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Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

reuters.com

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Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#161

Post by groundzeros2015 »

tedggh wrote: post #121
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we going to pretend that internet did not expose inappropriate content to children prior to Facebook?

There were definitely horrible places on the internet pre Facebook that were popular among kids like Rotten and Ogrish. But there was not a trillion dollar company investing billions of dollars and hundreds of scientists on research to attract and hook kids to their platform. This is not remotely comparable.

Doesn’t Facebook invest a significant part to protect their brand by limiting and censoring content?

Last I checked Facebook didn’t have Rotten content on it.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#163

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

left-struck wrote: post #136
jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just ban all non government approved speech, less we hear something that might hurt our feelings or make us engage in wrongthink.

It’s interesting that you bring up wrongthink. Banning free speech would be something like out of 1984, but what we have is far more subtle and insidious. A system that shows you only what it wants you to see, while tricking you into thinking you’re seeing what you want to see. Anyway, you can support free speech while hating this algorithm crap at the same time.

The system isn't tricking anyone, if an individual is not aware of how social media algorithms work that is due to willful ignorance (in the case of children that falls on the parents willful ignorance).

I do personally believe banning the algorithms begins to fall into the realm of free speech regulation. I can hate the algorithm crap without thinking the government should regulate the internet.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#164

Post by runarberg »

jjulius wrote: post #144
shepardrtc wrote: post #106

Meta has warped society to think that life is meaningless without affirmation. No amount of money can fix that or punish them. I think that sharing things can be wonderful, but monetizing that or adding Like counts to gamify it is very damaging to people. This idea that everyone should know better and take a ideological stand against some dumb app is ridiculous. Life can be hard at times, and these apps manipulated t…

>Meta has warped society to think that life is meaningless without affirmation. No, Meta just amplified it to the nth degree. Humanity has always put an outsized emphases on such affirmation, whether it's reputation, status, belonging, approval, prestige, attractiveness, respectability, yadda yadda yadda. Consumer culture and mass media were already firmly entrenched and doing a damn good job of turning those into vi…

This is the “If I wouldn’t have done it, somebody else would have”. And I personally find it to be a very lame excuse.

Villains have agency, and deserve to get the blame for their malicious actions.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#165

Post by aeve890 »

snackbroken wrote: post #98
Barbing wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>[irreparably damaging] children's minds I’d love for someone to get me into Mark Zuckerberg’s head on why he should keep doing what he’s doing.

>They "trust me" >Dumb fucks. Is an attitude he never grew out of.

>Is an attitude he never grew out of

Why would he do that? Billions of users prove him right. I wouldn't change my views either if I'm right. It's society's fault for being dumb fucks. This creep it's just exploiting that.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#166

Post by tsunamifury »

hliyan wrote: post #115
hugodan wrote: post #16

still feels like they got away easy for raping children's minds "Meta has long argued it could not have misled consumers about whether its services were addictive because "social media addiction" is not a recognized psychiatric condition." that's a nice escape hatch, considering that they are using all the tricks in the book (from online gambling, etc) and then some

Agreed. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that ad-hoc legal action and regulations are just stop gap measures in a losing battle, and that any remedy needs to be more foundational. For example: mandate that every job description in any private corporation include a list of ethics responsibilities, and that employees may challenge management directives that in their view breach those responsibilities, and if m…

Laws don’t stop people from doing what they want to do.

It is incredibly naive to believe so

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#167

Post by groundzeros2015 »

TSiege wrote: post #120
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we going to pretend that internet did not expose inappropriate content to children prior to Facebook?

The case isn't whether or not this happens, it's whether or not the Facebook knew the about the harms and made decisions that were negligent at best or deliberate at worst

That’s not what the comment I’m replying to says.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#168

Post by zer00eyz »

Hey meta, watch my kids for me.

I raised my kids with devices. They hate social media for the most part, and participate in it begrudgingly.

All meta had to do to avoid this was run the occasional "you have been doom scrolling for 20 minutes, do you know what your kid is doing on social media" ad's and the problem would have been solved (for them). But parents would have to own their own social media addiction issues - Im reminded again of the old "I learned it by watching you" ad...

The earlier papers on the risk here date back to 2012. You can go all the way back to myspace and the Megan Meier case (2006) to know how things were going to turn out for kids, online, unattended.

Great meta pays the fine.

In 20 years this crop of kids will, as an outcome of therapy, go "no contact" with their parents, who refuse to own up to doing a bad job raising them with unfettered access to social media.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#169

Post by xxr »

api wrote: post #45
hugodan wrote: post #16

still feels like they got away easy for raping children's minds "Meta has long argued it could not have misled consumers about whether its services were addictive because "social media addiction" is not a recognized psychiatric condition." that's a nice escape hatch, considering that they are using all the tricks in the book (from online gambling, etc) and then some

The smoking gun here is that they actually hired psychologists and experts in creating addictive stuff from e.g. the gambling industry. It clearly shows that their intent was "make this as addictive as possible." Then they ignored tons and tons of warning signs that this was having a negative effect especially on children and the elderly. Now I think they need to hit YouTube, TikTok, and addiction-engineered loot box…

>when you do it on a phone the portability and something about the form factor and touch interface seems to supercharge it

I recall reading something a while back (maybe even by someone at Rovio) that the simple finger motions across the small screen that were then novel to Angry Birds and the other early mobile touch games had some unique effect on the brain that other interfaces don't. The game mechanics are similar to those in Flash/Shockwave games going back to the 90s, but they become a lot more compelling on a small touchscreen compared to a mouse.

Re: Meta reaches $17B settlement over social media harms to children

#170

Post by yodsanklai »

aplummer wrote: post #155

I can’t wait for the equal coal reckoning. What is it 20k direct deaths a year? 2 million early deaths? The Great Barrier Reef 100% dead after this El Niño. A deliberate cover up of the science? In a top 10 harmful corporation list meta wouldn’t make my cut.

My pet peeves are junk food corporations. Companies like Mac Donald's or Coca Cola have been extremely damaging in terms of public health. And the level of marketing they use to feed people (especially kids) their poison is insane. I know it's pretty unpopular as it can be seen by some as an attack on US culture, but definitely more damaging than Meta in my opinion.
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