11 ms·

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause be

There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inability to concentrate on tasks, inhibited social development in the real world & possibly general "unhappiness", especially among the young & impressionable.

coding123 7y ago
It might sound crazy but the govt DID this for cigarettes. Have you read the warning on cigarettes? I mean just look at the suggested box design here: https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/labeling-and-warning-statements-tobacco-products/fda-proposes-new-health-warnings-cigarette-packs-and-ads https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/labeling-and-warning-st... I mean really look at that, and fully take in the notion that our government required that. That, that takes balls.
- joering2 7y ago
  If you think that takes balls, then you have no idea how big are European Union balls. Just google “cigarette packages in europe” and get ready to get seriously shocked.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    As a European, I think Australia went even further and just removed all the branding from packages completely. In Europe, brands still get to have some design.
    - plop_ 7y ago
      Seems like some EU countries are now requiring a plain packaging too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#By_cou...
    - gambiting 7y ago
      "Europe" is not a single place with one set of regulations - in the UK for instance there is no branding on packages at all. It's called "standardised plain packaging": https://ash.org.uk/category/information-and-resources/packaging-labelling-information-and-resources/standardised-plain-packaging/ https://ash.org.uk/category/information-and-resources/packag...
    - ggcdn 7y ago
      Canadian packages too. They required a rather graphic health warning over 50% of the surface area (showing a smokers lungs with explanation, etc) and also removed branding. So it’s a giant health warning over the top half, and then a plain brown lower half with the name/type
      - justaguyhere 7y ago
        Curious - do these packages work? Have they reduced smoking addiction?
        mantap 7y ago
        Maybe. What helps more is 1) indoor smoking bans, stopping people from smoking socially inside bars and restaurants, 2) heavy taxation, 3) vaping.
        dwild 7y ago
        I don't know if it apply to the whole country or only my province (Quebec) but since then we also added that they can't be marketed at all. That include not being visible in a convenience store. I don't know how effective the pictures were, but not being visible that must have affected the statistics too.
        ggcdn 7y ago
        (I don't smoke btw, but my father-in-law smokes like a chimney) Its hard to relate cause and effects, but I see a noticeable decline in smoking among younger people, and smoking has become very uncool. People will also make a big deal about second hand smoke, for instance if you're near a bus stop or busy sidewalk you may get called out. I don't know if anything besides medical intervention can stop a seasoned veteran smoker, though. Packaging certainly hasn't had any effect on my few family members that smoke.
        ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
        In the U.S smoking has dramatically decreased, and we don't have totally insane packaging like Canada/some of the EU. [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/cdc-says-smoking-rates-fall-to-record-low-in-us.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/cdc-says-smoking-rates-fall-... Smoking has just generally fallen by the way side worldwide.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Kiro 7y ago
  What are you talking about? That (and way more explicit) has been standard in most western countries for decades. The US is just slow to adapt modern practices. No balls involved there.
fbelzile 7y ago
Instead of regulation, maybe have browsers give you a warning on how the site your about to visit treats your personal data? We already have warnings in one way or another for: expired SSL certificates, lack of HTTPS, potential malware sites, if your account may have been breached (at least in Firefox), requests for your location or to show notifications, etc. The next logical step is to have our user agent warn us about sites that have bad reputation for protecting your data. I use the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, which gives a letter grade based off of the trackers used and terms of service analysis from tosdr.org, in your browser toolbar. You can get it from here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/duckduckgo-privacy-essent/bkdgflcldnnnapblkhphbgpggdiikppg?hl=fr https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/duckduckgo-privacy... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-for-firefox/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-fo...
- Seenso 7y ago
  >> There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inability to concentrate on tasks, inhibited social development in the real world & possibly general "unhappiness", especially among the young & impressionable. > Instead of regulation, maybe have browsers give you a warning on how the site your about to visit treats your personal data? That wouldn't work. Facebook may see browser warnings like that as an existential threat. In response, they could create their own browser and heavily push it on users, a la Google & Chrome.
  - zimbatm 7y ago
    Sounds great to me! We need more competition in the browser market.
    - wolco 7y ago
      They would just use the chrome engine so we would be no better off. Really happy firefox is alive and well.
threatofrain 7y ago
If FB is addictive then you need the medical community in on this, but the fact that they aren’t means you’re left alone making medical arguments about the affects of FB. Maybe my speech, this very one, is designed to give you the flu. But when we’re talking stakes like serious medical claims, then we should have serious medical consensus.
- tracer4201 7y ago
