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Meta sued by states over harmful youth marketing

• skilled 3y ago
  https://archive.ph/etlE4 https://archive.ph/etlE4
• barbazoo 3y ago
  > Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. I hope the money is worth it.
  • pixl97 3y ago
    How often again do you hear billionaires say "Oh no, I wish I had been more ethical and not made mountains of cash off by shitty behavior", because I'm not having any recollections of this. The fines are just a cost of doing business for them.
    • cj 3y ago
      I agree the US is soft on punishing white-collar crime. But Sackler family comes to mind. And of course there's Sam Bankman-Fried. Bernie Madoff, etc.
      • tjpnz 3y ago
        No member of the Sackler family nor Purdue's executives ever faced prison time.
        • LanceH 3y ago
          For breaking what law? Also, how is nobody in the government responsible? It really feels like the Sackler family has been bundled up as a nice solution to the whole thing.
      • Loughla 3y ago
        No member of the Sackler's ever went to prison. I can't speak to SBF, but Madoff made the crucial error of defrauding other rich people. I bet if he'd have stuck to old people and poor people he never would've been convicted.
      • isk517 3y ago
        Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman-Fried both made the mistake of messing with the money of other rich people.
    • antiviral 3y ago
      Most businesses need to buy their raw materials to produce their products. With Meta, the raw material is consumer data, which users have been giving away to Meta freely. The fines only slightly raise the cost of this raw material from $0, so it's unlikely to deter Meta's behavior until someone faces a more severe penalty there.
      • dylan604 3y ago
        Strip mining users since 2004!
    • ryanklee 3y ago
      What people think and feel in private is often not what they admit in public. For many of these individuals, there is massive incentive not to admit such things. Doesn't make it right, but we shouldn't assume the people responsible don't feel responsible simply because we aren't hearing about it.
      • pixl97 3y ago
        I mean the same holds true for what people feel about what happens to them versus what happens to others. You are measured by your external actions not the internal "well maybe I shouldn't have murdered the world" voice the rest of us don't hear.
        • ryanklee 3y ago
          I don't really see how this is relevant If we don't like how something works, we should understand the factors that shape it. If someone's internal preferences are contrary to their actions, that's worth knowing, as it says something about the strength of the incentive structures. This is true for any person of any status, not least the rich, who, ideally, should not be destructive forces in society. Private preferences and feelings are relevant to the analysis.
      • deleted 3y ago
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    • seanp2k2 3y ago
      This -- just ask Microsoft with their refusal to fix default browser behavior, even in the latest versions of Win11 which are supposedly fixed. I guess having Edge be the default is just too juicy to resist even with that €561 fine. https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/windows-system-components-default-edge.html https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/windows-system-components-defaul... It'd be great if the USA had some kind of effective consumer protection agency, but I guess then we might have fewer billionaires here.
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  • gmiller123456 3y ago
    Kids have been having those problems well before social media came along, so it's quite a bold claim to say they know social media made them worse. But it's a fair bet to say not a dime from the lawsuit will go to a single victim. So I'd take a really skeptical look at both sides.
    • barbazoo 3y ago
      > Kids have been having those problems well before social media came along Suicides seem to have gone up and social media use might have something to do with it. https://news.byu.edu/intellect/10-year-byu-study-shows-elevated-suicide-risk-from-excess-social-media-time-for-young-teen-girls https://news.byu.edu/intellect/10-year-byu-study-shows-eleva... > Girls who used social media for at least two to three hours per day at the beginning of the study—when they were about 13 years old—and then greatly increased their use over time were at a higher clinical risk for suicide as emerging adults. https://socialmediavictims.org/mental-health/suicide/ https://socialmediavictims.org/mental-health/suicide/ > Over the last ten years, there has been a significant rise in the risk of teenage suicide. Although several factors play a role in an individual’s choice to take their life, recent studies have established connections between mental health issues such as depression and suicidal ideation, and social media usage.
      • RandomLensman 3y ago
        The evolution of rates in the US is quite different from Germany and France, I would not rule out some strong confounders.
      • deleted 3y ago
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      • mike50 3y ago
        Hyperbolic BYU press release. Link to actual paper. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-020-01389-6 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-020-01389-6
    • petsfed 3y ago
  • justrealist 3y ago
    Google is actually fairly safe due to their utter inability to build a successful social media platform.
    • gunapologist99 3y ago
      Youtube.
      • justrealist 3y ago
        Ah fair as a general risk. Not sure I'd call it social media though.
    • jimt1234 3y ago
      [flagged]
• f233f2 3y ago
  [flagged]
• Eumenes 3y ago
  > Meta, along with Snap, TikTok, and Google, now face hundreds of lawsuits claiming they are to blame for adolescents and young adults suffering anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and sleeplessness as a result of their addiction to social media. The companies also face scores of complaints by public school districts on behalf of students alleging that the platforms have created a public nuisance. Oh I'm sure this particular lawsuit will be the one that solve these problems once and for all. Hint: it won't. This is performative politicking. Meta and co will continue to pay minuscule fines (not too much though, META is in alot of ETF and mutual funds), they'll continue to spread lobbying money around to both political parties, parents will point fingers (without taking any responsibility), young adults/teens will drone on about "mental health" because its fashionable (if social media is giving you an eating disorder or making you anxious, how about putting down the phone?), and nothing will change.
  • micromacrofoot 3y ago
    Things are in fact starting to change, though I wish they happened sooner. The FTC is currently looking to hire child psychologists in an effort to further investigate this kind of claim.
