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California bill would let parents sue social media companies for addicting kids

179 points by lxm 5y ago

Proven 5y ago
joebob42 5y ago
I liked "Whatever features within their algorithms that are creating the addictions, especially in teenagers — they can disable those features. That could be another thing." The algorithm isn't trying to help, but YouTube or Reddit or FB or whatever is addicting anyways unless they design an algorithm explicitly to reduce engagement by giving you stuff you don't like.
- teaearlgraycold 5y ago
  > unless they design an algorithm explicitly to reduce engagement by giving you stuff you don't like. I don't think they need to go that far. The algorithms could be optimized for long-term personal growth. Always pushing you to expand your boundaries in healthy ways. That kind of growth is usually mildly uncomfortable but rewarding. You'll only want so much of it per day. They'd be replacing endless cheap carbs with exercise.
  - endgame 5y ago
    I don't even want that sort of paternalism. With an old-school forum, you knew when you were "done", and you had to come back 12-24 hours later for enough other posters to have said anything worthwhile.
  - tjr225 5y ago
    Ugh lol dude are you for real? Do you actually trust tech companies to decide what is best for a given persons personal growth?
    - johnnyanmac 5y ago
      do you trust the government to? That's all this is doing. companies curate, but ultimately we're talking about user generated content, whose popularity at some point in life came from the fact that a lot of people chose to engage with it. The only difference now is that you dont need to be some a-list celebrity to get this engagement. A camera, an idea, and a bit of video editing can make you go viral. even if we stripped down all the engagement algorithms and made it some "pure" HN-style "votes determine curation" (which is a trap in and of itself, but I diagress), you'd be surprised how similar the site layout would look. Arguably even worse because bigger creators get more views and likes by nature of being big.
      - tjr225 5y ago
        I don't trust either the government or tech companies. You shouldn't either. You should be free to make your own judgements without either interfering or manipulating you. I assume you're in America, after all?
  - SllX 5y ago
    Long term personal growth in what direction? And on Twitter? Facebook? Not to be dismissive but Twitter does what Twitter does best when people shout their opinions into a void or stick their job title up and LARP as the authority on X and Facebook does what Facebook does best when it filters blogs and baby photos to your newsfeed and you meet groups of people around a shared interest or hobby or arrange outings with large groups of people. YouTube maybe could be optimized that way, but if the banners they stick in my way that take no feedback and accept no dismissal as an invitation to never return are any indication they would do a hatchet job tweaking their algorithm in that direction. What they do very well is introducing me to new music and interesting videos on old tech and games. Absolutely fantastic entertainment platform and probably no more addictive than television was but I feel like I’m also the only one that likes the YouTube algorithm. Also that kind of tweak would just be paternalistic nonsense, on principle.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    Like the in the Diamond Age but for Youtube
- mtgx 5y ago
- annoyingnoob 5y ago
  They could have tips that encourage breaks, or even have hard limits, they do not have to reduce quality necessarily. It could be an opportunity to introduce people to another product/site/app, 'now for something completely different'.
majormajor 5y ago
The trend of "outsource enforcement of laws to civil suits" is concerning - not event "constitutional rights"-wise but also from a "due process" (possibly there's a better term) perspective. The number of prospective plaintiffs who could bring a case on weak grounds that you still have to spend a lot of $$$ defending is wild.
- wavesounds 5y ago
  There's too many lawyers, it wouldn't be a problem if law school was cheaper but the fact that so many of them have big student loan debts means they have to find reasons to sue people in order to pay of those bills.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    Yes, it's those evil schools making all the lawyers greedy, when lawyers would otherwise just sit around hoping that no one would need their services.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    This isn't happening because of a glut of lawyers. This is happening because some people wanted to make an end-run around settled precedent, SCOTUS decided to humor them for some reason, and now all manner of nonsense is being attempted, because why not? Apparently it's okay to make a law that completely nullifies people's constitutional rights, and SCOTUS will let that just sit on the books while they take their time with their review. This is a huge loophole in the law and the justice system. Apparently there is some set of laws such that if written the right way, they can be completely and blatantly unconstitutional yet still remain in effect. This is effectively a backdoor around the constitution, and the question right now is: which laws will SCOTUS refuse to stay? And how much damage can we do in the interim period when the law has been challenged but neither overturned nor stayed? How much can we get away with?
    - WillPostForFood 5y ago
      This has nothing to do with SCOTUS or avoiding legal review. California has been doing this for over a decade, since they past the Private Attorneys General Act. It is a bad way to outsource bad policy to private citizens, and is a big handout to a powerful interest group, trial lawyers. https://www.dir.ca.gov/Private-Attorneys-General-Act/Private-Attorneys-General-Act.html https://www.dir.ca.gov/Private-Attorneys-General-Act/Private...
LanceH 5y ago
Let social media companies sue parents for kids logging on.
- pipeline_peak 5y ago
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  holding American parents responsible for their own child's welfare? that'll be the day
- weq 5y ago
  What about Ad companies?
duxup 5y ago
> the bill would first obligate social media companies to not addict child users What would that mean? > However, it said, there would also be a safe harbor provision that would protect “responsible” social media platforms from being penalized if they took “basic steps to avoid addicting children.” That’s some wonky double talk… If the government wants to regulate fine, the government should do it. Not via civil lawsuits.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > If the government wants to regulate fine, the government should do it. Not via civil lawsuits. Agreed. It seems a number of these bills are advancing through state legislatures. It started with the Texas abortion ban putting bounties on people who aid another in getting an abortion. SCOTUS had the opportunity to stop this practice dead in its tracks, but they decided to let it persist as the case waits to be heard by the court. Meanwhile, this gives everyone else latitude to pass their own "bounty" laws on any number of issues.
  - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
    > It started with the Texas abortion ban putting bounties on people who aid another in getting an abortion. No, it has long been a part of US law; Texas just made the news.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  >What would that mean? Ok, one example: implement such features as the "noprocrast" feature HN has. Normally companies don't have an incentive to do that, since they want you addicted even when you don't want to be. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3677390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3677390 > If the government wants to regulate fine, the government should do it. Not via civil lawsuits. The advantage of lawsuits vs. regulation is that the lawsuits can better adapt to changing technology and various things that can't be anticipated ahead of time, and is less likely to have loopholes and be gameable. Creative features such as "noprocrast" can't really be regulated, but they can give protection to a company in a civil suit. I'm sure there are a lot of other features that could be developed as well that will help reduce addiction and reduce the tendency for "enragement to equal engagement". Remember, the lawsuit happens after harm has allegedly been caused, and a judge or jury can use common sense to decide if the company has acted irresponsibly. Neither is perfect, but there are certainly advantages of doing it this way.
