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Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

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Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#111

Post by lotsofpulp »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #101
lotsofpulp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define exactly what is unethical about displaying candy in the checkout line? Should nothing be there? Only healthy vegetables? Is it unethical to sell things with added sugar in the first place? Or a certain amount of sugar per volume period?

Using people as a means to an end qualifies here and is generally considered unethical.

I don't understand what "using people as a means to an end" means here. Sounds like selling something to people to earn money, but that would describe all business.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#112

Post by [deleted] »

ericra wrote: post #91

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that Meta (and most other big tech companies) have long been in the business of hiring a large number of recent social science Ph.D. graduates from top U.S. universities. People with a lot of knowledge of statistics and some domain-specific knowledge in their fields that could possibly be applicable to their job. The whole purpose of doing this is to create te…

[deleted]

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#113

Post by hotnfresh »

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #11
avalys wrote: post #4

Do grocery stores “capitalize on vulnerability” when they place name-brand products at eye level? Do carmakers “capitalize on vulnerability” when they advertise pickup trucks as big tough vehicles for tough, outdoorsy men? Do providers of health insurance for pets “capitalize on vulnerability” when they say you need to buy their product if you love your pet? At some point people need to be responsible for their own d…

> At some point people need to be responsible for their own decisions. We already do that. When they turn 18, we expect people to be responsible for their own decisions.

One normal human with 24 hours in a day losing 45ish hours a week to pull median income and another 8ish per day to sleep versus multibillion dollar companies hiring behavioral psychologists and marketing experts with collectively many thousands of hours per day spent finding ways to trick people—and their efforts demonstrably work.

The advertising industry’s a rabid dog the size of Godzilla and should be put down, whether it’s targeting kids or adults.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#114

Post by jstarfish »

superkuh wrote: post #89
dotandgtfo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, it's just such an absurd position I wanted to make sure. So essentially you're arguing about semantics?

Nope. It's important to use the right word in this case for 2 reasons. First is the trivial semantic one you've perceived; addiction has a definition and things like physiological withdrawl symptoms don't exist for behavioral disorders. They aren't addictions. The second, more important, is that even if we rename it properly to "internet disorder" there's still not significant evidence for making it a behavioral diso…

> This is backed up by the lack of inclusion in the DSMV updates and ICD10 updates or 11 just released. People have certainly tried to have these things included: their income depended upon it. But the science rejected it.

It's not in the Bible either. So clearly this isn't a real problem.

Why are we trusting acceptance by a community of gatekeeping charlatans as the final say on whether or not a problem exists? Meta hires psychologists to engineer these very exploitative patterns they deny the existence of. They can't put that in the DSM-V. People would take notice that they're a rehab clinic in the business of selling heroin.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#115

Post by zooq_ai »

Timon3 wrote: post #70
zooq_ai wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government has no obligation for Food, Shelter and Healthcare. They are their to basically provide security, insurance against calamities and proper enforcement of laws based on constitution.

I strongly disagree. There are many groups in our society who shouldn't have to rely on charity for survival, like the disabled, the elderly and children. Letting those without the means to provide for themselves die if they're unlucky, even though our economy can support them, is a terrible thing and shouldn't be an acceptable point of view.

That's exactly where the "Insurance" part comes in.

Any act of "god" where pure bad luck is involved, some central entity should absolutely take care of them.

However, Government should also not be in the business of prepping bad choices -- diet, family formation, bad lifestyle. Any society that is given unconditional support will degenerate

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#117

Post by lotsofpulp »

hotnfresh wrote: post #108
lotsofpulp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define exactly what is unethical about displaying candy in the checkout line? Should nothing be there? Only healthy vegetables? Is it unethical to sell things with added sugar in the first place? Or a certain amount of sugar per volume period?

If one course of action that does not even add more options of products to buy , just pushes them in a different way, contributes to worse health outcomes across a population, and you know it’s doing so, yes, that’s super unethical.

Targets have a Starbucks selling 10x as much dissolved sugar 25 feet away from checkout aisles. Are those unethical? How about in a separate Starbucks building, but on a pad site in front of the store with a drive thru?

Seems like an arbitrary place to draw the unethical/ethical line.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#118

Post by megaman821 »

GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #105
NickC25 wrote: post #3

Should come as no surprise, honestly. Above all else since turning public, Meta is in the business of making money. It's not illegal to target user's vulnerabilities in order to get the user to spend more time or money on their platform. It's unethical as hell, but it's business 101 - the shareholders would revolt if Zuck came out and said "here's this opportunity to make you all a ton of money, but we're placing our…

Just as putting actual cocaine in Coca-cola at first also optimized shareholder value. And it was perfectly legal, and not really even considered unethical - heck, it boosted energy, the user gets a beneficial service! Of course, we know how that worked out. What is galling is that Meta absolutely knows it is creating a bunch of cocaine addicted children.

Or Coca-cola was made using the coca leaf and the kola nut for flavor and energy reasons. The coca leaf has trace amounts of cocaine in it but is not like they were mixing cocaine powder into their drinks. They still use the coca leaf today but with the cocaine part bred out.

Bringing up wrong historic points about "evil capitalists" doesn't really help your case against Meta.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#119

Post by mandmandam »

Arson9416 wrote: post #79
ff317 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, adults are worth protecting as well. A lot of marketing and even design intent for adult products is also extremely misleading and intentionally designed to prey on our collective fallibility. In that sense, it's at the very least unethical, and maybe should be illegal. We have some laws about truth-in-advertising, but they're very weak in a lot of scenarios.

What are you thinking about specifically? Some examples might help others see your perspective better.

Wow, really? Name anything heavily advertised on corporate media.

Insurance, defense contractors, pharmaceuticals, home security systems, cars, body spray, McDonalds, Coke, politicians; it's all fear, status, greed. It's explicitly taking advantage of our vulnerabilities with every combination of precision and blunt force, to sell pointless, stupid, toxic shit. Put on your They Live sunglasses. The planet is burning.

Let's advertise carrots on TV. Let's advertise public transport, and public healthcare. Let's advertise free fucking college.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#120

Post by Teever »

Manuel_D wrote: post #97
Teever wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada has forbidden the sale of cigarettes in grocery stores, and they've banned the display of any advertising for them in the stores that are still allowed to sell them.

Sure, because cigarettes have clear and unambiguous harms to health. What makes advertising, I dunno, a remote controlled plane to a kid so much more unethical than advertising it to an adult?

I think we're in agreement that we should regulate advertising for things that are harmful for children.
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