[HN Gopher] Senators Blast Facebook for Concealing Instagram's R...
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Senators Blast Facebook for Concealing Instagram's Risks to Kids
Author : glitcher
Score : 65 points
Date : 2021-09-30 20:47 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| ""IG stands for Instagram, but it also stands for Insta-greed,"
| said Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts."
| threatofrain wrote:
| To what degree should companies be responsible for goods which,
| without structured or disciplined use leads to harm, especially
| when the good in question has an apparently reasonable use case?
| MAGZine wrote:
| You mean like alcohol? companies can definitely get in trouble
| if they overserve or serve minors.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Alcohol would be a good example, as would be unhealthy foods
| from the restaurant industry and food supply chain. But
| restrictions to drugs are made on an ad-hoc basis and not
| from a general principle.
| ikr678 wrote:
| While not banned, a lot of countries restricted television
| advertising of unhealthy food to children during childrens
| programming. I dont know how effective this was/is, but I
| suspect it's been erroded by new marketing
| channels(internet etc) anyway.
| paxys wrote:
| A better analogy is - should beverage companies get into
| trouble if minors routinely consume their products?
| fidesomnes wrote:
| Those harmful selfies and beach body pics must be banned, think
| of the children!
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Sounds like social media platforms might end up like cigarette
| companies, where they finally acknowledge the harm of their
| product and add a disclaimer to avoid liability: _" This product
| is designed to manipulate you. It will probably make your life
| worse."_ Or, like the drug companies: _" If you have depression,
| suicidal thoughts or find yourself screaming at some rando on the
| internet, stop taking Facebook and consult a therapist."_
|
| Maybe that's already in the EULA??? :shrug:
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://twitter.com/morroweric/status/1443628623576109065
|
| > Sen. Blumenthal asks Facebook "Will you commit to ending
| Finsta?"
|
| > Facebook's safety chief has to explain that Finsta is slang for
| a fake account.
|
| Sigh.
| krisoft wrote:
| What is strange to me why did the Facebook person try to
| explain the term to the Senator? I'm no lawyer, and this is
| just my first reaction about what she answered based on what
| little I know.
|
| These Senate hearings are not jovial chats among friends. They
| are in the same ballpark as depositions, or interviews with law
| enforcement officiers. You are not there to make the
| opposition's work easier. (Assuming you with counsels decided
| that the best option for you/your company is to appear.) You
| have to be curteous, and truthfull. But you absolutelly should
| not go into "guessing what the question might be".
|
| When he asks "Will you commit ending finsta?"
|
| I would answer "At facebook we have no feature or setting named
| finsta. We cannot commit to end what we don't offer." And let
| him explain what he thinks finsta means to him.
|
| In casual conversations we often try to answer the question we
| think we should have been asked. This is not such an occasion.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| This whole thing is a performative display, so might as well
| take the opportunity to make the Senator look out of touch in
| their photo-op.
|
| Hearings were originally intended to be fact finding
| sessions. During an era in which 'Newspapers' were an
| experimental new technology, it was still a good idea to get
| all the lawmakers into a room and bring in witness to present
| different sides of an issue.
|
| And that might have been the case in the 19th Century, but in
| the most post-war administrative state, Senators do not
| actually hold hearings to gather information as they have
| teams of full time aides that do that for them with modern
| technologies like the internet and the telephone that have
| obviated the need for hearings.
|
| In the modern world, hearings are an opportunity to give
| speeches in front of cameras, to ask questions that embarrass
| your enemies and make your allies look good. Therefore
| Facebook is correctly using the hearings in their modern
| form, by trying to make the questioners look bad by pointing
| out how out of touch they are.
| [deleted]
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Are they going to go after Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google because
| people have second emails?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Spam filters are apparently ripe for regulation.
|
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-greg-steube-asks-
| googl...
|
| > Pichai attempted to explain individual email account
| settings to Steube, prompting the congressman to interject
| when the Google chief said the "primary tab" is for friends
| and family. "Well, it was my father who is not receiving now
| my campaign emails. So clearly that familial thing you're
| talking about didn't apply to my emails," Steube exclaimed,
| conflating his personal emails with his political campaign's.
| tdeck wrote:
| It's not so surprising that these people are ignorant, but
| what's really frustrating is that they don't even realize
| their own ignorance. If they did that, maybe they'd get
| help writing these questions from somebody with a clue.
| slg wrote:
| Just a reminder that the President is 78, the Speaker of the
| House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (2nd and 3rd
| in line for the presidency) are both 81, and this is the oldest
| Senate in history of this country with an average age around
| 65.
|
| All else being equal people vote for candidates like them and
| older people turn out to vote at a much higher rate than young
| people. If you want you representatives to actually understand
| the world they are tasked with leading or want them to at least
| have consider how their decisions will personally affect them a
| decade in the future, you need to vote and convince your peers
| to vote. It is especially important to vote in primaries due to
| the US's two party system.
| drc500free wrote:
| Seems like the Senator was asking if they would commit to
| preventing secondary accounts used by adolescents. Which is
| hard but far from impossible.
| krisoft wrote:
| But if he wanted to ask that why didn't he ask that?
| devwastaken wrote:
| That is impossible, especially when talking about kids.
| They'll do anything to get to coolmathgames, why should we
| think they can't make new accounts.
| mataug wrote:
| Based on viewing of the video, Senator Blumenthal doesn't
| understand what "Finsta" means.