russiansareugly 5y ago
I wonder how these laws would play out against a decentralized protocol instead of a centralized company.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
I’m still stunned that so many techies of the generation that grew up in the Wild West era of early internet freedom are now quick to applaud silly legislation to let parents sue social media companies for vaguely defined offenses. Back when I was younger, the internet evilness was chat rooms and video games, both of which were supposedly addicting us and corrupting our young, helpless minds. We all knew it was ridiculous and mocked the “think of the children” attacks. We also turned out fine. Then a couple decades pass and many of the same people are in full on “think of the children” mode over the latest generation of internet social interactions. I know commenters will claim it’s different this time, but I think the real difference is that people are getting older and out of touch. I’m guessing most of the anti-social media crusaders on HN don’t even use social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, but instead get their opinions from exaggerated news stories, just as our parents did back when the internet was new. Does anyone here really think there is an “addictiveness” feature in the Facebook algorithm that can be toggled on and off like this article suggests? Does anyone think kids will just shrug and accept whatever limitations are imposed on them, or will they find creative ways to get a second account and set the age to 18 like we found creative ways around primitive internet content blockers? It’s the same stuff all over again and I think it’s getting quite hypocritical to pretend that heavy-handed internet controls were bad for us but good for them. Amazing how it comes full circle.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  There is a massive difference social media today is run by the largest corporations that exist and design in a way that it is the most addictive possible. I would argue it is similar to alcohol or tabacco this way. Shouting think of the children because some kids/teenagers get drunk at some point is way overkill. However once the tabacco/alcohol industry started directly marketing to them it was quite a different matter.
- bedobi 5y ago
  I can see where you're coming from, but let's be real, those IRC and game chat rooms were far from well run or safe for minors, and made minimal to no effort to keep minors out. Most still don't. And modern social media really is different in that it's deliberately designed to be addictive and basically prey on insecurities. (or just outright create new ones) They don't do much if anything in terms of not straight up enhancing bullying etc either. Another difference is, unlike our parents, who simply didn't know much about the internet, and as a result had lots of unfounded fears, our generation are digital natives and very familiar with all the problems. We're just used to and desensitized to them. With adults, that's one thing, but with minors, it's pretty inexcusable imo. It's not unreasonable to want to protect your children and adolescents from harm, whether from smoking or from social media.
perihelions 5y ago
History rhymes: it was barely a decade ago California's violent video game ban made contact with the First Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchants_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan...
- oblio 5y ago
  Trick question: based on the logic in that case, can you sell porn to under 18 year olds in the US?
alexb_ 5y ago
The amount of people trying to assign social media companies the role of "publisher", responsible for everything that happens on their platform, is absurd. It's how we get websites that are "legally required" to look over EVERYTHING that you do, at all times, and have robots judge if you are being too mean or not, just so that they can say they are putting in an effort. Social media companies should not be responsible for anything their users post, or it will be the complete death of any sort of online privacy.
- onion2k 5y ago
  It's how we get websites that are "legally required" to look over EVERYTHING that you do, at all times, and have robots judge if you are being too mean or not, just so that they can say they are putting in an effort. That sounds ridiculous until you realise that they already do it. They decide what to show in your timeline by looking over every post and matching what they think you'll engage with most. They know exactly when you're being a dick, what posts to show you to encourage or discourage that behavior, who to show your posts to, and so on. Adding a box to say "this post looks pretty bad, maybe take a break now" wouldn't be difficult. They don't want to do it because negative shitposts make them money.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    TikTok in fact shows you a video of a man saying “woah you’ve been scrolling for a while. Maybe you should take a break” after like an hour. So it’s totally a doable thing for them to interject and suggest a break. Like you said, they review every post already. The tools are there they’re just being used for the wrong goals.
- friendzis 5y ago
  Now you just propagate propaganda of social networks. The non-legal definition of a publisher is entity which collects, selects and packs content. You see, the very moment social networks, forums and other platforms choose to moderate the content by removing "inappropriate" content they effectively become publishers due to selectivity. You just cannot have your cake and eat it too. Either you do not filter the content and shift responsibility to actual content creators (I have no idea how it would be possible to implement that without ditching the very concept of "feed") or you select the content and take on full legal responsibility for what you selected.
WalterBright 5y ago
First it was comic books causing juvenile delinquency. Then it was rock music causing youthful depraved behavior. Then it was video games inducing violent behavior in teens. Now it's social media... Though I have to admit, when Lex Luther said he could turn a sand pile into an atomic pile, I decided to become a super-villain.
- sdoering 5y ago
  In principle I agree. Still I see structural differences in comic books and the abuse potential of psychological principles behind skinner boxes (esp. randomized rewards). We are basically training ourselves with systems like these to press the lever again and again. Even HN with the random element of 'will my submission/comment receive votes' works like a skinner box. And we don't even have notifications here. Not sure if it is a good idea to train young people into these dopamine "shots". I remember how friends of mine spent all their pocket money on these collectible card games. Looking back these were my first encounter with the loot box principle.
- noisy_boy 5y ago
  The difference between a comic book, offline video games and the current social media/MMPROGs is two fold: 1. There is an erosion of physical limitations on how much time you can spend on an activity on an "item". A comic book has fixed no. of pages, once you have finished, you need to get another physical comic book. It doesn't automagically keep adding pages as you keep turning. 2. Deliberate algorithm driven strategies to increase "engagement": the content of the comic book is fixed - you either like it or you don't. It doesn't change the content on the fly based on which turn of events you prefer. Offline video games had more "engagement" but it still was limited by the inbuilt branching of possibilities (which still could be a lot depending on the cleverness of the algorithm/engine - that is why people spent hundreds and thousands of hours on them even without them being MMPROGs). With the current set, the entire thing is driven to reel you in right from the get-go and keep you hooked as long as possible. That surely can't be a good thing for your health.
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
decremental 5y ago
