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Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

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Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#11

Post by shaftway »

I feel like there are some key differences between the companies though.

The second one outlined for Meta is:

> Heavily-redacted undated internal document discussing “School Blasts” as a strategy for gaining more high school users (mass notifications sent during the school day).

This sounds a lot like Meta being intentionally disruptive.

The first one outlined for YouTube is:

> Slidedeck on the role that YouTube’s autoplay feature plays in “Tech Addiction” that concludes “Verdict: Autoplay could be potentially disrupting sleep patterns. Disabling or limiting Autoplay during the night could result in sleep savings.”

This sounds like YouTube proactively looking for solutions to a problem. And later on for YouTube:

> Discussing efforts to improve digital well-being, particularly among youth. Identified three concern areas impacting users 13-24 disproportionately: habitual heavy use, late night use, and unintentional use.

This sounds like YouTube taking actual steps to improve the situation.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#12

Post by hansvm »

Shamar wrote: post #2

The documents provide smoking-gun evidence that Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok all purposefully designed their social media products to addict children and teens with no regard for known harms to their wellbeing, and how that mass youth addiction was core to the companies’ business models. The documents contain internal discussions among company employees, presentations from internal meetings, expert testimony, and e…

How did that work mechanically though? At YT we were banned from doing basically anything with pre-18yo data, even if we only suspected they might possibly not be an adult -- no A/B tests, no ML, no ad targeting, no nada. Did leadership design a system where those sorts of things would happen anyway? Were there just enough rogue teams to cause problems?

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#13

Post by jacquesm »

All of these guys should end up behind bars. To purposefully prey on vulnerable kids like this, it is absolutely disgusting. And here I am as a parent trying to stem the floodgates against people wielding billions of $ and armies of programmers and psychologists to harm my kids. Fuck them. And if you work for them then...

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#14

Post by jacquesm »

shaftway wrote: post #11

I feel like there are some key differences between the companies though. The second one outlined for Meta is: > Heavily-redacted undated internal document discussing “School Blasts” as a strategy for gaining more high school users (mass notifications sent during the school day). This sounds a lot like Meta being intentionally disruptive. The first one outlined for YouTube is: > Slidedeck on the role that YouTube’s au…

No, it sounds like youtube being fully aware of the consequences of their offering but couched in terms that allows them to pretend they were not. 'could' indeed.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#15

Post by mikkupikku »

sagacity wrote: post #6

It's good to see that many countries are working on lesiglation to protect children and teens against this, since the companies clearly aren't trying.

American tech corps act like cigarette companies but we're still at the point where banning them for kids is considered weird, fringe and even dangerous. Crazy.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#16

Post by ares623 »

shaftway wrote: post #11

I feel like there are some key differences between the companies though. The second one outlined for Meta is: > Heavily-redacted undated internal document discussing “School Blasts” as a strategy for gaining more high school users (mass notifications sent during the school day). This sounds a lot like Meta being intentionally disruptive. The first one outlined for YouTube is: > Slidedeck on the role that YouTube’s au…

Are they taking actual steps though? Or was that letting a team do the work to make them feel better but never actually implementing it.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#17

Post by jacquesm »

hansvm wrote: post #12
Shamar wrote: post #2

The documents provide smoking-gun evidence that Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok all purposefully designed their social media products to addict children and teens with no regard for known harms to their wellbeing, and how that mass youth addiction was core to the companies’ business models. The documents contain internal discussions among company employees, presentations from internal meetings, expert testimony, and e…

How did that work mechanically though? At YT we were banned from doing basically anything with pre-18yo data, even if we only suspected they might possibly not be an adult -- no A/B tests, no ML, no ad targeting, no nada. Did leadership design a system where those sorts of things would happen anyway? Were there just enough rogue teams to cause problems?

Because the product is made to appeal to that particular demographic. The data doesn't really matter if you have that kind of reach.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#18

Post by iwontberude »

shaftway wrote: post #11

I feel like there are some key differences between the companies though. The second one outlined for Meta is: > Heavily-redacted undated internal document discussing “School Blasts” as a strategy for gaining more high school users (mass notifications sent during the school day). This sounds a lot like Meta being intentionally disruptive. The first one outlined for YouTube is: > Slidedeck on the role that YouTube’s au…

[flagged]

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#19

Post by micromacrofoot »

shaftway wrote: post #11

I feel like there are some key differences between the companies though. The second one outlined for Meta is: > Heavily-redacted undated internal document discussing “School Blasts” as a strategy for gaining more high school users (mass notifications sent during the school day). This sounds a lot like Meta being intentionally disruptive. The first one outlined for YouTube is: > Slidedeck on the role that YouTube’s au…

> This sounds like YouTube taking actual steps to improve the situation.

And yet here we are years later without change. So we've got proof that they knew this and have done nothing. Don't need to speculate at all.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#20

Post by nisegami »

shaftway wrote: post #11

I feel like there are some key differences between the companies though. The second one outlined for Meta is: > Heavily-redacted undated internal document discussing “School Blasts” as a strategy for gaining more high school users (mass notifications sent during the school day). This sounds a lot like Meta being intentionally disruptive. The first one outlined for YouTube is: > Slidedeck on the role that YouTube’s au…

Not realistic to reply to all your replies re:youtube, but they've absolutely added some features to mitigate bedtime use and at least for me they were opt-out rather than opt-in.
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