    • Eumenes 3y ago
      You don't need 'experts' to realize that social media is bad for young people. They are just going to suggest regulating content. I can see it now ... young girls cannot see content showcasing skinny or 'classically beautiful' women, because it gives them a skewed perspective of 'beauty' that may lead to eating disorders. The FTC pats themselves on the back, job well done, and nothing changes. Regulating the internet isn't going to change anything, the genie is out of the bottle. Change starts at home and at school. Put wifi and cell jamming technology in public schools. How many ads are kids shown on public school property? Kids are spending 5 hrs a day on social media. That is insanity. That time needs to be replaced doing productive things; reading books, playing sports, building things.
      • CamperBob2 3y ago
• micromacrofoot 3y ago
  The FTC is looking to hire child psychologists to evaluate the affects of these platforms, so expect more of this to come https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/23/ftc-plans-to-hire-child-psychologist-to-guide-internet-rules.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/23/ftc-plans-to-hire-child-psyc... There's a thin line to be walked between privacy and regulation, but Facebook's own research has pointed at the harmful effects of Instagram on the mental health of children... so I think some scrutiny here is overdue. https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22712927/facebook-instagram-teen-mental-health-research https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22712927/facebook-instagr...
  • bertil 3y ago
    > Facebook's own research has pointed at the harmful effects of Instagram on the mental health of children Facebook’s own research has found both positive and negative effects, depending on the child’s status among their peers. The Verge is quick to point out that: > Instagram makes teen girls feel worse about their bodies but more discreet in reminding people that fashion magazines, including The Cut (also published by Vox), have the same negative effects and none of the positive ones, like helping gender minority find a safe space, re-socialising people with physical handicaps or anxiety. The critique makes sense —I’m not denying it— but it doesn’t come. from “the algorithm.” It comes from having a lot of money poured into the Instagram creation ecosystem. Instagram has very little control over that as most of it is through brand deals or magazine raising their own profile. That behemoth of money and attention comes from an industry that has decades of well-documented problematic practices behind it, including the unrepentant glorification of using self-starvation and drugs, notably cocaine, to reach unhealthy thinness. If you condemn Instagram but don’t include that industry among the culprits, you’ll have Snap with unhealthy models, TikTok with unhealthy models, or whatever comes next with unhealthy models.
    • happytiger 3y ago
      I’m good with damming them all and getting rid of shit technology directions that hurt people, especially kids. Who is actually ok with this?
• paxys 3y ago
  I'm convinced that a decade or two from now we are going to look back on social media exactly like we see the tobacco industry today. The companies knew what they were selling, knew the harm, but put profit over public good.
  • brucethemoose2 3y ago
    And like tobacco, they mostly got away with it. Same with oil companies. Of course there are many entities doing bad things, but few have such a dramatic impact on all of civilization.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • stocknoob 3y ago
    And countless employees happy to take a paycheck while looking the other way.
    • ryandrake 3y ago
      A fact that gets glossed over too often on HN. It's not just company leadership making these harmful applications: Everyone in the org chart down to the individual engineer is actively doing this--maybe even you, reader of this comment. Did your last "git push" contribute to the problem or help solve it? Will you be proud to tell your teenage grandchildren about what you're creating? You can't just hide behind "boss told me to do it" and wash your hands of the ethics.
      • reactordev 3y ago
        I agree. We all want to hire FAANG until we really look closely at what they do. No thanks. I’m fine getting paid half to have my soul in tact.
    • yamazakiwi 3y ago
      I personally don't blame the fastfood worker for giving me a Big Mac.
• 23B1 3y ago
  To the product managers, strategists, and designers at Meta: you know, you could just decide NOT to create harmful, exploitative applications.
  • shadowgovt 3y ago
    Can they? Or is the science so vague and under researched that they don't actually have a way to know if the next feature harms or helps?
  • tjpnz 3y ago
    They (and by they I mean everyone - not just the PMs, strategists and designers) either flat out don't care or have deluded themselves into thinking they can still make a positive difference. I'm not sure which is worse.
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  • nlh 3y ago
    Preface: I'm basically on your side on this. But: I know some PMs and designers at various social media companies. There are also probably many among us here on HN. The thing is, I don't think most of them think to themselves "I am going to build a harmful, exploitative application". I think most of them, like many of us, wake up in the morning and aim to do a good job. To do good work. To design and build to the best of their abilities. AND - importantly - to excel in their careers, become more senior, and make more money. The problem is their incentives. They are paid, promoted, and bonused to maximize things like "engagement". The more people use their (likely well-intentioned) feature or design, the more they're praised by their colleagues, the more they're promoted, the more they're paid. So they keep doing things to get more people to click and scroll more and get more praise and money for it. They make a button easier to understand - a post easier to share - a picture easier to like. They fill the feeds with more things that more people click and share and like. And they make more money and get more senior and the cycle continues ad infinitum. I think SOME likely step back and consider the ramifications and maybe look at what they've built and see depression and rage and anger and misery, but those are the ones who aren't promoted and maybe leave the companies because that kind of observation doesn't make number go up. And number must go up to pay for that $5000/month apartment in SF or the $30k/year private school. And others likely consider this but justify it by all the not-horrible things they see too -- the people who are happy, the influences who make a career out of using their tools - the "creators" who power the "creator economy". And their numbers go up too so they're happy and they tell the PMs and designers and engineers what a good job they're doing and so on and so forth. So the problem is this cycle will continue as long as it's rewarded as richly as it is. And frankly, the free market WILL continue to reward it as long as number keeps going up (and that number is the stock price). Which is why a lawsuit by someone NOT part of that free-market cycle (or part of a different part of it) might actually make a small dent in this horrible infinite cycle.