California has famously bad positions on anything related to morality but this is great. The ghouls that run social media companies know their product is addictive. They know what it does to people and also to kids. Anything that hurts them helps us.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  >California has famously bad positions on anything related to morality but this is great. I disagree, this is diverting the social responsibility back to the mailmen. This won't solve any of the underlying issues that cause these problems. It's just the modern form of bathroom walls. The issues won't change, just the medium. I guess for the highly anti-coporaate who just want to see trillionaires stuck to it, it's exhilarating. But the things about many of these "think of the children" bills is that children are rarely the subject of the bill. IMO this is peak sweeping under the rug of the psychological and sociological problems the modern youth face. But that's hard to solve. pointing fingers is easy.
eterevsky 5y ago
Most social networks and related services are explicitly banning users below the age of 13. And it's parent's responsibility to control what services are their children using. So I don't see how this bill can possibly work.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Social media companies say you have to be over 13 to use the service, and then they fail to enforce their own rules a lot of the time. It's a disclaimer to avoid legal action by shifting responsibility to the user more than a real feature to stop children accessing their applications. Laws like the one proposed in the article are a way to push social media companies to start enforcing those rules better.
  - tyrfing 5y ago
    "Child" is defined as under 18 here, not 13. It's a way to retroactively punish social media companies with 100s of billions in civil liability. Really nothing else, there's an absurdly easy way given to avoid future liability. "Social media company" is also defined so broadly that SMS has to be specifically exempted, iMessage and Roblox probably fall under the law.
    - eterevsky 5y ago
      I don't see any specific age given in the article. If they actually want to make things like YouTube inaccessible to teenagers, they are freaking nuts. And yes, if they make YouTube liable for some vaguely defined harm towards teenagers, the only reasonable course of action for Google would be to completely ban teenagers from the platform.
      - johnnyanmac 5y ago
        I grepped through the PDF of the bill and found this: >“Child user” means a person who uses a social media platform and is not older than 17 years of age. I was already wary of the bill in general, but thinking about parents suing Snapchat or Instagram over some high school drama (that would happen anyway, social media or not) seems to be almost dystopic from a technical point of view. Literally shooting the messenger. ---- Not sure if HN allows links to PDF's, but the first link of [this news article](https://dot.la/social-media-addiction-california-bill-2656981477.html https://dot.la/social-media-addiction-california-bill-265698...) will get you to the bill I found.
twayt 5y ago
We have PSAs for driving under the influence, vaping and teenage sex. Do we have the same for doomscrolling on TikTok, Instagram mimetic induced depression and ghosting in online dating? These are the problems the new generation is contending with and there seems to be a massive trivialization of them. Sure you can try to regulate social media and take legal action, but we need more social support and collective recognition of these issues
- somenameforme 5y ago
  I'd add to this that there was a time when cocaine in the US was perfectly normal. Popes, Ulysses S Grant, Thomas Edison, and countless others advocated for Vin Mariani [1] which was a wine mixed with cocaine, that served as the inspiration for Coca-Kola (whose name derives from its original key components: cocaine/coca leaf + kola nut). Thomas Edison remarked that the drink helped him awake longer. Oh indeed, Mr. Edison. The point is that it was so normalized that nobody would have really appreciated the consequences of it, especially when everybody was using it. The same seems to be true now a days with social media. People are hopelessly addicted, most people claim it makes them feel worse - yet they keep using it, and so on. We're just entering into a new era of the world with the introduction of new addictive and harmful activities with the novel catch that the harm is not immediately obvious, as compared with something like gambling. The only reasonable response I can see here is that what I'm saying could also have been applied to any new technological toy, such as television or even radio in times past. But again the big difference is harm. Many if not most people might have said they should probably waste less time watching television, yet few would have claimed it was genuinely personally damaging to themselves - yet nonetheless being unable to stop. Let alone the consequences on society that are far more specific and real than the ambiguous concerns that undoubtedly followed previous technologies. Put more succinctly, there is a difference between television and social media in the same way that there is a difference between caffeine and cocaine. At some point the consequences of an enjoyable recreation outweigh the benefits of that recreation. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani
  - danuker 5y ago
    > whose name derives from its original key components: cocaine/coca leaf + kola nut Funny how the addiction is spelled out in the title, yet it is probably the most recognizable beverage name in the world.
Jimbonius 5y ago
Good. This won't be well received here because many that read HN are either just working in social media companies or directly on the teams responsible for addicting children. They don't like the idea that what they're doing is destroying the minds of a generation (and a half, at this point).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Looking at the generation you're describing, they are more informed and more tolerant than many in the generation that came before. Although they do have quite a bit of anxiety... Perhaps justified, since their informed position means that they have a hard time ignoring the looming disasters the generations before them primed, most of whom will die off before the dominoes fall. If this is destruction, it's the most creative of destruction.
mleonhard 5y ago
I grew up playing video games like Doom, Starcraft, and Descent. The games had violent content, but they didn't make me violent. The games developed and got more habit-forming, and I spent more and more time on them. I played Counter-Strike online for thousands of hours. Most of those hours were not enjoyable. I lost 6 months of my life to EverQuest, an MMORPG. Never again. Many of my classmates in university played World of Warcraft for 3+ hours every day. Some played it instead of studying and failed out of university. Now, habit-forming features are integrated into all kinds of software, including apps for children. Puzzle games earn more money than traditional gambling apps [0], mostly from ads. An 8-year-old is no match for a team of PhDs. Given the chance, most children would spend every waking minute using an iPad or phone. The more hours children spend playing games and watching videos, the fewer hours they spend reading books, building things, exercising creativity, making music, dancing, riding bikes, playing with friends, spending time with family members, learning how to cook, paying attention to people around them and learning from them. Instead, they're staring at the screen and consuming whatever was picked by the algorithms, which is usually worthless. Manipulative software has large negative impacts on individuals and society. As a society, we do not yet know the diversity and severity of its effects. Many people do not even realize that software manipulates. The problem will only get worse until one of two things happen: A) People begin to understand the effects of manipulation by software and develop habits and social mores to reduce harm. This will likely take generations. We can recognize this happening when derogatory terms for app abusers appear, like the terms for drug abusers. For an analogy, consider the introduction of sugary drinks to indigenous communities in Mexico [1]. B) Society begins to hold companies accountable for manipulation they do via software and hold guardians responsible for exposing children to manipulative software. The proposed California law is the start of this process. [0] https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/mobile-gaming-statistics https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/mob... [1] https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/the-soft-drink-invasion-on-indigenous-chiapas-increased-diabetes-death https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/the-soft-drink-invasi...
