[HN Gopher] Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation
___________________________________________________________________
Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 521 points
Date : 2026-04-09 13:23 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| k33n wrote:
| The idea that Meta is obligated to be so impartial that it must
| allow lawsuits against itself to be promoted on its own platform
| is a bit naive and utopian.
|
| Its own TOS states that they won't allow that.
| gilrain wrote:
| Let's force them to be obligated to do that, then. "Just let
| them hurt people, and then let them hide that hurt" kind of
| sucks for society.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Fair enough. If they're not impartial then lets hold them
| accountable for the content published in their platform.
| mc32 wrote:
| To me that's how it should be. They shouldn't have to run ads
| against themselves yet they should be liable or accountable
| for harm they are found guilty of.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >They shouldn't have to run ads against themselves
|
| This is not how it works when you're found guilty of
| committing harm. Tobacco companies are a good example of
| this.
| mc32 wrote:
| If the government mandates them then yes. If it's not
| mandated they have the right to refuse service.
| pixl97 wrote:
| The bigger you get the more iffy it gets refusing service
| to others. Also it can and will be used against you in
| future civil and criminal cases.
| k33n wrote:
| I'm not against these companies losing their Section 230
| immunity. Social media platforms are, in my personal opinion,
| publishers in their current form.
|
| If they went back to operating as "friends and family feed
| providers" then letting them keep their 230 immunity would be
| easier to justify.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| You are relying on the wrong people to be able to
| understand that nuanced distinction.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Yes, if they went back to being chronological feeds of
| people you follow, then they should get to keep Section 230
| immunity.
|
| When they are making editorial decisions about what to
| content to promote to you and what content to hide from
| you, then they should lose it.
| pocksuppet wrote:
| Section 230 doesn't say anything about publishers. That was
| entirely made up by chronically online arguers.
|
| What it does say is you aren't liable for something someone
| else wrote.
|
| It doesn't create liability for things not covered by it.
|
| Guess who decides the order and contents of Facebook feeds?
| Facebook does. So they wouldn't be liable for someone
| writing a post saying "gas the jews" but they would still
| be liable for choosing to show it at the top of everyone's
| front page, if that was a choice, because the front page
| was choice-based rather than chronological.
| schubidubiduba wrote:
| TOS are not laws. In fact, they often partially violate laws
| and those parts are then void. In some countries, anything
| written in TOS that is not "expected to be there" is void.
| raincole wrote:
| No one says ToS are laws and especially not the parent
| commenter.
| Fraterkes wrote:
| The parent comment brings up the ToS as an example of why
| it's naive to believe Meta is obligated to do something,
| but what Meta is _obligated_ to do depends on the law.
| raincole wrote:
| And which laws state that Meta is obligated to show ads
| like this?
| Fraterkes wrote:
| Irrelevant. My point is that the parent comment _did_
| imply that the ToS created obligations for Meta in the
| way that laws do, which means your first comment was
| incorrect.
| raincole wrote:
| They absolutely didn't imply that. They implied that Meta
| doesn't _want_ to show the ads so it 's native to think
| Meta would just show the ads without being forced to.
| Which is correct.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Ok but I don't really see why this specific term would
| violate any law? Do we really want a society where platforms
| are forced to present speech that is harmful to them? If you
| own a store and I put a sign up on your wall advertising a
| rival store wouldn't it be reasonable for you to disallow
| that?
| quantum_magpie wrote:
| It's not a rival store, or speech against them.
|
| It's a lawsuit, with the users of the platform as the
| damaged party, against the platform. Removing the
| possibility to reach the users should result in a default
| judgement with maximum damages immediately.
| quantum_magpie wrote:
| An alternative reply, with analogy, if you like them:
|
| You own a restaurant, where you sell poisoned
| (intentionally and knowingly) food. A group of people band
| up for class action lawsuit for poisoning them, and have
| the lawyers post a sign at your restaurant, that everyone
| poisoned there should reach out and get some compensation.
|
| Should you be allowed to take the sign down?
| ronsor wrote:
| They shouldn't be allowed to put the sign up unless it's
| court ordered.
|
| I know this answer doesn't pass the vibes test, but it's
| how the law actually works. If you post a sign on
| someone's property without permission, you'll get in
| trouble for trespassing, vandalism, or both.
|
| So get a judge to issue an order. In a serious situation,
| they very well might.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I kind of wish countries would just define, "terms of
| service" for everyone and not allow companies to modify them
| further.
| 3form wrote:
| Maybe, but so what? Your remark lacks a conclusion.
|
| Mine is that it could then well be required to do so by law.
| Companies are not individuals, so I don't think they are owed
| any freedoms beyond what is best for utility they can provide.
| iinnPP wrote:
| I tend to agree with you on this. I wanted to add however that
| Meta itself lets so many TOS violating ads in, that it seems
| like special treatment for ads that are much less undesirable
| than the ads normally pushed.
|
| It's not just a Meta issue either.
| streetfighter64 wrote:
| The idea that a company can override laws via its TOS is a bit
| strange.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Genuinely curious. By not allowing a specific type of ad,
| what law are they breaking?
| mirashii wrote:
| That idea was not expressed in the article, only the fact that
| the ads were removed. This is worth covering, especially when
| coupled with the context for what ads Meta regularly does
| allow. One does not have to believe that they're obligated to
| do so while also believing that it's incredibly scummy behavior
| that consumers should be aware of and question.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...
| freejazz wrote:
| Okay? They're exactly the assholes everyone says they are.
| That's the point.
