[HN Gopher] Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social ...
___________________________________________________________________
Meta and YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction
case
Author : mrjaeger
Score : 372 points
Date : 2026-03-25 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Notably a different case from the other one in New Mexico:
|
| _Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation
| on its platforms_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509984
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| And one with much deeper implications on how they operate. It's
| easy for Meta to just hire more moderators or treat reports of
| exploitation with higher priority; if this verdict stands, I
| think they have no realistic choice but to abandon usage
| targets.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Realistically they will hire expensive lawyers, pay out
| hundreds of millions to billions in settlements, fire lots of
| people (workforce is predominantly American), etc.
|
| Even if they do what you're saying, lots of people who've
| used any Meta property in the last 15 years has a potentially
| viable case, and no future work can swat those away
| krunck wrote:
| https://archive.is/07nv5
| fraywing wrote:
| I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds
| are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about
| collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of
| our species.
|
| Anecdote, but it does seem like a lot of younger folks I speak
| with are exhausted by the dark patterns and dopamine extraction
| that top-k social media platforms create.
|
| If agents/AI/bots inadvertently destroy the current incarnation
| of social media through noise, I think we'll be better for it.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity
| builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more
| about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the
| health of our species
|
| Do you have a mechanism for this in mind, incentives-wise? I
| can't see this making money.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| It doesn't need to make money directly (and probably
| shouldn't).
|
| The incentives would be those which have motivated people
| throughout history: to create something which benefits
| humanity.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Ah yes, I too love free servers and bandwidth.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| Lol, it doesn't have to run for free and servers are
| really powerful these days (especially if you don't use a
| slow language). There are other monetisation strategies
| besides exploiting users for profit.
| pixl97 wrote:
| It doesn't have to run for free, but if you're competing
| against anyone else running for free you've already lost
| the game as they suck the air out of the room with the
| network effect.
|
| Next, text only platforms are nice, but niche on the
| modern internet. People seem to love multimedia which
| takes tons of bandwidth/cpu.
|
| Paid for services don't mean spam free either. If it's
| worth people to pay for, it's worth spammers paying to
| get in and spam.
|
| Then you have all the questions on what happens if you
| grow, how do you deal with working with all the laws
| around the world, how do you deal with other legal
| issues.
|
| Having a site/service of any size can quickly become an
| expensive mess.
| benoau wrote:
| I guess the real question is whether a website where you
| communicate with friends and close ones needs to be a multi-
| trillion dollar company in the first place... historically
| most of them have not been worth very much at all.
| pixl97 wrote:
| The question then becomes how can you make a website with
| all your friend (and by association all their friends) make
| enough profit to run itself?
| sosborn wrote:
| Early Facebook was kind of a great mix. It had enough
| people on it, it was making money, and the advertising
| was much more reasonable. At the time it really was a
| place to connect with IRL friends.
| andai wrote:
| You mean, how can my friends and I fundraise my $3 VPS?
| It's going to be rough, but I think we'll find a way ;)
|
| (If we hit the stretch goal, we can upgrade to a
| raspberry pi!)
| pixl97 wrote:
| This is a bit of a silly response on your part. You're
| not answering the question of _WHY_ people are on FB and
| not on the little sites like existed 20 years ago before
| FB. It 's called the network effect. You have friends,
| your friends have friend, those friends have friends.
| Rather than there being 30 bajillion separate sites
| representing these friends connections, people go "hey,
| why not one site with everyone there".
|
| Said little sites may run for a bit and die, and the
| massive monolith remains, at least until another monolith
| replaces them.
| andai wrote:
| Well, indulge my silliness for a moment... what if the
| servers on the internet could talk to each other?
|
| I suspect in just a few more decades, we shall reinvent
| the 90s and 2000s p2p networks from first principles.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| I feel like discord is kind of like this used correctly,
| but with the recent drama and such it feels terrible
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| It needs enough revenue to fund its operations. And most
| people won't pay for such a website, so if you want one
| place where most people you know are, then...
| bogwog wrote:
| Come on, don't hand wave over the obvious. Think about
| how much it would actually cost to run a social media
| website that competes with the big social media on the
| core product of sharing and communicating with friends.
| It would be extremely realistic to build something that's
| both free and sustainable with just regular ads, as was
| done decades before.
|
| (EDIT: to clarify, I don't mean to build an alternative
| monopoly, I mean to build alternatives that are big
| enough to survive as a business, and big enough to be
| useful; A few million users as opposed to the few
| billions Facebook and Youtube (allegedly) have)
|
| The reason it's hard to imagine such a thing today is
| because the tech giants have illegally suppressed
| competition for so long. If Google or Meta were ordered
| to break up, and Facebook/Youtube forced to try and
| survive as standalone businesses, all the weaknesses in
| their products would manifest as actual market
| consequences, creating opportunity for competitors to win
| market share. Anybody with basic coding skills or money
| to invest would be tripping over themselves to build
| competing products which actually focus on the things
| people want or need, because consumers will be able to
| choose the ones they like.
| andai wrote:
| Well, another example comes to mind. Coordinated efforts to
| preserve the biosphere for all mankind are probably not going
| to be great for GDP.
|
| We've tied our incentives to a structure which is not in
| alignment with continued survival. The real question is how
| can we incentivize ourselves to continue to exist?
|
| The "the incentive structure says we should all destroy our
| brains" thing is just a small aspect of that.
| 0x3f wrote:
| Actually that's probably really good for GDP, just not over
| the kind of time periods an individual human deals with or
| cares about.
|
| > We've tied our incentives to a structure which is not in
| alignment with continued survival. The real question is how
| can we incentivize ourselves to continue to exist?
|
| The continued survival of individuals or humanity as a
| whole? The individuals seem to survive OK, and arguably
| there's nothing that could convince them to prefer the
| survival of the amorphous group, save for some kind of
| brainwashing.
| andai wrote:
| Heh, that's a very good point. GDP begins to correlate
| with the biosphere over sufficiently long timespans.
|
| We shouldn't be optimizing for quarterly returns, but for
| the next ten thousand years.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Ads were profitable before the outrage optimized flamebait
| internet era.
| Zigurd wrote:
| A $4.99/mo subscription would yield more revenue than
| Facebook makes in ARPU from all that fancy, creepy, and
| intrusive ad tech. Paying YouTube to not advertise to you
| makes it a 10X better experience.
| myroon5 wrote:
| > $4.99/mo subscription would yield more revenue than
| Facebook makes in ARPU
|
| Even ignoring the adverse selection of who'd subscribe,
| their ARPU is higher than that in North America:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-
| average...