• eimrine 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • aaronharnly 3y ago
    Misogyny isn’t cool, man.
    • eimrine 3y ago
      Removed the w- word.
• happytiger 3y ago
  > Company has said it has improved resources to keep kids safe This is the logic of psychopaths.
  • f1refly 3y ago
    Classic orphan crushing machine
    • happytiger 3y ago
      Exactly. And it’s perfect that it gets downvoted to oblivion. Its like hacker news poetry. Maybe they should stop putting kids at risk in the first place. Those downvoted are badges of honor on this one. Shameful.
• tempodox 3y ago
  When will social media finally be regulated like alcohol, nicotine, and every other addictive poison?
  • CamperBob2 3y ago
    When the First Amendment is repealed.
    • dexwiz 3y ago
      Both censorship and advertising regulations both exist in accordance with the first amendment.
      • CamperBob2 3y ago
        No, they exist as instances of rationalized disobedience. If the founders had meant something other than "Congress shall make no law," nothing stopped them from saying so.
      • Manuel_D 3y ago
        Yes: censorship is prohibited, at least outside of specific narrow circumstances. Advertising regulations specifically regulate advertising products. Neither of these translate into regulating what can and cannot be said on social media, outside of narrow cases like promotional or sponsored content.
        • tempsy 3y ago
          Who said this had to do with censorship of content? The issue with social media is algorithms have been fine tuned to incite FOMO, narcissism, self-esteem issues, etc., and keep people addicted/endlessly scrolling.
          • Manuel_D 3y ago
            The above commenter mentioned censorship. Regardless, the usage of algorithms doesn't mean there's a different set of rules the government can use to regulate it. The incentives you mentioned aren't limited to social media. Traditional media also has these same incentives, and tunes their headlines to be more sensational and attention grabbing. For example: https://blog.tjcx.me/p/new-york-times-ab-testing https://blog.tjcx.me/p/new-york-times-ab-testing HN discussion at the time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26419070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26419070
• duringmath 3y ago
  It's worth noting that these lawsuits are based on junk and non existent science, so just because they're being sued it doesn't mean there's any merit to it. It only means that law firms, ambulance chasers, and grandstanding politicians are using some misplaced anger against Facebook et al to make a buck or raise their political profiles.
  • swatcoder 3y ago
    Whether courts can pin that sentiment down against prior laws may determine if these "lawsuits have merit" as you say, but the concern and calls for action exist and are growing regardless of how the lawsuits happen to settle. All these companies know they're a target for accountability now, and even many people inside of them acknowledge a need for reform and possibly restitution. Your comment seems focused on the practical matters of these lawsuits (many of which probably are frivolous or will otherwise be lost), but what really matters are the unsettled societal costs that transcend them. You may feel that accountability is being "misplaced", but it's much bigger than ambulance chasers and grandstanders. People are genuinely concerned about real problems and are hungry for some kind of action on them.
    • duringmath 3y ago
      The abdication of parenteral responsibility is another element here.
      • scythe 3y ago
        Social media is harmless, so it's the parents' fault for not restricting their child's use of social media? You can't have this one both ways. If there is a parental responsibility, it is incurred because social media can be harmful, which creates a cause for action.
      • 9192631770_Hz 3y ago
        There’s only so much a parent can do when schools hand out Chromebooks then don’t enforce any proper-use policy. My kid watched anime all day, every day, and there was nothing I could do about it. The school just took a Wonka-esque “No. Stop. Don’t.” approach.
• JacobDotVI 3y ago
  Now do it for the food and candy companies
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  • zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    It seems almost certain that candy (and other high-sugar foods) is far worse for kids than social media.
• flerchin 3y ago
  "In our A|B testing, we're able to show that making a small portion of teens suicidal increases app engagement by 0.05%. We were unable to calculate the dollars of profit per teen life lost, because our research teams keep quitting."
  • deleted 3y ago
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• DougN7 3y ago
  Growing up, I knew maybe two or three kids that had emotional problems. Now (as an adult with grown kids) I hardly know any families that don’t have such a person. I’m sure part of it is we’re more open, which is great, but I can’t attribute all of it to that. The rising generation is really struggling. My guess is social media, but maybe it’s environmental pollution or something similar. I live in the US for what it’s worth.
  • barelyauser 3y ago
    The system does not care for their well being because they are redundant. Drug use was frowned upon during the Cold War because we needed people to win a industrial war against a much bigger enemy. We don't need them anymore, so the system does not care if they end overdosing in an alleyway. It is all connected, culture, social and economical.
    • Racing0461 3y ago
      damn. this is it. canada just passed a law saying people can get physician assisted suicide (maid) for drug problems.
      • JellyBeanThief 3y ago
        I'm conflicted about it. On the one hand, I'm angry that society would simply give up and leave people behind. On the other hand, societies have always done that in one rationalized way or another, and at least this way is slightly more honest and compassionate.
        • Racing0461 3y ago
          Game of thrones had the wall to send unwanted men to. Looks like westeros had more compassion than canada.
  • logicchains 3y ago
    >My guess is social media, but maybe it’s environmental pollution or something similar There are plenty of other countries that have just as much social media usage as the US but don't have the same widespread emotional dysfunction, so wouldn't that suggest that social media isn't to blame?
