12 ms·

California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

• falcolas 4y ago
  Stupid thought: Perhaps if social media didn't spend so much effort aiming their products at minors, and didn't experiment on their userbase, for example to see if they could make them sad... perhaps social media companies could have avoided legislation like this.
  • ummonk 4y ago
    Indeed, and the safe harbor provision in the bill appears more than reasonable.
• robswc 4y ago
  I genuinely hate most of social media and what I believe it has done to us as a whole... but why not just take the ipad away?
• reidjs 4y ago
  I hope this might push towards more regulation in social media. There needs to be a way to turn on a chronological feed, hide likes/retweets/scores/comments, and hide all content made by people I don’t follow. Doesn’t have to be default, but should be configurable. It’s harder and harder to participate in society without major social media tools so don’t just tell me to stop using these platforms.
  • dymk 4y ago
    or just close the tab
    • rschachte 4y ago
      Tell that to young children who’s brains are still developing and who don’t understand the consequences. Not every child can have a parent to teach them the rights and wrongs of the world. Sometimes policy enforcement helps situations like this. It keeps large corporations from taking advantage of our society.
      • dymk 4y ago
        I'll leave it to the parents to handle parenting their kids.
        • pessimizer 4y ago
          Yeah, screw kids with bad parents. They should have been smart enough to have been born to better people who didn't have to work so many hours.
          • dymk 4y ago
            How could I have forgotten - won't somebody think of the children!
      • throwaway0a5e 4y ago
        Treat kids like they're irresponsible and they'll never become responsible. Adulting takes practice. You have to let them fuck up and do unhealthy things if they are to learn not to do those things. Delaying it until the stakes are high is counterproductive. I'm not saying let your kid shoot up heroin but I'd much rather deal with social media usage problems in a 14yo than a 17yo
    • monsieurgaufre 4y ago
      You're basically saying "put the drink down" to an alcoholic or "put the cigarette out" to a smoker. This issue really is more complicated than you make it to be.
      • thrill 4y ago
        Then courts can start committing people against their will for partaking in what the vast majority of responsible people have no problem with.
      • Underphil 4y ago
        You'll be amazed at how little people understand the true nature of addiction. Even ex-smokers who manage to quit so quickly forget how hard it was. This topic seems to be set into areas of black and white, just like every other political position. It seems like so few people appreciate the grey areas anymore.
      • alar44 4y ago
        If you think social media is anything like chemical addictions to smoking or alcohol you really don’t have a clue.
        • hgomersall 4y ago
          I would suggest your comment belies the fact you know anything about addiction.
          • alar44 4y ago
            Am addict. Social media is not addictive. It's... Really fun, but addiction is far too strong of a word.
            • deleted 4y ago
              [deleted]
            • hgomersall 4y ago
    • olliej 4y ago
      Yeah, except that kids are communicating with each other through those mechanisms, and increasingly seem to be required to for schoolwork. So you have the companies providing the communication mechanisms intentionally manipulating the communication to encourage specific behaviour. A very simple “you cannot reorder or promote content for people less than X” rule would do a lot to reduce the problem for kids. Once you’re an adult you can be just as free to get addicted to Facebook as you are beer. Before then Social media companies should be subject to similar rules that we have for alcohol. SM at least have the advantage that they can just completely remove the intentionally addictive reordering algorithms, whereas alcohol companies can’t make a meaningfully similar simulacrum when then extract the alcohol.
    • reidjs 4y ago
      > Doesn’t have to be default, but should be configurable. It’s harder and harder to participate in society without major social media tools so don’t just tell me to stop using these platforms.
• andrewstuart 4y ago
  Why don't people take personal responsibility for things? Why does there always have to be an option to sue someone?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • bobsmooth 4y ago
    When have parents ever taken responsibility for their own crappy parenting?