| asim wrote:
| It will come. The problem is. So will the addictive stuff. The
| key is going to be real meaningful connection. Social media
| wasn't about community. Web 2.0 was. In 2005 we were connecting
| with real people we knew and probably up until 2011-2012 maybe
| we still were, but I guess friends of friends, colleagues,
| people in our network. Then it got really bad.
|
| Getting back to community is key.
| amelius wrote:
| > I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity
| builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more
| about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the
| health of our species.
|
| This sounds like the original internet.
|
| Before adtech took over.
| 0x3f wrote:
| The original internet wasn't about that at all, it was just
| in limbo while people were figuring out what it was going to
| be. It wasn't developed or optimized enough to be _anything_.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| > If agents/AI/bots inadvertently destroy the current
| incarnation of social media through noise, I think we'll be
| better for it.
|
| They are going to be (and AI slop already is) so much worse.
| Once they get ads to work well / seem natural the dark patterns
| will pop right back up and the money spigot will keep flowing
| upwards
| andai wrote:
| I hear word that in some countries, the government makes it so
| that screen time is limited, and algorithms promote educational
| content. Fortunately we civilized peoples are free of such a
| brutal oppression ;)
| iamnothere wrote:
| > I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity
| builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more
| about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the
| health of our species.
|
| To me this statement reads as both inaccurate and ignorant of
| human nature. Social media was actually better when it was
| about individual ego (Myspace/LiveJournal); as obnoxious as
| that can be, today everything is worse because of petty
| tribalism. Most conflicts on social media are inter-tribal,
| whether it's racial, political, national, or feuding "stan"
| culture groups. The worst problems come from groups who
| organize on platforms like Discord or Kiwi Farms to direct
| harassment campaigns against perceived enemies (or random
| "lolcow" victims).
|
| Simple observation of the present world and history will tell
| you that a platform focused on "collective improvement" will
| only appeal to a small subset of potential users. Of course
| such a platform would not be a _bad_ thing. Places like this
| (such as The WELL) used to be common when the internet was
| dominated by academics, futurists, and tech enthusiasts. But
| average people are not interested in this kind of platform, and
| will not participate in good faith in such an environment.
| fraywing wrote:
| > To me this statement reads as both inaccurate and ignorant
| of human nature
|
| > But average people are not interested in this kind of
| platform, and will not participate in good faith in such an
| environment.
|
| I'm not ignorant of human nature and tribalistic tendencies.
| The undercurrent of my comment is of an optimistic hope (or
| cope) that we can move past competitive individual validation
| programming. I'm aware that it's due to our nature, but also
| aware that it's exploited by dark patterns and extraction at
| scale through software.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Thanks for replying. I agree that dark patterns and other
| psychological manipulation is a problem, I just don't think
| it's necessarily ego-centric in origin any more than
| gambling. These companies have found very efficient methods
| to extract attention and money from humans by exploiting
| their brain's natural reward functions. I'm not sure what
| the answer is, because it's obviously a problem (again just
| like gambling addiction), but I do support people's rights
| to engage in things like gambling.
|
| Since we don't live in a perfect world, I suppose some
| regulation of the industry would be fair, just as we
| mitigate the harms of gambling somewhat through regulation.
| I just worry about regulation being used as a Trojan horse
| to stifle political organization and/or open communication
| about corruption, cronyism, and oppression.
|
| It may be that the future is more small platforms where
| conflict is limited to in-group conflict rather than global
| platforms where all of humanity's disagreements are
| surfaced and turned into fodder for monetization.
| fraywing wrote:
| Gambling is a great example. When I say "ego" I really
| mean the reinforcement of the individual pattern through
| survival-resource games, power play, or external
| validation. I'm not using it in the classic psychological
| way, perse.
|
| Regulation could work, but in my opinion the problem
| isn't devious mastermind product people attempting to
| entrap humanity -- it's self entrapment in a recursive
| way.
|
| Regulators could add red tape and boundaries for what is
| or isn't kosher or legal, but in the end can prohibition
| fix systemic integration with addictive technological
| superagonist of our own creation?
| iamnothere wrote:
| I guess I just don't see humanity awakening to
| transcendent egolessness any time in the near future (if
| ever). Based on my experience, the average person is
| fairly constrained by their biological reality. We often
| like to pretend that this isn't the case, and pretending
| may work for a while, but eventually sufficient stress
| causes the illusion to unravel forcefully.
|
| Regulation isn't perfect; in the best case all it can do
| is limit the worst harms. It's still a bad idea to engage
| in regulated gambling, as you are very likely to lose
| money. Almost everyone knows this, yet many people do it,
| and I can't see that changing any time soon.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/technology/social-
| media-t...
| mikece wrote:
| A good time to (re-)recommend the movie "The Social Dilemma".
| strongpigeon wrote:
| There is a fairly low amount of details about the case in the
| article. This NPR article [0] has a bit more, but it's still
| fairly sparse. Though it's interesting how Zuckerberg thought it
| was a good idea to say: "If people feel like they're not having a
| good experience, why would they keep using the product?".
|
| Given that this is a case about addiction, that feels like a
| shockingly bad thing to say in defense of your product. Can you
| imagine saying the same thing about oxycodone or cigarettes?
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5746125/meta-youtube-
| so...
| twoodfin wrote:
| As someone who values a liberal society, I hope we'd be
| exceedingly careful in what we label "addictive" in the same
| bucket as oxy or nicotine.
|
| I also hope the reasons are obvious.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| I don't think the reasons are obvious. Where do you put
| gambling on the spectrum?
| tqi wrote:
| Where would you put 24x7 political content?
| toyg wrote:
| That's more like perversion...
| twoodfin wrote:
| If something compels behavior vs. behavior remaining a free
| choice, a liberal society can and should treat it like any
| other source of compulsion.
|
| Personally, I am leery of any technical definition of
| "addictive" that operates outside the traditional chemical
| influences on physiology. So I would not describe gambling
| in that sense.
|
| One might have a malady that causes gambling to take on the
| same physiological vibe for you, but that's not what it
| means for gambling itself to be addictive.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| You seem to be differentiating between physical and
| psychological addiction, and saying that only physical
| addiction meets the technical definition of addiction?
| twoodfin wrote:
| I'm saying society should tread extremely carefully in
| attempting to regulate citizens' _potentially_
| psychologically addictive behaviors.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Ah OK. Yes I agree, there can be a blurry line between
| something a person does compulsively/addictively and
| something that he just enjoys doing. And it's different
| for different people.
| card_zero wrote:
| To add to the confusion, sometimes I do stupid things
| just _once._ Even so, those things should be banned, for
| harming me.