  I don’t know if you work at Facebook or really believe what you’ve written. My spouse and I got so bad that we’d be on our phones over brunch or dinner looking at Facebook instead of having a conversation. It took us a couple years to break the habit and we both eventually deleted Facebook. I defend big tech all the time (see my post history), but saying FB isn’t designed to be addictive isn’t accurate.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- banads 7y ago
  FB has many jobs that require degrees in psychology, and there are also many scientific studies showing negative mental health effects of FB use https://www.glassdoor.com/Jobs/Facebook-psychology-Jobs-EI_IE40772.0,8_KO9,19.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Jobs/Facebook-psychology-Jobs-EI_I...
sprafa 7y ago
There is a very simple solution to Facebook - demand that they offer compatibility through an API so that other products can offer News Feed products that are seamlessly integrated with the FB Friends. Same as having a universal messaging protocol that's compatible with WhatsApp, and an Instagram API that also allows for compatibility with competitive photo feed products. Basically - open up the social graph and allow for super aggregators with different functionality. That's allowing for competition and breaking down the artificial moat they created, where they have managed to legally extricate their users from their own data property (essentially a form of digital enclosure that violates your right to your data as your private property). They would be destroyed within a year. Same as windows - you just force them to have an anti-monopoly function. Alternatively, allow for other ad suppliers to work through their network with a minimal amount of friction. Then you annihilate their revenue.
- justapassenger 7y ago
  > There is a very simple solution to Facebook - demand that they offer compatibility through an API so that other products can offer News Feed products that are seamlessly integrated with the FB Friends. Allowing tons of third parties to access all your data. That’s for sure going to solve all the problems (and Facebook had same idea few years ago, that brought you Cambridge Analytica scandal)
  - sprafa 7y ago
    No that’s not true at all but sure. The problem with Analytica is it was done without your knowledge as a user. If you had volunteered to share tour data with CA how is that is that different from sharing it with Google or Instagram or any other service? We pick services to use in exchange for data everyday. Why is it different if Facebook has access to your data from any other service? You just pick one. Anyway this is the only solution and it will eventually be implemented. Either that or the Warren plan.
    - justapassenger 7y ago
      Main issue with CA wasn’t that it got data of users of an app - people have explicitly gave consent for it. They scraped data of your friends, that shared this data with you, and made it a big deal. Users explicitly granted access to data, but their friends didn’t. If you have an open API between networks, how is that different? User A uses app X and shares data with user B. User B uses app Y. App Y is scraping data. They now have data of both user B (which expressed consent) and user A (which didn’t). It’s exactly like Cambridge Analitica.
babuskov 7y ago
You could apply the same label to many other entertainment products and websites as well.
- authoritarian 7y ago
  How many of those companies business models relies on getting you hooked so they can continue to perform mass surveillance and being careless with the personal info of users and non-users alike?
tqi 7y ago
Isn't that largely true of most entertainment products? Music, Prestige and Reality TV, Cable News, Comic books - all are "specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction" if your only criteria is "attempts to attract and keep people on the platform"...
authoritarian 7y ago
As usual the Facebookers are coming out in mass to defend their cash cow, despite it's major negative impact on society. Par for the course on this site
sizzle 7y ago
I like the idea of a black box warning like cigarette cartons. You should also be periodically warned of the risks at a timely interval, annually?
SSSDFRO 7y ago
Any regulations at all will just add to their moat. Stop cronyism by voting down all regulation period.
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
That didn't really work all that well for cigarettes.
- authoritarian 7y ago
  Except it did.... smoking is at a record low
  - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    To what degree do you think warning labels played a role in that?
thaumasiotes 7y ago
First amendment protections against compelled speech might interfere with this heavily editorialized "warning".
- jakear 7y ago
  Similar warnings are required on cigarettes, and there isn’t much difference between the two.
  - hubert1234 7y ago
    so lets put those warnings on all videogames too right, all chocolate products, all biscuit products, all products that are remotely manufactured for human pleasure. All soda products of course.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    When did the court rule that cigarettes constituted speech?
    - jakear 7y ago
      They didn’t. They ruled corporations don’t have much free speech when it comes to product advertising and declarations of potential harm their products may cause their users.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    Did you read blunderkid's comment? He's much farther into "opinion" territory. I don't think he's stated a single fact.
  - avocado4 7y ago
    > there isn’t much difference between the two Can you post a link to RCT-based evidence backing this claim? I don't see anything on CDC website or any professional medical organization about Facebook being as harmful as cigarettes.
- jonathankoren 7y ago
RealityVoid 7y ago
I estimate about the same impact of this as cigarette pack warning.
- authoritarian 7y ago
  So very effective?
- MockObject 7y ago