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • mountainriver 4y ago
      You must not have children
  • blagie 4y ago
    See China, opium. The core problem is: 1) We've gotten very good at making things hyper-addictive. 2) Market forces reward clicks. Without regulation, things WILL be hyper-addictive. 3) Private right-of-action is a really good way to implement regulatory frameworks; it tends to be far more efficient than DoJ or similar for these sorts of things. Personally, I'm uninterested into being tricked into getting addicted to something. I would welcome regulation which would change those market dynamics. The older I get, the more I'd like a humane regulatory system. Where gamification is in 2022, society will collapse if we don't get this under control. We've polarized our whole civic discourse for ad clicks.
    • to1y 4y ago
      What's the difference between addictive and fun?
      • julianbuse 4y ago
• dahdum 4y ago
  If only there was a way parents could exert some sort of influence or authority over these children to prevent what they believe is harmful. We could call it “parenting”.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • tintor 4y ago
    How would you do it (serious question)? I live in US, and like China's approach on this specific issue. 1) Disallow smartphone until certain age. Which age? 2) Allow smartphone, but with parental controls. Which ones? Many of them are hackable. 3) Allow smartphone, but with time of day/week restrictions that you enforce by taking away the phone?
    • Gustomaximus 4y ago
      1) We decided for highschool for the first phone. Some parents give smart watches so the kids are contactable but don't have a big screen. 2) I have the Google controls. That said, its as you say kids can circumvent controls so the best thing you can do is have this conversation. We've spoken a buch of times with the kids about how other kids will look at gore/porn out of interest/shock value but they should choose not to as its not healthy etc. And other things like staying private online, predators, come to us if they are getting bullied or do something wrong like share an embarrasing picture and its getting used against them etc. Ultimately this one its about having a good/trusting parent child relationship I feel than via digital restrictions. 3) From the Google controls we have time restriction, both time of day and total hours. The other thing I feel is important 1) is making sure you do things with kids. It's easy to get tired as a parent and let them entertain themself but playing board games and sports etc is so important. Making sure you have quality time beyond screens makes it a smaller part of their life. And 2) Encourage the right friendships. Put the effort to organise events with kids/families with good values as the group surrounding them will have a big impact.
      • drewnick 4y ago
• Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  Is America capable of coming up with solution to anything that doesn't involve sueing?
  • krapp 4y ago
    Yes, but the other solution is violence.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • falcolas 4y ago
    Yes, once companies regularly respond to stimuli that doesn't involve their bottom line or legality. So, really, no.
  • ummonk 4y ago
    I don’t think guillotining execs would fly in America so no, we’re stuck with suing.
  • olliej 4y ago
    What is the alternative to suing? US Corporations have demonstrated significant skill in destroying every regulatory agency, and paying off or bribing every legislator. That any laws get passed at all - that could hurt corporations - is stunning.
    • Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
      In that case, what's stopping corporations from buying off every judge? Or buying off the politicians who appoint the judges to be sure that only ones who will side with corporations in these cases are the ones who get appointed?
      • olliej 4y ago
        I think that the latter is what they are already functionally doing? It’s certainly worked for the SC. In principle no matter the appointee judges have to follow the law, but there’s clearly huge amounts of variation and bias in terms of sentencing, penalties, how broadly things are interpreted.
• jmyeet 4y ago
  What I've come to realize in recent years is there are an awful lot of people who have children who don't want to be parents. It's like they don't even like children but it seems like they're running down a Life checklist of things you should do. Or maybe they like the idea of having adult children? I really don't know. But I know so many people who don't actually like spending time with their children. I get some people actually have to work a lot but it's a shallow analysis to blame it on that (IMHO). So expectations tend to be super-high. Their children often have to go to Ivy League schools. They themselvves need to save north of $500k+ to pay for that blue blood education. These people will bemaon the high cost of raising children while living in a 7000 sq ft 6 bedroom house with their 2 children, paying $50k/year to send each of those children to private schools and so on. And while you can argue those things have value (I actually think that's debatable at best), the net effect is that these people actually seem to spend little time with their children. After awhile it occurs to you that's the point. I feel like an awful lot of people are motivated by living vicariously through their children too. "I'm going to give my child the opportunities I never had". That sort of thing. As far as social media goes, it's easy to say "don't allow your children on social media" but my guess is it's mostly childless people saying that. Those growing up now are connected socially to their peers through these networks. No social media is a form of forced social exclusion that's pretty all-encompassing. It's a hard problem. I'd say, if anything, the problem starts way earlier than that. I actually think in an ideal world a child wouldn't even see an electronic screen (TV, phone, tablet, computer) before they're like 8 years old. That's pretty unrealistic though. One issue with social media is because of US laws most networks are age-restricted. Some to 18 and over. Others to 13 and up. We all know that people lie and use them anyway. Where does responsibility for this lie? With the companies? The parents? I really don't know. It does seem easy to scapegoat companies for these issues though.