| jwardbond wrote:
| I am not a neuroscientist, but I thought the actual
| physiological cause of addiction was similar in both
| nicotine and gambling: you crave the predictable release
| of dopamine.
|
| If that is the (heavily simplified) case, is there a
| distinction for you between a chemically-induced dopamine
| release from smoking and, say, and a button you can press
| that magically releases dopamine in your brain?
| twoodfin wrote:
| I don't gamble, but if I did, I am fairly certain it
| would release little to no dopamine for me, win or lose.
|
| I don't smoke, but if I did, I'm also fairly certain I
| would find it hard to stop.
| ses1984 wrote:
| And yet, some people find themselves compelled to
| continue gambling long after they're drowning in debt.
|
| If you don't want to call that addiction, fine, but you
| can't deny that it happens.
| twoodfin wrote:
| Right: They're gambling addicts. That's a distinct fact
| from, "Gambling is a physiologically addictive behavior
| for typical humans."
| kelnos wrote:
| Right, there's a difference between a chemical that will
| addict most people simply because of the changes the
| chemical makes to the brain (even if the person doesn't
| even really like doing the thing that causes them to
| consume it), vs. an activity that gives you dopamine hits
| and _can_ be addictive, depending on the person.
|
| One is physical addiction and the other is psychological.
|
| But I'm also feeling a parallel here to people who think
| that mental health issues aren't real medical problems
| and that people can just "get better" whenever they want.
| And that's concerning. We shouldn't be more lenient on
| things that are "only" psychologically addictive.
| underlipton wrote:
| It's predictably addictive under common circumstances (a
| lack of socioeconomic support and a lack of alternative
| means to occupy one's time). If those circumstances are
| becoming more and more widespread in a society (which
| they are in this one), it behooves experts to consider
| that "typical" and "this particular cohort" might become
| harder and harder to distinguish, to the point where what
| would have been targeted interventions need to become
| general.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| You're being downvoted, but there's an interesting point
| you're trying to make. Dopamine-chasing is truly
| selective in the behavior and chemical sense.
|
| There is a particular hard drug that I could be easily
| addicted to if it were cheaper and more accessible.
| Nothing else like it gives me irresistible craving for
| more. Not nicotine, ADHD meds or speed, benzos, and not
| even opioids have the same effect. So after I discovered
| this about myself, I went on a little journey to self
| test myself other possible addictions.
|
| Social media? Nope. Video games and tv? yes. Gambling,
| hoarding, shopping: No. Sex: yes. Exercise: yes
|
| I can't rationalize any of it.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| You're missing the negative affect node of the Koob
| addiction cycle, which exists for gambling but to a
| lesser degree than for nicotine.
| dylan604 wrote:
| We already have a category called addictive personality
| disorder where someone is much more prone to being
| addicted to pretty much anything.
|
| In the US, regardless of what type of addiction you have,
| it is considered mental health. Open market insurance
| like ACA does not cover mental health, so there is no
| addiction treatment available. Sure, you can be addicted
| to a substance where your body needs a fix, but it is
| still treated as mental care. This seems to go directly
| against what your thoughts are on addiction, but that
| doesn't say much as you're just some rando on the
| interweb expressing their untrained opinions. So am I,
| but I'm not the spouting differing opinions with nothing
| more to back them up than how you feel.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Dark patterns are real. Deceptive advertising is real. So-
| called prediction markets amount to unregulated gambling on
| any proposition. Many online businesses are whale hunts and
| the whales are often addicts.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > I hope we'd be exceedingly careful in what we label
| "addictive" in the same bucket as oxy or nicotine.
|
| Not careful enough apparently: Nicotine isn't that addictive
| on its own, tobacco is.
| mrintegrity wrote:
| How does that work when nicotine products that are every
| bit as addictive as tobacco exist, maybe you're just not
| aware of them? Sitting here with non tobacco snus (Swedish
| nicotine pouch) under my top lip, something I have been
| utterly unable to quit. I believe "nicotine free" tobacco
| would be completely non addictive.
| thin_carapace wrote:
| tobacco contains MAO inhibiting compounds, which
| potentiate nicotine and increase addiction potential.
| that doesnt mean nicotine on its own isnt insanely
| addictive, i have no idea what the guy youre responding
| to is talking about. however, MAOIs were withdrawn as
| antidepressants for a good reason - they have a terrible
| withdrawal all on their own.
| vjulian wrote:
| Be aware, the vast majority of people who have ever smoked
| cigarettes occasionally never became addicted. They were
| not labeled as "smokers". A non-trivial number of people
| today continue to smoke cigarettes on occasion. I like to
| have one on my birthday. Then again, I'm able to eat a chip
| and not consume the entire bag. I'm not convinced of these
| social science studies, and when digging into individual
| studies I'm sure the replication crisis comes into play.
| SauntSolaire wrote:
| > Not careful enough apparently: Nicotine isn't that
| addictive on its own, tobacco is.
|
| That is a very strong claim to make when the current
| scientific consensus strongly disagrees.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Tobacco may be the most* addictive delivery method, but
| nicotine alone is also addictive. To say its not is
| misinformation. Consistent use of nicotine still leads to
| upregulation, which does cause irritability, brain fog,
| cravings when you stop.
|
| * I'd even change this to say modern nicotine salts in
| vapes are likely to lead to dependency faster than tobacco.
| A 5% nicotine salt pod will contain as much nicotine as a
| full pack of cigarettes, and so vapers tend to consume far
| more nicotine in a single sitting than they ever could with
| a cigarette. That combined withe constant availability
| means users of nicotine vapes & pouches (aka, no tobacco)
| are likey to have a more difficult time quitting than
| cigarette smokers.
|
| Bottom line, its still dangerous to dismiss nicotine's
| addictive potential with or without tobacco as a delivery
| method.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| We already have a distinction because it's been known for
| decades already that some things are addictive purely through
| reinforcement psychology and some things lock people into a
| chemical dependence.
|
| For example see the glossary in
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_dependence
| Sir_Twist wrote:
| I feel like people use the word "addiction" to refer to both
| chemical addiction and behavioral addiction, and that people
| understand that the latter is (usually) far less serious than
| the former.
| cedws wrote:
| I don't think you can put them into buckets like that. All
| addiction is driven in persuit of a reward. The magnitude
| of reward can be estimated with brain scans and stuff but
| to my understanding isn't universal in all humans.
|
| Can we definitely say gambling addiction is less serious
| than alcohol addiction when there's individuals who find
| the former harder to quit than the latter?