- oblio 5y ago
  Well, I'd say the main analogy would be casinos. I think it took <<centuries>> to properly legislate them. Hopefully for software we figure this stuff out in at most a few more decades.
can16358p 5y ago
How are they going to test it? This sounds more like state wanting to get their juice off the tech giants greedily but don't know how to do. Hopefully people will soon see it's not the social media platforms, it's the people themselves who need to be fixed. Social media is just a tool, and if people don't change, it will just be replaced with something else and the cycle will go on and on.
- sha256sum 5y ago
  >Hopefully people will soon see it's not the drugs, it's the people themselves who need to be fixed. Drugs are just a tool, and if people don't change, it will just be replaced with something else and the cycle will go on and on. Easy way to shift the blame if one has ever taken part in designing these products. Hell I remember years ago on HN when that book about getting people hooked/addicted to an app was a popular book to discuss, making the analogy more true. You’re right, maybe people are the problem. Just like how the Sacklers pushes their wares and hooked the masses so did SV
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    The opiate crisis is also largely a people problem. What the sackler's did was bad but it would have happened without them. Like in this case, some reasonable regulations may help, but won't solve the problem
  - can16358p 5y ago
    Well, yeah drugs aren't the problem. Same analogy applies to drugs, "addictive" apps or anything that one may call addictive in any sense. In the end it's the people who use them, you can't blame the creator of them as long as they don't lie about the product.
- basisword 5y ago
  >> Hopefully people will soon see it's not the social media platforms, it's the people themselves who need to be fixed. Same applies to drugs, smoking, gambling, drinking etc. but we recognise those things as potentially harmful and take steps to restrict them, regulate them, and make them as safe as we can (with varying degrees of success and failure obviously). Social media gets kids even earlier than most of the things I’ve listed above and the best we seem to have done is self-reporting your age to make sure you’re over 13. It’s embarrassing and I have no doubt that in 50 years we’ll be looking back at some of the people that worked on these platforms the same way we look at people who worked in the tobacco industry.
encryptluks2 5y ago
> California bill would let parents blame other people for them not doing their job
whalesalad 5y ago
Terrible. Your kids and their habits are your responsibility as a parent. This is the stuff that makes California look bad.
- bsenftner 5y ago
  You kids and their habits are largely out of your control. Between kids' media, other kids, religious indoctrination, and the majority of their time spent in school, the influence a parent has is fleeting, continually undermined, and an entire career onto itself if one is serious about raising their children and not simply letting it happen, with sporadic attention, as most do.
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    You're not the ONLY influence, but you are AN influence. And arguably the primary one. At some point you gotta stop blaming the billboard you pass by everyday and actually parent. Which is about guiding, not bounding your kids. your fear as a parent shouldnt be them watching some raunchy YT video and falling into the wrong crowd. By that point you should trust your kid enough to know that that raunchy video isn't reality and to focus on what really matters. If your kid isnt at that point, well: you gotta do more guiding. Don't' just give up and blame society. Get them the help they need if you can't provide it
zasdffaa 5y ago
Can't parents acknowledge they have some responsibility towards their own children and not give just blindly give them laptops and phones and expect someone else to clean up the mess after them. Same stupid shit happening here in the UK.
- jpambrun 5y ago
  We can, but those system are optimized to negate our efforts. Peer pressure among kids is also extremely hard to overcome. "Letting parent sue" is a very American way to go about it, but exploiting kids underdeveloped brain should be illegal.
  - jw_mc 5y ago
    Exactly. We don't live in a vacuum. So many people saying just take some personal responsibility. But when you see the effects on society at large, you have to acknowledge that maybe it's something about our genetics / psychology that's being exploited unfairly.
    - tharne 5y ago
      Add to that, that "personal responsibility" only helps when the fight is remotely fair. I'm a reasonably diligent parent and think fairly highly of myself, but if the fight is me against a couple of trillion dollar tech companies who have very bright staff devoted to capturing my children's attention my any means necessary, well that's a fight I'm going to lose sooner or later.
    - johnnyanmac 5y ago
      >But when you see the effects on society at large, you have to acknowledge that maybe it's something about our genetics / psychology that's being exploited unfairly. people wanting to talk to other people? Yes, that's the great benefit of social media. in the 2000's this was kids using cellphone minutes to chat around on flip phones. in the 90's it was some early online game chats. in the 80's it was kids stuck at an arcade. I don't see anything inherently unethical about social media. You just gotta teach kids how to communicate to others and express themselves without putting down others. Not an easy feat (the bully trope goes back millenia), but this stopgap of just holding the courier accountable doesnt seem to solve anything,
andybak 5y ago
> addicting kids Is this grammatically correct? It sounds very strange to my (British) ears. I would write "[...] for making kids addicted to their products" or similar. But then "x is very addicting" still bothers me. There's already a perfectly good and distinct word "addictive" so why make "addicting" serve a dual purpose?
BongoMcCat 5y ago
While I'm happy that something is being done to address the problems of social media; as an outsider I'm having a hard time understanding why every problem has to be solved with law suits in america.
- hn_version_0023 5y ago
  When all you have is a hammer to solve problems, every problem starts to look like a nail.
zivkovicp 5y ago
What's needed is more focus on building a healthy society and teaching people how to have balance in their lives, but that seems to be in direct conflict with mindless consumerism. We can't have it both ways, and I suspect nothing much will change.
- sharken 5y ago
  Except some payouts from social media companies to parents as a direct result. It also opens up that parents can sue for other addictions such as soft drinks, candy and even alcohol and cigarettes. A much saner way would be that parents educate their children and take responsibility.
  - zivkovicp 5y ago
    I agree. I also suspect this path only leads to more restrictions and higher costs for everyone as companies will have to compensate somehow.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  I don’t disagree with this, but I do sense that “teaching people how to have balance in their lives” only goes so far. We’ve been trying to teach people how to be healthy, physically fit, to avoid substance abuse, and to spend money wisely but it seems that those lessons just don’t stick for most of the population. At some point intervention is needed beyond just teaching people the right way to live. But I’m also weary of this because regulations can often be poorly thought-out, heavy handed, or unintentionally crafted to make the problem even worse.
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    >We’ve been trying to teach people how to be healthy, physically fit, to avoid substance abuse, and to spend money wisely but it seems that those lessons just don’t stick for most of the population. "you" may, but look at the wider statistics on what cities and demographics are most subject to the obesity crisis. Spoilers: it's an economic problem. You give people a living wage without requiring two minimum wage jobs to pay rent, and allow some time in their life for extra curriculars, and suddenly grabbing a greasy burger on the way home isn't as impulsive a decision when given time to breath in life. And by extension, give more time to educate children and money to encourage a proper diet (tho lunch food is a whole other issue we need to tackle).