  Ironically, in the 1970s, people used pareidolia to discover scary skulls and crossbones in the smoke curls of cigarette ads. These were thought to be subliminal symbols of risk and danger, secretly engineered to appeal to smokers, who knew they were engaging in a deadly habit. 20 years later, governments mandated superliminal death symbolism.
- nullc 7y ago
  Essentially no one I know now smokes. Something was effective.
  - rjzzleep 7y ago
    Those warnings were so successful that companies threatened small nations proposing them. https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8?t=655 https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8?t=655
  - kmlx 7y ago
    wasn't it taxes?
    - DanBC 7y ago
      In the UK it mostly was increased prices, coupled with free smoking cessation services, and with changes in law to make smoking illegal inside many buildings (workplaces, shops, pubs, cafés etc). Vaping was useful to move remaining smokers to different nicotine delivery mechanisms.
      - 7y ago
Supermancho 7y ago
There's a lot more product than just Facebook, making this look a lot like a witch hunt. There are games, foods, brand retailers, who all do this to the exact same extent. The difference is that facebook has utility that lends to participating as frequently as possible (same as MySpace and newsgroups before that). The regulation is needed because of the ubiquity, not the behavior.
winrid 7y ago
I would argue this site can make you feel the same way :)
- ahallock 7y ago
  HN is addictive, but I think we're dramatizing things. Is a product that people like to use a lot a bad thing? Maybe that just speaks to having a good product that gives people what they want, rather than some insidious mind-control scheme where people have no agency to stop using it. Are creators supposed to make their products worse so people don't use them as much? I don't get it.
  - Loughla 7y ago
    I think the split comes now that companies, such as FB, have focused to maximize 'engagement' with zero thought on the repercussions. Cigarette companies knew people were addicted to nicotine, but I guarantee in their planning sessions they talked about engagement or some other corporate fluff word. It's less about having a good product or making a worse product, and more about the moral and ethical responsibility to consider what that addicting product's end result will be.
- Slikey 7y ago
  I AM NOT ADDICTED
  - daemoncoder 7y ago
    ”I can leave anytime I want!” :-)
- Kiro 7y ago
  Exactly. No site gives me more anxiety than HN while being so addictive at the same time.
  - tartoran 7y ago
    HN has a timer you can turn on to avoid procrastinating on other things by spending all your time here. I tried it in the past and it does work.
mgraczyk 7y ago
I always disliked Facebook and still don't care much for it, but having worked on ranking there for a few months, comments like this just sound incredibly naive. Facebook is not "specifically designed to cause addiction". It's designed by a complicated process with many people trying to maximize many competing metrics, some of which might go up when people are "addicted". In fact the complete opposite is one of the main goal metrics for most teams (measures of well being) and only a small fraction of people are even trying to increase time spent.
- dokein 7y ago
  I don't think Facebook is "evil" by design, but the end result is the same. The framework is as follows: There were probably thousands of internet companies that competed to be the dominant sites in the 90s and 00s. By several orders of magnitude the predominant business model is ads for eyeballs, and the predominant network effect scales with number of users. Several factors influenced success but, on average, sites that captured user attention more effectively got more views and a larger userbase. Thus there was overall selective pressure for addictive properties, and sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram won over sites that were less able to hold attention like Blogger, Digg, MySpace, etc. We cannot know, for example, that Jack Dorsey was knowingly trying to maximize outrage with his character limit, which feeds into the "two-minutes-hate" emotional addiction. But we can be sure that he was trying to maximize several KPIs like # users, bounce rate, time on page, etc. The result? The dominant sites today == the sites that are best able to capture attention! How successful were they? Not only have they captured a huge portion of time people spend on the internet, the amount of time people are on the internet has itself increased! So they won over other websites and also grabbed attention away from traditional media, newspapers, random thoughts while standing in line, uninterrupted dinner, etc. time. What's the problem? I think the major challenge is that these sites feel more effective at shaping attention than many drugs (no reference for this yet)! This parallels the opioid crisis -- maximizing certain good pain relief characteristics (short onset, hits opioid receptors) just happens to be addictive. I doubt the Sacklers cackled during dinner and clinked glasses at the future misery they were causing, but it's pretty damn easy to convince yourself that you're doing the right thing when the money is rolling in. Jack Dorsey similarly thinks he's saving the world but he's probably the single most responsible person for the "populist politician" phenomenon.
gorgoiler 7y ago
You make a good point. The counterpoint that springs to mind is similar to the California law that requires a warning for anything containing chemicals known to cause cancer. I’m sure this case is commonly known but I’ll spell it out as I understand it briefly: the bar for “cause cancer” is apparently low and wide enough to mean a huge number of products have this warning, diluting the spirit of the warning. Cynics and critics suggest this over-labeling is a deliberate attempt to undermine the warning itself through over saturation. In your Facebook example, this could end up meaning any site with user generated content and comments would have to carry the warning — including Hacker News.
mywacaday 7y ago
you forgot to to add death.