| btmiller wrote:
| There's a big distance between libertarian and liberal
| societies. The libertarian tendencies of corporations are
| what tend to cause more harm.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Social media is addictive the same way anorexia is. If you
| think Anorexia isn't a form of addiction, then sure, you got
| your 'safety'.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| "I hope we'd be exceedingly careful in what we label
| "addictive"..."
|
| To be sure. But still an obviously dumb thing for a CEO to
| say though.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Keep in mind that this case is about about a minor, not an
| adult. I don't think it's fair to ask children to resist
| social media through sheer willpower when there are legions
| of highly educated adults on the other side trying to
| increase engagement.
|
| It should be no surprise that children can be manipulated by
| highly intelligent adults.
| Barbing wrote:
| >[There are] legions of highly educated adults [at Meta]
| trying to increase [child] engagement
|
| Why is this not only OK but the best way for Mark to spend
| every waking moment of his life?
|
| Money thing? But often would he think about his bank
| account versus his products, maybe it's pure drive?
| randycupertino wrote:
| I just wish for once one of these egomaniacal
| billionaires would actually put all their efforts and
| resources into solving climate change or ending world
| hunger.
|
| Even his medical initiative Chan-Zuckerberg biohub is a
| self-congratulatory shell game. I worked in the same
| building as them for years, literally all they did was
| have parties, conferences, networking events and self-
| congratulatory schmooze things and never prioritized
| actual lab research or clinical advancements.
| timmg wrote:
| > Keep in mind that this case is about about a minor, not
| an adult.
|
| This obviously means that tech is going to have no choice
| but to do "age verification". And I don't think there's
| much of a way to do that that wouldn't be uncomfortable for
| a lot of us.
| cwmoore wrote:
| Or assign responsibility to...parents and legal
| guardians...who are not children.
| timmg wrote:
| Doesn't this lawsuit (essentially) prove otherwise?
| fdgfikgfv wrote:
| It would work if parents had legal course to seek justice
| against corporations that stalk, groom, and manipulate
| their children against their wishes.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Meta is not blameless here. Responsibility can be shared
| when Meta (and others) are essentially preying on
| children. It's an uphill battle for parents by Meta's
| design.
| cwmoore wrote:
| They're not Meta's kids, they're freemium customers.
| underlipton wrote:
| I would prefer Meta make their products less addictive
| for children, with the side-effect that they're perhaps
| less stimulating for adults, then for Meta to keep their
| products the way they are, gatekept behind a system that
| allows them access to even more of my personal data.
|
| I understand why they would want the opposite. They can
| f*ck right off.
| lokar wrote:
| And not just a minor, AIUI it's important that at the
| start, she was under 16
| yabutlivnWoods wrote:
| Mmhmm those are words. Words that are hand wavy pretexts for
| conservatism rather than liberalism; as a lover of liberal
| society you hope it acts conservatively!
|
| This just comes off as poorly obfuscated self selection. You
| own a bunch of Meta, Alphabet and other media stocks?
| janalsncm wrote:
| > I also hope the reasons are obvious.
|
| Based on the fact that many people here disagree about
| fundamental things, as well as the fact that "liberal" is a
| highly overloaded term, I think it should be obvious that
| it's not obvious what you mean.
| bsder wrote:
| > As someone who values a liberal society, I hope we'd be
| exceedingly careful in what we label "addictive" in the same
| bucket as oxy or nicotine.
|
| The problem is that this runs directly into the evidence that
| is mounting from GLP-1 agonists.
|
| A lot more things are tied to the pathways we associate with
| "addiction" than we thought.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Specifically when it comes to children, we need to show more
| restraint in giving them the liberty to partake in
| potentially addictive substances.
|
| It's one thing if an adult smokes and gambles, it's another
| thing if a child does. It seems to me that stuff you do in
| youth tends to stick around for life.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| > Can you imagine saying the same thing about oxycodone or
| cigarettes?
|
| No, but unfortunately I can very easily imagine _people_ saying
| it, just like the people who made loads of money from pushing
| those products did. Also just like the people who are profiting
| from the spread of gambling are saying now.
|
| _Why would someone choose to do a thing if it harms them?_
| There are good arguments against laws that restrict personal
| freedoms, but this isn 't one of them.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| But what if we're talking about a product that you're giving
| away to children? I agree that for adults, cigarettes are
| fine. But in this case, you're actively designing to maximize
| tweens and teens engagement and the end result is them saying
| that they wan't to stop but can't.
|
| Though to be fair, I was mostly pointing out the fact that
| this was a pretty dumb thing to say for a case like this,
| especially in a jury trial.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Yes, I agree with you, I think that regulation is needed
| here and that this was a dumb thing to say. I'm just saying
| that my reaction to Zuckerberg saying that people must love
| his product if they use it a lot is exactly what I'd expect
| him to say. It's also exactly why other parties must step
| in.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| "If people didn't like destroying the environment, why would
| they let lobbiests run their government"
|
| -- Billionaires
| easytiger wrote:
| Why not make personal responsibility illegal whilst we are at
| it. It is egregious that an individual can be held accountable
| for their own behaviours.
| janalsncm wrote:
| How much personal responsibility should we expect children to
| have? Genuine question. Because there was a time where some
| people believed that it was ok for kids to drink alcohol or
| smoke cigarettes.
| easytiger wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
| janalsncm wrote:
| That doesn't answer the question.
| petre wrote:
| If people feel that smoking causes lung cancer why do they keep
| smoking?
| caycep wrote:
| it's especially galling because he (or at least his wife) also
| funds neuroscience research at Stanford and elsewhere, and
| should have been well informed of the science behind addition,
| dopamine, and the reward pathways in the brain
| apopapo wrote:
| Will they also find liable all the companies that produce
| addictive food by injecting sugar into everything?
|
| What about the "infinite" broadcasts found on all television
| channels?
|
| This is ridiculous and pathetic.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| In other countries that's the case so I don't know why it
| shouldn't be applicable in the US?
| richwater wrote:
| People provide proof that other companies apply punitive
| damages to food companies knowinly adding sugar to food
| BoredPositron wrote:
| 8 countries in Europe, 4 in South America and 3 in Asia
| have an added sugar tax. So yes they did.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "Libertarian demands companies have unlimited freedom until a
| corporation with unlimited freedom repeatedly eats their face
| with no consequences, wonders why the face eating leopards they
| voted for are actually allowed"
| btmiller wrote:
| A full sentence answer for you: yes.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Huge if upheld. This was the bellwether case for thousands of
| other similar cases.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| I can't help but feel these are "revenge" verdicts. Public
| perception of these companies is dirt low, and there are so few
| levers the average person has to change what they feel is an
| increase in atomization, loneliness, breakdown of civic
| discourse, Cambridge Analytica level political targeting,
| misinformation, etc.
