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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

#501

Post by ToucanLoucan »

Terr_ wrote: post #463
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

> algorithmically elevated I don't see a good way to make a definite legal distinction between the icky stuff versus normal an unobjectionable things which are, technically, also forms of elevation-by-algorithm: rank_by_age(items) // Good rank_by_age_and_poster_reputation(items) // Probably rank_by_on_topic_ness(items, forum_subject) rank_by_likes(items) rank_by_engagement_likelihood(items) // Bad? rank_by_positive_s…

Really, I see one right here:

    rank_by_age(items) // Good
    rank_by_age_and_poster_reputation(items) // Probably   
    rank_by_on_topic_ness(items, forum_subject)
    rank_by_likes(items)
    
    rank_by_engagement_likelihood(items) // Bad?
    rank_by_positive_sentiment_toward_clients(items) // Bad
Age is deterministic. When was the thing posted?

Poster reputation is deterministic. How many times has this poster received positive feedback based on their content?

On-topic-ness is deterministic, if a bit fuzzy. That said I think the likes will reflect this, if you post a thread about cooking potatoes in the gopro subreddit, your post will be downvoted and probably removed via other means in which case it's presence in the feed is already null.

Likes are again, deterministic. How many people upvoted it?

In contrast:

Engagement likelihood is clearly a subjective, theoretical measure. An algorithm is going to parse a database for other posts like this, see how much attention it got, and say "is this likely to drive engagement." That's what I'm talking about.

And positive sentiment towards clients I can't quite read? I'm guessing you're referring to like, community sponsors but I'm not 100% certain. But that almost certainly is a subjective one too, and even if not, it's giving people with money the ability to put their thumb on the scale.

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

#502

Post by robinanil »

DavidMcLaughlin wrote: post #298
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?

A/B testing is very, very different to handing over control of your content to a reward function that optimizes for time spent over any other criteria. We had 10 years+ plus of having products like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, hell even LinkedIn with a basic content model of "you build your own graph of people who you pull content from" and their job was to show it to you and puts ads in there to fund the whole enterp…

This is the clearest articulation of the problem I've seen in this thread. The chronological social graph feed era was fine. The handoff to engagement-optimizing algorithms is where things broke.

I'd add one additional layer: it's not just that the algorithm picks what you see, it's that the entire UX is built around keeping you in the loop. On YouTube Kids, even with autoplay off, the end-of-episode screen shows a grid of recommended videos. My toddler doesn't care about "the algorithm" in any abstract sense. He just sees more fire truck videos and wants the next one. The transition out of the app is designed to fail.

Your point about smartphones not being the problem is key. I was at Google during the era you're describing, when the phone was a net positive. The hardware didn't change. The business model did.

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

#503

Post by fosco »

embedding-shape wrote: post #462
absoluteunit1 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interactive world - where games can be built by anyone (I personally know/met some of the devs) and all the games have some randomization/gambling mechanics involved. Lootboxes is just one tiny example. Infinite novely - there's literally infinite number of games one can play. I don't have time right now to provide a full/quality answer with more examples - you can do a bit of seraching online to learn more.…

Right, but that sounds like a bunch of video games. Question is, is Roblox specifically designed to be addictive, like Facebook/Instagram/TikTok? And if they are, did the companies willfully ignore reports about how dangerous it was? If the answer is just "No" to both of those questions, then it sounds like a regular video game that can be addictive (like everything else), but it wasn't specifically designed to be ad…

Aside from daily login rewards, loot boxes, gamifying gambling behaviors and FOMO designed micro purchases? Roblox is bad and many times if your nearby is absolutely not appropriate for kids and I’m quite liberal on what’s appropriate beyond normalizing emotional damage.

https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-system-is-made-to-i...

The funniest one? The 10-k discussing legal issues as risk regarding addiction

Hardwick et al. (2025) “They’re Scamming Me”: How Children Experience and Conceptualize Harm in Game Monetization https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/5164006.pdf?abstra...

Kou, Hernandez, Gui (2025) “The System is Made to Inherently Push Child Gambling in my Opinion”: Child Safety, Monetization, and Moderation on Roblox https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/the-system-is-made-to-i...

Song et al. (2025) How Predatory Monetization Designs Manifest in Child-Directed Online Games (SOUPS 2025) https://www.usenix.org/system/files/soups2025-song.pdf

Kou & Gui (2023) Harmful Design in the Metaverse and How to Mitigate It: A Case Study of User-Generated Virtual Worlds on Roblox https://sites.psu.edu/healthandplay/files/2023/05/Harmful-De...

Tunca et al. (2025) Navigating parental concerns in children’s engagement with Roblox https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12821821/

Roblox Corporation (2024 Form 10-K) https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1315098/000131509825... I find this hilarious.

Not all games are created equal, I loved Zelda tears of the kingdom and the sounds and rewarding game were in my opinion addictive however they are not in the same league as roblox

The best part is when you get a cohort of a few families to go camping and teenage daughter forced dad to drive 45 minutes each way for cell service to avoid breaking the daily login chain.

