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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

#331

Post by freejazz »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #17
_ink_ wrote: post #9

Pay 25% from your 2025 profit for harming children since at least 2019 and be able to continue doing so. Sounds like a loss for society and a win for Meta.

I dunno, I kinda feel they have to pay the price for governments not having applicable regulations on this kinda stuff. It's not reasonable to expect them to put up rules their competition don't have to abide by, and if the government has 0 rules regarding social media, what should they do? They're not solely responsible for phone addiction but none of their competitors get sued the same...

So what should the law be? Don't be negligent? Don't be reckless? It already functions that way. Do we need to have statutes expressly dictating what people are allowed to do?

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

#332

Post by autoexec »

alistairSH wrote: post #200
aeve890 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

creep I think the word you're looking for is "sociopath."

It's amazing that we keeping letting sociopaths like him hurt whoever they want instead of locking them up the moment we identify them.

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

#333

Post by freejazz »

slopinthebag wrote: post #227
zbentley wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't make that argument. I responded to the statement: > You think the state should restrict what adults do on their phones? The state already does that.

You know what point I was making, why are you being pedantic? What are you bringing to this conversation?

> You know what point I was making

Try being as generous as you demand of others

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

#335

Post by alastairr »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #157
NalNezumi wrote: post #123

>Meta will impose daily usage limits and restrict nighttime usage by children who use Facebook and Instagram, and enhance measures to prevent children from accessing age-restricted content So meta won. The only thing I'm asking for is better control over my social media. Let me remove infinite scroll on Instagram and don't show me things I have explicitly followed on Facebook. And do this setting by default and a cig…

As someone who doesn't use social media please explain. Is it not possible for people to just delete the apps and stop using them? Is the addiction so strong at this point that people don't have the willpower to stop?

You describe the apps as though they are recreational drugs with no other purpose but to produce endorphins. These 'apps' have a high level of utility - which is, I imagine, why most start to use them in the first place.

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

#336

Post by ben_w »

cryptonym wrote: post #286
ben_w wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you dumb down market cap to earnings? The point is "Market cap is BS". > Anyway, 6K for harming children at that scale remains ridiculous. One person managing to harm children at this scale would likely get a penalty much smaller than $16 bn. Of course even "20-life" is a penalty much smaller than $16 bn, given the average American's lifetime earnings are around the $3m level, i.e. it would take 5000 mean…

Sure, sure. Put Zuck in jail and let's see if it's much smaller than $16 bn.

Would if I could, but I think you're missing my point somewhat.

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

#337

Post by alightsoul »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #317
alightsoul wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries there is no alternative. News, events and many businesses only publish on social media

Yeah, I currently live in one of those countries where businesses only post on facebook. I do fine without it. If I need something I google it and it shows up on google maps. I only see what I want to see instead of being inundated with unwanted ads from irrelevant businesses.

How do you get news and events? I mean yeah I can just ignore businesses

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

#338

Post by jleehn »

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…

> It clearly shows that their intent was "make this as addictive as possible."

Isn't engagement the holy grail of any startup though? What was wrong (from a legal standpoint) about what Meta did here? I hate social media as much as the next guy just curious as to the grounds on which they were brought to justice. I have seen a couple allusions to their deliberately hiding the harmful effects of their products but have yet to see any specifics.

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

#339

Post by triceratops »

ben_w wrote: post #326
triceratops wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta Platforms Inc. can create shares out of thin air. Diluting existing shareholders by 10% would send a much stronger message than whatever's happening now.

The message being "screw the rules, I have money". The shareholders already can't remove Zuckerberg, he has 57% of voting control.

It amounts to taking 10% of his wealth too, through dilution.

And by diluting all shareholders it depresses the price in the future.

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

#340

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

butlike wrote: post #328
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "America defaults to free. That's very unsettling for those that an authoritarian approach." The least insane general position is to always ask "Free for who to do what?" Freedom for you to try cocaine if you want? Ok, let's consider it, but let's have a serious discussion about public health and safety first because there are predictable public consequences to broader society. Freedom for someone to put cocaine in…

Why is cocaine in food bad but refined sugar is fine?

Ignoring societal conversations about the relative merits of sugar vs cocaine, you appear to have skipped/missed/ignored/misunderstood some very important words in my comment, and it has caused you to believe that I said something I did not say.

I did not say "putting cocaine in food" is bad.

I said "putting cocaine in your food without telling you" is bad.

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