coding123 7y ago

It might sound crazy but the govt DID this for cigarettes. Have you read the warning on cigarettes? I mean just look at the suggested box design here: https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/labeling-and-warning-statements-tobacco-products/fda-proposes-new-health-warnings-cigarette-packs-and-ads https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/labeling-and-warning-st... I mean really look at that, and fully take in the notion that our government required that. That, that takes balls.

joering2 7y ago
If you think that takes balls, then you have no idea how big are European Union balls. Just google “cigarette packages in europe” and get ready to get seriously shocked.
- capableweb 7y ago
  As a European, I think Australia went even further and just removed all the branding from packages completely. In Europe, brands still get to have some design.
  - plop_ 7y ago
    Seems like some EU countries are now requiring a plain packaging too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#By_cou...
  - gambiting 7y ago
    "Europe" is not a single place with one set of regulations - in the UK for instance there is no branding on packages at all. It's called "standardised plain packaging": https://ash.org.uk/category/information-and-resources/packaging-labelling-information-and-resources/standardised-plain-packaging/ https://ash.org.uk/category/information-and-resources/packag...
  - ggcdn 7y ago
    Canadian packages too. They required a rather graphic health warning over 50% of the surface area (showing a smokers lungs with explanation, etc) and also removed branding. So it’s a giant health warning over the top half, and then a plain brown lower half with the name/type
    - justaguyhere 7y ago
      Curious - do these packages work? Have they reduced smoking addiction?
      - mantap 7y ago
        Maybe. What helps more is 1) indoor smoking bans, stopping people from smoking socially inside bars and restaurants, 2) heavy taxation, 3) vaping.
      - dwild 7y ago
        I don't know if it apply to the whole country or only my province (Quebec) but since then we also added that they can't be marketed at all. That include not being visible in a convenience store. I don't know how effective the pictures were, but not being visible that must have affected the statistics too.
      - ggcdn 7y ago
        (I don't smoke btw, but my father-in-law smokes like a chimney) Its hard to relate cause and effects, but I see a noticeable decline in smoking among younger people, and smoking has become very uncool. People will also make a big deal about second hand smoke, for instance if you're near a bus stop or busy sidewalk you may get called out. I don't know if anything besides medical intervention can stop a seasoned veteran smoker, though. Packaging certainly hasn't had any effect on my few family members that smoke.
        ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
        In the U.S smoking has dramatically decreased, and we don't have totally insane packaging like Canada/some of the EU. [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/cdc-says-smoking-rates-fall-to-record-low-in-us.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/cdc-says-smoking-rates-fall-... Smoking has just generally fallen by the way side worldwide.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Kiro 7y ago
What are you talking about? That (and way more explicit) has been standard in most western countries for decades. The US is just slow to adapt modern practices. No balls involved there.