| hashmap wrote:
| at certain scales, reality has to win out over whatever ideal
| you have in your head about how things should be. facebook is
| massive, a lot of society is on it, and its a problem to make
| recourse invisible to people most affected by the thing
| stealing their attention.
| Zigurd wrote:
| There are so many ads for nostrums, cults, get rich quick
| scams, and other junk that violate TOS, that Meta has a
| legitimacy problem with their TOS.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > The idea that Meta is obligated to be so impartial
|
| Is their defence of Section 230 protections not in part rooted
| in that claim of impartiality?
| nradov wrote:
| No. Section 230 doesn't mention anything about impartiality.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| It indeed doesn't, but conservative lawmakers signalled
| repeatedly that they were unhappy about Meta's protection
| under section 230 if their moderation policies were not
| politically neutral
| hansvm wrote:
| Companies have to inform affected individuals of data breaches,
| especially when HIPAA gets involved. Brokers have to inform
| clients of transaction errors. Auto manufacturers have to
| inform owners of recalls. Retirement funds have to inform plan
| participants of lawsuits involving those funds.
|
| You don't even have to invoke the idea that Meta is big enough
| to be regulated as a public utility for this to have broad
| precedent in favor of forcing a malicious actor to inform its
| victims that they might be entitled to a small fraction of
| their losses in compensation.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Well we aren't discussing the government requiring meta to
| inform users. We are discussing whether meta can choose which
| private actors' ads to allow. It would seem silly that a
| platform would be forced to allow all ads.
| hansvm wrote:
| Aha, how clever. We aren't discussing whether they can be
| forced to display messaging; we're discussing whether
| they're going to later get slapped down for blocking that
| messaging.
|
| I get that the distinction matters a bit from time to time
| (court cases keep blurring the line in the US though), but:
|
| 1. With all the other shit that makes it through the
| filter, this was pretty clearly a targeted, strategic
| takedown rather than some sort of broad "we don't allow bad
| ads on the platform." Allowing "all ads" isn't the thing
| being argued; it's allowing "this ad."
|
| 2. The non-offensive idea of "abusers shouldn't be allowed
| to deceive and gaslight their victims" is pretty strongly
| in favor of this being a bad move on Meta's part if it was
| an intentional act. Maybe it shakes out fine for them
| legally in this particular instance, but the fact that as a
| society we routinely require companies and individuals to
| behave with more appearance of moral standing than this
| suggests that blocking this particular ad is over the line,
| and it's neither naive nor utopianistic to think so. Even
| if it's legally in the light-grey, it's an abuse of power
| worth talking about, and hopefully it inspires more people
| to leave their platform.
| dcrazy wrote:
| This is why courts are empowered to infringe upon the rights of
| parties to the case.
| bilekas wrote:
| > "We will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms
| while simultaneously claiming they are harmful."
|
| Wow.. That is quite a statement. Am I right in saying that in
| order to claim for the class action lawsuit, which facebook has
| been 'found negligent', that the victims need to take an action
| collectively in order to claim ? IE They need to be reached
| somehow to inform them of the possibility ?
|
| Seems the most obvious place to advertise would be Meta.
|
| I understand Meta can basically do whatever they like with their
| ToS but the statement from the Meta spokesperson seems like an
| extremely bad idea.
| boringg wrote:
| I mean those class action lawsuits enrich trial lawyers and
| maybe force companies to behave better (though i bet empirical
| evidence would show that its more a cost of business).
|
| The 20$ dollars people get is nothing but a guise that the
| trial lawyers are helping people.
| bilekas wrote:
| I'm not sure if the lower price means that class actions
| shouldn't still be taken.
|
| It's to allow companies to not have to deal with individual
| claims for each person. I see that the ranges can be
| substantial though, several thousands, but seems to be
| criteria.
|
| > Nearly nine months later, Mark received a notification that
| his claim had been approved. Two weeks after that, $186 was
| deposited into his bank account. While the amount wasn't
| substantial, it covered a grocery run and a phone bill--and
| more importantly, it reminded him that companies can be held
| accountable, even in small ways. [0]
|
| [0] https://peopleforlaw.com/blog/how-much-do-people-
| typically-g...
|
| If the fine's don't dissuade companies from bad practices,
| the class actions with theoreticaly no upper limit might be a
| better option to enforce proper behaviour.
| boringg wrote:
| I can agree with that -- however the amount of money the
| trial lawyers make comparatively is wildly
| disproportionate. I think that 186$ figure is an example on
| the high side of payouts to individuals.
| bilekas wrote:
| > however the amount of money the trial lawyers make
| comparatively is wildly disproportionate
|
| It's relative, class actions take an inhumane amount of
| work, try to validate, in this case 1kk+ people's records
| and put that into some case that will pass the bar to
| win. It's not a banal "I have 1kk people who claim the
| same."
| bwestergard wrote:
| They wouldn't profit if the cases didn't have merit.
| 3form wrote:
| "Lawyer benefitting from cases about prostitution equals to a
| pimp" kind of argument.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Would be really entertaining if all the lawyers affected banded
| together and made a class action lawsuit full of lawyers as the
| plaintiffs.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| The judge should have ordered Meta to place a banner on FB so
| that everyone can see it and join if they're a victim.
| shimman wrote:
| Wow this is a really good idea. I wonder if the various state
| trials happening as well should use this for remediation too.
|
| It's not a hard thing to implement on their end and should be
| mandated by a judge as you said.
|
| Filing this away for later use.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Europe (Poland) loves this kind of stuff.
|
| It often comes up in (anti) free-speech trials, where the
| government compels the perpetrator to issue a public
| apology to the victim. Forcing them to buy an ad in a
| newspaper for example is not unheard of.