179 points by lxm 5y ago

I liked "Whatever features within their algorithms that are creating the addictions, especially in teenagers — they can disable those features. That could be another thing." The algorithm isn't trying to help, but YouTube or Reddit or FB or whatever is addicting anyways unless they design an algorithm explicitly to reduce engagement by giving you stuff you don't like.

teaearlgraycold 5y ago
> unless they design an algorithm explicitly to reduce engagement by giving you stuff you don't like. I don't think they need to go that far. The algorithms could be optimized for long-term personal growth. Always pushing you to expand your boundaries in healthy ways. That kind of growth is usually mildly uncomfortable but rewarding. You'll only want so much of it per day. They'd be replacing endless cheap carbs with exercise.
- endgame 5y ago
  I don't even want that sort of paternalism. With an old-school forum, you knew when you were "done", and you had to come back 12-24 hours later for enough other posters to have said anything worthwhile.
- tjr225 5y ago
  Ugh lol dude are you for real? Do you actually trust tech companies to decide what is best for a given persons personal growth?
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    do you trust the government to? That's all this is doing. companies curate, but ultimately we're talking about user generated content, whose popularity at some point in life came from the fact that a lot of people chose to engage with it. The only difference now is that you dont need to be some a-list celebrity to get this engagement. A camera, an idea, and a bit of video editing can make you go viral. even if we stripped down all the engagement algorithms and made it some "pure" HN-style "votes determine curation" (which is a trap in and of itself, but I diagress), you'd be surprised how similar the site layout would look. Arguably even worse because bigger creators get more views and likes by nature of being big.
    - tjr225 5y ago
      I don't trust either the government or tech companies. You shouldn't either. You should be free to make your own judgements without either interfering or manipulating you. I assume you're in America, after all?
- SllX 5y ago
  Long term personal growth in what direction? And on Twitter? Facebook? Not to be dismissive but Twitter does what Twitter does best when people shout their opinions into a void or stick their job title up and LARP as the authority on X and Facebook does what Facebook does best when it filters blogs and baby photos to your newsfeed and you meet groups of people around a shared interest or hobby or arrange outings with large groups of people. YouTube maybe could be optimized that way, but if the banners they stick in my way that take no feedback and accept no dismissal as an invitation to never return are any indication they would do a hatchet job tweaking their algorithm in that direction. What they do very well is introducing me to new music and interesting videos on old tech and games. Absolutely fantastic entertainment platform and probably no more addictive than television was but I feel like I’m also the only one that likes the YouTube algorithm. Also that kind of tweak would just be paternalistic nonsense, on principle.
- FredPret 5y ago
  Like the in the Diamond Age but for Youtube
mtgx 5y ago
annoyingnoob 5y ago
They could have tips that encourage breaks, or even have hard limits, they do not have to reduce quality necessarily. It could be an opportunity to introduce people to another product/site/app, 'now for something completely different'.

majormajor 5y ago

The trend of "outsource enforcement of laws to civil suits" is concerning - not event "constitutional rights"-wise but also from a "due process" (possibly there's a better term) perspective. The number of prospective plaintiffs who could bring a case on weak grounds that you still have to spend a lot of $$$ defending is wild.

wavesounds 5y ago
There's too many lawyers, it wouldn't be a problem if law school was cheaper but the fact that so many of them have big student loan debts means they have to find reasons to sue people in order to pay of those bills.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Yes, it's those evil schools making all the lawyers greedy, when lawyers would otherwise just sit around hoping that no one would need their services.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  This isn't happening because of a glut of lawyers. This is happening because some people wanted to make an end-run around settled precedent, SCOTUS decided to humor them for some reason, and now all manner of nonsense is being attempted, because why not? Apparently it's okay to make a law that completely nullifies people's constitutional rights, and SCOTUS will let that just sit on the books while they take their time with their review. This is a huge loophole in the law and the justice system. Apparently there is some set of laws such that if written the right way, they can be completely and blatantly unconstitutional yet still remain in effect. This is effectively a backdoor around the constitution, and the question right now is: which laws will SCOTUS refuse to stay? And how much damage can we do in the interim period when the law has been challenged but neither overturned nor stayed? How much can we get away with?
  - WillPostForFood 5y ago
    This has nothing to do with SCOTUS or avoiding legal review. California has been doing this for over a decade, since they past the Private Attorneys General Act. It is a bad way to outsource bad policy to private citizens, and is a big handout to a powerful interest group, trial lawyers. https://www.dir.ca.gov/Private-Attorneys-General-Act/Private-Attorneys-General-Act.html https://www.dir.ca.gov/Private-Attorneys-General-Act/Private...

LanceH 5y ago

Let social media companies sue parents for kids logging on.

pipeline_peak 5y ago
throwaway984393 5y ago
holding American parents responsible for their own child's welfare? that'll be the day
weq 5y ago
What about Ad companies?

duxup 5y ago

> the bill would first obligate social media companies to not addict child users What would that mean? > However, it said, there would also be a safe harbor provision that would protect “responsible” social media platforms from being penalized if they took “basic steps to avoid addicting children.” That’s some wonky double talk… If the government wants to regulate fine, the government should do it. Not via civil lawsuits.

ModernMech 5y ago
> If the government wants to regulate fine, the government should do it. Not via civil lawsuits. Agreed. It seems a number of these bills are advancing through state legislatures. It started with the Texas abortion ban putting bounties on people who aid another in getting an abortion. SCOTUS had the opportunity to stop this practice dead in its tracks, but they decided to let it persist as the case waits to be heard by the court. Meanwhile, this gives everyone else latitude to pass their own "bounty" laws on any number of issues.
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  > It started with the Texas abortion ban putting bounties on people who aid another in getting an abortion. No, it has long been a part of US law; Texas just made the news.
robbrown451 5y ago
>What would that mean? Ok, one example: implement such features as the "noprocrast" feature HN has. Normally companies don't have an incentive to do that, since they want you addicted even when you don't want to be. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3677390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3677390 > If the government wants to regulate fine, the government should do it. Not via civil lawsuits. The advantage of lawsuits vs. regulation is that the lawsuits can better adapt to changing technology and various things that can't be anticipated ahead of time, and is less likely to have loopholes and be gameable. Creative features such as "noprocrast" can't really be regulated, but they can give protection to a company in a civil suit. I'm sure there are a lot of other features that could be developed as well that will help reduce addiction and reduce the tendency for "enragement to equal engagement". Remember, the lawsuit happens after harm has allegedly been caused, and a judge or jury can use common sense to decide if the company has acted irresponsibly. Neither is perfect, but there are certainly advantages of doing it this way.