  • falcolas 4y ago
    > It does seem easy to scapegoat companies for these issues though When the addictive factor is deliberately manufactured into a product (AKA engagement), the company absolutely bears some (IMO, a large amount of) responsibility.
    • 4y ago
• olliej 4y ago
  The problem is that the relevant social media companies intentionally design their interfaces such that they are addictive. If only there were some way for social media companies to not re-order or promote certain content in a way that encourages addiction? Maybe by just leaving content in temporal order, rather than order by popularity or trendiness. That said businesses removing themselves from children in CA seems similarly effective. Finally, while I think that while Social media companies are significantly at fault - the development of trending, popular, and other non-temporal ordering of content is explicitly and intentionally designed to be addictive, and in no different from a food company adding addictive chemicals to food. I also think that parents have to have at least tried to parent their children, not simply ignored them until it turned out they had a serious problem.
• newsclues 4y ago
  When did we abandon personal responsibility?
• lupire 4y ago
  The correct solution is to require a verified 18+ person to sign up for an online account and be responsible for whoever they let use it.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• fleddr 4y ago
  I don't have children but am closely befriended with a few couples that I see almost every week that do have children. All are of a similar age, and I've seen them grow up from birth to their current age of about 12-14. I wanted to share some observations as a "neutral" observer... Their first device is the iPad, starting at about 3-4 y/o and I've seen a case as young as 1 y/o. Before the iPad, the children act natural. They play with physical toys, other children, and are exploratory. There's a short "mixed" period but the iPad pretty quickly starts to dominate, effectively largely replacing other toys and more physical play. You can quite literally see the children retreat from real life and sink into their iPads. Parents are quite aware of it, they're not neglectful. They have to fight tooth and nail to get their kids to do anything active. Sure enough you can be strict, but the draw to the device seems extremely powerful. They quite simply seem to prefer it over reality. The iPad age lasts a long time, as smartphones are not in the picture yet. There's a strong network effect. All other children are doing it too, and when they make way to the playground, there's few or no children there. That makes it a societal addiction, not just an individual one, making it even harder for parents to sanction it. And still I found some hope. When you really pay close and genuine attention to these children, you'll discover that they really still prefer rich in-person human experiences over their device. They're just getting very little of it, only a handful of fleeting moments a day, on a work day. Rushed interactions. I found this out by the simple act of showing a real and sustained interest. Just asking a bunch of questions and really listening to answers. They seem almost shocked that anybody would bother with that, and I find that the saddest thing. Further, imagine these kids sitting in a row with iPads, whilst us adults talk. They seem absent-minded, distracted, but they hear everything we say. They're listening, and they're interested. They're not at all the zombies that some think they are. The iPad seems a filler for a massive void. They're attention starved. And I lay no blame on parents as they truly do their utmost best. Modern life is just too damn fast to allow for slow, lengthy, genuine humane interactions. By the age of about 11-12, the smartphone arrives and for boys typically also a console. All toys are cleared out because just the smartphone replaces all of them. It's all downhill from here because now they have access to this stuff no matter where they go. And, they have a richer vocabulary, a larger group of friends or classmates, will have their first go at even more addictive apps, and...it's just absolutely hopeless at this point. To add insult to injury, society digitizing means that also other aspects move to the device, like learning itself. Which they can't, because 5 million distractions are a tap away or a notification pulls them in. These children just don't stand a chance. They don't really want it, nor do parents want it. But it happens regardless. It's like fighting gravity. The issue goes far beyond wasting time. They don't know true boredom or down-time. They miss 99% of real communication (in-person) as it's all digital. They're exposed to the extremes of social networks and take it as if this is how the world really works. They're physically inactive and have a short attention span. They don't collaborate but compete as individuals by means of Tiktok, a status competition. The only counter parents seem to have is not restrictions, rather replacements. Replace useless device time with non-device activities that are genuinely fun and engaging. Not lame things. And I didn't even talk about sugar yet. Where for me a sugary snack was an infrequent highlight, these kids are stuffing themselves with it. Out of this small group of kids, 2 flat out refuse to eat anything else. And if they don't get it, they'll eat it at a friend's house or when older buy it themselves from their allowance. I used to think all of this is bad parenting, but seeing it with my own eyes, I changed my mind. These kids grow up in a world of devices and unlimited sugar, which is not the world I grew up in. It is so omnipresent that parents are fighting a losing battle. These parents ARE taking personal responsibility, but it just doesn't work when the odds are stacked against you like this.