fbelzile 7y ago

Instead of regulation, maybe have browsers give you a warning on how the site your about to visit treats your personal data? We already have warnings in one way or another for: expired SSL certificates, lack of HTTPS, potential malware sites, if your account may have been breached (at least in Firefox), requests for your location or to show notifications, etc. The next logical step is to have our user agent warn us about sites that have bad reputation for protecting your data. I use the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, which gives a letter grade based off of the trackers used and terms of service analysis from tosdr.org, in your browser toolbar. You can get it from here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/duckduckgo-privacy-essent/bkdgflcldnnnapblkhphbgpggdiikppg?hl=fr https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/duckduckgo-privacy... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-for-firefox/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-fo...

Seenso 7y ago
>> There should be only one regulation for fb, display following warning on all pages/screens: Statutory Warning: This product is specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction so you are guided down a slippery slope of over consumption & that is how this company makes money. Overuse of this product is known to cause - anxiety, depression, low self esteem, constant craving for attention, short attention spans, inability to concentrate on tasks, inhibited social development in the real world & possibly general "unhappiness", especially among the young & impressionable. > Instead of regulation, maybe have browsers give you a warning on how the site your about to visit treats your personal data? That wouldn't work. Facebook may see browser warnings like that as an existential threat. In response, they could create their own browser and heavily push it on users, a la Google & Chrome.
- zimbatm 7y ago
  Sounds great to me! We need more competition in the browser market.
  - wolco 7y ago
    They would just use the chrome engine so we would be no better off. Really happy firefox is alive and well.

threatofrain 7y ago

If FB is addictive then you need the medical community in on this, but the fact that they aren’t means you’re left alone making medical arguments about the affects of FB. Maybe my speech, this very one, is designed to give you the flu. But when we’re talking stakes like serious medical claims, then we should have serious medical consensus.

tracer4201 7y ago
I don’t know if you work at Facebook or really believe what you’ve written. My spouse and I got so bad that we’d be on our phones over brunch or dinner looking at Facebook instead of having a conversation. It took us a couple years to break the habit and we both eventually deleted Facebook. I defend big tech all the time (see my post history), but saying FB isn’t designed to be addictive isn’t accurate.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
banads 7y ago
FB has many jobs that require degrees in psychology, and there are also many scientific studies showing negative mental health effects of FB use https://www.glassdoor.com/Jobs/Facebook-psychology-Jobs-EI_IE40772.0,8_KO9,19.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Jobs/Facebook-psychology-Jobs-EI_I...

sprafa 7y ago

There is a very simple solution to Facebook - demand that they offer compatibility through an API so that other products can offer News Feed products that are seamlessly integrated with the FB Friends. Same as having a universal messaging protocol that's compatible with WhatsApp, and an Instagram API that also allows for compatibility with competitive photo feed products. Basically - open up the social graph and allow for super aggregators with different functionality. That's allowing for competition and breaking down the artificial moat they created, where they have managed to legally extricate their users from their own data property (essentially a form of digital enclosure that violates your right to your data as your private property). They would be destroyed within a year. Same as windows - you just force them to have an anti-monopoly function. Alternatively, allow for other ad suppliers to work through their network with a minimal amount of friction. Then you annihilate their revenue.

