Meta employees reading this: whether you work in Reality Labs, ads, operations, ML compiler, LLMs, marketing, whatever. You're all complicit in the harm. Remember that.
Even those working on React? Asking for a friend
Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
181–190 of 323 posts
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#182This 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.
Mix this with "...of User-Generated Multimedia Content", and you might get closer.
This excludes music platforms, for example (although, Band Camp and Soundcloud might have some issues with that, admittedly).
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#183Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#184Earlier 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…
> I want those things. I make use of them. Can you opt out of those features? If not, how do you know you want those things or if you are just being manipulated into using them?
> Can you opt out of those features?
Kind of, by using a different software.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a big difference between a completely optional "recommendations" area and a loop. If the recommended stuff happens automatically without you having to look for it, then it's a loop.
So Spotify is a loop (it automatically plays the next recommended song)
True. I feel like "primary attention" should be a part of it too.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#186Earlier 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…
Cigarette packages have disgusting photos of carcenogenic lung autopsies to discourage you from smoking them, so Facebook and TikTok etc should have similar disgusting photos and vidoes of what happens to you if you use their product, that you have to watch every day before using it. Sleep-deprived teenager autopsy: a teenager with enormous purple eye bags, phone surgically fused to their hand, lying face-down on a s…
Images on cigarette packages are of real patient and real impact and still smokers ignore it. A fake, stylized hypothetical image will have much lower impact.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's what most people want though. Most people are fine getting entertained and addicted. Even in China they allow them to watch 100 episodes of one minute micro dramas created by an A.I per day. People hate boredom more than they hate becoming a zombie.
I am pretty sure most people do not want to become zombies. But entertainment is not the same as intentionally creating addictive mechanisms, the lines are blurry though.
> I am pretty sure most people do not want to become zombies
Well yeah they hate to think about themselves that way, but that's the life they choose. Now - would they like that choice to be taken away from that or substinatially reduced? Would they like to live without Netflix, Meta, Youtube, porn, junk food etc etc - or have these products completely transformed ? Seems like they wouldn't.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#188This 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…
The best idea ive seen is if you decide what a user sees in an algorithm way (beyond “natural” ones like chronological) you are liable for the content - you are no longer a common carrier and can be sued for damages. That should be step 1.
> beyond “natural” ones like chronological
So a mail s/w that pushes up mail that it deems important?
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I cut my leg off with a chainsaw, am I addicted to the chainsaw? If you repeatedly willingly do so despite the harm, then yes.
But you still did it. If I sunbathe every day without sun cream, whom do we regulate? Assuming people have no ability to choose.
For sunbathing in particular, do what Australia does:
- large scale public health campaigns on dangers of skin cancer. With a catchy song and slogan ("slip, slop, slap... Slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, slap on a hat")
- schools make it compulsory for kids to have hats in summer
- regulate tanning salons, promote fake tans in preference to sunbeds
- doctors check people for skin cancers during regular checkups
And over just a few years, being very brown quickly gets associated with being reckless and unhealthy.
In other words, regulate and educate
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Do you use personal / behavioral data / usage to shape the user experience and recommendations, creating a reinforcing loop?” Roughly that.
I think a better take is: > Do you use personal / behavioral data / usage to shape the user experience and recommendations? You do not get covered by Section 230. If they get to exercise editorial powers, then it doesn't make sense for them to be protected from liability for choosing what to publish. If they just give you a giant firehose, then they're not doing anything editorially and they should not have any liabi…
This - one hundred times this.
No matter what the “algorithm” is, at some point it’s a choice of what to put in front of the user - a publishing choice.
Unless the rules are solely determined by myself and deterministic (no selection or choice on the platform end) then they are publishers.
And liable.