I don’t think people appreciate how these mechanisms impact society as a whole

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

#504

Post by which »

turtlesdown11 wrote: post #464
which wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>This is not at all like smoking where 15% of smokers will get lung cancer. Unfortunately for you and social media sites, the legal standard for defective products has no "percentage" of people harmed to incur liability. Product liability is showing product was defectively designed and caused foreseeable harm to a specific plaintiff. > absurd legal reasoning It's certainly not surprising you think protecting minors i…

Yes, I think you can make an argument that the jury verdict was in line with the law... if that's the case then I think the law here is ridiculous. I can read what the law is, we're having a discussion. If the story of the woman who was burned by McDonald's coffee was posted here you would have people arguing for and against whether people should be able to seek recourse in courts for harms of that nature.

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

#505

Post by which »

jf22 wrote: post #430
which wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there a widely used phrase which represents the 95-97% range? One did not come to my head.

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

#506

Post by bogdanoff_2 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #353
bitwank wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>Isn't anyone strong enough to choose a less addictive algorithm necessarily strong enough to not scroll Instagram for hours in the first place?

Absolutely not. It's much easier to make a one-time switch than to be continuously resisting temptation. Changing the things in your environment is an important tool to break bad habits. The book "Atomic Habits" talks about this at length.

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

#507

Post by Terr_ »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #501
Terr_ wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> algorithmically elevated I don't see a good way to make a definite legal distinction between the icky stuff versus normal an unobjectionable things which are, technically, also forms of elevation-by-algorithm: rank_by_age(items) // Good rank_by_age_and_poster_reputation(items) // Probably rank_by_on_topic_ness(items, forum_subject) rank_by_likes(items) rank_by_engagement_likelihood(items) // Bad? rank_by_positive_s…

Really, I see one right here: rank_by_age(items) // Good rank_by_age_and_poster_reputation(items) // Probably rank_by_on_topic_ness(items, forum_subject) rank_by_likes(items) rank_by_engagement_likelihood(items) // Bad? rank_by_positive_sentiment_toward_clients(items) // Bad Age is deterministic. When was the thing posted? Poster reputation is deterministic. How many times has this poster received positive feedback b…

I don't think "deterministic" is the right term to capture this concept. An if-statement which bans posts containing a political phrase would be 100% deterministic, or one which prioritizes anything from a username on a list.

> On-topic-ness is deterministic, if a bit fuzzy.

If you permit that exception (even for good reasons) then it reveals how the original "algorithmic elevation" is too vague and unenforceable.

All someone needs is a ToS footnote like "this forum is provided for truthful international news and engaging with $COMPANY in a positive way." Poof, loophole. Anything the moderator (or moderator-algorithm) decides is "untrue" or "negative" becomes off-topic and can be pushed down.

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

#508

Post by bogdanoff_2 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #320
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…

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.

There's a difference between addictiveness and enjoyment, and definitely between addictiveness and satisfaction.

While the thing that gives you quick dopamine might win in the very short term, you can still step back and recognize when it's not satisfying in the long term and you're not even enjoying it that much.

And people aren't stupid. Junk food exists, yet lots of people choose to eat more wholesome food as the majority of their diet.

The problem with instagram or youtube is that you can't separate the good from the bad.

It's like if every time you went to store Y to buy milk, you would be exposed to highly manipulative marketing trying to get you to buy junk food. You would probably want to go to a different store instead.

What I'm suggesting is the possibilities of different stores, with different philosophies and standards, so that people can choose where they go. Corner stores (where almost everything is junk food) exist, yet people still choose to go to real supermarkets.

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

#509

Post by Barbing »

nradov wrote: post #498
randycupertino wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish for once one of these egomaniacal billionaires would actually put all their efforts and resources into solving climate change or ending world hunger. Even his medical initiative Chan-Zuckerberg biohub is a self-congratulatory shell game. I worked in the same building as them for years, literally all they did was have parties, conferences, networking events and self-congratulatory schmooze things and never…

Be careful what you wish for. Serious, persistent world hunger in certain countries primarily exists not due to climate change or lack of food or even lack of money but because of local violence and corruption. For example, the notorious 1980s famine in Ethiopia attracted much attention in developed countries and many people (including billionaires) donated money to help. There was a drought which made farming diffic…

(observer here)

>to end world hunger then you're effectively asking them to form private militias and impose peace by force in the developing world

Does this happen to be your space? If this comment were posted to a forum of experts, I imagine they would hotly debate whether a range of ideas would work.

I struggle to imagine the private militia concept would be suggested in that context; with that said, I know nothing.

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

#510

Post by ceejayoz »

bogdanoff_2 wrote: post #508
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.

There's a difference between addictiveness and enjoyment, and definitely between addictiveness and satisfaction. While the thing that gives you quick dopamine might win in the very short term, you can still step back and recognize when it's not satisfying in the long term and you're not even enjoying it that much. And people aren't stupid. Junk food exists, yet lots of people choose to eat more wholesome food as the…

> It's like if every time you went to store Y to buy milk, you would be exposed to highly manipulative marketing trying to get you to buy junk food.

But that's very much the norm at supermarkets?

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