|
| As far as I understand, Americans consider this to be
| "compelled speech" and hence prohibited, but I might be
| wrong on this.
| dcrazy wrote:
| The same thing happens here. Courts are allowed to compel
| speech as a method of remedy, but my recollection is that
| this is sometimes successfully challenged.
|
| An interesting variant I've seen on anti-smoking banners
| at convenience stores is "A federal court has ordered a
| Philip Morris USA to say: ..."
| push0ret wrote:
| In Austria this is a called "Urteilsveroffentlichung"
| ("Judgement Publication"; SS 25 UWG). It has commonly been
| used in cases against ISPs.
|
| Here is such an example (VKI vs A1 Telekom):
| https://www.lteforum.at/attachments/a1-urteil-jpg.34162/
| smsm42 wrote:
| Not likely to survive 1st Amendment challenge - it is
| possible to compel somebody to certain speech as a result of
| losing a case, but doing this as a prerequisite when the case
| has just started is not likely to fly. Otherwise I could
| force Facebook (or any other platform) to publish anything
| just by suing them - and anybody could sue anybody else on
| virtually any grounds.
| gowld wrote:
| https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-
| mis...
|
| "We will allow more speech by lifting restrictions on some
| topics that are part of mainstream discourse and focusing
| our enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations."
| pixl97 wrote:
| Tobacco lawyers "Putting that cigarettes are harmful on the box
| would be devastating to our profits!"
| reactordev wrote:
| Literally every ceo
| deaux wrote:
| You missed an adjective: literally every _megacorp_ CEO.
| Plenty of small companies with transparent and honest CEOs.
|
| Also why we need much less megacorps than there are now.
| reactordev wrote:
| Being good and profit motives will always be at odds.
| bilekas wrote:
| Only if you're liable to shareholders.
| bko wrote:
| Imagine NYT banning an ad in it's newspaper telling people
| how to cancel and sue NYT?
|
| Wild stuff
| akersten wrote:
| It would be a better analogy if tobacco companies sold ad
| space on their packs and chose not to do business with a
| private for-profit anti-smoking solicitation group.
| adi_kurian wrote:
| No it would not. Meta is an advertising company that sells
| ad space. More specifically, Meta is the dominant firm in
| the social advertising market which is an oligopoly.
|
| It is "the business", not an imagined side revenue stream.
| gowld wrote:
| And that would be a blatant admission of guilt.
| roysting wrote:
| I understand the impulse, but there are not only significant
| differences, i.e., the requirement to add labeling to
| cigarettes was mostly a judicial or legislative action, but
| there is also that rather perverse fact that this kind of
| legislation that people are championing is often funded by
| profit and greed just like the harm being sued over.
|
| The article even at least mentions that at least one of the
| suits is private equity funded; which generally will result
| in the partners and/or investors of the private equity firm
| and the attorneys suing, which are often all one and the same
| in what is just a financial and legal shell game, net tens of
| millions of dollars, while the supposed victims will end up
| with nothing but pennies on the dollar of harm and injury.
|
| I get the impulse to also "cheer" for the lawsuits, but if
| you thought Meta, etc. are bad; you really don't want to look
| into the vile pestilence that is the law firms that are
| basically organized crime too by the core definition of crime
| being an offense and harm upon society.
|
| I don't really know a solution for this problem because it is
| so rooted in the core foundation of this rotten system we
| still call America for some reason, but for the time being I
| guess, the only moderately effective remedy for harm and
| injury is to combat it with more harm and injury.
| _doctor_love wrote:
| "But Black Dynamite! I sell drugs to the community!"
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > the statement from the Meta spokesperson seems like an
| extremely bad idea.
|
| All corporate CYA ideas sound that way, but ultimately end up
| benefiting the company in the end. Meta is right to do this.
| That's not to say it's right to do, but it's right for the
| company.
| mrwh wrote:
| Meta wants to be an impartial platform only and exactly when it
| suits them to be.
| tiberius_p wrote:
| That's exactly what they're saying.
| kotaKat wrote:
| I mean, they spun up a bullshit "Oversight Board" that they can
| fully 100% choose to ignore and decline to implement their
| demands when they're made.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I think there's a clear difference in restricting advertising
| vs organic posts.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| What difference is that?
| thimabi wrote:
| Meta does both. It has long been said that businesses have
| little organic reach in Meta's platforms, as an incentive for
| them to use ads.
| lazarus01 wrote:
| I'm not a big poster at all, but ran into this precise
| issue.
|
| They analyze the video posts on instagram. If they detect
| the video has even a small amount of commercial value, they
| classify it as branded content and you need to pay for it
| to get promoted.
| alex1138 wrote:
| For all the creepy People You May Know stuff they don't
| even bother connecting people properly even on people's
| personal pages
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Name one platform that doesn't, and I'm not just talking about
| lip service.
| mbesto wrote:
| Signal?
| _moof wrote:
| There are degrees.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| 4chan?
| bloqs wrote:
| It's not unilateral but if it is a commercial interest, then
| I'll agree that it usually is
| latexr wrote:
| Not an excuse. We shouldn't turn a blind eye to bad behaviour
| because "everyone does it".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
| pocksuppet wrote:
| Hacker Ne.... no wait, not that one either.
| rurp wrote:
| Yeah, glad to see Zuck is sticking with those strong free
| speech principles he couldn't wait to get back to last year.