russiansareugly 5y ago

I wonder how these laws would play out against a decentralized protocol instead of a centralized company.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

I’m still stunned that so many techies of the generation that grew up in the Wild West era of early internet freedom are now quick to applaud silly legislation to let parents sue social media companies for vaguely defined offenses. Back when I was younger, the internet evilness was chat rooms and video games, both of which were supposedly addicting us and corrupting our young, helpless minds. We all knew it was ridiculous and mocked the “think of the children” attacks. We also turned out fine. Then a couple decades pass and many of the same people are in full on “think of the children” mode over the latest generation of internet social interactions. I know commenters will claim it’s different this time, but I think the real difference is that people are getting older and out of touch. I’m guessing most of the anti-social media crusaders on HN don’t even use social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, but instead get their opinions from exaggerated news stories, just as our parents did back when the internet was new. Does anyone here really think there is an “addictiveness” feature in the Facebook algorithm that can be toggled on and off like this article suggests? Does anyone think kids will just shrug and accept whatever limitations are imposed on them, or will they find creative ways to get a second account and set the age to 18 like we found creative ways around primitive internet content blockers? It’s the same stuff all over again and I think it’s getting quite hypocritical to pretend that heavy-handed internet controls were bad for us but good for them. Amazing how it comes full circle.

cycomanic 5y ago
There is a massive difference social media today is run by the largest corporations that exist and design in a way that it is the most addictive possible. I would argue it is similar to alcohol or tabacco this way. Shouting think of the children because some kids/teenagers get drunk at some point is way overkill. However once the tabacco/alcohol industry started directly marketing to them it was quite a different matter.
bedobi 5y ago
I can see where you're coming from, but let's be real, those IRC and game chat rooms were far from well run or safe for minors, and made minimal to no effort to keep minors out. Most still don't. And modern social media really is different in that it's deliberately designed to be addictive and basically prey on insecurities. (or just outright create new ones) They don't do much if anything in terms of not straight up enhancing bullying etc either. Another difference is, unlike our parents, who simply didn't know much about the internet, and as a result had lots of unfounded fears, our generation are digital natives and very familiar with all the problems. We're just used to and desensitized to them. With adults, that's one thing, but with minors, it's pretty inexcusable imo. It's not unreasonable to want to protect your children and adolescents from harm, whether from smoking or from social media.

perihelions 5y ago

History rhymes: it was barely a decade ago California's violent video game ban made contact with the First Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchants_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan...

oblio 5y ago
Trick question: based on the logic in that case, can you sell porn to under 18 year olds in the US?

alexb_ 5y ago

The amount of people trying to assign social media companies the role of "publisher", responsible for everything that happens on their platform, is absurd. It's how we get websites that are "legally required" to look over EVERYTHING that you do, at all times, and have robots judge if you are being too mean or not, just so that they can say they are putting in an effort. Social media companies should not be responsible for anything their users post, or it will be the complete death of any sort of online privacy.

onion2k 5y ago
It's how we get websites that are "legally required" to look over EVERYTHING that you do, at all times, and have robots judge if you are being too mean or not, just so that they can say they are putting in an effort. That sounds ridiculous until you realise that they already do it. They decide what to show in your timeline by looking over every post and matching what they think you'll engage with most. They know exactly when you're being a dick, what posts to show you to encourage or discourage that behavior, who to show your posts to, and so on. Adding a box to say "this post looks pretty bad, maybe take a break now" wouldn't be difficult. They don't want to do it because negative shitposts make them money.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  TikTok in fact shows you a video of a man saying “woah you’ve been scrolling for a while. Maybe you should take a break” after like an hour. So it’s totally a doable thing for them to interject and suggest a break. Like you said, they review every post already. The tools are there they’re just being used for the wrong goals.
friendzis 5y ago
Now you just propagate propaganda of social networks. The non-legal definition of a publisher is entity which collects, selects and packs content. You see, the very moment social networks, forums and other platforms choose to moderate the content by removing "inappropriate" content they effectively become publishers due to selectivity. You just cannot have your cake and eat it too. Either you do not filter the content and shift responsibility to actual content creators (I have no idea how it would be possible to implement that without ditching the very concept of "feed") or you select the content and take on full legal responsibility for what you selected.

WalterBright 5y ago

First it was comic books causing juvenile delinquency. Then it was rock music causing youthful depraved behavior. Then it was video games inducing violent behavior in teens. Now it's social media... Though I have to admit, when Lex Luther said he could turn a sand pile into an atomic pile, I decided to become a super-villain.

sdoering 5y ago
In principle I agree. Still I see structural differences in comic books and the abuse potential of psychological principles behind skinner boxes (esp. randomized rewards). We are basically training ourselves with systems like these to press the lever again and again. Even HN with the random element of 'will my submission/comment receive votes' works like a skinner box. And we don't even have notifications here. Not sure if it is a good idea to train young people into these dopamine "shots". I remember how friends of mine spent all their pocket money on these collectible card games. Looking back these were my first encounter with the loot box principle.
noisy_boy 5y ago
The difference between a comic book, offline video games and the current social media/MMPROGs is two fold: 1. There is an erosion of physical limitations on how much time you can spend on an activity on an "item". A comic book has fixed no. of pages, once you have finished, you need to get another physical comic book. It doesn't automagically keep adding pages as you keep turning. 2. Deliberate algorithm driven strategies to increase "engagement": the content of the comic book is fixed - you either like it or you don't. It doesn't change the content on the fly based on which turn of events you prefer. Offline video games had more "engagement" but it still was limited by the inbuilt branching of possibilities (which still could be a lot depending on the cleverness of the algorithm/engine - that is why people spent hundreds and thousands of hours on them even without them being MMPROGs). With the current set, the entire thing is driven to reel you in right from the get-go and keep you hooked as long as possible. That surely can't be a good thing for your health.
- DocTomoe 5y ago

decremental 5y ago

California has famously bad positions on anything related to morality but this is great. The ghouls that run social media companies know their product is addictive. They know what it does to people and also to kids. Anything that hurts them helps us.

