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New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

theguardian.com

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Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#251

Post by bs38 »

tmp10423288442 wrote: post #109

A lot of people on this story are making the usual snarky remarks that, oh, this is just a slap on the wrist—some trivial proportion of Meta’s global revenue. And that is true, but unlike the EU, for example, New Mexico is a tiny jurisdiction. It only has a little bit more than 2 million people. So actually, a fine—or a judgment—of $942 million that applies just to New Mexico is enormous. If you look at Meta’s revenu…

I feel the platforms just arent able to handle serious problems at these scales.

Unlike banks, telcos, power grid operating at similar scales, the regulations literally took hundreds of years to develop after all kinds of fiascos.

Its a lesson in scaling is not magic. Problems will scale too.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#252

Post by zer00eyz »

neonnoodle wrote: post #218
inigyou wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] - lesbian relationships have the most domestic violence, and gay male relationships the least.

This is not true. IIRC this factoid comes from the results of surveys asking people whether they had ever been the victims of domestic violence (not necessarily in their current relationships), and it should come as no surprise that relationships comprised of two women have the highest reporting rates of having been subjected to violence over their lifetimes, and relationships of two men the lowest rates. Within-rela…

The above stats actually align with the divorce rate:

https://www.them.us/story/lesbian-marriages-weddings-divorce...

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#253

Post by ToucanLoucan »

ubercore wrote: post #147
tmp10423288442 wrote: post #109

A lot of people on this story are making the usual snarky remarks that, oh, this is just a slap on the wrist—some trivial proportion of Meta’s global revenue. And that is true, but unlike the EU, for example, New Mexico is a tiny jurisdiction. It only has a little bit more than 2 million people. So actually, a fine—or a judgment—of $942 million that applies just to New Mexico is enormous. If you look at Meta’s revenu…

Makes me think of the DuPont settlement with Rhode Island: https://www.law.com/article/almID/900005544259/ As a result, Rhode Island has some great followup and public health programs. It wasn't that much money to DuPont, but it did real good in Rhode Island, and I believe DuPont changed their legal tactics afterwards.

Maybe so but DuPont continues to pollute the world even today.

I'm happy this fine happened. I hope it gets enforced, though in the current political climate I too have severe doubts it will be. Even so though, and even if this lawsuit is followed by many others in many jurisdictions that are all equally successful- the dream- the people behind these decisions still leave without a hitch.

As long as sociopaths can sit atop corporate entities, do horrendous shit, and then simply leave wildly rich and free, even with the corporate entity in flames, that is not justice and we'll continue getting exactly what we've gotten: an endless stream of the aforementioned sociopaths harming people at scale, for money.

Not trying to be a doomer. Just trying to say when the sum total of personal consequences for these people is a lot of bad press and billions of dollars, it's an easy choice for too many.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#254

Post by cindyllm »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #253
ubercore wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think of the DuPont settlement with Rhode Island: https://www.law.com/article/almID/900005544259/ As a result, Rhode Island has some great followup and public health programs. It wasn't that much money to DuPont, but it did real good in Rhode Island, and I believe DuPont changed their legal tactics afterwards.

Maybe so but DuPont continues to pollute the world even today. I'm happy this fine happened. I hope it gets enforced, though in the current political climate I too have severe doubts it will be. Even so though, and even if this lawsuit is followed by many others in many jurisdictions that are all equally successful- the dream- the people behind these decisions still leave without a hitch. As long as sociopaths can si…

[dead]

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#255

Post by chrisjj »

morning_poster wrote: post #209

This ruling is absurd. The "harm" alleged could be produced not only by any social media, but by any mass media. But this ruling is really not about that-- it is a shot across the bow of Facebook and the rest of Big Tech warning them to get in line with the official propaganda or the US government will make their lives very difficult. Notice how this wasn't happening to Facebook when they were banning anyone that pos…

> The "harm" alleged could be produced not only by any social media, but by any mass media

When did you last see an addictive newspaper?

