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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

#121
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is hard to argue that you can't learn anything or socialize on your phone.

This is not what needs to be argued. What needs to be argued is that the form of socializing and learning that can only can come through phones/tablets is worth the negative aspects. As someone who grew up just before smartphones became a thing, I kinda also managed using books and shit.

no, the claim was that phones and tablets make it easier to learn and socialize, not that you can't without them.

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

#122
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…

> "here's this opportunity to make you all a ton of money, but we're placing our personal ethics above doing this, so we're not". He'd get sued for breach of fiduciary duty.

having a social media company that's a B-corp would be a nice world.

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

#123

Nowhere else on the internet will you find so many people defending such obviously bad practices. With such blatantly obvious biases, too.

Well... There's a lot of people defending an active genocidal land grab right now, but I take your point. And guess what - Meta is aggressively supporting that too.

Not saying this to start a flame thing, just advocating a sense of perspective for the sake of 8,000 murdered children, their mothers, and our shared humanity.

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

#124

The dilemma parents are grappling with is this: tablets and smartphones, while beneficial for children's learning and socializing, also expose them to constant marketing and propaganda, even within the confines of their bedrooms, as they attempt to connect with peers or complete tasks. Previously, children's exposure to marketing and propaganda was mostly confined to their entertainment hours, during which they watch…

> while beneficial for children's learning and socializing citation needed? or are we just assuming because, well, there's education and social information and apps available on them?

education is debatable, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that social life isnt degraded without a phone. High schoolers won't be invited to things if they don't have access to a smartphone.

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

#125
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not what needs to be argued. What needs to be argued is that the form of socializing and learning that can only can come through phones/tablets is worth the negative aspects. As someone who grew up just before smartphones became a thing, I kinda also managed using books and shit.

no, the claim was that phones and tablets make it easier to learn and socialize, not that you can't without them.

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

#126
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

How does that work for people who have never been able to work (i.e. chilren in bad households and people with disabilities from birth/young age)? They can't pay for membership, so why would a private insurance company insure them for free? What if all insurance companies happen to not accept them as customers?

> 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

How do you guarantee that no bad choices are propped up without letting individuals die due to missing coverage?

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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

#129

The dilemma parents are grappling with is this: tablets and smartphones, while beneficial for children's learning and socializing, also expose them to constant marketing and propaganda, even within the confines of their bedrooms, as they attempt to connect with peers or complete tasks. Previously, children's exposure to marketing and propaganda was mostly confined to their entertainment hours, during which they watch…

> The dilemma parents are grappling with is this: tablets and smartphones, while beneficial for children's learning and socializing

Recent reports from teachers indicate that many children are intellectually behind their peers. A concerning trend is that these children struggle to hold conversations, a problem attributed to their parents phone/social networks addiction. Rather than engaging and raising their children through conversation and interaction, these parents often resort to pacifying them with tablets or phones.

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

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is not, cannot be, and shouldn’t be math. Yes, it’s all “arbitrary”. Unhealthy impulse-items at the checkout are going to be regarded as quite unethical, by a lot of people, for really obvious reasons. The approaches you’re trying to use to “disprove” that isn’t how any of this works.

Many things are bad. Some are worse than others. Ones that are intentionally manipulative, as the impulse-buy aisle is, and greedily pushing high-margin products that are also unhealthy? Yeah, that’s an extremely shitty thing to do, no matter how common. The motivation is 100% greed, not delivering a better experience (as simply making candy and soda available in some normal aisle might). And in the Year of Our Lord 2023, every person choosing to create impulse-buy areas knows exactly what they’re doing and the effects it has.

The Starbucks bottles in the checkout aisle are, similarly, bad. The Starbucks that you have to walk over to, look at the menu with calories printed right next to each item while you choose what to buy, then stand in a second line, check out again, then wait at to get the drink, isn’t bad in the same ways. It might be bad in different ways, and to a different degree! But it’s not the same, and you’re not going to be able to construct some proof that requires I condemn those equally or else condemn neither, because that’s nonsense both in the specific terms of what we’re writing about, and also because it’s not a useful way to analyze or discuss these sorts of things in general.

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