|
| Maybe the social media companies could do more to combat all
| these. They certainly have a level of profit compared to what
| they provide to the average person that makes people squirm.
|
| But does anyone believe for a second that YouTube is responsible
| for a person's internet / video watching addiction? It's like
| saying cable television is responsible for people who binge watch
| TV.
|
| It's hard to square this circle while sports gambling apps and
| Polymarket / Kalshi are tearing through the landscape right now
| with no real pushback
| bitwank wrote:
| >But does anyone believe for a second that YouTube is
| responsible for a person's internet / video watching addiction?
|
| Yes? Is there an algorithm or not?
| lokar wrote:
| Do more? They have not done anything. These trials have shown
| they have long had extremely detailed understanding of what is
| going on with their product, and instead of trying to mitigate
| the problems, they have intentionally made the problems worse
| in order to profit more.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I believe social media is on a collision course with an iceberg
| called Section 230.
|
| Broadly speaking, Section 230 differentiates between _publishers_
| and _platforms_. A platform is like Geocities (back in the day)
| where the platform provider isn 't liable for the content as long
| as they staisfy certain requirements about havaing processes for
| taking down content when required. A bit like the Cox decision
| today, you're broadly not responsible for the actions of people
| using your service unless your service is explicitly designed for
| such things.
|
| A publisher (in the Section 230 sense) is like any media outlet.
| The publisher is liable for their content but they can say what
| they want, basically. It's why publishers tend to have strict
| processes around not making defamatory or false statements, etc.
|
| I believe that any site that uses an algorithmic news feed is,
| legally speaking, a publisher acting like a platform.
|
| Example: let's just say that you, as Twitter, FB, IG or Youtube
| were suddenly pro-Russian in the Ukraine conflict. You change
| your algorithm to surface and distribute pro-Russian content and
| suppress pro-Ukraine content. Or you're pro-Ukrainian and you do
| the reverse.
|
| How is this different from being a publisher? IMHO it isn't.
| You've designed your algorithm knowingly to produce a certain
| result.
|
| I believe that all these platforms will end up being treated like
| publishers for this reason.
|
| So, with today's ruling about platforms creating addiction,
| (IMHO) it's no different to surfacing content. You are choosing
| content to produce a certain outcome. Intentionally getting
| someone addicted is funtionally no different to changing their
| views on something.
|
| I actually blame Google for all this because they very
| successfully sold the idea that "the algorithm" ranks search
| results like it's some neutral black box but every behavior by an
| algorithm represents a choice made by humans who created that
| algorithm.
| timdev2 wrote:
| Why do you believe that "Section 230 differentiates between
| publishers and platforms"?
| jmyeet wrote:
| Section 230(c)(i) [1]:
|
| > (c) (c)Protection for "Good Samaritan" blocking and
| screening of offensive material
|
| > (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
|
| > No provider or user of an interactive computer service
| shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any
| information provided by another information content provider.
|
| This is a protection for being a platform for third-party
| (including user-generated) content.
|
| Some more discussion on this distinction [2]:
|
| > Section 230's legal protections were created to encourage
| the innovation of the internet by preventing an influx of
| lawsuits for user content.
|
| It goes on to talk about publishers, distributors and
| Internet Service Providers, the last of which I characterize
| as "platforms".
|
| By the way, my view here isn't a fringe view [3]:
|
| > One argument advanced by those who want to limit immunity
| for platforms is that these algorithms are a form of content
| creation, and should therefore be outside the scope of
| Section 230 immunity. Under this theory, social media
| companies could potentially be held liable for harmful
| consequences related to content otherwise created by a third
| party.
|
| This is exactly my view.
|
| [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
|
| [2]: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/section-230-online-
| plat...
|
| [3]: https://www.naag.org/attorney-general-journal/the-
| future-of-...
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| This isn't good reasoning. According to your analysis, any
| website, ISP, or hosting provider that uses a firewall or
| Cloudflare is by definition a publisher, since they
| algorithmically shape traffic to prohibit suspicious IP
| addresses from accessing content.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Not at all. Intenet matters. Is Cloudfare trying to shape
| user behavior or push a particular position or content?
| No.
|
| Just look at the Cox decision from the Supreme Court
| today. As long as the (Internet) service isn't designed
| for or sold as a method of downloading copyrighted
| material, the provider isn't responsible for any actions
| by its users. In other words, _intent matters_.
|
| I find that technical people really get stuck on this
| aspect of the law. They look for _technical compliance_
| or an _absolute proof_ standard because we 're used to
| doing things like proving something works mathematically.
| But the law is _subjective_ and _holistic_. It looks at
| the totality of evidence and applies a subjective test.
|
| And intent here is fairly easy to establish. We could
| take an issue like Russia and look at all the posts and
| submissions and see how many views and interactions those
| posts got. We then divide them into pro-Russian and pro-
| Ukraine and establish a clear bias. We also look at any
| modifications made to the algorithm to achieve those
| goals.
|
| This is nothing like Cloudfare DDoS protection.
| lokar wrote:
| Please read:
|
| https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...
| jmyeet wrote:
| This is an opinion and I believe it's wrong. And you just
| have to look at the statute to see why [1]:
|
| > (c) Protection for "Good Samaritan" blocking and screening
| of offensive material
|
| > (2) Civil liability
|
| > (A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict
| access to or availability of material that the provider or
| user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy,
| excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable,
| whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;
| or
|
| _" in good faith"_ is key here. Here's another opinion [2]:
|
| > One argument advanced by those who want to limit immunity
| for platforms is that these algorithms are a form of content
| creation, and should therefore be outside the scope of
| Section 230 immunity. Under this theory, social media
| companies could potentially be held liable for harmful
| consequences related to content otherwise created by a third
| party.
|
| So far the Supreme Court has sidestepped this issue despite
| cases making it to the Appeals Court. Until the Supreme Court
| addresses, none of us can say with any certainty what is and
| isn't protected.
|
| [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
|
| [2]: https://www.naag.org/attorney-general-journal/the-
| future-of-...
| lokar wrote:
| I don't expect that to work, but who knows. Editors "rank",
| curate, select, present, etc content to people, and have
| for a long time, and it's always understood to be speech.
|
| Remember, according to that link, 230 does not give
| platforms any new rights. It simply makes it easier for
| them to end cases faster and cheaper, that they would have
| already won on 1st amendment grounds.