| alex1138 wrote:
| Free speech which apparently includes
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178
|
| I actually am more at odds with HN than many people might be
| because I think the lies surrounding covid and the censorship
| were absolutely wrong and platforms could genuinely after
| things like that lay claim to being unfairly directed, but
| you can tell Zuck doesn't actually care because he
| immediately started doing that
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Wow.
|
| Does Zuckerberg have some kind of clinical condition where he
| just can't imagine how other people might see him?
|
| Sure this will slow down the personal injury lawyers finding
| clients but it won't stop them, meantime it is more ammunition
| for Facebook's enemies to use against it.
|
| It is one thing to do shady business, it is another thing to
| incriminate yourself. If you were involved with weed and
| somebody sent you an email asking if they could come around and
| pick up a Q.P. next Saturday I'd expect you to give the person
| a correction in person that they shouldn't do that again.
|
| Not to say you should be like Epstein but I mean he and the
| people he corresponded with had some sense so there is is very
| little evidence of criminal activity in millions of emails.
|
| At Facebook on the other hand all the time people sent emails
| about things that could just as easily been left as "dark
| matter" unexplained and minimally documented decisions but no
| it is like that M.F. Doom song "Rapp Snitch Knishes", like a
| bunch of children or something with no common sense at all.
| Lord_Zero wrote:
| Damn whos buying a Q.P.??
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| language failure on my end: what's a "Q.P."?
| ambicapter wrote:
| quarter pound
| tadfisher wrote:
| Quarter-pound
| jmye wrote:
| > Does Zuckerberg have some kind of clinical condition where
| he just can't imagine how other people might see him?
|
| Nah, he just doesn't care. _Nothing_ he does will ever get
| people (en masse, onesie, twosies don 't matter) to stop
| using Meta products.
|
| People can/will complain about him forever, but shitty people
| will continue to help him build things, and shitty people
| will continue to use them.
| alex1138 wrote:
| They both captured the early market (inconsistent page
| style of Myspace, slowness of Friendster, then they
| acquired Friendfeed) in an early internet - anyone who
| captures the early market will have THE network effect for
| decades (plus shadow profiles) as person x joins because
| person y is there because person z is there - which is
| still young to this day, and also they apparently used to
| censor links to their competition
|
| The game is rigged, also Instagram and Whatsapp (yeah,
| companies get acquired. but WA's Acton was very explicit -
| "delete Facebook" (also, ever tried deleting FB? almost
| impossible. more network effects). he was pissed off at
| what happened)
| PaulHoule wrote:
| ... the other theory of Facebook's decline is that
| Eternal September gets you every time. I mean in the
| 1970s the CBGB and Mudd Club were really cool and they
| folded up and the scene moved on.
|
| Once I started using the social features on my MQ3 I
| found it really was Zuck's worst nightmare. I met all
| these nice retirees who were fun to play _Beat Saber_
| with and who would go on cruises and post YouTube links
| to pano videos they take of the ship.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Well Meta products are decaying like Cobalt 60; people
| _are_ stopping
|
| https://trends.google.com/explore?q=facebook&date=all&geo=U
| S
|
| and maybe Zuck doesn't think he can do anything about it.
| There are different theories but i like this one:
|
| -- originally you would put some imagination and elbow
| grease into using Facebook and get some intention which
| made it very attractive and interesting to people around
| 2010
|
| -- then it found a business model which was dependent on
| your _not_ being able to use imagination and elbow grease
| to get attention which made it less interesting in general
| but still somewhat interesting because now you could put
| cash into the slot machine and get cash out
|
| -- over time they lowered the payout of the slot machine
| which made the game less interesting and more dependent on
| 100% profitable scams which could function no matter how
| bad the payout was; people lose trust in the platform and
| stop engaging with ads, real advertisers don't want to be
| seen next to scam ads (lest they be seen as scams) which
| further lowers the payout and makes the game less
| interesting over time
|
| -- and now they won't even take your money... so who cares?
| felixg3 wrote:
| Half-ing every 5.2-or-so-years?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Within that order of magnitude. Picked Co60 particularly
| because it is common in commerce, even I used Co60
| sources in my cond-mat theory trainee days.
|
| I think it is more like radioactive decay than say,
| cheese going bad, but maybe I'm wrong. You can't smell
| the radioactive decay!
| ModernMech wrote:
| Yes, it's called being a billionaire. I'm sure if clinicians
| actually studied this group of people, they would find
| strains of delusions of grandeur, paranoia, extreme risk
| taking behavior, lack of self control and self awareness,
| inability to deal with adversity and setbacks without
| emotional outbursts, inability to contain and dismiss
| intrusive antisocial thoughts.
|
| I feel probably that the emotional maturity of most
| billionaires is at the toddler level or below, and I mean
| that quite seriously and literally.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcquiredSituati
| o...
|
| ?
| glitchc wrote:
| When you have f.u. money, you get to say f.u., otherwise
| what's the point?
| NickC25 wrote:
| >Does Zuckerberg have some kind of clinical condition where
| he just can't imagine how other people might see him?
|
| Not sure he cares. He's literally got hundreds of billions of
| dollars to his name, and the corporation he founded is worth
| trillions.
| hn_acker wrote:
| > Does Zuckerberg have some kind of clinical condition where
| he just can't imagine how other people might see him?
|
| Cory Doctorow describes Mark Zuckerberg's and Elon Musk's
| attitude toward other people as billionaire solipsism [1].
|
| [1] https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/05/fisher-price-steering-
| whe...
| nielsbot wrote:
| Good writing. thanks for sharing.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Does Zuckerberg have some kind of clinical condition where
| he just can't imagine how other people might see him?
