7 ms·

Can we please not react to this article by immediately blaming teenage girls? You have an article that shows one of the most powerful corporations in the world

by revel 5y ago

Can we please not react to this article by immediately blaming teenage girls? You have an article that shows one of the most powerful corporations in the world exploiting teenagers to boost revenues and lying about it in testimony before congress. That's the story.

debrice 5y ago
I believe he’s not blaming the teenage girls but maybe trying to understand why it overwhelmingly impacts girls?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
J-dawg 5y ago
I don't understand how you could read the parent comment and decide that it's "blaming" teen girls, unless you are deliberately arguing in bad faith. Teenage girls are predisposed to behave in the way described, and Facebook/Instagram is profiting by exploiting that. Nothing about the explanation above is blaming them. If anything the comment makes a stronger case for Facebook's actions being immoral.
- jhardy54 5y ago
  > Teenage girls are predisposed to behave in the way described, and Facebook/Instagram is profiting by exploiting that. Has this been studied, or are we taking an arbitrary thought experiment as a foundational axiom?
  - revel 5y ago
    Facebook studied it internally and covered it up in congressional testimony. That's literally what the article is about
  - mrgreenfur 5y ago
    Agreed. SOME may behave this way, but without more info who are we to say that they "are predisposed" in general. Teenage years are very hard for tons of reasons mentioned above and the way people handle those stresses comes down to tons of factors, support systems, upbringing, context, culture, etc. Facebook is immorally exploiting that stress.
  - remarkEon 5y ago
    It’s kind of amazing to me that an observation that anyone could make based on their experience as a human living on planet earth gets discounted because there isn’t some peer reviewed study from Harvard or whatever that confirms the observation. Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact. We don’t need an army of data scientists to “look into it”.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact. In all societies across time? Or just in American High schools and on Instagram?
      - remarkEon 5y ago
        Lemme get Yale on the phone, or better yet Oxford. Maybe they can provide us an answer to the question of “are young girls mean to each other, yes or no”.
        zepto 5y ago
        How is this sarcastic answer helpful? As far as I can see you have provided no useful information. If you don’t think universities are the right people to help with this question, who would you recommend to answer it? You said: “Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact.” How do you know this fact?
        remarkEon 5y ago
        > How is this sarcastic answer helpful? It’s helpful because it’s pointing out how absurd it is to constantly demand “data” to verify rudimentary observations of human nature. For whatever reason, and maybe it’s because of tech being so data obsessed, you can make a claim on this website as benign as “look both ways before crossing the street” and inevitably someone will want to see a “peer reviewed” study that says looking both ways before crossing the street “affects the outcome variable” of not getting hit by a car. > If you don’t think universities are the right people to help with this question, who would you recommend to answer it? Your mother, or your sister if you have one. >How do you know this fact? My name is remarkEon and I went to middle and high school in the United States on a planet I call Earth.
- mbesto 5y ago
  > Why are young girls so awful to each other? I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect that is has to do with "hormones," new emotions, and new social awareness, etc. But, it's also the case that from a strictly evolutionary perspective, young girls are are the most fertile and therefore the most desirable. How could the words "I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect..." not be considered blaming them? There is definitely some nuance here (I don't think the parent comment is hard-lining to say that the victims here are 100% to blame), but they are most certainly associating some level of blame to teens and their inherent "predisposed" behavior as you say.
franga2000 5y ago
The comment doesn't sound to me like blaming the girls, but just taking the core of the blame off of Facebook. And it's really pretty clear that Facebook didn't create any of these problems and that removing it won't solve them. Facebook makes it easier for girls to bully each other in the same way that relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people. Or, as Londoners will tell you: "you can't solve knife crime by taking away people's knives". The fact that Facebook profits from the issue doesn't make it their fault unless you can prove that they actively seek to make it worse. And even then, they can only carry the blame proportional to how much they made it worse.
- foolinaround 5y ago
  > relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people A little O/T, but this trope needs to please stop. The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws. It should go without saying that criminals without definition would not care about laws.
  - zacharycohn 5y ago
    While there is very little research on this (because Congress banned funding research on this after pressure from the NRA in the 90s), what research does exist does not support your assertion: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-have-fewer-firearms-deaths-heres-how-your-state-stacks-up.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-... It's not about criminals not caring about the law. Shooting people is already illegal. It's about making it more difficult to access and acquire these weapons. If you can't access something, it is much more difficult to use.
    - lvass 5y ago
      He mentioned "gun crime" not deaths. Most deaths are from suicide.
    - foolinaround 5y ago
      > what research does exist does not support your assertion the link you posted does not oppose it as the other comment pointed out. I hope you will keep an open mind as you look into this, setting aside the agendas of the NRA or the anti-gun groups. When there is an item (gun, in this instance) which has both good and bad uses ( what they are, we are reasonably argue) -- there needs to be a balance in how the item is procured. Nowhere in the country does one just go and pick one up. There are (again, we can argue on what is reasonable) checks and balances - checking the person's track history etc. All this goes out the window when it is possible to skirt the law, or in the case of London, use knives instead of guns for the crimes. We need to solve the problem at the right level of abstraction. We need to focus on why the society today sees more shootings in the past decades when the guns have been existing for much longer.
colechristensen 5y ago
Can we please not pretend that these issues are new? Instagram didn’t invent body image issues or children being monsters, they’re just participating in something which has existed forever.
richwater 5y ago
> exploiting teenagers Anyone, at any time, can stop using Facebook or Instagram with 0 repercussions.
- detcader 5y ago
  Children don't have the agency/brain development to take care of themselves in the presence of societal and peer pressure. This is the basis of many, many laws, social mores, and taboos.