| hash872 wrote:
| At least even money that an appellate court throws this verdict
| out entirely. Reminder that the US is the only developed country
| that uses juries for civil trials- everywhere else, complex
| issues of business litigation are generally left to a panel of
| judges. It's not that hard to rile up a bunch of randomly
| impaneled jurors against Big Bad Corporation. The US is kind of
| infamous for its very large, very unpredictable civil verdicts.
| There's an incredibly long history of juries racking up
| shockingly large verdicts against companies, only for an
| appellate court to throw the whole case out as unreasonable. Not
| even close to the final word in the American judicial system.
|
| Edit to include: I mean this is coming the same day as the
| Supreme Court throwing out the piracy case against Cox
| Communications 9-0. Remember that this case originated with $1
| billion dollar jury verdict against them! Was reversed by an
| appeals court 5 years later and completely invalidated today.
| Juries should not handle complex civil litigation, I'm sorry
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Thanks for this take. Also explains why this did not result in
| much stock price movement today
| zahlman wrote:
| Also at least partially explained by being priced in. The
| trial was known about and given the conditions described in
| GP it's not surprising that the verdict went this way.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yeah there are so many reasons this could be reversed on
| appeal. Whether the judge correctly held questions of section
| 230, and the First Amendment, is not obvious.
| bsimpson wrote:
| The shotgun approach (suing FB, TikTok, Snapchat, and Google
| simultaneously) makes this sound as ridiculous as the punchline
| "woman sues McDonalds for coffee being too hot" (distinct from
| that actual case, which was less ridiculous than the headline).
|
| Suing Facebook for systematically behaving badly is one thing,
| if you can prove it and prove it harmed you.
|
| Suing _everybody_ is one random person getting rich for...
| being mad at the world she was born into?
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Suing _everybody_ is one random person getting rich for...
| being mad at the world she was born into?_
|
| Nothing wrong with getting mad at the world when the world is
| complete and utter garbage to you.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Maybe if most people would agree the corporation is big and bad
| and should have penalties, it's more democratic to go with that
| decision that the decision nine unelected philosopher kings
| come up with.
| woah wrote:
| Are there any takeaways here for builders of social media
| applications who are not Facebook or Google? Is this a warning to
| not make your newsfeed algorithm "too engaging" or is it only
| really relevant for big companies?
| vaylian wrote:
| I'm not an authority on this matter. But if you say "I can stop
| any time", and it is not true, then you have a problem.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| This just seems ripe for selective enforcement if not codified in
| law. I agree the algorithm they use can be addicting, but it's
| because it's simply good at providing content the user wants to
| consume.
|
| Besides a general 'don't be too good' I'm really not sure what
| companies should do about it. It just seems like it'll lead to
| some judges allowing rulings against companies they don't like.
|
| Television's goal was always viewer retention as well, they were
| just never able to target as well as you can on the internet.
| carabiner wrote:
| Nukes are the same as knives, just different in magnitude.
| Should one have special rules?
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I see it as similar to the public health crisis created when
| protonated nicotine salts made their way into vapes along with
| flavors allowing 2-10x more nicotine to be delivered and the
| innovation that made Juul so popular with children.
|
| The subsequent effects - namely being easier to consume and
| more addictive - eventually resulted in legislation catching
| up, and restrictions on what Juul could do. It being "too good"
| of a product parallels what we're seeing in social media seven
| years later.
|
| Like most[all] all public health problems we see
| individualization of responsibility touted as a solution. If
| individualization worked, it would have already succeeded.
| Nothing prevents individualization except its failure of
| efficacy.
|
| What does work is systems-level thinking and considering it an
| epidemiological problem rather than a problem of
| responsibility. Responsibility didn't work with the AIDS
| crisis, it didn't work on Juul, and it's not going to work on
| social media.
|
| It is ripe for public health strategies. The biggest impediment
| to this is people who mistakingly believe that negative effects
| represent a personal moral failure.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Lets just be honest, if you make enough money its legal in
| America.
|
| Unless you hurt children, then its mostly legal and a slap on
| the wrist.
| jdasdf wrote:
| thats the point
| lokar wrote:
| Companies that sell products to the public have managed this
| for a hundred years. Some are good at it, some are not, some
| completely disregarded their obligations. This is not all that
| new.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| > I'm really not sure what companies should do about it
|
| disassemble the intentionally addictive properties they built
| into their platforms to maximise engagement and revenue at the
| cost of the mental health of their users.
| dmix wrote:
| > During his first-ever appearance before a jury in February,
| Meta's chairman and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, relied on
| his company's longstanding policy of not allowing users under the
| age of 13 on any of its platforms.
|
| > When presented with internal research and documents showing
| that Meta knew young children were in fact using its platforms,
| Zuckerberg said he "always wished" for faster progress to
| identify users under 13. He insisted the company had reached the
| "right place over time".
|
| Soon there will be government IDs required to use social media
| sites because parent's can't take phones away from their kids.
| Handy-Man wrote:
| IMO, parents share just as much blame here, if not more. Giving
| your kids independence doesn't mean being oblivious to what
| they're doing online. Too many parents confuse hands-off
| parenting with not parenting at all.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| Have you met kids? They're devious, tech knowledgeable, and
| scheming and can find ways around any rule. Plus, no matter how
| good of a parent you are, you're somewhat at the mercy of their
| friends' parents as well. I can block TikTok from my daughter's
| phone, but can't block her from watching her friend's phone
| while she's out of the house.
| intended wrote:
| I dont think parents going up against psychologists, data
| scientists, product managers and software engineers with the
| best pay in the world is any kind of fair fight.
| dzink wrote:
| Read the book "Careless People" if you have a chance - according
| to the book, social media companies figured out they have real
| leverage with politicians since they can influence elections. As
| a result they are actively pushing for far right candidates to
| reduce their own taxation and regulation.
| Zigurd wrote:
| I don't think this accelerationism/fascism hobby of many tech
| bros is going to age well.
| prepend wrote:
| That book was so lame and the author leaves out how she
| profited millions and then only complained after she was fired.
|
| Its also funny how they "discovered" they were influencing
| elections after they influenced the 2008 and 2012 elections.
|
| How did the author not know this when she sought out and joined
| the company in like 2013!
|
| The parts about playing Settlers of Catan with Zuckerberg was
| funny. I wonder what his side of the story was and if people
| were really letting him win.
| lokar wrote:
| I thought she discussed her pay/stock, what a big deal it was
| to her and how that affected her decisions very openly.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| This is the kind of stuff that is causing them to push for
| mandatory identity verification laws. If they are being held
| liable for the the desires of their users, they're being forced
| micromanage the affairs of their customers, which preclude
| anonymous usage.
