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(1) Did they know they were hurting users? (2) Can the harm be shown.
The big tobacco companies intentionally suppressed studies that showed harm, and promoted their product while knowing that. Facebook appears to have done the same.
I wager there is a foot gun component to this, in which Meta has tried to preemptively, either through gestures of goodwill or public reassurance or PR, institute various think tanks, work groups, and internal studies with an intent to alleviate the public's worry.
Those studies and workgroups actually could end up demonstrating that their products and algorithms and user interfaces, indeed, caused whatever this trial accuses them of doing. And if they didn't act according to what their internal data showed, I bet this is going to be the crux of the trial.
I do wonder what’s going to happen in the future to addictive social media algorithms. Feels like one of those things that’s so powerful, but skirts by because it doesn’t feel like it should be (like targeted advertising).
Can we just ban algorithms for content and go back to chronological feeds circa 2004 Facebook? Or maybe ban all content that the user isn't explicitly subscribed to. Those both have problems too, I'm sure.
One of the tricky things for me is feed aggregation for balancing subscriptions between people who post a lot and people who don't.
It also might be interesting if video recommendations were curated feeds by the creator.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> designed What?
"By the early 1960s, however, Philip Morris scientists had discovered that ammonia could also be used to increase the free nicotine in cigarette smoke, providing a more powerful nicotine kick than the milder low-pH tobaccos traditionally used in American-blend cigarettes." They referred to it as 'crack nicotine' internally. It was an entire, giant scandal. They made a movie about it. This product that kills the users…
At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the general case
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fundamentally different yet with practical outcomes that are close enough. Wildly impressive what we as a species achieved. The headline talks about parallels. A closer example is gambling if you are concerned with physical properties of a system. Light and sound.
No one is breaking into cars to pay for Facebook, but they absolutely are with regards to heroin.
This seems really messy. We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing, but how do you differentiate a non-addictive platform vs an addictive platform? (aside from this specific company... I mean in general). How do you "test" whether or not they're inherently addictive? At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the gene…
Except when it's called "prediction markets" and therefore it isn't.
This seems really messy. We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing, but how do you differentiate a non-addictive platform vs an addictive platform? (aside from this specific company... I mean in general). How do you "test" whether or not they're inherently addictive? At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the gene…
Roughly that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fundamentally different yet with practical outcomes that are close enough. Wildly impressive what we as a species achieved. The headline talks about parallels. A closer example is gambling if you are concerned with physical properties of a system. Light and sound.
No one is breaking into cars to pay for Facebook, but they absolutely are with regards to heroin.
This seems really messy. We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing, but how do you differentiate a non-addictive platform vs an addictive platform? (aside from this specific company... I mean in general). How do you "test" whether or not they're inherently addictive? At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the gene…
> We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing Except when it's called "prediction markets" and therefore it isn't.
Somehow the "you can afford to lose your entire stake, you aren't leveraged, this isn't a con you fell into" is missing.
(thats aside from "you aren't an inside trader with privileged knowledge because of family ties to the WH, are you")