justapassenger 7y ago
> There is a very simple solution to Facebook - demand that they offer compatibility through an API so that other products can offer News Feed products that are seamlessly integrated with the FB Friends. Allowing tons of third parties to access all your data. That’s for sure going to solve all the problems (and Facebook had same idea few years ago, that brought you Cambridge Analytica scandal)
- sprafa 7y ago
  No that’s not true at all but sure. The problem with Analytica is it was done without your knowledge as a user. If you had volunteered to share tour data with CA how is that is that different from sharing it with Google or Instagram or any other service? We pick services to use in exchange for data everyday. Why is it different if Facebook has access to your data from any other service? You just pick one. Anyway this is the only solution and it will eventually be implemented. Either that or the Warren plan.
  - justapassenger 7y ago
    Main issue with CA wasn’t that it got data of users of an app - people have explicitly gave consent for it. They scraped data of your friends, that shared this data with you, and made it a big deal. Users explicitly granted access to data, but their friends didn’t. If you have an open API between networks, how is that different? User A uses app X and shares data with user B. User B uses app Y. App Y is scraping data. They now have data of both user B (which expressed consent) and user A (which didn’t). It’s exactly like Cambridge Analitica.

babuskov 7y ago

You could apply the same label to many other entertainment products and websites as well.

authoritarian 7y ago
How many of those companies business models relies on getting you hooked so they can continue to perform mass surveillance and being careless with the personal info of users and non-users alike?

tqi 7y ago

Isn't that largely true of most entertainment products? Music, Prestige and Reality TV, Cable News, Comic books - all are "specifically designed to cause behavioral addiction" if your only criteria is "attempts to attract and keep people on the platform"...

authoritarian 7y ago

As usual the Facebookers are coming out in mass to defend their cash cow, despite it's major negative impact on society. Par for the course on this site

sizzle 7y ago

I like the idea of a black box warning like cigarette cartons. You should also be periodically warned of the risks at a timely interval, annually?

SSSDFRO 7y ago

Any regulations at all will just add to their moat. Stop cronyism by voting down all regulation period.

SuoDuanDao 7y ago

That didn't really work all that well for cigarettes.

authoritarian 7y ago
Except it did.... smoking is at a record low
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  To what degree do you think warning labels played a role in that?

thaumasiotes 7y ago

First amendment protections against compelled speech might interfere with this heavily editorialized "warning".

jakear 7y ago
Similar warnings are required on cigarettes, and there isn’t much difference between the two.
- hubert1234 7y ago
  so lets put those warnings on all videogames too right, all chocolate products, all biscuit products, all products that are remotely manufactured for human pleasure. All soda products of course.
- allovernow 7y ago
  When did the court rule that cigarettes constituted speech?
  - jakear 7y ago
    They didn’t. They ruled corporations don’t have much free speech when it comes to product advertising and declarations of potential harm their products may cause their users.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Did you read blunderkid's comment? He's much farther into "opinion" territory. I don't think he's stated a single fact.
- avocado4 7y ago
  > there isn’t much difference between the two Can you post a link to RCT-based evidence backing this claim? I don't see anything on CDC website or any professional medical organization about Facebook being as harmful as cigarettes.
jonathankoren 7y ago

RealityVoid 7y ago

I estimate about the same impact of this as cigarette pack warning.

authoritarian 7y ago
So very effective?
MockObject 7y ago
Ironically, in the 1970s, people used pareidolia to discover scary skulls and crossbones in the smoke curls of cigarette ads. These were thought to be subliminal symbols of risk and danger, secretly engineered to appeal to smokers, who knew they were engaging in a deadly habit. 20 years later, governments mandated superliminal death symbolism.
nullc 7y ago
Essentially no one I know now smokes. Something was effective.
- rjzzleep 7y ago
  Those warnings were so successful that companies threatened small nations proposing them. https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8?t=655 https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8?t=655
- kmlx 7y ago
  wasn't it taxes?
  - DanBC 7y ago
    In the UK it mostly was increased prices, coupled with free smoking cessation services, and with changes in law to make smoking illegal inside many buildings (workplaces, shops, pubs, cafés etc). Vaping was useful to move remaining smokers to different nicotine delivery mechanisms.
    - 7y ago

