_ happened, but when you realize it was AI generated, the manipulation feels even more obvious (though it was always there).

These platforms should also allow users to understand how the algorithm has categorized them, and be able to configure it. YouTube, Instagram, et al. would be safer places for viewers if they allowed users to tell them what they want to be exposed to, and what they don't. Big tech is dodgy about this currently, because the more control the user has the lower the engagement (good for the user, bad for profit).

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

#353

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

bitwank wrote: post #334
ceejayoz wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems likely that'd result in even worse suggestions becoming the norm as people adopt the third-party that gives the quick dopamine rush. It's like suggesting tastier heroin to fix drug addiction.

Certainly not. People don’t want the slop they push, the anxiety provoking, salacious, clickbaity spam that it has devolved into. Anybody that used YouTube before the last few years can tell you the difference is pretty major. This is not content people want, it’s content that maximizes clicks and ad sales.

People don't want to want it. But it's not obvious that merely allowing a choice of recommendation algorithms would allow people to escape the slop. Isn't anyone strong enough to choose a less addictive algorithm necessarily strong enough to not scroll Instagram for hours in the first place?

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

#354

Post by mrweasel »

steve-atx-7600 wrote: post #248
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #241

How is any app/website that 1) appeals to kids, 2) sells attention, 3) does A/B testing and/or has a self-learning distribution algorithm NOT guilty of this?

How’s this different than tv that a kid might see that has ads and programming targeting kids? I watched 80s horror movies when I was in elementary school and had nightmares for years. Should I sue now? How about parents be held responsible for how they care for their kids or not? Maybe a culture that judged parents more strongly for how they let their kids spend their time would be an improvement.

> How’s this different than tv that a kid might see that has ads and programming targeting kids?

It's not, that illegal as well. You cannot target kids with TV advertising.

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

#355

Post by freshtake »

ValentinPearce wrote: post #289
ddoolin wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this applies more towards adults, but I don't think the correct answer for kids is only "just have self-control," something kids are notorious for not having. Certainly there's a lot of parental responsibility here but we can simultaneously hold companies responsible for their part too.

It also is a situation where the ubiquity of these companies make it exceptionally difficult for parents to regulate access.

This. Also, technology is ever changing, and expecting parents to constantly keep up with feature rollouts on these platforms is unrealistic.

Personal responsibility IS important, but we also don't allow cigarette companies to advertise on billboards with cute characters (remember Joe Camel?)

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

#356

Post by Zigurd »

bogdanoff_2 wrote: post #290

The solution to this would be a law forcing these sites to allow third-party suggestion algorithms, so that you can choose who and how content is being suggested to you. It could be perhaps as simple as allowing third-party websites and apps for watching Youtube on your phone. And it's okay if this would be a premium paid feature, so there's no counter argument that "it costs them money to host videos". This is not a…

That's called a "feed generator" on Bluesky.

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

#357

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #343
ramon156 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'd find another method. Why are we allowing this in the first place? I don't have an answer to fix this whole mess, but it starts with our attitude towards addiction. We've built a system that rewards addiction in all sorts of places. Granted, every addiction is different, and I'm of the opinion that it's not (drug = bad), it's how you use it and react to it. We can control the latter, but we choose to ignore it…

> Why are we allowing this in the first place? Exactly what I keep coming back to. For me, it feels like you could cut this problem down substantially by eliminating section 230 protection on any algorithmically elevated content. Everywhere. Full stop. If you write or have an algorithm created that pushes content to users, in ANY fashion, that is endorsement. You want that content to be seen, for whatever odd reason,…

Eliminating section 230 protections would heavily disfavor any kind of intellectually stimulating content, because it's hard for a platform to scalably verify that nobody's making defamatory claims. But pointless clickbait, heavily filtered Instagram models, etc. don't really have liability concerns on a video-by-video level. To me it seems like this makes the problem worse.

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

#358

Post by pixl97 »

shimman wrote: post #338
mschuster91 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The foundational problem with interoperability is that it can and will immediately be abused by bad actors as long as there is no price tag attached to every piece of communication. Among social media, Mastodon (and anything Fediverse) has it the worst, obviously, but Telegram and Whatsapp are rife with spams and scams, Twitter back when it still had third-party apps was rife with credential and token compromises (mo…

Because some hostile entity might rat fuck the a slightly better system, we're destined to use the same current shitty system because something better might have a downside? Do you understand that this is all literally made up? The rules can change anytime and society can exert its will to make better world rather than letting a dozen people decide how technology will shape humanity (mostly in a negative capacity if…

>Because some hostile entity might rat fuck the a slightly better system,

And make it a worse system, is what you happened to leave off.

>Do you understand that this is all literally made up

You mean the existing system that evolved from billions and billions of interactions? Explain what is 'made up' about it.

The thing is if you start 'making up' random ass laws that piss people off, they will run screaming back to the billionaires to pwn them with locked down systems. Apple is a great example here. Shit is locked down and people love it.

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