• johnnyworker 3y ago
  Shout outs to the person who wrote this: > My reason for reducing my social media presence is the Like count next to every thought expressed. By adding a publicly visible number next to every expressed human thought, you influence behavior and thinking. -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19325515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19325515
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• itqwertz 3y ago
  Behind every great fortune is a great crime… As usual, American society superficially protects children while the most harmful perpetrators are given near-absolute access. I really think the addictive qualities of video games should garner the amount of attention these social media companies generate. Actually, anything that takes your time and gives you nothing is suspect. As always, nothing will save you from a grift except knowledge.
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• haltist 3y ago
  I remember when Facebook was restricted to folks with college domain emails. I used it for a year and decided I wasn't interested in algorithmic online stalking of people I barely knew and cared about. I'm still surprised social media turned out to be such a big hit. I guess people wanted some way to keep track of social news and the usual outlets like blogs and RSS feeds were too "nerdy" for the average internet consumer. Now we are stuck with digital panopticons and all the attendant problems associated with them. If you have kids I recommend teaching them how to properly use computational devices instead of just being passive consumers who get herded by statistical algorithms to optimize clickthrough rates.
  • ghaff 3y ago
    Tons of people used things like alumni addresses (or were somehow loosely connected to a college) well before Facebook was opened to all emails. Except at the very beginning, membership wasn’t that exclusive.
  • edmundsauto 3y ago
    Minor nit, but when Facebook was limited to college domain emails it didn’t have an algorithmic feed.
  • wordpad25 3y ago
    Social media is for socializing... If you don't enjoy socializing (stalking, drama everything), if you have no interest in those, of course you wouldnt join Stats show people are inherently resistant to join any social media, until all their friends are already on there. If none of your peers use social media actively or you don't keep in touch with large group of people, it wouldnt offer much value for you
• thrill 3y ago
  AKA: Dozens of states' attorney generals could petition legislatures to pass laws saying under-18's are not allowed to use Facebook in their state, knowing it'd probably fail because of freedom of speech trespasses, but instead would rather sue the deep-pocket corporation for profit and reelection-time bennies.
  • charonn0 3y ago
    The lawsuit asks for injunctive, not monetary, relief.
    • dragonwriter 3y ago
      False. It asks for both injunctive and monetary relief. On monetary relief: On the joint COPPA claim, it asks the court to “Award the Filing States damages, restitution, and other compensation” On the state law claims, each and every state asks for monetary relief under its own law in the form of civil penalties, damages, disgorgement, and/or restitution.
  • thomastjeffery 3y ago
    > knowing it'd probably fail because of freedom of speech trespasses > but instead would rather It sounds like you are implying something wrong with the very line of thinking you have presented.
• slowhadoken 3y ago
  It is creepy how much social media wants to monitor kids.
  • api 3y ago
    Get them addicted to social media feed scrolling early.
  • dylan604 3y ago
    At least they are "thinking of the children".
  • dmbche 3y ago
    I wonder if ads shown to kids "make more revenue" over the lifecycle of the kid than ads aimed at adults. Like the Youtube videos for kids that are nonsense but rake millions of views
    • xwdv 3y ago
      We market IAP almost exclusively to kids. They buy em up like candy, and by the time parents realize it we’re gone.
      • hn_version_0023 3y ago
        Who is "we" and how do you sleep at night?
        • lesuorac 3y ago
          Not the original person but from talking to parents, a lot of the games are like $7/week subscriptions.
        • klyrs 3y ago
          Profile checks out > Ethically challenged software engineer working for a major tech company you know Though scanning the account's comment history, they appear to use this site almost exclusively to brag about their unethical and occasionally criminal behavior. Not "challenged," but "bankrupt." Downvotes encourage them to continue this trail of evidence, apparently.
• gaucheries 3y ago
  What’s stopping parents from allowing their kids to use Meta’s products?
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • smcin 3y ago
    The role of parental responsibility is a valid but separate matter. Kids can sign up to social media from a friend's phone/ computer/ tablet, from a library computer etc., and self-certify their claimed age. They can get phones (without cellphone contract) from other people without their parents' knowledge.
    • gaucheries 3y ago
      It seems to me like Meta’s marketing harms everybody who uses their products… it’s not specifically kids.
  • Racing0461 3y ago
    ease of access.
• seanp2k2 3y ago
  Cool, do tobacco and vape companies next.
  • manuelabeledo 3y ago
    I think you may have missed the past 30 or so years [0] [0] https://www.fightcancer.org/news/department-justice-lawsuit-against-tobacco-industry https://www.fightcancer.org/news/department-justice-lawsuit-...
  • HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Tobacco ads are banned and tobacco companies are required to pay the government to make and run anti tobacco ads. Social media facing the same regulations is a reasonable end goal here I think.
• johnea 3y ago
  I'm all in for suing the shit out of faceplant, goggle and twerk tick... But I have to say, they're basiacally just exploiting an existing weakness. The modern youth mental health "crisis" is fundamentally caused by a willingness to believe that an instagram avitar is "real life". Being lost in an electronicly hosted make believe land is really the root cause of the giant increase in "mental health" issues. Why do people do it? Simple: monkey brain... That is, especially for adolescents, people want to do what's "popular". This is why people who give up on popularity are less affected. But of course, every manic mellennial on ritalin is going to flame me now. Becaseu OBVIOUSLY thinking that your player in fortnight is the "real" you couldn't possibly lead to psychosis...
  • fullshark 3y ago
    Humans are weak, that's one of the reasons we have laws and torts.