johnnyanmac 5y ago
>California has famously bad positions on anything related to morality but this is great. I disagree, this is diverting the social responsibility back to the mailmen. This won't solve any of the underlying issues that cause these problems. It's just the modern form of bathroom walls. The issues won't change, just the medium. I guess for the highly anti-coporaate who just want to see trillionaires stuck to it, it's exhilarating. But the things about many of these "think of the children" bills is that children are rarely the subject of the bill. IMO this is peak sweeping under the rug of the psychological and sociological problems the modern youth face. But that's hard to solve. pointing fingers is easy.

eterevsky 5y ago

Most social networks and related services are explicitly banning users below the age of 13. And it's parent's responsibility to control what services are their children using. So I don't see how this bill can possibly work.

onion2k 5y ago
Social media companies say you have to be over 13 to use the service, and then they fail to enforce their own rules a lot of the time. It's a disclaimer to avoid legal action by shifting responsibility to the user more than a real feature to stop children accessing their applications. Laws like the one proposed in the article are a way to push social media companies to start enforcing those rules better.
- tyrfing 5y ago
  "Child" is defined as under 18 here, not 13. It's a way to retroactively punish social media companies with 100s of billions in civil liability. Really nothing else, there's an absurdly easy way given to avoid future liability. "Social media company" is also defined so broadly that SMS has to be specifically exempted, iMessage and Roblox probably fall under the law.
  - eterevsky 5y ago
    I don't see any specific age given in the article. If they actually want to make things like YouTube inaccessible to teenagers, they are freaking nuts. And yes, if they make YouTube liable for some vaguely defined harm towards teenagers, the only reasonable course of action for Google would be to completely ban teenagers from the platform.
    - johnnyanmac 5y ago
      I grepped through the PDF of the bill and found this: >“Child user” means a person who uses a social media platform and is not older than 17 years of age. I was already wary of the bill in general, but thinking about parents suing Snapchat or Instagram over some high school drama (that would happen anyway, social media or not) seems to be almost dystopic from a technical point of view. Literally shooting the messenger. ---- Not sure if HN allows links to PDF's, but the first link of [this news article](https://dot.la/social-media-addiction-california-bill-2656981477.html https://dot.la/social-media-addiction-california-bill-265698...) will get you to the bill I found.

twayt 5y ago

We have PSAs for driving under the influence, vaping and teenage sex. Do we have the same for doomscrolling on TikTok, Instagram mimetic induced depression and ghosting in online dating? These are the problems the new generation is contending with and there seems to be a massive trivialization of them. Sure you can try to regulate social media and take legal action, but we need more social support and collective recognition of these issues

somenameforme 5y ago
I'd add to this that there was a time when cocaine in the US was perfectly normal. Popes, Ulysses S Grant, Thomas Edison, and countless others advocated for Vin Mariani [1] which was a wine mixed with cocaine, that served as the inspiration for Coca-Kola (whose name derives from its original key components: cocaine/coca leaf + kola nut). Thomas Edison remarked that the drink helped him awake longer. Oh indeed, Mr. Edison. The point is that it was so normalized that nobody would have really appreciated the consequences of it, especially when everybody was using it. The same seems to be true now a days with social media. People are hopelessly addicted, most people claim it makes them feel worse - yet they keep using it, and so on. We're just entering into a new era of the world with the introduction of new addictive and harmful activities with the novel catch that the harm is not immediately obvious, as compared with something like gambling. The only reasonable response I can see here is that what I'm saying could also have been applied to any new technological toy, such as television or even radio in times past. But again the big difference is harm. Many if not most people might have said they should probably waste less time watching television, yet few would have claimed it was genuinely personally damaging to themselves - yet nonetheless being unable to stop. Let alone the consequences on society that are far more specific and real than the ambiguous concerns that undoubtedly followed previous technologies. Put more succinctly, there is a difference between television and social media in the same way that there is a difference between caffeine and cocaine. At some point the consequences of an enjoyable recreation outweigh the benefits of that recreation. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani
- danuker 5y ago
  > whose name derives from its original key components: cocaine/coca leaf + kola nut Funny how the addiction is spelled out in the title, yet it is probably the most recognizable beverage name in the world.

Jimbonius 5y ago

Good. This won't be well received here because many that read HN are either just working in social media companies or directly on the teams responsible for addicting children. They don't like the idea that what they're doing is destroying the minds of a generation (and a half, at this point).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
shadowgovt 5y ago
Looking at the generation you're describing, they are more informed and more tolerant than many in the generation that came before. Although they do have quite a bit of anxiety... Perhaps justified, since their informed position means that they have a hard time ignoring the looming disasters the generations before them primed, most of whom will die off before the dominoes fall. If this is destruction, it's the most creative of destruction.

mleonhard 5y ago

I grew up playing video games like Doom, Starcraft, and Descent. The games had violent content, but they didn't make me violent. The games developed and got more habit-forming, and I spent more and more time on them. I played Counter-Strike online for thousands of hours. Most of those hours were not enjoyable. I lost 6 months of my life to EverQuest, an MMORPG. Never again. Many of my classmates in university played World of Warcraft for 3+ hours every day. Some played it instead of studying and failed out of university. Now, habit-forming features are integrated into all kinds of software, including apps for children. Puzzle games earn more money than traditional gambling apps [0], mostly from ads. An 8-year-old is no match for a team of PhDs. Given the chance, most children would spend every waking minute using an iPad or phone. The more hours children spend playing games and watching videos, the fewer hours they spend reading books, building things, exercising creativity, making music, dancing, riding bikes, playing with friends, spending time with family members, learning how to cook, paying attention to people around them and learning from them. Instead, they're staring at the screen and consuming whatever was picked by the algorithms, which is usually worthless. Manipulative software has large negative impacts on individuals and society. As a society, we do not yet know the diversity and severity of its effects. Many people do not even realize that software manipulates. The problem will only get worse until one of two things happen: A) People begin to understand the effects of manipulation by software and develop habits and social mores to reduce harm. This will likely take generations. We can recognize this happening when derogatory terms for app abusers appear, like the terms for drug abusers. For an analogy, consider the introduction of sugary drinks to indigenous communities in Mexico [1]. B) Society begins to hold companies accountable for manipulation they do via software and hold guardians responsible for exposing children to manipulative software. The proposed California law is the start of this process. [0] https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/mobile-gaming-statistics https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/mob... [1] https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/the-soft-drink-invasion-on-indigenous-chiapas-increased-diabetes-death https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/the-soft-drink-invasi...

oblio 5y ago
Well, I'd say the main analogy would be casinos. I think it took <<centuries>> to properly legislate them. Hopefully for software we figure this stuff out in at most a few more decades.

