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Zuckerberg personally rejected Meta's proposals to improve teen mental health

• xwdv 3y ago
  The genie is already out of the bottle, you simply cannot take away a feature like this that people have already gotten used to and not expect a backlash. There’s no good decision to make here.
  • dcormier 3y ago
    If the feature is harmful to mental health, then removing it is indeed a good decision. People complain about all kinds of change. That doesn't make the change wrong or mean that it shouldn't be done.
    • xwdv 3y ago
      If the feature is removed, unattractive individuals will cry out that this will give genuinely attractive individuals a large advantage over them, widening the beauty gap.
• AustinDev 3y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised at all. I have several friends who were extremely early FB employees and the horror stories I've heard about his behavior, 2nd hand, if even 10% true are pretty damn horrible.
  • maaand 3y ago
    Mind sharing some?
    • awesomeMilou 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • electriclove 3y ago
        Why is this being downvoted? Is it not true? Does it not support the parent comment?
        • dang 3y ago
          It's one of the oldest and most tedious clichés around, and for that reason not of interest here.
          • ryandrake 3y ago
            I don't know--we're talking about the personal, moral character of the leader of this huge company. A direct quote from the guy, infamous as it is, is at least on-topic.
            • dang 3y ago
              That may have been true the first thousand times it was repeated, but at a certain point these things become mechanical. That's not interesting in HN's sense of the word—and doubly so for the combo of mechanical+indignant. This is one of those cases where it's nice to have a single principle that one is optimizing for: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... Reciting the "dumb fucks" (or any similar) liturgy has little to do with curiosity.
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    • AustinDev 3y ago
      I'd rather not I don't think many other people were party to some of the things I heard them describe that they personally witnessed. It'd probably be very easy to figure out who they were. This is all from the 2008-2013 era.
      • ipaddr 3y ago
        There tons of existing stories of partying, sex and coke. Spying on private profiles, etc. Would your stories add something new or be along the same lines of what's out there?
        • AustinDev 3y ago
          Slightly more violence but, yes, the phone calls I had during and after the events were pretty graphic.
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• s5300 3y ago
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• an_aparallel 3y ago
  it doesnt matter how much bad news comes out about this company - it baffles me how people still go to work there.
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  • hellisothers 3y ago
    No amount of personal action is going to matter on that front, all not working at companies that are morally dubious would net is a lower income for myself. Just like with climate change the solution is collective action at the govt/national level, anything else is virtue signaling.
    • deebosong 3y ago
      C'mon now. I'm not trying to judge you. But every action each individual takes compounds into collective action. If you think only groups and masses have significance, and individuals do not, then I'd be genuinely curious to hear the worldview & belief system behind this. Like what's the phenomenon behind groups coalescing and forming a critical mass?
      • lazide 3y ago
        If there are enough individuals that the group forms anyway, and being a member of the group is profitable, then any single individual who decides not to join just suffers the loss of that profit. Only if enough individuals decide together to not do it - enough to not allow the group to form - does it change the math. But unless there is a clear group of folks doing that, communicating that, and co-ordinating with that goal - no individual has any way of determining if they would ‘tip the scales’ or not. So it’s very unlikely to happen ‘naturally’ once a certain degree of momentum has happened. A type of social prisoners delimma perhaps? And if you’re noticing this also applied to the Nazi party, you’re not wrong. Also applies to any other group though.
        • 3y ago
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  > Zuckerberg vetoed a 2019 proposal that would have disabled Instagram’s so-called “beauty filters,” a technology that digitally alters a user’s on-screen appearance and allegedly harms teens’ mental health by promoting unrealistic body image expectations, according to the unredacted version of the complaint filed this week by Massachusetts officials. Focusing on beauty filters really undermines the narrative. If you are talking about ways that Meta harms children and the first thing you list is that they didn’t ban beauty filters, it actually makes Zuckerberg seem reasonable.
  • 23B1 3y ago
    Especially since kids will need all of about 3 seconds to find some other app/site to filter or modify content, and anyone with kids knows this. This article's a nothingburger (unfortunately).
    • ethanbond 3y ago
      But… they didn’t do that? Filters became ubiquitous when they were put into Instagram? Obviously the bad version of anything is always available at some level of effort, but also obviously “level of effort” is in fact the only deterrent that exists.
      • lotsofpulp 3y ago
        I think Snapchat brought them to the fore first.
  • whatyesaid 3y ago
    We don't know what wasn't proposed or investigated to lessen issues if the initiatives were all shut down. If cursory work admits there's a problem and your profit is in the billions, where you pay engineers to mostly sit on their ass - the onus is on you to reduce harm. Rejecting all proposals indicates any harms of the platform are inbuilt fundamentally.
• deleted 3y ago
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• xrd 3y ago
  The first Internet tycoon born of the Internet age. It's going to be ironic how his oil and railroad predecessors escaped scrutiny by buying newspapers and donating money. Bezos is trying that playbook. But my bet is that we will see Zucks true legacy unfold right now and he won't be lionized in at all the same way. He doesn't seem so different from SBF in that he justified any action to get his way, from the beginning when he started Facebook to rank and spy on women.
  • NOWHERE_ 3y ago
    I honestly relate to Zuckerberg‘s decision here: - there isn’t any data which suggests that beauty filters on insta hurt mental health - if insta disabled such filters, people will simply move to snap or tiktok to use such filters From the business perspective his veto makes absolute sense. But it’s was to point fingers at him as if he is the boogeyman.