  • hn_version_0023 3y ago
    > The modern youth mental health "crisis" is fundamentally caused by a willingness to believe that an instagram avitar is "real life". I'm not familiar with this argument, as I've never heard it. Could you provide some examples or a study or similar showing this is widespread?
    • yowlingcat 3y ago
      I think GP is referencing the substitution effect in media [1], albeit incompletely; it's hard to discuss the ways in which social media may be "purchased" with attention in substitution to real life interaction without having a broader conversation about conventional media. I also think it's not so easy to discuss what a true control is -- how often are people aware of the fact they are consuming a fantasy, and at what point does the line between reality and fantasy blur? Are we really so sure that the youth cannot distinguish between someone's online persona and real life persona and which parts are scripted? [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B978044463685000019X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B97804...
  • 3y ago
• glimshe 3y ago
  Irrespective of the incidental value "Meta" provides, let's keep in mind that no business has a right to exist independently from its standing in the system of laws and the health of its users - especially children. Social media companies argue that they can't monitor every post and do appropriate age verification online because it would be "impossible to scale". Well, tough luck. Not being able to scale is YOUR problem, not MINE. We routinely prevent certain business from existing, like a factory that wants to dump harmful chemical on water people use for drinking. If the factory investors say that there is no alternative, we will still prevent, to the best of our ability, the construction of the factory because it's a business that simply shouldn't exist in the proposed manner.
  • wslh 3y ago
    > Social media companies argue that they can't monitor ever post and do appropriate age verification online because it would be "impossible to scale". Well, tough luck. Not being able to scale is YOUR problem, not MINE. 1000%. I think there are more complex problems in the world that are solved that this. If you look at youth and teenagers activities in Instagram, their photos and videos, and social graph I don't think it is so difficult to detect them, within a high percentile.
    • rgreekguy 3y ago
      I think monitoring every post is a pretty solved problem, and it only gets better (worse?). Censoring has varying degrees of success, whether that is outright deleting a post/user or just hiding it from "not interested" users.
  • 0xParlay 3y ago
    I mean FB engineers are specifically optimizing for toxicity at an algorithmic level. It’s the product. You can’t perform controlled experiments to measure the profitability of depression and also fiend ignorance. You’re all very welcome to whatabout but working at FB is a stain on your character.
    • HDThoreaun 3y ago
• throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  "harmful youth marketing" ? Adults are just as dumb as kids, and can actually impact the rest of the world with their dumbness. We should be suing them for harmful marketing, period. I have had adult friends have literal emotional breakdowns because of social media's harmful effects.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • seanw444 3y ago
    Adults have a lot more responsibility for their actions. One of those actions is choosing to participate in a system that is widely considered harmful in multiple ways.
    • MrRolleyes 3y ago
      [dead]
    • logicchains 3y ago
      It's harmful for emotionally damaged people; the rest of us shouldn't have to suffer because a few people never learned that envy is a flaw to be overcome not a virtue to be cultivated.
• bparsons 3y ago
  Aside from the measurable harmful effects, these companies have simply accrued too much political power. Being able to manipulate what 100s of millions or billions of people see every day on their screens is an unprecedented amount of power. Democratic nations are not going to tolerate these companies much longer.
  • wcarron 3y ago
    Not that I like social media or tech companies (I detest them). But it's not a special case. Media companies, cable companies, newspapers, etc. They've all enjoyed the ability to manipulate and 'guide' what people see and what opinions they form, for a long time. It's nothing new.
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • cookie_monsta 3y ago
      Really, it's extremely new. The feedback loop for old media was very coarse. They knew how many newspapers they sold and had an idea of who the repeat customers were. Editorial could be said to be linked to bumps in opinion polls, but only very loosely. Nobody knew how or if anything worked. It was all theories and snake oil and "conventional wisdom". The old adage was that 50% of marketing was effective but nobody knew which 50%. For old media to have the same qualities as new media, newspaper publishers would have to know in real time if you were a new or returning reader, how long you spent reading page 32, which article you talked about with your friends, who your friends were, what their and your demographic profile was and then be able to serve up customised content within an instant based on all of those factors. And then say that they aren't responsible for any of it because they're just a platform. Really, the only thing that old and new media have in common is that they are broadcasting words and images to the general public. The comparison ends there.
      • megaman821 3y ago
        Yeah, what's the worst that old media could do? Print uncritical, false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq than lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
• cheriot 3y ago
  > with features like “infinite scroll” and persistent alerts used to hook young users > Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies Are we talking about infinite scroll or heroine? It would make more sense to sue Kelloggs over Lucky Charms commercials, but we're all use to them so there's no outrage. It's politically popular to sue big tech and especially Meta. That's the whole story. To be clear, the lawsuit is not about the content on instagram or privacy. They're saying kids spend too much time on Instagram. Let me introduce you to the parental controls that are already on your kid's phone.
  • swatcoder 3y ago
    > It would make more sense to sue Kelloggs over Lucky Charms commercials, but we're all use to them so there's no outrage. Of all the examples you might offer, it's ironic that you chose this one! There's a TON of political history around breakfast cereal composition and advertising as well as ongoing reform campaigns and media criticism. In some cases, this has settled into formal regulations about things like what cereal boxes can look like and when advertisements can run. In other cases, it's involved collective industry "good behavior" meant to forestall regulation. But it continues to a problem because financial incentive always leads to optimizing for whatever can be gotten away with. And yeah, social media companies are maturing as an industry and are now due to play that same perpetual game of government regulation, industry self-policing, and boundary-testing.