• kodah 4y ago
  If the law goes through, why not tax social media businesses the way we tax tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana? Then the state can run and fund all kinds of things to educate the public.
• pkaye 4y ago
  How would websites know if an kid or an adult?
• jerrya 4y ago
  In recent days, I've seen many of these topics discussed by quite well respected First Amendment lawyers on Twitter. The current that ubiquitously runs through their tweets is that their understanding of the 1A informs their advocating for courts to find that the First Amendment prohibits basically any regulation on social media sites including transparency of moderation policies or decisions, identification, regulations concerning hours, any sort of regulation on viral amplification -- this is all protected speech And their preferred alternative is always, "parents should parent" I believe I am a huge supporter of free speech and the First Amendment (two different things), but I find this quite frustrating and believe their approach is both unrealistic and turns the First Amendment into a "suicide pact" (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suicide_pact https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suicid...)
  • mc32 4y ago
    Parents should "parent" but children are not with their parents 24x7. They are often in school or in the company of peers who may offer contradictory influence advice and counsel.
  • klyrs 4y ago
    With some dismay, I'll note that this appears to follow in the theme of the Texas abortion ban. The law doesn't empower the state to prosecute, it empowers citizens. This approach is nothing short of an end-run on the constitution, and if it isn't stopped, the potential consequences are terrifying.
• sriku 4y ago
  Calling them/us "users" now has a new meaning.
• czhu12 4y ago
  Creating regulations like this may end up acting as a regulatory moat for existing social network companies. This probably makes the overall social media pie smaller overall but guarantees incumbents slice of the pie. We've seen this happen in other highly regulated areas such as healthcare, telecommunications, etc. I suspect the way things are trending, in 10 years, very few entrepreneurs would be willing to start a new social media company. Clearly the regulators see this as a potential downside, which is why the $100 million in gross revenue provision was added.
  • mc32 4y ago
    On the other hand, we want to prevent new companies forming on the premise they can make money from gamifying their product so much it becomes addictive. Now, addictiveness has to have some definition to be useful. It can't be some odd random user who suffers from some kind of condition that prevents them from self-regulating their particular addiction whereas for example other people don't get addicted. There have to be some thresholds and milestones which indicate some service is "addictive" and then regulate against that.
    • throw_m239339 4y ago
      > we want to prevent new companies forming on the premise they can make money from gamifying their product so much it becomes addictive Not if the existing companies are still allowed to do exactly that, or it's just called regulatory capture and serves the interests of Reddit/Twitter/Facebook/TikTok and co. Either it's illegal for everybody to exploit mental illness for profit or it's legal for everybody.
      • mc32 4y ago
        No disagreement there.
    • heavyset_go 4y ago
      I think when companies consult with behavioral, and other, psychologists in order to craft better ways to wring more engagement out of their users, those companies are intentionally making their products addictive. I don't see it as being much different than exploiting the addictive potential of new nicotine salts, or exploiting additives to cigarettes to do the same. It can be spun however anyone wants to spin it, but at the end of the day, that's exploiting biology to subvert the will of others. And yes, I know this can describe advertising, as well.
