"YouTube argued that it was not a social media company and that its features were not designed to be addictive."
Well, that's laughable.
Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
141–150 of 549 posts
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Section 230(c)(i) [1]: > (c) (c)Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material > (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. This is a protection for being a platform for third-party (including user-generated) content. Some m…
This isn't good reasoning. According to your analysis, any website, ISP, or hosting provider that uses a firewall or Cloudflare is by definition a publisher, since they algorithmically shape traffic to prohibit suspicious IP addresses from accessing content.
Not at all. Intenet matters. Is Cloudfare trying to shape user behavior or push a particular position or content? No.
Just look at the Cox decision from the Supreme Court today. As long as the (Internet) service isn't designed for or sold as a method of downloading copyrighted material, the provider isn't responsible for any actions by its users. In other words, intent matters.
I find that technical people really get stuck on this aspect of the law. They look for technical compliance or an absolute proof standard because we're used to doing things like proving something works mathematically. But the law is subjective and holistic. It looks at the totality of evidence and applies a subjective test.
And intent here is fairly easy to establish. We could take an issue like Russia and look at all the posts and submissions and see how many views and interactions those posts got. We then divide them into pro-Russian and pro-Ukraine and establish a clear bias. We also look at any modifications made to the algorithm to achieve those goals.
This is nothing like Cloudfare DDoS protection.
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for replying. I agree that dark patterns and other psychological manipulation is a problem, I just don’t think it’s necessarily ego-centric in origin any more than gambling. These companies have found very efficient methods to extract attention and money from humans by exploiting their brain’s natural reward functions. I’m not sure what the answer is, because it’s obviously a problem (again just like gambling…
Gambling is a great example. When I say "ego" I really mean the reinforcement of the individual pattern through survival-resource games, power play, or external validation. I'm not using it in the classic psychological way, perse. Regulation could work, but in my opinion the problem isn't devious mastermind product people attempting to entrap humanity -- it's self entrapment in a recursive way. Regulators could add r…
I guess I just don’t see humanity awakening to transcendent egolessness any time in the near future (if ever). Based on my experience, the average person is fairly constrained by their biological reality. We often like to pretend that this isn’t the case, and pretending may work for a while, but eventually sufficient stress causes the illusion to unravel forcefully.
Regulation isn’t perfect; in the best case all it can do is limit the worst harms. It’s still a bad idea to engage in regulated gambling, as you are very likely to lose money. Almost everyone knows this, yet many people do it, and I can’t see that changing any time soon.
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#144When I was a kid, tv commercials were heavily censored and the tv channel could and would be fined immediately if something inappropriate was shown. How is it that these days social media can circumvent all these safeguards and then somehow blame the parents if a kid is watching something inappropriate on an app designed for kids (like YouTube kids)? The issue is that politicians are beholden to social media companie…
Don't get me started. So many existing laws just seem to be conveniently ignored because... it's 'digital'?
In a lot of countries there are specific laws banning the deliberate targeting of advertising to children (and in contexts where you would reach children, heavily regulated), but for over a decade Meta would allow you to target within the ranges of 13 to 18 years old.
That's to say nothing of the scams and deepfake celebrity ads they let run. Imagine if a deepfake ad of Warren Buffet promoting an investment opportunity ran on TV, the network would get sued into oblivion. On Meta though, there's no repercussions.
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#145Read the book “Careless People” if you have a chance - according to the book, social media companies figured out they have real leverage with politicians since they can influence elections. As a result they are actively pushing for far right candidates to reduce their own taxation and regulation.
That book was so lame and the author leaves out how she profited millions and then only complained after she was fired.
Its also funny how they “discovered” they were influencing elections after they influenced the 2008 and 2012 elections.
How did the author not know this when she sought out and joined the company in like 2013!
The parts about playing Settlers of Catan with Zuckerberg was funny. I wonder what his side of the story was and if people were really letting him win.
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#146I think this is going to end up with a huge chunk paid out to state health departments for the foreseeable future.
Kind of like how tobacco companies now pay out billions every year and its a major source of funding for states.
Hopefully this means more health services available. But it will just serve like an ongoing tax.
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m saying society should tread extremely carefully in attempting to regulate citizens’ potentially psychologically addictive behaviors.
Ah OK. Yes I agree, there can be a blurry line between something a person does compulsively/addictively and something that he just enjoys doing. And it's different for different people.
To add to the confusion, sometimes I do stupid things just once. Even so, those things should be banned, for harming me.
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#148At least even money that an appellate court throws this verdict out entirely. Reminder that the US is the only developed country that uses juries for civil trials- everywhere else, complex issues of business litigation are generally left to a panel of judges. It's not that hard to rile up a bunch of randomly impaneled jurors against Big Bad Corporation. The US is kind of infamous for its very large, very unpredictabl…
The shotgun approach (suing FB, TikTok, Snapchat, and Google simultaneously) makes this sound as ridiculous as the punchline "woman sues McDonalds for coffee being too hot" (distinct from that actual case, which was less ridiculous than the headline).
Suing Facebook for systematically behaving badly is one thing, if you can prove it and prove it harmed you.
Suing _everybody_ is one random person getting rich for… being mad at the world she was born into?
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Keep in mind that this case is about about a minor, not an adult. This obviously means that tech is going to have no choice but to do "age verification". And I don't think there's much of a way to do that that wouldn't be uncomfortable for a lot of us.
Or assign responsibility to…parents and legal guardians…who are not children.
[deleted]
Re: Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction case
#150Negligent doesn't begin to describe their behaviour.