    • cheriot 3y ago
      > due to play that same perpetual game of government regulation, industry self-policing, and boundary-testing. Does anyone think this stuff works, though? It's an cycle of outrage and performative regulation. I'm not sure the same path in another industry is a good idea. Lucky for parents today there's TV options without commercials.
  • yieldcrv 3y ago
    we’re talking about dopamine production and that’s always what we wind up regulating so, good observation. regulate aspects of these products like heroin
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  The complaint: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.419868/gov.uscourts.cand.419868.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.41...
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• lsh123 3y ago
  https://www.brucesallan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/gradescartoon.jpg https://www.brucesallan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/grade...
• yodsanklai 3y ago
  I'm impressed by the strong negative reactions on this thread. Maybe because this is a US-centric forum, or because I don't have kids, but I fail to see the big deal with Meta. Facebook is mostly groups with little engagements. Nowadays, people really fight on Twitter which has less moderation. Then Instagram, I thought kids were on Tik Tok? Well, I can see how some people might be negatively impacted by this sites but it has to be marginal considering we're taking about billions of users. And what's new? the same could be said by tons of other businesses (how many people are obese with reduced life expectancy because of agressive marketing from Mac Donald's and Coca Cola for instance?). I mean, is Meta that bad?
  • throwaway237289 3y ago
    There's an amazing subtlety here, which is that Governments are slow to function and rarely regulate well. That they're targeting Meta instead of what kids actually use (TikTok) highlights this fact. So not only will they fail to achieve their goal, they're not even going after the right player. But hey the cultural movement of Americans these days are to hate on big tech, and Facebook in particular. So here we go.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • baby 3y ago
      What’s hilarious is that they’re going after TikTok but because it’s a national threat (lol)
    • yodsanklai 3y ago
      > the cultural movement of Americans these days are to hate on big tech if only we could have such giants in Europe...
• huytersd 3y ago
  Good. For once I’ll agree with the governance in Utah and say we should ban social media for kids until they are 18.
  • sneak 3y ago
    Why is it okay for a 19 year old but not a 17 year old? If they’re bad, they’re bad for adults, too? If they’re not inherently bad, then they can be safely used by responsible 16 year olds as well as responsible 18/19 year olds? We let 16 year olds operate deadly machinery traveling at many meters per second. Social media is at least less potentially harmful than automobiles.
    • dymk 3y ago
      Because at some point you decide that some threshold is useful to have, and stop sealioning on the internet about it
      • voisin 3y ago
        This is the first I’ve heard the term sealioning. Just looked it up and man, it feels like one of those foreign words that perfectly describe something that we encounter all the time. Thanks!
        • robertlagrant 3y ago
          Doesn't seem to relate to the Wikipedia definition: > Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity, and feigning ignorance of the subject matter
          • voisin 3y ago
            Well, I agree it isn’t the perfect context but it isn’t wholly out of left field either, depending on the user’s interpretation of the previous poster’s quibbling over age.
• b20000 3y ago
  hoping that all mental health organisations will join
• codegeek 3y ago
  As someone who is very pro Free Speech and hates censorships in general, banning these toxic social media especially for Kids is a good idea and as a parent, I am all in for it. If you cannot smoke/drink till 21, you shouldn't be able to do Social media till then. It is that bad especially for children.
  • dmak 3y ago
    That's really extreme. There are definitely better ways to manage it. Tiktok in Singapore has been very thoughtful in their approach which seems to be working.
    • bluepizza 3y ago
      What are the ways? What has Tiktok done in Singapore? What makes it thoughtful? Why hasn't Tiktok done so in America?
    • lnxg33k1 3y ago
      Extreme is my view to ban all social media as useless and dangerous means to keep people watching dangerous content endlessly just to show them advertisement s to make them feel inappropriate and buy their self confidence, probably just banning social media for under 21 is quite weak but at least is a start
  • impulser_ 3y ago
    Yeah, but why not also ban candy, soda, junk food, video games ect? If we can't trust parents to parent their kids then why not ban everything that possibly could be bad for kids?
    • swatcoder 3y ago
      Most of those things have become subject to both government regulation and industry self-policing, and there’s continual debate over whether there needs to be more done and what shape it might take. Just getting to that point with social media will be a big win. The social media industry came on quick and got a free pass for a while, but it’s now more mature and needs to become more mindful of its social consequences just the same as other industries. Whether that needs to come through bans and regulation or can be achieved through voluntary self-restraint is up to the big players and their egos.
• tjrgergw 3y ago
  FINALLY we're getting to the point. The problem with facebook is first and foremost that it is addictive and was engineered to be addictive. About time.
• deegles 3y ago
  My gut feeling is that nothing will change meaningfully as long as employee promotions are dependent on increasing engagement (either directly or indirectly). I believe that no single person sits down and says "let's make kids get addicted to our product," but they do run A/B tests or new features and keep the better performing variant. The end result of many of these cycles is the same.
  • ergocoder 3y ago
    It is not even about employee promotion. You can't ban a communication tool. That is just absurd.
    • wordpad25 3y ago
      Yeah lol Research shows 100% of bullying is caused by humans and eliminating all human contact reduces bullying by 100% Amazing!
      • kridsdale3 3y ago
        With LLMs that doesn't have to be true anymore.
    • kridsdale3 3y ago
      I worked at Meta for 7 years, focusing on Youth Engagement for a number of those years. We had incredible sociology research on what is good and healthy for kids online. We were not allowed to build any of it because the Director and VP class only rewarded "number go up" and punished any other activity. I quit the Youth group in frustration because they just wouldn't let me build or even code.