|
| Yeah, it's called having-too-much-money-to-careitis.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Reddit is the same way. Poke a few sacred cows and suddenly
| you're banned for something you did 6 months ago that we aren't
| going to tell you about and no we don't want to discuss it.
|
| Kafkaism is natural and organic.
| Lihh27 wrote:
| one tos clause and neutrality disappears. now meta decides
| which claims get reach
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Do photogs do that on purpose, or does Zuck really always have
| that sociopath stare?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Zuckerberg is a rich and high profile guy, so photographers
| capture many pictures of him, and news editors often find that
| choosing unflattering pictures of people their readers don't
| like is helpful for reach. This picture in particular was taken
| after he'd just finished testifying for 8 hours in a February
| trial, which I think would wear down the best of us, and even
| among Getty's extensive gallery of pictures taken then
| (https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mark-
| zuckerber...) this one is particularly unflattering IMO.
| alex1138 wrote:
| Keep in mind Zuckerberg is someone who supports things like
| this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198
|
| Zuckerberg was told about gay people being added to groups and
| it outed them by posting to their wall, and he ignored it
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRYnocZFuc4
|
| And obviously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122
| (guess we don't get access to his other messages, though
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16770818)
|
| His stare isn't the only thing about him that's sociopathic
|
| Edit: oh yeah and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178
| alex1138 wrote:
| Guys, there's no need to insta-downvote. I provided
| substantive evidence. Look in the mirror, and evaluate who
| you work for
| gorbachev wrote:
| Zuck and his minions are also responsible for
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
|
| Your examples pale in comparison.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I'm sure if people were taking 500 pictures of you, they would
| capture you in a state like that. Are you a sociopath?
| folkrav wrote:
| Both.
| username223 wrote:
| It's less unflattering than the legless avatar from his $80
| billion waste of money.
|
| https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/yUEJgQzunhbnYYtsckup7i.jpg
| pcardoso wrote:
| Reminds me of Carl Sagan's Contact, where Haden, the millionaire
| funding Ellie's work, made a TV ad blocker and then sued the TV
| companies when they refused to play ads for his product.
|
| I wonder if that is what will happen next.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Reminds me of ChatGPT insisting all news about OpenAI is
| unverified speculation.
| guywithahat wrote:
| There is a humor that these law firms won a case against Meta and
| the first thing they did is give them advertising money won from
| the court case. That said the ads sound pretty aggressive, and
| from what I've read it sounds like it wasn't a very fair
| decision. I understand the conflict of interest but I have
| sympathies for Meta here
| mekdoonggi wrote:
| I think these ads were to bait Meta into banning them (which
| they've done) and now the firm will follow up with a lawsuit
| because Meta suddenly is able to very rapidly decide what ads
| get shown if it's going to hurt their bottom line.
|
| I do not have any sympathy for Meta.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| So they remove class action lawsuits but not pedos. Got it.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Since literally everyone is calling everyone they don't like a
| pedo nowadays, it's pretty much impossible for any platform to
| get rid of the pedos.
| mekdoonggi wrote:
| I suspect the lawyers will use this as evidence as well. Meta
| can very quickly remove ads when it's going to cost them money.
| bastard_op wrote:
| I wonder what would happen posting these ads to truth social and
| twitter.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| As an aside, class-action lawsuits seem less than ideal for the
| public. The awards benefit the lawyers and perhaps a small
| handful, but the actual plaintiffs only get $0.05. In addition,
| successful class-action suits prevent further litigation from
| being allowed for the same issue.
|
| Individuals bringing their own lawsuits seems like it would
| affect better change as 1) the award money would be better
| distributed instead of concentrated and 2) the amounts levied
| against the companies would be higher and more of concern than
| the class-action slap-on-the-wrist they currently get.
| rokkamokka wrote:
| A hundred million identical court cases might not be too good
| for the legal system
| ed312 wrote:
| 1. Why should harming a million people identically reduce
| their right to a fair legal evaluation and possibly
| compensation for damages? <-- maybe it makes sense for large
| corporations to carry insurance to pay for the potentially
| massive legal costs they could impose on governments? 2.
| Shouldn't we be able to quickly resolve these cases assuming
| there are no substantially different pieces of evidence?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > 1. Why should harming a million people identically reduce
| their right to a fair legal evaluation and possibly
| compensation for damages?
|
| It doesn't. You can almost[1] always opt out of class
| action lawsuits to pursue your own suit. This would be
| expensive and unwise for most people, but you have right.
|
| [1] There are rare exceptions.
| SecretDreams wrote:
| Agreed. Naturally, the solution is to get meta to compensate
| for the actual and cumulative damage they've done to mankind.
| Then plaintiffs might actually benefit.
|
| This is humanity vs Mark Zuckerberg.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Isn't that trivially fixed by raising court costs (that
| should go to whoever loses the suit) to cover the cost of
| judges, jury, admin expenses etc? I don't get the impression
| that this would make the justice system that much more
| prohibitively expensive than it already is, and would allow
| the legal system to scale to the case load
| ethanrutherford wrote:
| No, because the limitation is not money. More money does
| not magically make the humans in the profession be able to
| handle higher case-loads, nor magically produce new lawyers
| and judges. The bottleneck is time that each case takes to
| be properly and thoroughly adjudicated, and neither "more
| money" nor "more people" can accelerate that. While it's
| certainly correct to say that more staff could handle a
| larger number of cases, a. more staff = more cases, but
| more money doesn't speed up those cases, so there's still
| not really anything to be gained in terms of efficiency by
| increasing individual case costs. And b. if the solution
| was as simple as "hire more judges", it would have happened
| already.
