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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"

#141

Post by shaftway »

probably_wrong wrote: post #76
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. The issue I take with statements like that is that they are saying one thing while doing the opposite. This document [1], for instance, shows that YouTube knew as early as April 2025 that infinite feeds of short form content can "displace valuable activities like time with friends or sleep", but that hasn't stopped them from aggressively pushing…

I think the reality for any product that has >7,000 employees working on it is that some people's job is to prioritize growth at all costs, some people's job is to prioritize the effects of on vulnerable people, and the vast majority of them have other jobs to be doing. This sounds appropriate to me; not everybody can be worried about mental health at all times, and somebody needs to focus on growth.

There are plenty of examples that the mental health people aren't being completely steamrolled. Parental controls allow you to block Shorts for your kids. That doesn't sound like a "growth at all costs" mindset.

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

#142

Post by [deleted] »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #19
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.

[deleted]

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

#143

Post by tryauuum »

soco wrote: post #65
tryauuum wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would you ban it? I don't want the russian-style ban enforced by ISPs Probably punishing companies who pay YouTube for ads would work

On which grounds would you punish some companies which are using a fully legal platform? If you had beef with the ad contents, you'd punish them already for that. But if you have beef with the platform algorithms, punish them for exactly that. Not over proxies! As long the algorithm was designed for creating dependence, than regulate that - exactly like you (should) regulate other substances creating dependence. And…

Ok, imagine a law punishing a platform comes out. How will it be enforced? You can fine the companies but they can just close presence in europe. YouTube will continue to work even if all the YouTube's servers in europe are gone.

Or should the only outcome of the law be that the police could confiscate phones from kids? punish parents for allowing social media? Laws are not useless, at least teachers and parents will have a clear call to action. But still

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

#144

Post by tryauuum »

mikkupikku wrote: post #113
tryauuum wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would you ban it? I don't want the russian-style ban enforced by ISPs Probably punishing companies who pay YouTube for ads would work

Much if not all of Europe already has ISP level bans. If they can use those bans against football streaming sites, why not Facebook? And actually I think just banning them from conducting any business, accepting payments/etc, would be mostly sufficient. They could continue to operate at a loss, but it would put American corps at such a disadvantage that domestic social media might be able to compete, and enforcing re…

Your name sounds finnish... Finland ISPs have only primitive dns based blocklists which can be bypassed by any kid, they need to purchase dpi-capable hardware to block websites by (still not encrypted) SNI

Man it's nice to live in the country not prioritizing internet censorship

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

#145

Post by pseudalopex »

shaftway wrote: post #141
probably_wrong wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This sounds like YouTube taking actual steps to improve the situation. The issue I take with statements like that is that they are saying one thing while doing the opposite. This document [1], for instance, shows that YouTube knew as early as April 2025 that infinite feeds of short form content can "displace valuable activities like time with friends or sleep", but that hasn't stopped them from aggressively pushing…

I think the reality for any product that has >7,000 employees working on it is that some people's job is to prioritize growth at all costs, some people's job is to prioritize the effects of on vulnerable people, and the vast majority of them have other jobs to be doing. This sounds appropriate to me; not everybody can be worried about mental health at all times, and somebody needs to focus on growth. There are plenty…

> I think the reality for any product that has >7,000 employees working on it is that some people's job is to prioritize growth at all costs, some people's job is to prioritize the effects of on vulnerable people, and the vast majority of them have other jobs to be doing.

Growth at all costs should be no one's priority.

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

#146

Post by stubish »

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…

I guess some companies try to limit the harm they do to children while profiting, and some companies try not to know the harm they do to children while profiting. What remains to be seen is how much harm we allow to be done to children in the name of profits. Maybe we even insist that things need to be a positive influence. Less profit, but maybe better to the economy over all. And the kids, if they matter.

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

#147

Post by stubish »

socalgal2 wrote: post #73

Where are the smoking guns? All I see is normal talk for how to get customers. A smoking gun would be "Teens love posts about X even though we know X is really bad for them. Let's promote lots of X". But I don't see any of that. I just see market research etc. I could post every quote on the page and respond to it how it's not a smoking gun but not one of them seemed like a smoking gun to me. Anyone care to point to…

A key feature of many platforms being banned is algorithmic feeds. Nobody has to choose what to promote. The algorithms automatically promote what results in the most engagement. The most addictive content ends up being force fed due to natural selection. And platforms choose to keep them, even if they would otherwise avoid the growing age restrictions, because they are profitable.

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

#148

Post by stubish »

commandlinefan wrote: post #112

This is just normal par-for-the-course business chasing an expanding market. Entertainment companies, in particular, _always_ focus on the youth market. When I was a teenager, record companies were obsessed with what teenagers liked: that's just the nature of the business. Headline is deliberately misleading. The (few) references in here to "addiction" are negative; suggesting ways to reach the youth market _without_…

This is all relatively new in human timescales. My parents as children saw the start of modern advertising, with ads targeted at them. But they did not see entertainment engineered to sell them product. I think in the 60s you started seeing bands manufactured and aggressively marketed to youths (such as The Monkeys), because companies wanted their share of Beatles money. And 70s, when George Lucas and Kiss realized how much money was in branded merchandise. And late 70s, when He-Man reversed things and media was created specifically to sell merchandise. On human timescales, the results are starting to come in on this experiment.

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

#149

Post by throawayonthe »

silverquiet wrote: post #88
1bpp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My YouTube use definitely isn't healthy, but it's still the only social app that asks me to take a break if I use it too long or late at night. That should be standard in any of these apps.

Does it recommend taking a break? Mostly I've seen it ask if I'm still watching. I've always assumed this is not for user benefit, but in order to not spend bandwidth on a screen that is not being looked at. The only site I'm familiar with that has somewhat decent self-limiting functions built in is HN's no procrastination settings. But that's of course because HN isn't run to make money, but as a hobby.

HN is a marketing platform for ycombinator :p

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

#150

Post by akramachamarei »

idontwantthis wrote: post #124
akramachamarei wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people would disagree with you that the primary responsibility of government is to protect people from themselves.

I’m talking about protecting people from evil actors with immense power to do harm.

I don't think so. What you're saying is that kids (and maybe adults) don't have enough agency over their own usage of social media; that these social media are so addicting and harmful that we cannot trust users (in concert with their parents, teachers, etc.) not to harm themselves with them, and that we must construct government apparatus to protect them.
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