| intended wrote:
| Meta is not pushing for mandatory age verification laws.They
| are pushing for age verification burdens to be pushed to the OS
| / App Store layer.
| 13415 wrote:
| Not only that, in my opinion the many positive reactions to
| this decision are a sign of a decline of personal
| responsibility and a desire of people to be managed by the
| government and treated like cattle. Blaming everyone else but
| themselves for personal problems and failures has become the
| default for many people.
| xvxvx wrote:
| In before someone says 'blame the parents' and not the multi-
| billion dollar companies who've spent decades targeting children
| for lifelong addiction, ignoring the negative effects on their
| mental health.
| kakacik wrote:
| The thing is, it should be both. Parents often give too little
| fucks for long term welfare of their children, often also
| guilty of same vices. Issue is, these addictions are way more
| destructive to young forming mind than to adults. Nobody having
| small kids now had fb or instagram access when they were 5, did
| they.
|
| Maybe you don't do this. Certainly I don't. But when looking
| around, its much less rosy and... lets say in blue collar
| families its too common to drug kids with screens so parents
| have off time. Heck, some are even proud how modern parents
| they are. Any good advice is successfully ignored, and ideas of
| passing some proper time with kids instead are skillfully
| avoided. People got lazy and generally expect miracles from
| life without putting in any miracle-worth efforts.
|
| Companies just maximize their profits till laws allows them
| (and then some more), and expecting nice moral behavior by
| default is dangerously naive and never true.
| 12_throw_away wrote:
| Consider that the insane growth in the cost of living -
| especially childcare - combined with wage stagnation means
| that now the vast majority of families have 2 parents with
| full-time jobs, keeping them away for their families for much
| longer than before. Consider that childcare is much, much
| harder to even get into now than in decades past. Consider
| also that "EdTech" means that nearly every child needs to be
| on an internet equipped-device at all times.
|
| But sure, "Parents often give too little fucks for long term
| welfare of their children", that's definitely it. Parents
| just hate their kids! What a useful perspective you've
| brought to the discussion.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| It need not be either-or.
|
| The guy who made the drugs is guilty. The guy who sold the
| drugs to kids is guilty. But parents who failed to warn kids
| about drugs and to oversee them properly are also guilty...
| psychoslave wrote:
| So is the judicial system that is not making this illegal or
| don't enforce laws to prevent people targeting kids to create
| early dependence on drugs.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| That is a fair point, I did not attempt to make a complete
| list, of course, but you are right, there are more layers
| that could be named. All valid. The point I was making is
| that parents are also responsible.
|
| eg: I grew up in a very nasty place. My neighborhood had a
| few pregnant 13 year old girls and a lot of drunks and
| smokers, including kids in their early teens. My parents
| kept me away from it all, while also both having full-time
| jobs. They put a lot of work into filtering whom I could be
| friends with and where I was allowed to be. THAT is the job
| of a parent.
| macintux wrote:
| I agree it's the job of a parent, but two parents (and
| with only a single job each) is sadly not the norm in
| many challenging environments.
| gusgus01 wrote:
| Generally in an article about arresting or sentencing a drug
| dealer, people don't bring up that the drug users are
| actually to blame.
|
| Now if we're in a discussion around the cartels, plenty of
| people do bring up (and there's also those that get annoyed
| by it) that the drug users are actually the ones funding the
| cartels via their drug use.
|
| Along these lines, I think another fun comparison might be
| opioid use and Purdue.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| I think that that is actually an oversight. One needs to
| consider the entire chain. For example, with proper
| parenting, there would be a lot less youth demand for
| drugs. It doesn't make what a drug dealer does any less
| bad, nor does it make the efforts of the police to arrest
| the drug dealer any less important. But it's suboptimal to
| consider a small piece of a system, without thinking of the
| whole.
| pow_ext wrote:
| Apps like instagram and YouTube should be required at least to
| give an option to disable reels and shorts
| polskibus wrote:
| Don't forget WhatsApp. Kids are allowed to have WhatsApp as
| messaging but they get fed videos there too. There is no way to
| really disable them . Also this be allowed as parental
| supervision, not something that kids can override.
| ryandvm wrote:
| There should be a law to require the ability to disable
| algorithmic customization of content. If these apps are so
| compelling it shouldn't take a Spark cluster riffing on my
| private viewing habits to come up with content for me.
|
| I don't recall a lot of complaints about Facebook or Instagram
| when it was actually your friends' content. But now it's force-
| feeding everybody their own "guilty pleasure" viewing material
| 24 hours a day. It's fucking sick.
| seydor wrote:
| Perhaps we need more social activism (remember that?) to stop
| people falling into this kind of addiction. I remember anti-
| drugs campaigning , they were everywhere. Phone addictions are
| not taken nearly as seriously.
| dymk wrote:
| Using the war on drugs as an example as a successful social
| movement is kinda hilarious
| AlcherBlack wrote:
| For YouTube, on the mobile app: Setting -> Time Management ->
| Daily Limits -> Shorts Feed limit
| lokar wrote:
| there is no option for zero
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| We need a return to consent. I want to be able to say "no". Not
| "see fewer shorts", see NO shorts. Not "maybe later", actually
| fucking "no".
| dsauerbrun wrote:
| one of the benefits of being on android and being able to
| sideload apps. Look up "revanced youtube" and you'll be able to
| turn off shorts.
|
| ublock origin for blocking them on desktop. If you're on an
| iphone... uninstall youtube?
|
| my quality of life has increased substantially... although
| sometimes the app bugs out and shorts still make it on my home
| page. I spend like 10 minutes scrolling through shorts and get
| a weird shock "how the fuck did I end up here?", restart the
| app and boom shorts gone again.
| nickvec wrote:
| Wow, so does this pave the way for massive class action lawsuits?
| Not familiar with how precedents like this play out long term.
| eagsalazar2 wrote:
| So... should we all sue Youtube and Meta now? This is a semi-
| serious, follow this precedent to its logical conclusion,
| question.
| eagsalazar2 wrote:
| This is ultimately about the inherently pernicious nature of
| unregulated capitalism. Businesses want money. They get that by
| manipulating you, the consumer, to consume their services. They
| are "ethically" bound by (given an excuse by) fiduciary duty to
| pursue profit callously.
|
| The result, in these corner cases where eating people is
| profitable? Shelob.
| Ohkay wrote:
| How about optimize for engagement with people you know irl and
| not influencers and media?
| itissid wrote:
| As long as we continue to value making money for shareholders
| above all else, such and possibly worst perversions will continue
| to happen. Capital has found all sorts of ways to make all sorts
| of questionable things addictive to sell.
