Meta, good reminder to buy diversified funds and not whatever hot company. (-29% - 1 year)
Fidelity zero is compelling, in a retirement account.
Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
71–80 of 323 posts
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think the major issue is, people still have the option of those older forms of feeds, people just don't like them. New social media competitors (ie Tiktok) have won users by having even more powerful algorithms rather than other options.
How? The 2 feeds on my IG account: "posts" and "reels" show content of people that I do not follow.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#73This 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…
“Do you use personal / behavioral data / usage to shape the user experience and recommendations, creating a reinforcing loop?” Roughly that.
But isn't that just product design and Improvement?
I think you have to figure out when this is in service of the user's intentions or not, and that's where it gets tricky.
Apparently you can't trust users revealed preferences and have to use something else.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#74I do wonder about intent. Meta has spent 20 years paying its engineers and others vast amounts of money to Increase Engagement, and punishes those who fail to find ways to do so (over the past few years, by firing them). And it's worked! Engagement has increased greatly over the years, Meta survived the effective end of Old social media (you know, the stuff from your friends) and thrives in the new world of infinite content. Was the intent to _addict_ people? It doesn't have to be, to create a system people have become addicted to. Even if the harm is not intended, does that mean it cannot be regulated? Surely not! Let's ban infinite scroll for a start. The question of whether to punish Meta is quite separate from the question of how to reduce the harms of its products.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#75This 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…
NAL, but looks like they're alleging something like negligence & deception. Addictiveness is just the mechanism of harm, so doesn't require a strict general case: just actual harm and the prior knowledge thereof.
So like the general argument is "company X was causing material harm, knew they were causing harm, and actively decided to continue causing harm while covering it up."
It'd be similar to suing someone who sold a dangerous toy under the label "safe for all ages". The lawyers don't need to ban specific features (sharp edges, fast motors, etc.). They just have to argue the way it's put together harms kids, the company knew about it, and they kept lying about it anyway.
The remediations could therefore be case-specific. They don't need to ban infinite scroll in general, just ban Meta from applying it to their products, since it's known to be harmful in that context.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#76What's the gist of this case? Making social media addictive isn't a felony AFAIK. Big Tobacco has never been convicted of it either.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#77This 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…
It took decades to clearly define gambling enough to regulate it as we do now. Note that pinball was banned in major cities for decades because it was too similar to gambling devices.
And even with those definitions things weren't very clear. I used to work for financial traders here in Chicago. Every year there would be an unofficial snow futures market. It was a fancy way for all the traders and clerks to gamble on monthly snowfall at O'Hare.
But to my delight, the CME eventually created an actual, legal weather derivative for snow. What made one gambling and the other not? What makes any given bet a legitimate financial trade versus pure gambling? Let me know if you figure it out.
My point being that not having a clear definition won't stop us from grappling with the harms. Nor should it. Figuring out what new things really mean is always a messy process.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Do you use personal / behavioral data / usage to shape the user experience and recommendations, creating a reinforcing loop?” Roughly that.
Okay but suppose you have an AI chatbot which takes in context from previous chats on what your interests are. So people just keep talking with the chatbot more and more as it gains more context. This would meet the criteria. It's not necessarily addictive though because you can stop talking with the chatbot at any time. Maybe it's something to do with the text-based interface vs short form video. Short form video is…
> Okay but suppose you have an AI chatbot which takes in context from previous chats on what your interests are. So people just keep talking with the chatbot more and more as it gains more context. This would meet the criteria. It's not necessarily addictive though because you can stop talking with the chatbot at any time.
You can stop scrolling instagram "at any time", too.
Chatbots are actually a pretty poor but very relevant choice of example: they are already tuned with RLHF to be engaging and addictive to talk to. That's a huge reason why LLM psychosis is a thing, and it's a big reason why some people like using chatbots so much. They're designed to be addictive, just like facebook/instagram/tiktok are.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most products don't spy on you?
According to "Build things that last" author, 90% of the businesses evaluated are "customer first", meaning business listen to the customer and improve their produce based on that feedback.
voluntary feedback - things like "I wish the customer service was faster" - is not the same thing as measuring engagement time down to the millisecond and using that data to feed a presentation loop.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can just be explicit. We already do this with controlled substances, maintain a defined regulatory schedule, and give a designated regulatory body a legally prescribed process for adding to it, removing them, or changing their classification.
But a substance is not a specific product or a corporation. Maybe you could call "infinite scroll" the substance, but then you're playing whack-a-mole with whatever new interface they cook up. But then we end up with a long list of "disallowed" software features which might not be inherently addictive
This, with a decent regulatory agency, wouldn't be that difficult to manage. We really could just say "infinite scrolling" and then add more things to the list as needed. We do it with firearms, medicines, drugs, vehicle parts, and about a million other things.