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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

#91

Post by ericra »

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that Meta (and most other big tech companies) have long been in the business of hiring a large number of recent social science Ph.D. graduates from top U.S. universities. People with a lot of knowledge of statistics and some domain-specific knowledge in their fields that could possibly be applicable to their job. The whole purpose of doing this is to create teams of marketing people doing in-house research to figure out how to best manipulate others by maximizing "engagement" or whatever other metric.

Isn't this just how all big tech companies operate as a normal business practice? Certainly Youtube is no better when it comes to targeted content and advertisements to children to their detriment.

My main point is that I don't think it makes any difference whether Meta has some internal document proving that they specifically target children with these practices. The problem is so much bigger than a single policy or company, and legislatures need to figure out a better way to address the overarching problems. I don't have much faith that these one-off lawsuits will make that much of an impact given that they almost always lead to some fine or settlement that is an acceptable business loss for the company.

I'm all for Meta being decimated by a thousand cuts in the form of lawsuits from various levels of government, but at best it would just be replaced with something else unless more regulation exists at the top levels (US / EU / etc).

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

#92

Post by atoav »

Curvature5868 wrote: post #88
LesZedCB wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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.

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

#93

Post by tomohawk »

The problems of social media go far beyond exploiting teens. It used to be you only saw mob behavior when a large group got together. With social media, you can have a virtual mob going all the time, and ready to materialize IRL for kinetic impact. We now just shrug when things like this happen (Jewish high school teacher forced to go into hiding because of students rampaging).

https://nypost.com/2023/11/25/metro/jewish-teacher-hides-in-...

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

#94

Post by superkuh »

dxbydt wrote: post #74
superkuh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-corporat…

> even more dangerous to apply a label like "addiction" to them my dude, teens leaving school are crossing the street without even looking up, because they're scrolling insta. Ok so they are dumb teens. What about the crossing guard lady ? She is paid money by the school board to monitor the crossing lane so the cars don't hit the teens. Now, the crossing guard also doesn't look up, because she is scrolling insta too…

The same argument was literally made against newspapers and how people were ignoring each other and their environment and causing accidents. It turned out just fine.

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

#95

Post by wildrhythms »

Curvature5868 wrote: post #88
LesZedCB wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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

They aren't arguing that at all.

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

#96

Post by akprasad »

Curvature5868 wrote: post #88
LesZedCB wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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

I take the parent comment's point as "beneficial for children's learning and socializing" as compared to the status quo ante.

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

#97

Post by Manuel_D »

Teever wrote: post #19
alakin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are children and young adults banned from selecting products based on marketing inside stores?

Canada has forbidden the sale of cigarettes in grocery stores, and they've banned the display of any advertising for them in the stores that are still allowed to sell them.

Sure, because cigarettes have clear and unambiguous harms to health.

What makes advertising, I dunno, a remote controlled plane to a kid so much more unethical than advertising it to an adult?

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

#98

Post by amelius »

Curvature5868 wrote: post #88
LesZedCB wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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

Well, the thing you should show is whether a phone allows you to better learn or socialize than without a phone.

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

#99

Post by raccoonDivider »

LesZedCB wrote: post #87
Curvature5868 wrote: post #83

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?

It's definitely harder to socialize when all your classmates have smartphones and you don't, but you mostly need access to personal messaging apps. TikTok or a Facebook/Twitter feed full of people you don't know IRL are where the problems come from and they aren't needed. If only there was a way of splitting those out into separate apps.

Basically we need more things like Facebook's push a few years ago to show more personal updates from close friends and less mass-shared political posts from organizations.

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

#100

Post by amelius »

stanislavb wrote: post #72

Now, please, let’s discover and discuss how TikTok is designed … I think it’s even worse.

The problem is the freakin' advertising-based monetization model. It makes kids the product instead of the customer. No wonder they turn into addicts.
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