|
| One needs to understand the concept of "Finsta" before they
| can ask that the concept be prevented.
| arenaninja wrote:
| Wait until they hear about TikTok!
| nkingsy wrote:
| Antigone is the name of the executive who testified.
|
| Will the gods be mad that she was blasted for burying things?
| tclancy wrote:
| I couldn't get past it. Sent her to be executed.
| jpollock wrote:
| I'm wondering what kids historically said about glamour
| magazines.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Where kids can't post and do not see other kids? Probably not
| much because they are not the same thing.
| [deleted]
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "She said Facebook takes "the privacy, safety and well-being of
| all those who use our platform very seriously, ...""
|
| The magic incantation.
|
| Flawed reasoning: "We take X seriously" therefore there are no
| problems with X.
|
| Contrast "seriously" with "seriously enough".
|
| There must be more to it. There must be some science behind the
| use of the "take X seriously" statements.
|
| "We've committed to not retaliating for this individual speaking
| to the Senate," she said.
|
| Do they know who it is. Do they believe retaliation would be
| legal.
|
| "Facebook's brand is bad, and I think Facebook, you know, would
| freely admit that," said Katie Harbath, a former public policy
| director at the company. "But, you know, nobody else is gonna
| come and defend the company besides themselves."
|
| Why won't anyone else come and defend the company. Wouldn't
| advertisers, users (ad targets) and investors want to defend the
| company.
|
| "In this next chapter of our company, I think we will effectively
| transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social
| media company to being a metaverse company," [Zuckerberg] told
| tech journalist Casey Newton this summer.
|
| Try to escape bad rep. Social media bad. "We are not social
| media. We are metaverse."
|
| "They've been able to weather these storms over and over again,"
| said Yael Eisenstat, who worked at Facebook on elections
| integrity for political advertising in 2018.
|
| "What I think is different this time is that I don't think
| they're fully understanding that internal employees have
| questions now."
|
| After Facebook has "connected the world", then what. No more
| growth. What then.
| ssss11 wrote:
| Isn't the magic just that humans sometimes believe what is said
| rather than what is done? You need to watch what people do, and
| whether they actually do what they say.
| bilekas wrote:
| don't forget :
|
| > "I want to be clear: This research is not a bombshell."
|
| It's not, because you knew about it.
| mbesto wrote:
| Sidenote:
|
| > "We take X seriously" therefore there are no problems with X.
|
| This is my favorite response doing Tech DDs. I meet execs who
| say "we take security seriously" all of the time. I enjoy the
| follow-on of "ok show us then"...
|
| Do you backup your DB? Do you test it? No?
|
| Do you encrypt everything at rest? No?
|
| Are you using MFA for all services that are accessible by
| developers? No?
|
| etc. etc.
|
| Then no, you don't take security seriously.
| myfartsarefoul wrote:
| When they try to change the way they're viewed instead of
| bringing up relevant facts, you know that they know that they
| don't have a leg to stand on.
|
| I say we do to Facebook what JFK wanted to do to the CIA.
|
| Imagine social media without a profit motive. Decentralize,
| distribute and encrypt the fuck out of it. I don't want curated
| feeds, I want to keep in touch with people I know.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I say we do to Facebook what JFK wanted to do to the CIA.
|
| Use it to invade Cuba?
| literallyaduck wrote:
| Instead of "blasting" how about regulating it?
|
| Social media has proven time and again they are unwilling to do
| the right thing.
|
| They perform human experimentation and must be regulated for
| public safety.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook...
|
| It is an on going activity.
| astockwell wrote:
| This. "Senators blast" everyone under the sun. Do something.
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| Yeah but that requires that they actually understand the
| space, don't get bogged down by their individual ideologies,
| understand the problems, do due diligence, come up with
| sensible and nuanced regulation, etc. Its way easier to hold
| a press conference and regurgitate some snappy one liners
| that a staffer fed them to let them score points on Twitter.
| They get most of the political benefits of actually doing
| something while doing nothing.
| burlesona wrote:
| The challenge is what, exactly, to regulate. Here are some
| ideas:
|
| Ban algorithmic content curation. If a product is going to have
| a "featured" section or "watch next" or whatever, that should
| have to come from a human editor who can be held accountable
| for their choices. This would force huge changes in a lot of
| services, but ultimately I think we've learned that engagement
| algorithms drive toxic feedback loops and echo chambers that
| their creators are not proud of. This outcome in inherent to
| any function that maximizes engagement, so we just have to
| stop.
|
| Ban one-bit reactions; ie. no like buttons that get people
| addicted to the high of "crowd approval." Just allow comments.
|
| Ban ad-targeting based on any protected class (age, race,
| gender).
|
| Make those requirements kick in for any app with greater than
| $10M ARR or 50,000 DAU.
| paxys wrote:
| Or, how about we do none of these things and people who don't
| like social media just don't freaking use it.
| paxys wrote:
| "Regulate" is everyone's magic word, but how exactly do they do
| it? What laws should they pass?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Instead of "blasting" how about regulating it?_
|
| How do you suppose that happens? First you need fact finding,
| which happens in the background, and soundboarding, which is
| what this is. It looks like a circus, because it, in part, sort
| of is. The Senate is gauging to what degree the public cares
| about this. If prioritizing this issue will bring them votes
| when they go to campaign on it.
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(page generated 2021-09-30 23:00 UTC)