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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

#21

Post by stillwithit »

zooq_ai wrote: post #14

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except o…

I for one feel no obligation to your existence; no need to provide you food, shelter, healthcare.

It would be government overreach to force such. Since I have no obligation to your existence itself, who cares what you have to say, or your philosophy? You’re just some pointless meat suit I have no responsibility to.

There you go; you got exactly the world you project you want.

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

#22

Post by megaman821 »

asylteltine wrote: post #16
zooq_ai wrote: post #14

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except o…

Teenagers started having extreme and rampant mental health issues as soon as social media became pervasive. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence though.

Actually, if you look at the data, the debut and rise of Taylor Swift is obviously causing the teenage mental health crisis.

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

#23

Post by aaroninsf »

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,

we as a society are going to have to seriously engage the fact that we are now fully capable of manufacturing addiction, and at the moment, do so, both in adults and in children.

"Their own decisions" is not a stable concept. Setting aside esoteric philosophy of mind, you need look no further than your own relationship to your phone—tested out for many of us at the Thanksgiving table last week, as duly noted by Chris Ware's cover of last week's New Yorker magazine—to confirm this.

The mechanisms of surveillance captialism and a foundation of decades of consumer psychology (etc ad nausuem) have quite literally left us adrift in a world of stochastic mind control. At that same table many of us encountered the inexplicable world views of relatives whose propoganda bubbles did not intersect our own.

And we all have such bubbles, not least as a result of the cheerful professionalism of many who browse here.

Your decisions, just like teenagers' decisions, are not "your own" in the sense someone might have meant c. 1923. And before one cries, it has ever been thus, to that I say: no, it absolutely has not. The technologies for behavioral steering of today are as unalike what people contended with in advertising (etc.) a hundred years ago, as our logistic transport and energy industries are, amongst others.

Until we take this on, head on, as a society, the problem will just get worse.

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

#24

Post by megaman821 »

quacked wrote: post #7
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…

Yes, yes, and yes. However, the three situations you named are targeting adults. Children and teenagers are worth insulating from the full might of advertisers, propagandists, and always-on virtual social circles.

Are you saying the cereal boxes on display at grocery stores are mostly targeting adults?

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

#25

Post by thesausageking »

zooq_ai wrote: post #14

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except o…

The data is well established that social media use by teens leads to worse mental health outcomes. I'm a parent and as my kids near the age in which social media becomes a thing, I started digging into. I had assumed it would be vague and filled with underpowered studies, but it's not. Social media is bad for kids and the data is very clear on it.

This post has a list of the some of the better studies and gives a good synthesis of the results:

https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-repor...

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

#26

Post by BorisMelnik »

asylteltine wrote: post #16
zooq_ai wrote: post #14

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except o…

Teenagers started having extreme and rampant mental health issues as soon as social media became pervasive. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence though.

it was bound to happen with any communication platform teens use on the internet, it was already starting in the early 2000s with text messaging, definitely MySpace

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

#27

Post by cscurmudgeon »

stillwithit wrote: post #21
zooq_ai wrote: post #14

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except o…

I for one feel no obligation to your existence; no need to provide you food, shelter, healthcare. It would be government overreach to force such. Since I have no obligation to your existence itself, who cares what you have to say, or your philosophy? You’re just some pointless meat suit I have no responsibility to. There you go; you got exactly the world you project you want.

Isn't this the world we live in? Taxes for the common good, but the government doesn't force you to work and doesn't force you to directly provide for others.

Well-intentioned but still moronic socialism/communist projects fail for a reason. They fail to understand scale and human psychology and the basics of economics.

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

#28

Post by stronglikedan »

asylteltine wrote: post #16
zooq_ai wrote: post #14

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except o…

Teenagers started having extreme and rampant mental health issues as soon as social media became pervasive. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence though.

The mental health issues correlate with the rise a lot of things besides social media. Certain medications, for one. Correlations aren't causation, of course.

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

#29

Post by SpaceManNabs »

thesausageking wrote: post #25
zooq_ai wrote: post #14

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except o…

The data is well established that social media use by teens leads to worse mental health outcomes. I'm a parent and as my kids near the age in which social media becomes a thing, I started digging into. I had assumed it would be vague and filled with underpowered studies, but it's not. Social media is bad for kids and the data is very clear on it. This post has a list of the some of the better studies and gives a goo…

Thank you! It is well established that teenage girls’ attempted suicide rates rose with the advent of social media.

I dont think there are any smoking-gun causal studies, but the correlation evidence is very strong.

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

#30

Post by erellsworth »

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…

I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I would suggest that this kind of thinking is largely at the root of a lot of society's problems. Big corporations have become almost as powerful as governments in many respects. They are integral to our lives in a myriad of was we probably don't even notice. Yet we don't just allow them to be completely amoral, we expect them to behave that way, almost demand that they do.

The result is that we have a lot of amoral institutions playing a key role in our society.

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