      • cheriot 3y ago
        Is any of the sociology research available publicly? Very curious what ya'll wanted to build.
      • webdood90 3y ago
• TheMagicHorsey 3y ago
  So if your app gets too "good" and users use it too much, then you have broken the law? Interesting logic to think through.
  • miguelazo 3y ago
    Yeah, I guess if your heroine hits right and the fiends keep coming back for more, it should just be legal. I think the issue here is that these apps are designed to defeat even the little self control that humans are capable of.
  • Swizec 3y ago
    Think less “app too good” and more “big tobacco strategy”. Because let’s not kid ourselves: that’s exactly what these apps are trying to do – become as addictive as possible. On purpose.
    • robertlagrant 3y ago
      Everyone wants to sell more; that's far too broad a category. Tobacco is bad because it is chemically addictive, and its delivery is paired with inhaling tar.
      • Loughla 3y ago
        Is a constant dopamine hit not addictive?
        • robertlagrant 3y ago
          If its delivery coated your lungs with tar, it would then be comparable to big tobacco.
          • Swizec 3y ago
            If social media use has been casually linked to depression and friends, that’s kinda like coating your brain with tar. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/study-social-media-use-linked-to-decline-mental-health https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/study-social-m...
• wolverine876 3y ago
  Several comments say we should ban social media for people under 18. Such a blunt, indiscrimate, careless solution may indicate the typical ages of HN members! What do some people under 18 think of the problem and solutions? I'm not sure how many are here, but maybe some HN members could ask their kids.
  • mptest 3y ago
    I'm mid 20's and it's obvious what to do. Universal child care, housing, healthcare, etc, and parents would have more time to parent their kids instead of slaving away to make someone else enough money to buy their fifth yacht or passing their childcare off to an ipad. We have worse than gilded age inequality, 9 people own more wealth than 3.6 BILLION combined. Maybe address that first??? I'd wager we'd find 99% of problems are downstream of poverty and inequality.
    • zachthewf 3y ago
      While I agree with the general sentiment, poverty and inequality are wildly different problems (e.g. modern capitalism tends to increase inequality but also decrease poverty).
      • mptest 3y ago
        Wildly different, sure, but deeply, deeply connected which is why I include them together. There is no reason we can't decrease poverty AND inequality. In fact decreasing inequality would in turn reduce poverty if done correctly.
    • DecoPerson 3y ago
      If you look at history, the biggest changes that allow people more free time to spend with their children or otherwise, are technological ones. Look at the mechanical loom (industrialisation), pesticides (agricultural yield increase), penicillin (life expectancy increase), painkillers (life quality increase), clean water (wide-spread infrastructure), cheap microwaves (overseas slave labour), reliable vehicles for all (fossil fuel infrastructure). We need to continue this trend to fix the problems. The billionaires aren’t blocking us. Yes, it’s unfair that they hold so much wealth and power. The world has been that way for a long time. When electric lightbulbs came to the masses, it made some rich people even richer, but that’s not the important part. The important part is that the masses’ lives were better. Next steps for us: - Find manufacturing processes that don’t require overseas slave labour - Agricultural processes that don’t need as much pesticide - Better, cheaper medicine (recent developments in quantum computing suggest we may be able to crack protein folding within 10 years, which will lead to an explosion in medical research) - Automated construction (see Hadrian X) - A replacement for fossil fuels (if we crack fusion, we can use that for the grid and we can create our own combustion juice for vehicles using the enormous amount of energy available) - Protocells that allow extremely precise manufacturing at scale (protocells are programmed cells or completely custom cells that we can equip & program for certain tasks, like “remove all the iron ore from the ground here” — they will change everything) These are the things that will bring the rest of the world out of poverty. And, depending on how we adapt to the irrelevancy of capitalism as these technologies develop, it may solve the inequality/unfairness problem too. Taxing billionaires won’t accelerate any of this.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• orochimaaru 3y ago
  Does this have merit? I don’t know if a single kid on Facebook. Maybe instagram. But primarily they’re all on TikTok and Snapchat.
  • InSteady 3y ago
    There are about 73 million children in the US. I'm going to go ahead and bet that even though you don't personally know one who uses facebook, quite a few of them in fact do.
    • orochimaaru 3y ago
      Probably - but just a poll of my middle schoolers class and I can guarantee the mention of Facebook will get blank stares. Insta - yes, that they’re familiar with. What they use most is TikTok and Snapchat. My point being the harmful marketing cannot be proven if hardly any children actively use it
• ayakang31415 3y ago
  First of all, they need to define what "harmful" is as quantifiable variable(s). Then the states in this case must prove that the contents from Meta are harmful in this context. Lastly, they need to prove there exists a statistical causal link from such "harmful" contents to the mental well-being of the children. Many parents kind of "sense" social media is harmful, but I don't see how they can "prove" that social media is really "harmful" edit: grammar
  • Atrine 3y ago
    Cyberbullying? Eating disorders? Majority of their time on social media? Increase in medication usage? Cutting? Depression? Suicides? There are plenty of things to measure. Just pick one and stop trying to play this ridiculous game of "what about-isms".
    • ayakang31415 3y ago
      It is surprising to me that my comment is perceived as whataboutism and as if I am rooting for Meta (I do not see any such implication here). Far from it, as I do not like Meta and its product (I don't even have Facebook or Instagram app installed on my phone). I am merely saying that it is very tough to prove such case in the court as rigorous vetting is necessary and the onus to prove is on the plaintiff.