by revel 5y ago

debrice 5y ago

I believe he’s not blaming the teenage girls but maybe trying to understand why it overwhelmingly impacts girls?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

J-dawg 5y ago

I don't understand how you could read the parent comment and decide that it's "blaming" teen girls, unless you are deliberately arguing in bad faith. Teenage girls are predisposed to behave in the way described, and Facebook/Instagram is profiting by exploiting that. Nothing about the explanation above is blaming them. If anything the comment makes a stronger case for Facebook's actions being immoral.

jhardy54 5y ago
> Teenage girls are predisposed to behave in the way described, and Facebook/Instagram is profiting by exploiting that. Has this been studied, or are we taking an arbitrary thought experiment as a foundational axiom?
- revel 5y ago
  Facebook studied it internally and covered it up in congressional testimony. That's literally what the article is about
- mrgreenfur 5y ago
  Agreed. SOME may behave this way, but without more info who are we to say that they "are predisposed" in general. Teenage years are very hard for tons of reasons mentioned above and the way people handle those stresses comes down to tons of factors, support systems, upbringing, context, culture, etc. Facebook is immorally exploiting that stress.
- remarkEon 5y ago
  It’s kind of amazing to me that an observation that anyone could make based on their experience as a human living on planet earth gets discounted because there isn’t some peer reviewed study from Harvard or whatever that confirms the observation. Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact. We don’t need an army of data scientists to “look into it”.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact. In all societies across time? Or just in American High schools and on Instagram?
    - remarkEon 5y ago
      Lemme get Yale on the phone, or better yet Oxford. Maybe they can provide us an answer to the question of “are young girls mean to each other, yes or no”.
      - zepto 5y ago
        How is this sarcastic answer helpful? As far as I can see you have provided no useful information. If you don’t think universities are the right people to help with this question, who would you recommend to answer it? You said: “Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact.” How do you know this fact?
        remarkEon 5y ago
        > How is this sarcastic answer helpful? It’s helpful because it’s pointing out how absurd it is to constantly demand “data” to verify rudimentary observations of human nature. For whatever reason, and maybe it’s because of tech being so data obsessed, you can make a claim on this website as benign as “look both ways before crossing the street” and inevitably someone will want to see a “peer reviewed” study that says looking both ways before crossing the street “affects the outcome variable” of not getting hit by a car. > If you don’t think universities are the right people to help with this question, who would you recommend to answer it? Your mother, or your sister if you have one. >How do you know this fact? My name is remarkEon and I went to middle and high school in the United States on a planet I call Earth.
mbesto 5y ago
> Why are young girls so awful to each other? I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect that is has to do with "hormones," new emotions, and new social awareness, etc. But, it's also the case that from a strictly evolutionary perspective, young girls are are the most fertile and therefore the most desirable. How could the words "I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect..." not be considered blaming them? There is definitely some nuance here (I don't think the parent comment is hard-lining to say that the victims here are 100% to blame), but they are most certainly associating some level of blame to teens and their inherent "predisposed" behavior as you say.

franga2000 5y ago

The comment doesn't sound to me like blaming the girls, but just taking the core of the blame off of Facebook. And it's really pretty clear that Facebook didn't create any of these problems and that removing it won't solve them. Facebook makes it easier for girls to bully each other in the same way that relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people. Or, as Londoners will tell you: "you can't solve knife crime by taking away people's knives". The fact that Facebook profits from the issue doesn't make it their fault unless you can prove that they actively seek to make it worse. And even then, they can only carry the blame proportional to how much they made it worse.

foolinaround 5y ago
> relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people A little O/T, but this trope needs to please stop. The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws. It should go without saying that criminals without definition would not care about laws.
- zacharycohn 5y ago
  While there is very little research on this (because Congress banned funding research on this after pressure from the NRA in the 90s), what research does exist does not support your assertion: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-have-fewer-firearms-deaths-heres-how-your-state-stacks-up.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-... It's not about criminals not caring about the law. Shooting people is already illegal. It's about making it more difficult to access and acquire these weapons. If you can't access something, it is much more difficult to use.
  - lvass 5y ago
    He mentioned "gun crime" not deaths. Most deaths are from suicide.
  - foolinaround 5y ago
    > what research does exist does not support your assertion the link you posted does not oppose it as the other comment pointed out. I hope you will keep an open mind as you look into this, setting aside the agendas of the NRA or the anti-gun groups. When there is an item (gun, in this instance) which has both good and bad uses ( what they are, we are reasonably argue) -- there needs to be a balance in how the item is procured. Nowhere in the country does one just go and pick one up. There are (again, we can argue on what is reasonable) checks and balances - checking the person's track history etc. All this goes out the window when it is possible to skirt the law, or in the case of London, use knives instead of guns for the crimes. We need to solve the problem at the right level of abstraction. We need to focus on why the society today sees more shootings in the past decades when the guns have been existing for much longer.

colechristensen 5y ago

Can we please not pretend that these issues are new? Instagram didn’t invent body image issues or children being monsters, they’re just participating in something which has existed forever.

richwater 5y ago

> exploiting teenagers Anyone, at any time, can stop using Facebook or Instagram with 0 repercussions.

detcader 5y ago
Children don't have the agency/brain development to take care of themselves in the presence of societal and peer pressure. This is the basis of many, many laws, social mores, and taboos.