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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

#421

Post by ordu »

timmg wrote: post #124
nkrisc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that this case is about about a minor, not an adult. I don't think it's fair to ask children to resist social media through sheer willpower when there are legions of highly educated adults on the other side trying to increase engagement. It should be no surprise that children can be manipulated by highly intelligent adults.

> Keep in mind that this case is about about a minor, not an adult. This obviously means that tech is going to have no choice but to do "age verification". And I don't think there's much of a way to do that that wouldn't be uncomfortable for a lot of us.

Oh, corporstions pushed age verification, so of course they will not have any choice now. But before that they could just stop being addictive regardless of age.

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

#422

Post by zer00eyz »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #339
steve-atx-7600 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Parents ought to be held held responsible for how they care for their kids. This isn't just true of their use of social media and devices, but also when it comes to teaching them to look both ways when crossing the street; making sure they understand the concept of private parts, consent and personal space; making them understand the dangers of alcohol, and many other things. Does any of that obviate the need for saf…

For 30 (60's to 90's) years we told parents "It's 10pm do you know where your kids are", with an AD, on TV. We came home to empty houses and go in with a key around our neck.

Now, we call the police, and arrest parents, if kids are outside, unsupervised. https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/22/us/mother-arrested-missing-so...

When I was a child in the 80s and 90s, we had "jobs" as kids... Mowing lawns, Paper routes and so on. Now if you go offer to mow your neighbors lawn, the cops get called: https://www.fox8live.com/2023/07/26/officer-surprises-young-...

Parents are afraid to let their kids out of their site, and for those of us who have been pragmatic because we understand the data (and not the fear) they tend to look down on us.

Talk to any one who is Gen X and they will tell you that we basically got thrown out side all day (and had fun). Parents cant say "go outside and play" so kids end up getting handed devices... and they are going to play and explore and do the dumb things that gets them in trouble.

> those child safety systems we put in place

Except we have denormalized things that SHOULD be perfectly fine. And as fewer kids get to go outside unattended with friends, it pushes their peers to go "online" to socialize.

Maybe the government needs to run commercials "Its 10am, why isnt your child outside playing with the neighbor kids unsupervised"

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

#423

Post by nxor2 »

everdrive wrote: post #266
wffurr wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, the only solution is sticking to ad-free subscription services. PBS is a godsend here, but there's other good options out there too. Tragic that the public broadcasting funding was cut when there's clear harms in the free* commercial options. *Except for your time and mental health of course

Agreed. Libraries have books and DVDs, and you have things like the classical stations. You also have playgrounds and walks in the park, etc. (I'm also a parent of two young children. Always doing wholesome stuff with your kids is certainly not easy or trivial, but there is a cascading effect here. If your child does not expect to be able to just watch TV all the time it's easier to keep them interested in other thin…

The unfortunate reality is, the internet has more up to date info than books, dvd's, pbs, and even 'the classical channel.' I play the piano and have found immense amounts of rare but nice music online, and only online. I completely agree that the media is bad, just pointing out that it's necessary to a degree if learning is your aim.

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

#424

Post by embedding-shape »

absoluteunit1 wrote: post #281

Oh man if they think YouTube and Instagram are addicting they should see what Roblox does lol

As someone who maybe fired about Roblox once like three years ago, what does Roblox do that is way more addicting than YouTube and Instagram, and also I guess they're ignoring reports showing the harm even more than YouTube and Instagram, if I understand you correctly?

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

#426

Post by sophacles »

foobiekr wrote: post #414
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…

99.9% of these would just be malicious spyware that people are tricked into agreeing to.

So better than the 99.99% status quo?

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

#427

Post by freshtake »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #178
pow_ext wrote: post #71

Apps like instagram and YouTube should be required at least to give an option to disable reels and shorts

We need a return to consent. I want to be able to say "no". Not "see fewer shorts", see NO shorts. Not "maybe later", actually fucking "no".

This

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

#428

Post by ceejayoz »

another-dave wrote: post #408
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I mean, the court case is about these platforms being addictive to kids, so if they said "accounts for users under X years have the algo and time caps delegated to their parents' account by default" it'd go along way to negate what they're being accused of. They've already built all the tools they need around this at the moment, it's just they give them to advertisers rather than end-users.

"Let the parents manage it" is, unfortunately, part of the reason we're in this situation in the first place.

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

#429

Post by spl757 »

mentalgear wrote: post #304
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…

The solution to all of Big Tech's monopolies is actually pretty simple: Interoperability must become a law - this includes using custom algorithms or allowing other platforms (like your own app) to access YOUR data on whatever platform 'hosts' it. Cory Doctorow wrote a great article on it: "Interoperability Can Save the Open Web" https://spectrum.ieee.org/doctorow-interoperability > While the dominance of Internet pl…

Breaking up these monopolies would be a good start. We aren't supposed to have those. There used to be something we called "regulations" but they got rid of that part I think. Elections have consequences.

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

#430

Post by jf22 »

which wrote: post #417
guzfip wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably helps when you suppress research that shows you’re harming children and allow human traffickers to fester on your platform with 17 warnings or whatever.

The argument that research was suppressed and this is somehow damning is absurd on its face. The most obvious reason being that they obviously didn't do a very good job of suppressing it given that we hear this claim every day. The second being that they could have just not done this research at all and then there would have been nothing to "suppress" (this terminology is also very odd... if 3M analyzes different sti…

The "overwhelming majority" standard for harm seems odd when you use 15% of smokers getting harmed as an example. 15% is not an overwhelming majority.
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