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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"

#91

Post by rustystump »

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…

We know teens love endless feeds but we know endless feeds is bad for them so we give them endless feeds…

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

#92

Post by shimman »

betaby wrote: post #33
shimman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have been a child when Michelle Obama said that children needed better food and half the country lost their collective minds. Hard to do anything when corporations control what most legislation is passed.

> You must have been a child when Michelle Obama said My kids were born long before Obama took the office. What's your point again? That president can't control the quality of the food in the country under their control?

Point is that people do in fact try to change what you're complaining about, your dismissive comments are just sad. Go out and organize rather than shouting into the void if this is what you care about.

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

#93

Post by rustystump »

rustystump wrote: post #91
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…

We know teens love endless feeds but we know endless feeds is bad for them so we give them endless feeds…

To be clear social media is not as clear cut bad as the endless news/for you feeds which are designed to keep you scrolling vs seeing what friends are doing

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

#94

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dylan604 wrote: post #84
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general problem is that nobody actually needs cigarettes but communication is fundamental to the human experience. How do you even propose to define "social media" in a way that can distinguish between it and any other public forum for discussion? The actual problem is not that kids are using group communications technology, it's that the network effect in public interaction has been captured by private companies…

> but communication is fundamental to the human experience. Humans survived well before the internet, the telephone, the telegraph, or even international post.

In those days they did this by having physical public spaces for interaction, which we've since priced people out of through artificial scarcity of real estate via zoning laws. And even if people were willing to solve that one, it would take time to actually build new buildings, and doing that would have to be done first.

It's also assuming that we're willing to abandon a technological capacity (not having to personally travel to someone's location to communicate with them) that humans have had since before Moses came down from the mountain, which seems like a fairly silly constraint to impose when there are obviously better alternatives available.

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

#95

Post by thrance »

iwontberude wrote: post #77
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.

What country are you in? I have never seen this in the US although I have been a very long time subscriber to YouTube Premium.

I get it too, in France. You can disable it in the settings.

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

#96

Post by jimvdv »

alamortsubite wrote: post #90

The "weird" thing about YouTube Shorts is no matter how many times you hide them (by clicking "Not Interested" or "Show fewer of these", however they label it), YouTube will continue to show them to you in your feed. I've hidden that crap 100 times and no doubt it'll be back soon.

I started using an extension called “social focus”. Allows me to hide all kinds of distractions on social media and YouTube, can highly recommend

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

#97

Post by AlexandrB »

pembrook wrote: post #87
AlexandrB wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every business on earth has been secretly conspiring for decades to give people a service so good they’ll come back again and again for it You're out of touch. The modern approach is to give people a service just barely good enough so they don't leave outright and keep them coming back with fomo, clickbait, and pandering to their worldview. I doubt user satisfaction is even a column in a table at social media compa…

Social media is a marketplace business. Both parties are your customer.

Only one party is paying anything.

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

#98

Post by mahirsaid »

idle_zealot wrote: post #4
mahirsaid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are people surprised by this. Clearly this was a tactic widely used in the tech industry. Their aim is to keep people on the platform specifically teens. Why else would you need curated algorithms for users.

Anyone paying attention knew. A smoking gun means that legal action is possible. Or it would be in a better time.

Indeed, I've been paying attention to the market share of the biggest companies in advertisement, its clear that Google and Meta are the largest share by a large margin. Almost not even comparable to other players other than Reddit recently. which it's exposure is dependent on Search engines like Google and Bing for that matter. users within the platform are a different story. I personally think the internet is not being utilized wisely when it comes to current context. There is still so much to be done and innovated and there are gate keepers keeping this from happening.

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

#99

Post by CamelCaseCondo »

alamortsubite wrote: post #90

The "weird" thing about YouTube Shorts is no matter how many times you hide them (by clicking "Not Interested" or "Show fewer of these", however they label it), YouTube will continue to show them to you in your feed. I've hidden that crap 100 times and no doubt it'll be back soon.

What I find strange about an advertising company’s video service is that when I open my smartphone in a region with a different language my youtube ads also change language.

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

#100

Post by mahirsaid »

ludicrousdispla wrote: post #57
lostlogin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might, but would that achieve much? Tobacco has done ok.

Companies don't necessarily have to suffer when restrictions are placed on them. Ask any educator what the biggest positive change was to U.S. high schools in the 1970s and they'll probably answer that it was the ban on smoking in schools. I expect a similar response in the future regarding bans on social media.

I can only imagine what it's like right now in schools. I can't see how anybody arguing the point that student are allowed to use social media in school is an okay activity. I know there are some countries banning the use of such activities in Europe and some others i can't think of right now.
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