|
| Courts aren't lacking in budget to hire more people.
| They're lacking in _people_ available to hire, with the
| specific expertise that they need to fill any gaps. The
| legal profession, at least in the US, consistently has some
| of the lowest unemployment rates across the board. Unlike
| over here in the tech sector, the scarcity is in available
| talent, rather than available jobs.
| wongarsu wrote:
| In the case of "a hundred million identical cases"
| handling more concurrent cases would be enough, we don't
| need to speed up the individual cases.
|
| Getting the right people might be an issue. But the tech
| sector is actually a great example of how to do that. The
| tech sector has also grown beyond what it could sustain
| with just people who are in it for the love of tech, and
| how it managed to do that would be a great case study. A
| good work-live balance, consistently high salaries and
| great outreach were certainly among the contributing
| factors. All of which boil down to throwing money at the
| problem in a smart way
| rurp wrote:
| How does this address the most common case where many people
| were harmed a modest amount? Causing $100 of harm to a million
| people is a huge amount of damage that should be punished, but
| nobody is going to launch a full independent lawsuit for $100.
| bityard wrote:
| > successful class-action suits prevent further litigation from
| being allowed for the same issue.
|
| Only if you don't opt out. Individuals who opt out of being
| part of the class can still file their own suits. (Although
| it's not clear how successful you will be if your
| situation/harm is not substantially different from the other
| members of the class.)
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| okay, what if the plaintiffs got "$50,000"? then to you, are
| class actions ideal for the public?
|
| the flaw with class actions is not that they don't pay enough
| (or too much, to the wrong people) money. it's that they're
| reactive, which is to say, it's the same tradeoff with nearly
| all US commercial policy.
| gradientsrneat wrote:
| I've opted in/not opted out to several class actions, and
| without saying the exact number, I'll say it was a lot more
| than that. Tech companies wouldn't be putting binding
| arbitration clauses/class action waivers/etc in their TOS if
| they weren't scared of being held accountable.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > the actual plaintiffs only get $0.05
|
| This isn't true at all. People where I live got $300
| settlements from Facebook.
|
| Parent post seems like anti-class action FUD.
| glaslong wrote:
| Thus begins another Streisand Effect meme campaign of
|
| "MZ Is A Punk-Ass B
|
| payed for by Person & Guy LLP"
| fdeage wrote:
| "Anxiety. Depression. Withdrawal. Self-harm. These aren't just
| teenage phases -- they're symptoms linked to social media
| addiction in children."
|
| Seems like they couldn't write even three lines without a LLM.
| boelboel wrote:
| Maybe being unable to write us another symptom
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| LLMs love this style, but they love it because it's just about
| every single piece of advertisement writing for the last aeon
| or so, and it's a mighty chunk of their training corpora.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Can't we all just agree there are no GOOD people in this
| situation? Meta, class-action lawyers, PE and big money that
| funds the lawsuits as a profit venture... The one thing they all
| appear to share: parasites extracting resources from their host.
| ginkgotree wrote:
| Social Media, and specifically Facebook / Meta, will go down in
| history as one of the worst developments in technology in the
| 21st century. As Frances Haugen stated in her testimony, Mark
| Zuckberg needs to be removed from the helm at Meta.
| wvenable wrote:
| I think television has done more harm, politically.
| boelboel wrote:
| Radio did plenty of harm as well (especially post 1987). Rush
| Limbaugh had a peak audience of 20-30 million listeners a
| week in the 90s. The current state of politics might've been
| unpreventable, at least in the US.
| MandieD wrote:
| Radio did plenty of harm in 1930s Germany - Hitler was a
| master of the new medium.
| vachina wrote:
| They started out good and then cranked the engagement trap to
| the max when they realize value of a captive audience.
| bcjdjsndon wrote:
| Hang on a minute, meta apparently didn't have the time to be
| checking the content of adverts they get paid to serve when it
| was child porn, what's changed all of a sudden?
| henry2023 wrote:
| The crypto-"investing" deep fakes impersonating recognizable
| names are up and running too.
| mekdoonggi wrote:
| This one actually cost them money.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Excellent point. Suddenly Corporatron finds it easy to censor
| content in its product.
|
| But why must we limit ourselves to simplistic, false
| dichotomies such as "Good vs Evil", "Education vs Ignorance",
| "Community Well-Being vs Disinformation and Arrant Nonsense",
| "Democracy and Social Confidence vs Propaganda and
| Conspiratorial Mayhem", and "Mental Health vs Despair and Self-
| Harm" ? We really are focused on _building apps that people
| love_.
| varispeed wrote:
| I wonder when they'll tackle literal porn showing up in Instagram
| shorts. If you want to browse Instagram in public, forget it.
| shevy-java wrote:
| I think it is time to disband Facebook. Ever since they attempted
| to infiltrate the linux ecosystem via age sniffing, they really
| need to go. Corporate systemd can also go - we should really
| clean up the whole ecosystem. What ever happened to "privacy
| first?
| elAhmo wrote:
| We can effectively trace all of the problems we have today in a
| global scale back to social media.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Exactly. Without social media there would have been no nazis.
| petre wrote:
| Bierhalle, the social media of the 20s, to only without the
| personal data hoarding.
| NERD_ALERT wrote:
| I don't disagree that social media has played a massive role in
| changing the world in a negative way. This is a very far
| reaching claim though and one that kinda misses the forest for
| the trees. The problem is that fundamentally capitalism demands
| that companies find more ways to siphon more money from
| customers every quarter or they fail.
|
| Social media is a perfect storm for the elites in this system.