• thenerdhead 4y ago
  I would love to be able to tell social media platforms that I only want 10 minutes of usage a day and they cut me off. For kids, I think it's irresponsible to get kids even more addicted earlier on in life. At this point, I don't think it's simple to blame the individual or parent for personal responsibility. The only way to avoid it is to get it out of your home completely. This is similar to televisions in the home in the 60s till today. Should we also be able to sue television and cable companies for tv addiction?
• jquery 4y ago
  As the parent of a young child, I strongly support this bill. Right now, keeping her away from a phone is no problem because at her age, her peers are largely kept away as well. However as she gets older, I suspect peer pressure will become an overwhelming factor and laws like this will tip the scales back into parent’s favor. If Facebook/Instagram/TikTok or whatever stop operating in California for those under 18, good riddance.
• MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  How the F do Americans square this with the first amendment that they can't shut up about?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• jolmg 4y ago
  I guess this is the bill in question. Would've been nice if they linked to it or at least named it in the article. Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act https://openstates.org/ca/bills/20212022/AB2408/ https://openstates.org/ca/bills/20212022/AB2408/
• jimmaswell 4y ago
  Seems like for every bad law coming out of Texas/Florida lately, California's quick to copy it with their own twist - abortion law was copied for guns, now the social media laws.
  • ellopoppit 4y ago
    Indeed; likewise, the left and right have been ratcheting up their war on bodily autonomy with vaccine mandates and abortion bans
• efields 4y ago
  Raising the age minimum on digital services from 13 to 16 or 17 would probably fix a lot of the ills caused by it. And/or teach media literacy from a young age. And anyone here who reduces teenage digital addictions to “bad parenting” can pound sand. Nothing about parenting is simply the result of “the parents” and their methods. Raising a child is an impossibly multi-variate occupation and you only have so many knobs to turn and hours in the day.
  • sneak 4y ago
    As long as parents can deny their children digital devices, the ills of the use of same can be assigned to the choices of the parents.
    • seoaeu 4y ago
      As long as parents can deny their children spending money, the blame for liquor stores marketing and selling to children can be assigned to the parents.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• joshthecynic 4y ago
• adithyassekhar 4y ago
  It's really hard to take some of the arguments shifting the blame from the companies to the parents or the child themselves when their livelihood depends on those companies. They're weaponizing hundreds of years of human psychology research for profit.
• Barrin92 4y ago
  I think the angle of these laws as well as the parenting response here in the thread are both wildly off because they both take a completely individualistic approach to something that's a systemic issue. The litigation culture of having individual people sue for damage doesn't go to the root cause and is a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. Delegating something that is effectively an environmental issue to the responsibility of individual parents is like blaming parents for not protecting their kids from drinking lead water. Technology and social media are ubiquitous, there's only an illusion of choice. It's digital infrastructure and the water we swim in. In fact the covid pandemic has shown that it is not even a choice as it turned into the primary means for kids to have a social life and education. What's necessary is clear rules that align the behavior of companies with social ends. If they can't square making money with keeping public discourse healthy or not making teens mentally ill they need to be culled, it's that simple. Clear, strong and unambiguous legislation, rather than private legal threats will not harm the kind of entrepreneurs that build tools that are in the interest of the public. It will give them a better shot, just like environmental laws for cars have aided electric car makers. For every billionaire incumbent there are thousands eager to build good products to take a slice of the pie. The anti-regulatory argument has very little merit.
  • remarkEon 4y ago
    I agree with everything you’re saying up until this point: > What's necessary is clear rules that align the behavior of companies with social ends. If they can't square making money with keeping public discourse healthy or not making teens mentally ill they need to be culled, it's that simple. I don’t think it’s that simple, or simple in the way you may imagine. It’s impossible to come up with rules that even a plurality agree with. Just scroll the comment threads here when social media “censorship” comes up, which may not be directly what you’re talking about but is surely related in part if not in whole to the very real mental health issues you are describing. The auto regulation and leaded drinking water analogies, however, incidentally hint at what the real answer is. We banned those things. If social media is the lead in our water, we don’t need better filters (or whatever) we need to get rid of it.
