Yet another hack job about the dangers of algorithms. Do these journalists not understand that Meta is worth at least several billion dollars? Do they not get how much value Meta and all its products have delivered to people all over the world? Just terrible reporting all around.
Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
61–70 of 170 posts
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Isn't this largely a US phenomenon?
It has been studied mostly on US adolescents. There is some research on Dutch teens too.
I would say more that this effect is more well studied on US teens so we can say more conclusive things on US teens. In addition, there is some indication that the effect could also be present in non-US teens and should be further studied.
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a for-profit pseudo-science, much like the anti-gay camps of the 1980s, which is spreading unsupported claims using words like "addiction" in contexts where the medical regulatory bodies and journal literature don't believe the concept applies. These people prey on the irrational behavior of parents scared for their children and try to convince them that things like addiction to a website on a screen is poss…
What are you stating? I genuinely don't get the point. Are you saying that screens/apps don't cause addiction?
He is saying people need to be more techno-optimistic and stop paying attention to all this fear mongering hack jobs about social media algorithms. These algorithms deliver billions of dollars of value on a daily basis. Money and GDP are more important than depressed teens. It's important to focus on what actually matters: market capitalization and profitability.
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#64I 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.
Do you think the rise in rates of diagnosed autism spectrum disorder over the same time period reflect an increase in actual expression of the phenotype in the population? Or was it from an increase in diagnosis and treatment?
Do you think the rise in this premise of "rampant mental health issues" reflect an increase in actual expression of the phenotypes in the population? Or was this from an increase in diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues?
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#65It seems like basically all marketing and advertising is human pen-testing. Thought is serialized into video or audio and then deserialized back into thought which is evaluated. Sometimes this evaluation causes downstream thoughts and actions (including propagating the vulnerability). The question is whether the resulting action is 'organic' or a RCE - overriding the agency of the actor.
I think a core class that should be taught is how to safety deserialize sensory input as to avoid causing RCEs. Or basically 'patching' these known vulnerabilities.
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a for-profit pseudo-science, much like the anti-gay camps of the 1980s, which is spreading unsupported claims using words like "addiction" in contexts where the medical regulatory bodies and journal literature don't believe the concept applies. These people prey on the irrational behavior of parents scared for their children and try to convince them that things like addiction to a website on a screen is poss…
What are you stating? I genuinely don't get the point. Are you saying that screens/apps don't cause addiction?
I thought I was clear. There is no such thing as "internet addiction" or any subset. There's actually not even "gambling addiction" anymore. It's been properly renamed to "gambling disorder". But I guess we're not talking facts here. Instead we're concentrating on how it feels to us. And various ambitious policians are realizing they can use that collective lay delusion to further their careers.
I am not pro-corporate as some are accusing me. I've never even had a facebook, twitter, or the like account in my life. I think these are terrible services and platforms. But it is even more dangerous to apply a label like "addiction" to them because then politicians think they can treat them like drugs... and we know how dangerous that response is.
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#67There is science driving the design of products to make them addictive. For teen girls - the apps are designed to scare them about being socially excluded. For teen boys - the apps are designed to fill their need to master skills. The issue that the government has to deal with with app addictions is self harm attempts by girls (e.g. emergency room visits) and underperformance of boys in the real world (e.g. low colle…
There is a for-profit pseudo-science, much like the anti-gay camps of the 1980s, which is spreading unsupported claims using words like "addiction" in contexts where the medical regulatory bodies and journal literature don't believe the concept applies. These people prey on the irrational behavior of parents scared for their children and try to convince them that things like addiction to a website on a screen is poss…
>> These people prey on the irrational behavior of parents scared for their children and try to convince them that things like addiction to a website on a screen is possible.
Saying that addiction to a website isn't possible is unfounded.
People get addicted to online gambling. That's just "a website on a screen." It's clearly possible and it clearly happens.
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, yes, and yes. Advertising is almost always malicious. The days of it being primarily small businesses getting the word out about themselves are long over. Advertising firms now have actual psychologists that study ways to best exploit the brain of the common man, and that is wrong.
Hear hear. It's bizarre to see people like the parent commenter who are so unthinkingly accustomed to abusive and manipulative advertisements that they mistake its perversity for normalcy.
When I grew up in the 90s you kinda wanted ads. Otherwise you wouldn't know what was being shown at the theaters etc. People put up "No ads but Cineama ads and the phone catalogue" on their mailboxes etc. I believe many peoples perception of the world does not change from their childhood. At least very slowly.
Ads stopped being useful about 20 years ago by now and like 10 (?) years ago they started to spy on us.
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this largely a US phenomenon?
It has been studied mostly on US adolescents. There is some research on Dutch teens too. I would say more that this effect is more well studied on US teens so we can say more conclusive things on US teens. In addition, there is some indication that the effect could also be present in non-US teens and should be further studied.
Thanks. Most things I have seen have the US/perhaps Anglo-Saxon countries stand stand out (e.g., https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-resistance-hypot...), but could indeed by evolving.
That makes putting it on social media alone much more tenuous, though.
Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.