Supermancho 7y ago

There's a lot more product than just Facebook, making this look a lot like a witch hunt. There are games, foods, brand retailers, who all do this to the exact same extent. The difference is that facebook has utility that lends to participating as frequently as possible (same as MySpace and newsgroups before that). The regulation is needed because of the ubiquity, not the behavior.

winrid 7y ago

I would argue this site can make you feel the same way :)

ahallock 7y ago
HN is addictive, but I think we're dramatizing things. Is a product that people like to use a lot a bad thing? Maybe that just speaks to having a good product that gives people what they want, rather than some insidious mind-control scheme where people have no agency to stop using it. Are creators supposed to make their products worse so people don't use them as much? I don't get it.
- Loughla 7y ago
  I think the split comes now that companies, such as FB, have focused to maximize 'engagement' with zero thought on the repercussions. Cigarette companies knew people were addicted to nicotine, but I guarantee in their planning sessions they talked about engagement or some other corporate fluff word. It's less about having a good product or making a worse product, and more about the moral and ethical responsibility to consider what that addicting product's end result will be.
Slikey 7y ago
I AM NOT ADDICTED
- daemoncoder 7y ago
  ”I can leave anytime I want!” :-)
Kiro 7y ago
Exactly. No site gives me more anxiety than HN while being so addictive at the same time.
- tartoran 7y ago
  HN has a timer you can turn on to avoid procrastinating on other things by spending all your time here. I tried it in the past and it does work.

mgraczyk 7y ago

I always disliked Facebook and still don't care much for it, but having worked on ranking there for a few months, comments like this just sound incredibly naive. Facebook is not "specifically designed to cause addiction". It's designed by a complicated process with many people trying to maximize many competing metrics, some of which might go up when people are "addicted". In fact the complete opposite is one of the main goal metrics for most teams (measures of well being) and only a small fraction of people are even trying to increase time spent.

dokein 7y ago
I don't think Facebook is "evil" by design, but the end result is the same. The framework is as follows: There were probably thousands of internet companies that competed to be the dominant sites in the 90s and 00s. By several orders of magnitude the predominant business model is ads for eyeballs, and the predominant network effect scales with number of users. Several factors influenced success but, on average, sites that captured user attention more effectively got more views and a larger userbase. Thus there was overall selective pressure for addictive properties, and sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram won over sites that were less able to hold attention like Blogger, Digg, MySpace, etc. We cannot know, for example, that Jack Dorsey was knowingly trying to maximize outrage with his character limit, which feeds into the "two-minutes-hate" emotional addiction. But we can be sure that he was trying to maximize several KPIs like # users, bounce rate, time on page, etc. The result? The dominant sites today == the sites that are best able to capture attention! How successful were they? Not only have they captured a huge portion of time people spend on the internet, the amount of time people are on the internet has itself increased! So they won over other websites and also grabbed attention away from traditional media, newspapers, random thoughts while standing in line, uninterrupted dinner, etc. time. What's the problem? I think the major challenge is that these sites feel more effective at shaping attention than many drugs (no reference for this yet)! This parallels the opioid crisis -- maximizing certain good pain relief characteristics (short onset, hits opioid receptors) just happens to be addictive. I doubt the Sacklers cackled during dinner and clinked glasses at the future misery they were causing, but it's pretty damn easy to convince yourself that you're doing the right thing when the money is rolling in. Jack Dorsey similarly thinks he's saving the world but he's probably the single most responsible person for the "populist politician" phenomenon.

gorgoiler 7y ago

You make a good point. The counterpoint that springs to mind is similar to the California law that requires a warning for anything containing chemicals known to cause cancer. I’m sure this case is commonly known but I’ll spell it out as I understand it briefly: the bar for “cause cancer” is apparently low and wide enough to mean a huge number of products have this warning, diluting the spirit of the warning. Cynics and critics suggest this over-labeling is a deliberate attempt to undermine the warning itself through over saturation. In your Facebook example, this could end up meaning any site with user generated content and comments would have to carry the warning — including Hacker News.

mywacaday 7y ago

you forgot to to add death.