|
| I feel, and it's obvious to most that the only way a society can
| truly reform is by a shared consensus over their value system.
| This verdict could be thrown out by the appelette court(i feel it
| would be), so this is not the culmination of values resulting in
| what many hoped for.
|
| It does not seem to me that this is a country where consensus on
| what, if anything, to put above capital will come about any time
| soon and with capital it's always been ask for forgiveness rather
| than permission.
|
| The only time true justice that happens is when the harm becomes
| obvious being the shadow of a doubt(e.g. smoking) that even a
| monkey can tell it's time, game is up.
|
| Perhaps if one day we can look into the brains of people with the
| clarity of glass and the precision of electrons and tell, will
| that time come when we all recognize how bad of an idea social
| media was.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| I don't feel good about this case- on the one hand, I'm all for
| sticking it to big corporations. On the other hand, nobody has
| claimed that Meta and YouTube were doing anything illegal, so
| this case is different from civil suits brought after a criminal
| case finds someone guilty. This is a case where the jury decided
| they don't like how two corporations acted, and are just giving
| money to one person. Why does this plaintiff in particular
| deserve this money?
|
| I've argued in the past that the right way to create the change
| in corporations we want is to change the laws, and people have
| made valid points that Congress has basically given up on doing
| that. But even so, civil cases with fines don't seem like that
| way to make lasting change. In the analogues to the tobacco
| fights, there are LAWS that regulate tobacco company behaviors as
| a result. The civil case here isn't going to result in any law.
| So what are companies supposed to do? Tiptoe around some ill
| defined social boundary and hope they don't get sued? Because
| apparently the defense of, "no I didn't target that person and I
| didn't break any laws" is still going to get you fined. What
| happens when a company from a conservative location gets sued in
| a liberal location for causing a social ill? Oh, we're cool with
| that. But what if a company from a liberal location gets sued in
| a conservative location for the same thing? Oh, maybe we don't
| like that as much. I'm taking the libertarian side here. I know
| plenty of people who don't watch TV, don't use Facebook, and I
| know plenty of people that recognized that they were spending too
| much time on digital platforms and decided to quit or cut back.
| So a healthy person can self regulate on these apps, I've seen it
| and done it. I'm just not sure how much responsibility Meta and
| YouTube bear in my mind. If they're getting fined $3M plus some
| TBD punitive amount, are we saying that this 20 year old person
| lost out on earning that much money in their life or would need
| to spend $3M on therapy because of Meta or YouTube? It feels a
| little steep off a fine for one person.
|
| If Meta and YouTube really were/are making addictive products,
| wouldn't a lot more people be harmed? Shouldn't this be a class
| action suit where anyone with mental trauma or depression be
| included?
|
| I don't _know_ the details of the case, but I highly doubt that
| this one plaintiff was targeted specifically, and I doubt their
| case is that unique. I read tons of news articles about cyber
| bullying, depression, suicide attempts, and tech addiction. Does
| every one get to sue Meta and YouTube for $3M now?
| lokar wrote:
| The case was brought under product liability law.
|
| If I sell you gizmo, and I know, or should know, that using the
| gizmo could seriously harm you, and I don't tell you or do
| anything about it, I am liable for damages you incur.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| I'm not sure the plaintiff's mental harm was caused by Meta
| and YouTube. You can be just as depressed without social
| media and online videos. And even if they were, other cases
| that are kind of similar to this have not found the
| corporation responsible. The parents of Sandy Hook didn't get
| any money out of Remington, and their product is much more
| directly linked to harming people than an app. McDonald's was
| not held liable in 2002 for making people fat. I am pretty
| sure the food at McDonald's is more easily linked to our
| health outcomes than the link in this case.
|
| Should Apple or Samsung be held liable for making the phone
| that the plaintiff probably used to use these apps? How much
| responsibility do they bear?
|
| Further, Facebook/Instagram and YouTube are free products
| from the perspective of the plaintiff. These corporations
| didn't sell anything to the plaintiff, so can they even be
| held liable? They did sell the plaintiff's data to
| advertisers, which I think you might be able to hold them
| responsible if they misused that data, but this isn't what
| the case was about.
|
| I'm not rooting for depression or suicidal thoughts or
| anything, but this doesn't feel like the right direction we
| need to be moving in as society. We can't simultaneously
| argue for free speech and freedom of choice and also claim
| that we aren't capable of making our own choices to live our
| lives responsibly.
| jraby3 wrote:
| When I was a kid, tv commercials were heavily censored and the tv
| channel could and would be fined immediately if something
| inappropriate was shown.
|
| How is it that these days social media can circumvent all these
| safeguards and then somehow blame the parents if a kid is
| watching something inappropriate on an app designed for kids
| (like YouTube kids)?
|
| The issue is that politicians are beholden to social media
| companies because they can literally get them or their opponent
| elected. After reading Careless People, I was amazed at how
| leaders of so many countries wanted to meet Zuck because he
| wields so much power.
|
| I really hope this ruling is the beginning of the end of the free
| rein they've had.
| crowcroft wrote:
| Don't get me started. So many existing laws just seem to be
| conveniently ignored because... it's 'digital'?
|
| In a lot of countries there are specific laws banning the
| deliberate targeting of advertising to children (and in
| contexts where you would reach children, heavily regulated),
| but for over a decade Meta would allow you to target within the
| ranges of 13 to 18 years old.
|
| That's to say nothing of the scams and deepfake celebrity ads
| they let run. Imagine if a deepfake ad of Warren Buffet
| promoting an investment opportunity ran on TV, the network
| would get sued into oblivion. On Meta though, there's no
| repercussions.
| rconti wrote:
| "YouTube argued that it was not a social media company and that
| its features were not designed to be addictive."
|
| Well, that's laughable.
| prepend wrote:
| I think this is going to end up with a huge chunk paid out to
| state health departments for the foreseeable future.
|
| Kind of like how tobacco companies now pay out billions every
| year and its a major source of funding for states.
|
| Hopefully this means more health services available. But it will
| just serve like an ongoing tax.
| lokar wrote:
| AIUI, this particular case is a pilot for about 2,000 similar
| (but not similar enough to be combined into a class action)
| cases. They are not actions by state or local governments for
| damages they have received, as was the case with tobacco.
| bondolo wrote:
| Negligent doesn't begin to describe their behaviour.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| I strongly doubt that "negligent" is the proper word for
| "carefully designed to induce as much addictive behavior".
| cat-turner wrote:
| I actually quit Instagram because I found it so addictive. Wild
| that there's a case. Parents need to just take away phones from
| children. Simple as that.
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