    • sershe 3y ago
      Ok, so you should be able to sue schools where regular bullying happens, or ads that supposedly promote unrealistic beauty standards for eating disorders, right? Or why ads, sue the media companies that publish them. Or maybe vendors that sell the magazines, or all of them - since they make up a platform like Facebook. "Majority of their time on social media" is not a harm. The rest are similar and/or not clearly linked to anything. Really this lawsuit is just a meta for safety-ist culture that probably causes mental health issues in the first place. It's like I spent hours per day playing soccer when I was a kid, and regularly got injured, broke my leg once. I got bullied there too on occasion, by some definition. Oh, and we used to play games where the losing team would bend over at the goal line and the winning team would try to kick the ball as hard as possible at their asses (or legs) from like 15ft - I dunno if this is bullying (I've done a lot of both bending and kicking), but I'm pretty sure someone has to think of the children... So I guess the parents (or no, not parents - states!) shoulda sued the town that provided us with a public soccer field, cause "harms" happened there :) EDIT: come think of it, unlike other cases - parents cannot control the other kids' behavior in school or out in the neighborhood - preventing their own children from using social media is comparatively trivial. So, there's also that - I guess if facebook is responsible for harms, all of the parents affected should be sued for neglect :)
• sershe 3y ago
  1) Since blocking social media for one's children is trivial, does it mean all the parents affected are guilty of neglect? Is there a reverse class action lawsuit? Oh wait, that's bad for election prospects, better go after evil big businesses. 2) There really needs to be a rule for frivolous shakedown lawsuits of the kind EU and now apparently US states practice, where monetary damages are paid either way - if the fake harms and violations pan out, to the state; if they don't pan our, by the states to the company with the same order of magnitude fine.
  • greycol 3y ago
    As to 1) The prisoners dillema is a pretty basic example of how the best possible co-ordinated action is not necesarily the best possible individual action. i.e. other kids not on social media/ your kid not on social media Δ0 happiness other kids not on social media/ your kid on social media Δ-3 happiness other kids on social media/ your kid on social media Δ-10 happiness other kids on social media/ your kid not not social media Δ-50 happiness Maybe some form of co-ordination might be in the parents best interest... maybe some form of representative could do something about it if it's in the kids best interest?
    • cheriot 3y ago
      Judge: Why do you let your kids use social media? Parent: All the other kids are on it. ... PS There's some in between, https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103340 https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103340
      • greycol 3y ago
        To reply just as flippantly: We could take the same aproach to alcohol and gambling, drop all age restrictions and put all the responsibility on the parents, then businesses will truly be able to run efficiently. Of course good parents have to be involved in raising there kids well but that doesn't mean we shouldn't subsidide education or restrict companies from sending kids down coal mines(even if they really want the money). Mostly because good parents can fail and bad parents exist and if society isn't going to aim for turning kids into good adults then it'll just get worse generation on generation.
• wolverine876 3y ago
  Are we sophisticated enough yet in this field to define addictive software, safe amounts of it, etc., as we do with drugs?
  • pauldenton 3y ago
    It will be surpassed by the next thing and we will forget all about the previous thing Do we define addictive programming, safe amounts of WWE, or reality TV At certain times Dungeons and Dragons, Mortal Kombat, WWE and Reality TV have been said to be causing a decline of morals. A hundred years ago we blamed comic books and radio. Did we ever figure out the safe amount of comic books or radio or did they just get forgotten as we moved onto the next shiny object?
• cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  Hmm, interesting, nothing against TikTok or the Fentanyl crisis?
  • InSteady 3y ago
    I mean, various groups are pursuing action on both. The US government is a pretty big institution. It tends to do more than one thing at a time, you know.
    • cscurmudgeon 3y ago
      Cool, when was the last time 33 states or more coordinated against TikTok?
• jruohonen 3y ago
  I wonder how many simultaneous proceedings they have?
• LargeTomato 3y ago
  If I let my kid have so much candy that they stop being able to control themselves and then they give themselves childhood obesity or diabetes is that the candy makers' faults? If I encourage my kid to engage in the dangerous sport of snowboarding (this is an analogy) and they take it way too far despite obvious signs of egregious injury to their person is that the ski resort's fault? No, at some point it is the parents' fault. If your kid killed themselves because the screen told them they aren't airbrushed enough their parents should be held legally liable.
  • hardware2win 3y ago
    Good parents do not scale It is easier to punish fb, so we should do.
  • unsupp0rted 3y ago
    A closer analogy is when cigarette companies advertised to kids, covertly or even overtly. Parents shouldn't let their kids smoke, sure. But that's not the end of the public conversation. It's not easy or perhaps even possible for a parent's influence to outweigh social programming coming from all around.
    • hardware2win 3y ago
      Indeed So many parents are against smoking, yet naive teenagers still get addicted due to friends/coolness pressure
  • Nextgrid 3y ago
    Candy eating doesn't control society's social fabric though. Social media does.
  • distract8901 3y ago
    The more correct analogy is advertising heavily to kids that you give out free candy, and then give them so much they get sick. Parents can't surveil kids 24/7. It simply isn't possible. You have to have some trust that your society is a safe place for kids to grow up. Independence is an important part of growing up. Making your own decisions with or without your parent's approval. Don't you remember being 13 and wanting to make your own decisions about your life? At some point a kid becomes an individual and they will make their own choices whether you like it or not. Blaming parents for societal treatment of children is the same as blaming climate change on people who don't recycle. It's utter nonsense because the outside factors are massively larger than any individual.