    • 4y ago
• ARandomerDude 4y ago
  California parents could soon sue somebody else instead of admitting they're bad parents.
  • Underphil 4y ago
    Personally, I don't care what the majority position is regarding whether this is a capitalist issue or a parenting one, but any losses the predatory social media outlets endure is fine with me. They do enough bad in the world that they can cry me a river.
• MBCook 4y ago
  If they’re going to do this, it would be nice to see games included too. Then maybe some of the really exploitive tactics mobile games use to leech money would have some kind of check on them.
• bergenty 4y ago
  I hope they ban kids under 18 from accessing social media so I don’t have to be the bad guy when my daughter grows up. It’s cancer and kids should not be exposed to it.
• scollet 4y ago
  This is a band-aid to outlawing PII collection.
• golemiprague 4y ago
• daniel-cussen 4y ago
  Maybe instead of suing for money and that whole circus, they could sue to modify the machine learning neural nets or models to prevent their tragedy in the future for someone else's kid? For most social networks, that is. I don't know I'm fairly particular to this social network, Hacker News, the social network for essays. The opposite of Twitter. So in fact I'm rate-limited because my posts are controversial, but I accept this and deliberately did not ask for full free access again. It is a better version of the no-procast (meaning no procrastination, I think it's from 2007 or 2008) feature, which can easily be worked around on short notice without talking to a human. No shame factor. Doesn't work for that reason. And that's it! No social media addiction! And I have quite the addictive personality, been to rehab after all! Solve my own problem in a clever way, like a hacker, hack my own Hacker News addiction! Just like it says on the box! And I volunteer to give testimony in favor of this social network, Hacker News, in court, if it's still like it is now. Which includes suing without trying to actually solve the problem by talking to the mods, or making a post. Note that on May 12, 2012, at 11 AM, I was declared to be a hero in terms of the Roman Law definition, at the corner of Kearney and Bush, in San Francisco California. This means victims (it can be a single victim too in other cases) call you a hero for saving them from a criminal, in the spur of the moment, right then and there, of their own accord. They had asked me to defend them and I really did defend them, the cops ended up catching the perp at the scene of the crime, it was beautiful. According to me it was beautiful, actually the victims said "That was perfect!" I might enjoy a little more credibility because of it. That's the point of that Roman law. Apparently that law fell off the books because it flat-out never came up, not because it was a bad law. And any court can make a declaration backing this, any court, that law isn't even necessary. Including the social addiction media court, I suppose. If you wanted to sue Hacker News you might need more ammo for that judge and jury. More expensive lawyer perhaps. More prestigious expert witnesses. If on the other hand you want help with addiction, write me, and look at my comments where I talk about it, at https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=daniel-cussen https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=daniel-cussen
• ProfXponent 4y ago
• Thorrez 4y ago
  >It would not apply to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu What about youtube?
• kmlx 4y ago
  > “The era of unfettered social experimentation on children is over and we will protect kids,” said Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham think of the children. anyway, i've seen this trend a million times already. two ideologies: 1. people can't protect themselves, can't be trusted to make the right decision etc, so they need to be protected by some law/government/union etc. 2. people can be trusted, they can make the right decisions for themselves, no government involvement is needed. in today's America point 1 is very trendy.
• Hitton 4y ago
  Amazing how reaching 18 years of age suddenly makes you immune to social media addiction. Or something. Maybe the parents should try to get more involved with their children instead of just shoving them in front of screens.
• fxtentacle 4y ago
  "Business groups have warned that if the bill passes, social media companies would most likely cease operations for children in California rather than face the legal risk." That might be the actual purpose of the bill. And I believe it would be a net positive for society.
• treeman79 4y ago
  Back in the day before regulations, peoples lights would go up and down in intensity with sound from over powered AM radio stations.