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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

#311

Post by solid_fuel »

charcircuit wrote: post #310
solid_fuel wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The user chooses themselves what part of a product they engage with. It's like reporting a post would be considered voluntary feedback on the anti spam systems even if it's the case that every report is measured and fed back into the model for predicting reports. If the user cannot use e.g. instagram without generating engagement metrics, then it is not a voluntary metric. User reports - which are generated via a d…

Open the app. Liking videos. Swiping off of a video early. These are voluntary too.

I think I have made my point about the difference between voluntary and involuntary metrics quite clearly. If you aren’t going to meaningfully engage with it, we have nothing further to discuss.

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

#312

Post by charcircuit »

solid_fuel wrote: post #311
charcircuit wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open the app. Liking videos. Swiping off of a video early. These are voluntary too.

I think I have made my point about the difference between voluntary and involuntary metrics quite clearly. If you aren’t going to meaningfully engage with it, we have nothing further to discuss.

Same we can end it. I personally see reporting a video and liking the video as being the same. They are 2 different voluntary actions users can take. I personally see these taps and swipes by the user as deliberate actions they are making, but I guess you don't?

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

#313

Post by vasco »

c22 wrote: post #277
vasco wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing risk is a form of gambling. You're just betting on the "please don't" rather than the "please do". The point is always the same, you want to end up better off than others that didn't buy what you bought. If the oil futures purchase turns out to have been worthwhile because price went up due either to production going down or demand up, that doesn’t somehow create new oil. You just get to buy it cheaper than…

When I invest I don't really care if I end up better off than others . I'm just hoping to catch some slice of the ongoing economic growth so my at-rest wealth doesn't become devalued by inflation.

Words have meaning, my sentence didn't stop where you stopped reading. The key words you're missing come right after when you stopped quoting.

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

#314

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #297
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But that applies to having money at all. That can't be enough to call it gambling. It is, because there's no choice not to gamble. You have to make choices, and none of those choices are risk-free. The options are on a scale between low-risk negative-return and high-risk high-return. But the risk is never zero - not even in FDIC insured accounts - and there's an element of randomness involved in the outcomes. That's…

All you are saying is "there is unavoidable risk in the world". Yes, there is. Gambling is creating risks that don't need to be created, for their own sake. Some people like risk all by itself - gamblers.

There's a difference between unavoidable risk and imposed financial risk, much of which is caused by the financial industry itself.

Being killed by a meteorite is a statistical issue. Having your house stolen by a bank during a manufactured recession is a crime, and should be avoidable.

Yes, that was actually happening after 2008. For example:

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna40777392

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

#315

Post by HappMacDonald »

tzs wrote: post #278
mook wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's not at all how Section 230 works. There's a popular myth that it distinguishes between "publishers" (who make editorial decisions about what content is shown and how it is shown) and "platforms" that just host it with minimal interference, but that is in fact just a myth. However, I don't really see how Section 230 is even relevant here. What Section 230 protects them from is for being liable for what is in th…

Yet it remains relevant that "being liable for one's editorial decisions" is a good idea, and that differentiating between platforms which do and which do not exercise autonomy over how information gets prioritized and sorted may very well be relevant to this discussion.

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

#316

Post by c22 »

vasco wrote: post #313
c22 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I invest I don't really care if I end up better off than others . I'm just hoping to catch some slice of the ongoing economic growth so my at-rest wealth doesn't become devalued by inflation.

Words have meaning, my sentence didn't stop where you stopped reading. The key words you're missing come right after when you stopped quoting.

I'm sure what I bought does better than some others. I'm also sure some others have done better than me. Statistically speaking this has to be true of almost everyone. Probabilistically speaking I'm likely somewhere near the middle of the bell.

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

#317

Post by 2gay »

shaewest wrote: post #37
demibabs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, but the users can’t be trusted to stay away from something designed to addict them. Only real solution is regulation, although the how is still a big question mark.

I would ask, where is the line drawn between 'enjoyment and addiction.' Is it the harm provided? Then what do we count as harm, and where is the line. IE, There's no one stopping me from eating unhealthy, IE sugary foods, which are heavily addictive. I ride a motorbike, and I'd consider myself addicted to that, and it's got a high chance of harm, but we don't ban those. Ditto with gaming, social media, hobby XYZ. I p…

Maybe this freedom sounds reasonable at first. Pew Research says 36% of 13–17 year olds are on social media almost constantly [0]. This is not a problem that existed 20 years ago. The ease of access to highly addictive products is rotting the soul of society.

0: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/12/09/teens-social...

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

#318

Post by solid_fuel »

charcircuit wrote: post #312
solid_fuel wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I have made my point about the difference between voluntary and involuntary metrics quite clearly. If you aren’t going to meaningfully engage with it, we have nothing further to discuss.

Same we can end it. I personally see reporting a video and liking the video as being the same. They are 2 different voluntary actions users can take. I personally see these taps and swipes by the user as deliberate actions they are making, but I guess you don't?

I see a distinction between like/dislike buttons, which a user chooses to engage with, and things like instrumenting the time a video plays on screen before the user scrolls past. The scrolling is an interaction, but it does not constitute a voluntary choice to give feedback because you scroll regardless to see more content.

Measuring the amount of linger time on content is an incredibly powerful signal precisely because it is subconscious.

It’s the difference between giving someone a like/dislike button and wiring up a heart monitor to see what causes faster heart rate. One is voluntary - intentional, if that makes it more clear - the other is involuntary - just an artifact of using the app which can be measured but which is unintentional.

I don’t believe we should be measuring lizard brain responses and using them to serve up content. Let people make conscious choices instead.

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

#319

Post by RussianBot9580 »

hgomersall wrote: post #234
RussianBot9580 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@hgomersall: emerging from a lucky orifice is in fact the main thing in life if you think about it. After all, we are collectively a computer made of monkeys, and the function it is computing is natural selection. Kin selection is one aspect of it. Everything else - including money and innovation - is window dressing.

Sure, so should we, as society, reward it further by also providing more free money?

Well, society is welcome to try to stop them.

These appeals usually go like this: we should stop providing more free money to the people who are strong enough to go and take it. Individually we are weaker, so let's stop this collectively. But someone needs to lead the collective. And just like that - you have created another strongman who will just take what he can. In other words: Communism.

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

#320

Post by lxe »

intended wrote: post #209
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…

People at Meta knew it was bad, and brought it up to higher leadership. At some point choices were made, with full awareness of the tradeoffs, to move products in a specific direction. Absolutely none of this, the harms, the patterns, the tech, is unknown to people who work in trust and safety, content moderation, and policy. At various times, meta and other tech firms did try to hold the line, but they eventually su…

Yup and this is what discovery is looking for / has already found.
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