| It's a CIA wet dream. It's literally a globalized and hyper
| personalized propaganda distribution platform. This is the
| inevitable outcome of capitalism and human behavior. Meta's
| whole purpose is to create the most optimized pipeline for
| accepting money from 3rd parties in exchange for convincing as
| many people as possible of what they want those people to
| believe.
|
| Social media is evil but it's also the natural course of what
| happens with current technology and the incentives of
| capitalism.
| hkpack wrote:
| I don't know why it's CIA wet dream, while it's mostly used
| against western democracies.
|
| Are people in CIA incompetent?
| themafia wrote:
| > fundamentally capitalism demands
|
| Wall Street makes those demands. Those demands are backed up
| by court cases and precedent. Nothing about this is
| synonymous with "capitalism."
|
| > It's a CIA wet dream.
|
| And they spend a significant amount of money. Is this
| "capitalism" still? Or are there more specific terms that
| would apply more directly to this arrangement?
|
| > Social media is evil
|
| The US is the largest manufacturer and seller of weapons in
| the world.
| foobarchu wrote:
| I can think of few things _more_ synonymous with capitalism
| than Wall Street.
| AmericanOP wrote:
| So thank the ~80,000 employees at Facebook working tirelessly
| to make the platform as shoddy as possible.
| Legend2440 wrote:
| _All_ the problems? Really?
| engeljohnb wrote:
| The words "scale back to" are vague, but I'm struggling to
| think of any current global problems that weren't at least
| exacerbated by social media.
| nickff wrote:
| "[G]lobal" is doing a lot of work in this sentence if I'm
| reading it as intended; this seems to exclude international
| conflict and intra-national strife (which are very big
| issues).
| Legend2440 wrote:
| Then you need to think a little harder.
|
| You have one thing on your mind - "social media bad" - and
| it is poisoning your ability to see the complexity in the
| world. There is rarely a single cause for anything, and
| there is never a single cause for everything.
| ethanrutherford wrote:
| Hyperbole is a thing that exists. It is also rare that
| anyone says anything that is meant to be taken 100%
| literally.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| I'd say the root is circadian rhythm disruption. Artificial
| lighting, social media, etc.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Assuming that we'll come to our senses, I think well be looking
| back at social media, in it's current form, the same way we now
| look at the Victorians using opium as cough medicine. It works,
| but holy shit are you doing it wrong.
| bryan_w wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you're thinking of tuberculosis, not social
| media
| lurk2 wrote:
| Inane Reddit comment.
| nutjob2 wrote:
| I'd say 'social problems', but otherwise entirely true.
|
| One of the strangest things I find is that people will spend
| serious money to buy a house somewhere they don't have to be
| exposed to the great unwashed yet will happily expose their
| brains to the worst of the worst via social media.
| renjimen wrote:
| Not social media. Advertising, and any business that is funded
| by advertising. Social media before the maturing of internet
| advertising was great.
| _moof wrote:
| That is... not true.
|
| Social media may have been an important tool for creating some
| of the circumstances we're in, but the causes go back much
| farther.
| neilv wrote:
| Idea of something that undergraduate colleges could do, to
| encourage reflection about ethics in careers:
|
| Annually poll all the students, to get rankings of how the ethics
| of well-known companies/brands are perceived by the students.
|
| Then publish the results to students, in a timely fashion, before
| they're deciding job offers and internships.
|
| I speculate that effects of this could include:
|
| 1. Good hiring candidates modifying what offers they pursue and
| accept -- influenced by awareness, self-reflection, and/or peer-
| pressure.
|
| 2. Students thinking and talking about ethics, when they didn't
| before. Then some of them carry this influence with them, as part
| of their character and intellect, going forward (like is one of
| the ideals of college education).
|
| Also, maybe the second year of the poll, the sentiments are
| better-informed, because a lot more people have started paying
| more attention to the question of ethics of a company.
|
| The perception breakdowns by college major would also be
| interesting, but maybe don't publish those, to reduce internal
| incentives to game the results. (Everyone knows some majors tend
| a bit more towards sociopathic than others, but some would rather
| that not be officials.)
| taormina wrote:
| They already have ethics classes in college. The unethical
| already don't care. Students already do basic research but when
| the market is so shit, do you really expect them to permanently
| hamstring their careers by torpedoing their only offer?
| Especially given that as a fresh college grad, it's not like
| anyone cares about your opinion anyways. So let's guilt the
| vaguely ethical ones into never getting involved and leaving
| all the sociopaths to run the show. This is an idea destined
| for success.
| neilv wrote:
| Ethics classes (and certifications/trainings, like for doing
| human subjects research) are another thing that students are
| incentivized and conditioned to cheat on, rather than to
| reflect upon.
|
| I'm talking about a poll that raises awareness across the
| entire student population, in a low-cost way, with no
| incentive to cheat nor to do anything other than give honest
| answers.
|
| Regarding whether _awareness_ of ethics would penalize those
| with any ethical tendency:
|
| We can already see the last 2 decades of rampant unethical
| behavior throughout tech companies. Virtually every tech
| company knowingly sells out its users to data brokers, for
| example. Sociopaths already dominate, and have conditioned
| everyone below them to behave in an at least compliant way
| even when doing something unethical.
|
| It's too bad we're starting late on that absolutely pervasive
| ethics problem, but we can't make the problem any worse by
| trying an _education_ intervention now. And it 's the
| traditional job of colleges to do this -- not to pump out
| oblivious worker drones.
| arendtio wrote:
| I love it, because it shows that advertisement is communication
| as well.
