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Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

economist.com

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Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#111

Post by SwtCyber »

throwyawayyyy wrote: post #74

I 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…

The distinction between punishment and prevention seems important here. Meta's intent might matter when deciding liability or penalties, but if a design pattern is demonstrably harmful, "we only wanted more engagement" isn't much of an argument against regulating it

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#112

Post by 13hours »

mantas wrote: post #88
matrix87 wrote: post #25

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…

Let’s start with banning algorithmic personalized feeds. That seems to be the common determinator of the bad apples.

I find it very convenient for music discovery for example. Maybe start by making it opt in and give parents control over their children's feeds?

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#113

Post by [deleted] »

matrix87 wrote: post #25

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…

[deleted]

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#114

Post by SwtCyber »

lxe wrote: post #22

Ultimately, I think this is going to come down to proving exactly the extent of what Meta knew, and what they decided to do about it, and how that violated various laws. 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…

Yeah, the internal research could be far more damaging than the existence of the harmful effects themselves

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#115

Post by danielmarkbruce »

wpietri wrote: post #77
matrix87 wrote: post #25

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…

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…

It's actually somewhat easy... If you are creating financial exposure to an event with no underlying risk to it, and the point is exposure itself, you are gambling.

In your snow example, those guys were gambling on snow for fun. The formal weather derivative - most weather derivatives have parties (usually players in the energy market, sometimes agriculture) who have real underlying risk and aren't entering those contracts to create risk for it's own sake. It's quite hard to get a market off the ground when there is no underlying risk - people purely speculating generally don't generate enough volume to achieve liftoff. Look at Kalshi and the volume on most bets - it's tiny.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#116

Post by pants2 »

wpietri wrote: post #77
matrix87 wrote: post #25

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…

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…

It's certainly not well defined today; memecoins, prediction markets, sports betting, and more are all toeing the line of gambling.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#117

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

dotancohen wrote: post #103
Aurornis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would include everything from my Spotify recommending new music that I like to my Netflix showing me similar shows. I'm a responsible adult. I want those things. I make use of them. They make my life better when I'm trying to listen to some music while I work on something or when I have exactly 2 hours of TV watching time in a week and don't want to waste it finding a new show. I do not want regulations coming a…

> when I have exactly 2 hours of TV watching time in a week and don't want to waste it finding a new show. Please please somebody explain this to me. I see it often, but fail to understand it. The television is a tool for watching shows. The show is ostensibly the draw, and the television is the vehicle for watching it, no? So why do some people (lots of people actually) feel compelled to sit in front of the televisi…

GP is addicted and can’t see it.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#118

Post by petesergeant »

watwut wrote: post #97
matrix87 wrote: post #25

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…

Nit: Prediction markets are gambling and we dont regulate that.

Who is “we”? They’re absolutely regulated in most of the world. Smarkets has a UK and Irish gambling license.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#119

Post by josephg »

dotancohen wrote: post #103
Aurornis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would include everything from my Spotify recommending new music that I like to my Netflix showing me similar shows. I'm a responsible adult. I want those things. I make use of them. They make my life better when I'm trying to listen to some music while I work on something or when I have exactly 2 hours of TV watching time in a week and don't want to waste it finding a new show. I do not want regulations coming a…

> when I have exactly 2 hours of TV watching time in a week and don't want to waste it finding a new show. Please please somebody explain this to me. I see it often, but fail to understand it. The television is a tool for watching shows. The show is ostensibly the draw, and the television is the vehicle for watching it, no? So why do some people (lots of people actually) feel compelled to sit in front of the televisi…

Sometimes the desire isn't to watch some specific show. It is to have the experience of sitting on the couch and watching something good on tv. This is why people channel surf, or scroll through netflix's collection. You want to have the experience of watching something. The goal is to be stimulated, to cure your momentary boredom.

I have the same experience with youtube, reddit and HN. I don't really know what I expect to see when I open the HN front page. If I knew, I'd navigate to that site directly. But I know I'll see something on HN. Maybe something that catches my eye.

Netflix is just the same. "I'm in the mood to watch a documentary. Let's see what they've got."

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