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Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

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Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#12
post #5

> Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. Oh I'm sure this…

Things are in fact starting to change, though I wish they happened sooner. The FTC is currently looking to hire child psychologists in an effort to further investigate this kind of claim.

You don't need 'experts' to realize that social media is bad for young people. They are just going to suggest regulating content. I can see it now ... young girls cannot see content showcasing skinny or 'classically beautiful' women, because it gives them a skewed perspective of 'beauty' that may lead to eating disorders. The FTC pats themselves on the back, job well done, and nothing changes. Regulating the internet isn't going to change anything, the genie is out of the bottle. Change starts at home and at school. Put wifi and cell jamming technology in public schools. How many ads are kids shown on public school property? Kids are spending 5 hrs a day on social media. That is insanity. That time needs to be replaced doing productive things; reading books, playing sports, building things.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#16
post #5

> Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. Oh I'm sure this…

I'm not as pessimistic as you. There is more and more evidence (https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/13-explanations-mental-...) that social media companies have essentially engineered a harmful addictive drug - at some point they will be held accountable. I do think we are going through the tobacco company phase, where the CEO's will stand before Congress and solemnly state they think their product is not harmful, and even if it is, it is a matter of "freedom" or something.

"Just put down the phone" is this generation's Nancy Reagan "Just say no" moment. It was a joke amongst my young peers back in the day. But the real war on drugs, the War on Tobacco, has been incredibly effective - smoking used to be ubiquitous in the US, now it is just about gone. Social media, with attention-engineered timelines, is tobacco.

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#17
post #9

To the product managers, strategists, and designers at Meta: you know, you could just decide NOT to create harmful, exploitative applications.

Can they? Or is the science so vague and under researched that they don't actually have a way to know if the next feature harms or helps?

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#18
post #3

> Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. I hope the money…

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Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#19
post #5

> Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. Oh I'm sure this…

> young adults/teens will drone on about "mental health" because its fashionable (if social media is giving you an eating disorder or making you anxious, how about putting down the phone?)

To be fair, for many young adults and teens the parents are demanding the kids have their phones so that the parents can track their location and other surveillance shit.

Additionally, we know for a fact that these social media companies are hiring tams of people with full doctorate degrees in keeping you online and responding. How is a 13 year old's underdeveloped brain supposed to compete with that when most adults can't even do it?

Re: Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

#20
post #3

> Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. I hope the money…

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