|
| Communication is highly regulated for good reasons, and
| advertisement is not. This is as if telecommunication companies
| would disconnect calls when what is being said does not fit their
| agenda.
|
| This should be illegal for advertising companies as well.
| finghin wrote:
| I rarely say this, but very fitting username.
| jerf wrote:
| At the risk of going against the gestalt, Facebook openly and
| publicly rejecting the ads is actually one of the better
| outcomes. They could have just put their thumbs on the scale,
| deprioritizing them, serving them to people they think are least
| likely to bite, etc. Lying about the number of times it was
| served because, after all, who can check? Many of us suspect the
| ad platforms already do this pretty routinely through one
| mechanism or another anyhow, after all.
|
| It isn't reasonable to ask a platform to host content that is
| literally about suing them, not because of "freedom" concerns or
| whether or not Facebook is being hypocritical, but more because
| in the end there isn't a "fair" way for them to host that. The
| constraints people want to put on how Facebook would handle that
| ends up solving down to the null set by the time we account for
| them all. Open, public rejection is actually a fairly reasonable
| response and means the lawyers at least know what is up and can
| respond to a clear stimulus.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > It isn't reasonable to ask a platform to host content that is
| literally about suing them
|
| Explicit rejection is better than opacity but better still is
| public accountability. Meta's properties have a combined
| userbase that amounts to just over 1 in 4 people on earth;
| these platforms should have been regulated as utilities a long
| time ago. Suppose I wanted to run ad campaigns advocating for
| antitrust legislation targeting social media companies and
| ended up getting booted off of all of the major platforms; what
| feasible method is there for me to advance these ideas that
| could possibly compete with the platforms' own abilities to
| influence public opinion?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I mean, I don't like Meta _at all_ , but what do you expect? If
| you want to run a full-page in the New York Times that criticizes
| the New York Times, they're going to refuse to run it as well.
| Private companies generally don't publish things that run counter
| to their interests.
|
| It would certainly be interesting if we wanted legislation to
| force private companies who provide paid ad space to publish ads
| that paid the most regardless of the content, but then that opens
| up a whole other can of worms. What if the ad offering the most
| money is racist and horrible, or disgustingly obscene? At that
| point you start needing the government to decide what is allowed
| to be banned and what isn't, and then it's meddling in speech
| which is prohibited by the first amendment.
|
| So this just seems like an obvious non-story to me. _Of course_
| Meta is removing these ads, because pretty much _any_ advertising
| platform would do the same about ads that criticized it.
| xuhu wrote:
| Online stores don't remove 1-star reviews of their products
| from their store. Do they ?
| alex43578 wrote:
| Yes, they very frequently do.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Taking down "bad" Google reviews is an entire industry these
| days [1].
|
| And of course there are scammers on all sides - not just
| legitimately bad stores trying to whitewash their online
| presence, but also entire scammer rackets that extort
| legitimately good stores by flooding them with BS reviews
| [2].
|
| [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-shady-companies-
| remove-ba...
|
| [2] https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/inside-the-
| extorti...
| indymike wrote:
| > New York Times that criticizes the New York Times,
|
| This has happened.
|
| > the government to decide what is allowed to be banned and
| what isn't,
|
| This is a civil lawsuit where people are trying to a) prove
| they were harmed and b) be compensated for that harm. The
| government is just the referee.
|
| > Meta is removing these ads, because pretty much any
| advertising platform would do the same about ads that
| criticized it.
|
| Which was not very smart because the next step will be a court
| order requiring them to put a banner on ever page with a link
| to sign up to join the lawsuit - for free.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _This has happened._
|
| Source?
| xorcist wrote:
| This may sound reasonable but isn't at all how newspapers are
| run. You can absolutely buy an ad in the New York Times
| criticizing the New York Times. Within reason of course, as you
| said the are private entities allowed to take on any customers
| they want, but in general newspapers hold journalistic
| integrity as an ideal and will allow most things as long as
| they aren't defamatory, unethical or downright illegal.
|
| The ad sellers and the journalists are normally separate and
| will not interfer much with one another's work. It also helps
| that they never say no to money. I don't know about the New
| York Times specifically but similar things have happened many
| times in other newspapers, and there is such a thing as a paid
| editorial. Those are usually clearly marked as such, but it's
| basically the same thing.
|
| (However, there may be other reasons why you might want to go
| with a competitor instead, and not pay the newspaper you hate
| $100k.)
| teunispeters wrote:
| I mean it probably shows that "common carrier" protection should
| emphatically not apply to them, but what do I know?
| 6thbit wrote:
| Thought it was clickbait/circumstantial but they are quoting an
| actual spokesperson saying they are doing it on purpose !!
|
| > "We're actively defending ourselves against these lawsuits and
| are removing ads that attempt to recruit plaintiffs for them," a
| Meta spokesperson tells Axios.
| siruwastaken wrote:
| Legally finding plaintiffs, who can sue us for our illegal
| machinations is not allowed on our platform. What a world we
| live in. If this isn't the simplest demonstration of
| monopolization of social media that Facebook has, then I don't
| know what is.
| data-ottawa wrote:
| You're either an open platform or you're not.
|
| Why can Meta run fake ads of my prime minister or the CBC to
| front scams with no due process, but for this they can use their
| judgement to block?
|
| I know they're an American company and my complaints are
| Canadian, but the double standard stinks.
| abustamam wrote:
| Did anyone ever accuse Meta of being an open platform though?
| bilekas wrote:
| I don't know Meta ever claimed to be an open platform, Twitter
| did though. It used to be an almost 'human protocol'. But as
| humans, it was flawed.
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