can16358p 5y ago

How are they going to test it? This sounds more like state wanting to get their juice off the tech giants greedily but don't know how to do. Hopefully people will soon see it's not the social media platforms, it's the people themselves who need to be fixed. Social media is just a tool, and if people don't change, it will just be replaced with something else and the cycle will go on and on.

sha256sum 5y ago
>Hopefully people will soon see it's not the drugs, it's the people themselves who need to be fixed. Drugs are just a tool, and if people don't change, it will just be replaced with something else and the cycle will go on and on. Easy way to shift the blame if one has ever taken part in designing these products. Hell I remember years ago on HN when that book about getting people hooked/addicted to an app was a popular book to discuss, making the analogy more true. You’re right, maybe people are the problem. Just like how the Sacklers pushes their wares and hooked the masses so did SV
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  The opiate crisis is also largely a people problem. What the sackler's did was bad but it would have happened without them. Like in this case, some reasonable regulations may help, but won't solve the problem
- can16358p 5y ago
  Well, yeah drugs aren't the problem. Same analogy applies to drugs, "addictive" apps or anything that one may call addictive in any sense. In the end it's the people who use them, you can't blame the creator of them as long as they don't lie about the product.
basisword 5y ago
>> Hopefully people will soon see it's not the social media platforms, it's the people themselves who need to be fixed. Same applies to drugs, smoking, gambling, drinking etc. but we recognise those things as potentially harmful and take steps to restrict them, regulate them, and make them as safe as we can (with varying degrees of success and failure obviously). Social media gets kids even earlier than most of the things I’ve listed above and the best we seem to have done is self-reporting your age to make sure you’re over 13. It’s embarrassing and I have no doubt that in 50 years we’ll be looking back at some of the people that worked on these platforms the same way we look at people who worked in the tobacco industry.

encryptluks2 5y ago

> California bill would let parents blame other people for them not doing their job

whalesalad 5y ago

Terrible. Your kids and their habits are your responsibility as a parent. This is the stuff that makes California look bad.

bsenftner 5y ago
You kids and their habits are largely out of your control. Between kids' media, other kids, religious indoctrination, and the majority of their time spent in school, the influence a parent has is fleeting, continually undermined, and an entire career onto itself if one is serious about raising their children and not simply letting it happen, with sporadic attention, as most do.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  You're not the ONLY influence, but you are AN influence. And arguably the primary one. At some point you gotta stop blaming the billboard you pass by everyday and actually parent. Which is about guiding, not bounding your kids. your fear as a parent shouldnt be them watching some raunchy YT video and falling into the wrong crowd. By that point you should trust your kid enough to know that that raunchy video isn't reality and to focus on what really matters. If your kid isnt at that point, well: you gotta do more guiding. Don't' just give up and blame society. Get them the help they need if you can't provide it

zasdffaa 5y ago

Can't parents acknowledge they have some responsibility towards their own children and not give just blindly give them laptops and phones and expect someone else to clean up the mess after them. Same stupid shit happening here in the UK.

jpambrun 5y ago
We can, but those system are optimized to negate our efforts. Peer pressure among kids is also extremely hard to overcome. "Letting parent sue" is a very American way to go about it, but exploiting kids underdeveloped brain should be illegal.
- jw_mc 5y ago
  Exactly. We don't live in a vacuum. So many people saying just take some personal responsibility. But when you see the effects on society at large, you have to acknowledge that maybe it's something about our genetics / psychology that's being exploited unfairly.
  - tharne 5y ago
    Add to that, that "personal responsibility" only helps when the fight is remotely fair. I'm a reasonably diligent parent and think fairly highly of myself, but if the fight is me against a couple of trillion dollar tech companies who have very bright staff devoted to capturing my children's attention my any means necessary, well that's a fight I'm going to lose sooner or later.
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    >But when you see the effects on society at large, you have to acknowledge that maybe it's something about our genetics / psychology that's being exploited unfairly. people wanting to talk to other people? Yes, that's the great benefit of social media. in the 2000's this was kids using cellphone minutes to chat around on flip phones. in the 90's it was some early online game chats. in the 80's it was kids stuck at an arcade. I don't see anything inherently unethical about social media. You just gotta teach kids how to communicate to others and express themselves without putting down others. Not an easy feat (the bully trope goes back millenia), but this stopgap of just holding the courier accountable doesnt seem to solve anything,

andybak 5y ago

> addicting kids Is this grammatically correct? It sounds very strange to my (British) ears. I would write "[...] for making kids addicted to their products" or similar. But then "x is very addicting" still bothers me. There's already a perfectly good and distinct word "addictive" so why make "addicting" serve a dual purpose?

BongoMcCat 5y ago

While I'm happy that something is being done to address the problems of social media; as an outsider I'm having a hard time understanding why every problem has to be solved with law suits in america.

hn_version_0023 5y ago
When all you have is a hammer to solve problems, every problem starts to look like a nail.

zivkovicp 5y ago

What's needed is more focus on building a healthy society and teaching people how to have balance in their lives, but that seems to be in direct conflict with mindless consumerism. We can't have it both ways, and I suspect nothing much will change.

sharken 5y ago
Except some payouts from social media companies to parents as a direct result. It also opens up that parents can sue for other addictions such as soft drinks, candy and even alcohol and cigarettes. A much saner way would be that parents educate their children and take responsibility.
- zivkovicp 5y ago
  I agree. I also suspect this path only leads to more restrictions and higher costs for everyone as companies will have to compensate somehow.
BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
I don’t disagree with this, but I do sense that “teaching people how to have balance in their lives” only goes so far. We’ve been trying to teach people how to be healthy, physically fit, to avoid substance abuse, and to spend money wisely but it seems that those lessons just don’t stick for most of the population. At some point intervention is needed beyond just teaching people the right way to live. But I’m also weary of this because regulations can often be poorly thought-out, heavy handed, or unintentionally crafted to make the problem even worse.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  >We’ve been trying to teach people how to be healthy, physically fit, to avoid substance abuse, and to spend money wisely but it seems that those lessons just don’t stick for most of the population. "you" may, but look at the wider statistics on what cities and demographics are most subject to the obesity crisis. Spoilers: it's an economic problem. You give people a living wage without requiring two minimum wage jobs to pay rent, and allow some time in their life for extra curriculars, and suddenly grabbing a greasy burger on the way home isn't as impulsive a decision when given time to breath in life. And by extension, give more time to educate children and money to encourage a proper diet (tho lunch food is a whole other issue we need to tackle).