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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

#431

Post by ien24sdq »

thin_carapace wrote: post #183
mrintegrity wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work when nicotine products that are every bit as addictive as tobacco exist, maybe you're just not aware of them? Sitting here with non tobacco snus (Swedish nicotine pouch) under my top lip, something I have been utterly unable to quit. I believe "nicotine free" tobacco would be completely non addictive.

tobacco contains MAO inhibiting compounds, which potentiate nicotine and increase addiction potential. that doesnt mean nicotine on its own isnt insanely addictive, i have no idea what the guy youre responding to is talking about. however, MAOIs were withdrawn as antidepressants for a good reason - they have a terrible withdrawal all on their own.

Gwern has a pretty good post on it:

https://gwern.net/nicotine

Intuitively, why would you chew nicontine gum to stop smoking if it was just as addictive as cigarettes?

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

#432

Post by systemsweird »

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?

Probably not much other than scale. Facebook is large enough that they can hire behavioral researchers to make this stuff more addicting while looking the other way and raking in the money. I think Roblox is just as bad (maybe worse) regarding addiction for kids. I’ve played hundreds of hours with my sister’s kids and the way all these low quality slop games handle grinding, progression, and pay gating is honestly disgusting.

But then again, I manage to get myself addicted to a video game usually once a winter for a few weeks, and don’t play games for the rest of the year. There’s really no solution to this, but I don’t want to live in a world where everyone is hopelessly addicted to shallow digital experiences.

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

#434

Post by nlarion »

freshtake wrote: post #376
nlarion wrote: post #328

There is no personal responsibility left in America. I have a child. It's my job to teach him and watch what he watches and does. I guess I am the only one who thinks this way. Good luck having the parental government raise your child. Parody: I let my child have cocaine and now they're addicted!!!!! Hilarious.

How old is your child? Younger than 6-8 it's easy to monitor what they're watching and enforce limits. By age 9-10 it isn't just about what they access in the home. Many schools in America are giving kids computer and tablet access, and kids are smart or curious enough to access social media there. I agree that a big part of this is educating children about these hazards, but that also doesn't mean we should allow th…

Yeah it's too bad there aren't any tools you can use to block any content at your home YOU personally deem irresponsible /s. Im not sure what your argument is here. If it's for regulation then please do some reading on regulatory capture before you hand over your ID card while logging in to respond to my comment

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

#435

Post by prepend »

lokar wrote: post #157
prepend wrote: post #146

I think this is going to end up with a huge chunk paid out to state health departments for the foreseeable future. Kind of like how tobacco companies now pay out billions every year and its a major source of funding for states. Hopefully this means more health services available. But it will just serve like an ongoing tax.

AIUI, this particular case is a pilot for about 2,000 similar (but not similar enough to be combined into a class action) cases. They are not actions by state or local governments for damages they have received, as was the case with tobacco.

I expect state governments to follow up.

The similar case about child predators was brought by NM’s attorney general.

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

#436

Post by SquibblesRedux »

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?

I would argue that no app/website should be selling itself to kids. No corporation should be trying to tether its ARR to children's attention.

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

#437

Post by zer00eyz »

robinanil wrote: post #420

I'm a former Google engineer, now running a children's mental health startup (Emora Health), and my toddler is already on YouTube Kids. So this verdict hits on every axis for me.I wrote up my full take here [1], but the short version: I don't think the "Big Tobacco moment" framing that NYT is pushing actually holds up. Litigation is negative reinforcement, and if you've ever tried telling a toddler "no" you know how…

> if you've ever tried telling a toddler "no"

Parenting is rough! Good for you, for sticking to your guns.

> The plaintiff, Kaley, started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at 11.

Who was at the wheel here? If we call up all Kaleys teachers from this time frame and ask them "were Kaleys parents checked out" what do you think the answer would be? For as bad as education has gotten, I sympathize with with teachers because parents have gotten FAR worse.

It's not like we don't know these things about peoples behavior on devices... maybe it's something that should be talked about in school, along with how credit works, and how to file taxes.

Do we need to tell parents "it's 10am, have your kids touched grass yet?"... "It's 10pm did you take the tablet and phone away so they go the fuck to sleep?" --

"touch grass" as a meme/slang is literally people poking fun at the constantly on line. It's "hazing" and "bullying" to drive social correction.

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

#438

Post by Longlius »

KaiserPro wrote: post #312
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?

I think there is a fourth portion that is probably more important: Actively ignoring harm caused by your product. TV/radio has sold attention, but there were pretty strict rules on what you can/can't broadcast, and to whom. (ignoring cable for the moment) Its the same for services, things that knowingly encourage damaging behaviours are liable for prosecution.

Except cable is the more apt comparison here - broadcast rules exist because airwaves are an extremely finite resource and so we can argue that the government has a vested interest in what kind of speech can happen on them. No such scarcity exists with web services.

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

#440

Post by prepend »

alex1138 wrote: post #413
prepend wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That book was so lame and the author leaves out how she profited millions and then only complained after she was fired. Its also funny how they “discovered” they were influencing elections after they influenced the 2008 and 2012 elections. How did the author not know this when she sought out and joined the company in like 2013! The parts about playing Settlers of Catan with Zuckerberg was funny. I wonder what his sid…

I'm not going to attack you but I do just want to highlight analogous comments of "she could have left" - She was trying to work to change things - She was pregnant and otherwise had young children and needed the money

I don’t buy that.

- She was not trying to change things. She was working to get countries ingratiated with FB execs

- She didn’t get pregnant until years into her work. She chose to have a second child while staying employed. She was already “rich” with millions likely earned when her first child was born and could have worked anywhere (but not making what FB paid). Wasn’t she an attorney? Prestigious attorney salaries are definitely enough to support children and a spouse who is a teacher.

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