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#256

Post by esseph »

homeonthemtn wrote: post #249
esseph wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think a lot of us probably would agree that pornographic content is generally bad for society. Speak for yourself. The science of it seems to be a mixed bag with definite pros and cons. You're talking about something that is also intrinsic to humanity . It takes no resources. Good luck with that.

Neither porn nor gore is intrinsic to society

Porn and gore were happening for millions of years before we invented language.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#257

Post by zer00eyz »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #74
qwe----3 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These rulings are stupid and if generalized would make doing business impossible. Parents should parent their kids. That law is so board - "public morals"? Should every porn site be taken down?

How can I parent my kids when every child in the school is a social media addict? If heroin were commonplace and available in every kid’s pockets would parents be to blame then too?

> How can I parent my kids when every child in the school is a social media addict?

By parenting?

My kids are hyper aware of what social media does, how it works, and how it exploits you. There were lots of conversations about this. There were lots of times that phones got taken away. There was a lot of watching minecraft videos with the kids.

We already did this once before "Its 10pm do you know where your kids are" -- how about some "you have been doom scrolling for 20 minutes, do you know what your kids are doing on their device" ad's! It would go a long way in pointing out where the real responsibility lies.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#258

Post by ubercore »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #253
ubercore wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me think of the DuPont settlement with Rhode Island: https://www.law.com/article/almID/900005544259/ As a result, Rhode Island has some great followup and public health programs. It wasn't that much money to DuPont, but it did real good in Rhode Island, and I believe DuPont changed their legal tactics afterwards.

Maybe so but DuPont continues to pollute the world even today. I'm happy this fine happened. I hope it gets enforced, though in the current political climate I too have severe doubts it will be. Even so though, and even if this lawsuit is followed by many others in many jurisdictions that are all equally successful- the dream- the people behind these decisions still leave without a hitch. As long as sociopaths can si…

My point was more about the positive outcomes from these kinds of fines, rather than about _forcing_ corporate behavior change. If corporations are going to act like psychopaths, let's at least make them pay a tax for it with fines like this.

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#259

Post by duskdozer »

bs38 wrote: post #251
tmp10423288442 wrote: post #109

A lot of people on this story are making the usual snarky remarks that, oh, this is just a slap on the wrist—some trivial proportion of Meta’s global revenue. And that is true, but unlike the EU, for example, New Mexico is a tiny jurisdiction. It only has a little bit more than 2 million people. So actually, a fine—or a judgment—of $942 million that applies just to New Mexico is enormous. If you look at Meta’s revenu…

I feel the platforms just arent able to handle serious problems at these scales. Unlike banks, telcos, power grid operating at similar scales, the regulations literally took hundreds of years to develop after all kinds of fiascos. Its a lesson in scaling is not magic. Problems will scale too.

Then break them up or shut them down. They can't just continue to knowingly and intentionally induce addiction and engagement for profit and then shrug their shoulders and say "we're too big, it's too hard to stop."

Re: New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

#260

Post by panta »

inigyou wrote: post #138
rrgok wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the logic. If I got 1000 from a mentally challenged adult by manipulating them, do I get 200 in fine or should all 1000 get confiscated from me?

How much money did Meta get from mentally challenged adults in New Mexico?

I guess the question could be: "how much Meta did by directly or indirectly damaging people mental health in New Mexico?". Note that the damage could be more or less subtle: someone could have been affected in great measure and become, for instance, depressed, while someone else could have been only mildly affected and just become a doom scroller. Is there a level of reasonable damage that could be tolerated? In my personal view, no, there isn't, and in theory all the earnings deriving from that person should be confiscated (and only after that you can apply the sanction). Unfortunately this won't be practical, and the only remaining option would be to heavily regulate or ban platforms that are engineered on people psychological weaknesses, and when tolerated they should be taxed to the sky (like tobacco and alcohol, or even more)
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