    • eru 3y ago
      > From the business perspective his veto makes absolute sense. But it’s was to point fingers at him as if he is the boogeyman. I guess that's one of your jobs as the CEO. The buck stops here and all that.
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• wsdookadr 3y ago
  There is no evidence that anyone actually needs FB/IG/Threads. If tommorow Meta shuts down and the entirety of its assets, all the money, all the infrastructure and the people get repurposed to do science instead of reels, commercials, cat videos, selfies and trending videos, that would be great.
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  • relyks 3y ago
    I disagree with this. Even though I'm unhappy with Facebook/Meta and I believe the world would have been better off without the current iteration of their products, lots of small businesses depend on their platforms for their marketing/advertising needs and success in general. Their instant messaging platforms like Messenger/WhatsApp are essential communication tools used by literally millions of users. There is also an argument to be made that Facebook has allowed relationships/connections to be preserved that would've eventually ceased. Facebook/Instagram are terrible tools for creating new relationships or social networks though
    • kibwen 3y ago
      Small businesses marketed before the existence Facebook, and people messaged before the existence of Facebook. They aren't doing anything special other than being the beneficiaries of the network-effect-du-jour.
    • cj 3y ago
      I’m not a Facebook fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s true that Facebook is what a lot of small businesses rely on. It’s a good platform for certain types of businesses to share information with a lot of people in a channel other than email. Think gyms, restaurants, salons, laundromats, etc. And then there are people whose businesses run on Facebook. Not that it’s a common thing, but I actually pay a fitness instructor $25/mo to join daily group fitness classes that anre available exclusively via Facebook Live. If Facebook were to go away, the biggest missing piece up for grabs would be a common platform used by a lot of people to broadcast information to people who share things in common.
• josho 3y ago
  There was a post on HN months back about testimony to Congress. I forget the details except for one graph. Clear and direct correlation between the rise in social media and teen mental health issues. The number of teen girls that I’ve seen with cut marks is terrifying. The dramatic increase in mental health issues is shocking. I know with my kids social media has made every one of their challenging teenage moments more difficult.
  • eru 3y ago
    > Clear and direct correlation between the rise in social media and teen mental health issues. Correlation does not prove causation.
    • JellyBeanThief 3y ago
      That would be worth something in a debate, where truth is the goal. But this isn't a debate, this is a decision. The agent is Meta. The field is their products. The goal is reduced teen mental health issues. And the buck stops with Zuckerberg. "Correlation does not prove causation" alone is not an excuse to avoid an action. It is a principle that can be used to compare actions for how likely they are to achieve the goal, and so it must be combined with some other action and evidence that makes that other action appear more likely to work. Without that, then the action suggested by the correlation remains the action most likely to work, and so it must still be taken. If, for whatever reason, Zuckerberg doesn't want these changes to be made, then he needs to either dole out resources to gather the evidence he demands and which may free him from them, or he needs to implement some other action which may turn out to work. If he doles out the resources, and the evidence comes back and establishes causation, then he has to make the changes. It sucks for him, but the goal isn't to please Zuckerberg, it's to reduce teen mental health issues. If he doles out the resources, and the evidence comes back failing to establish causation, then that's convenient for him. But he still has to try something else, because the goal is reduced teen mental health issues and it has not been achieved. If he goes straight to implementing some other action, and it at least appears to work, then he doesn't have to make the changes he didn't want to make. That's great for him, and since teen mental health issues were reduced, he can put it behind him. If he goes straight to implementing some other action, and it doesn't work, then still has to try something else, because the goal is reduced teen mental health issues and it has not been achieved.
• deleted 3y ago
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• neilv 3y ago
  > “I respect your call on this and I’ll support it,” Stewart wrote, according to a message cited in the complaint, “but want to just say for the record that I don’t think it’s the right call given the risks…. I just hope that years from now we will look back and feel good about the decision we made here.” Were they saying "for the record" just as an idiom, or did they have a particular paper trail purpose in mind when putting something in writing to the CEO?
  • HumblyTossed 3y ago
    "If you're going to go down, take people with you." If there's an issue, you partner with your superiors to fix it. This is what the Insta CEO is trying to do (because he believes there's an issue). Having done that, yes, you leave a paper trail to cover your ass.
  • mym1990 3y ago
    Probably a bit of both, and to make herself feel better about it when things continue to get worse.
• HumblyTossed 3y ago
  > Zuckerberg vetoed a 2019 proposal that would have disabled Instagram’s so-called “beauty filters,” a technology that digitally alters a user’s on-screen appearance and allegedly harms teens’ mental health by promoting unrealistic body image expectations, according to the unredacted version of the complaint filed this week by Massachusetts officials. > After sitting on the proposal for months, Zuckerberg wrote to his deputies in April 2020 asserting that there was “demand” for the filters and that he had seen “no data” suggesting the filters were harmful, according to the complaint. So, why didn't instagram ceo provide that data? Seems a huge oversight for someone in that position.
  • andsoitis 3y ago
    > So, why didn't instagram ceo provide that data? Seems a huge oversight for someone in that position. Because there is no data that show causation?
    • giancarlostoro 3y ago
      Instagram does a ton of A/B testing on new features, I'm sure they could have done the research.
      • tfehring 3y ago
        I’m sure they had A/B tested the feature, but it’s hard to think of a metric they could measure in those tests that would reliably detect the alleged harm. I’m not sure they made the right choice in the absence of data, but I do believe that they didn’t have the data or a good way to get it.
        • giancarlostoro 3y ago
          Only way I could immediately think of is to survey users.
          • passerby1 3y ago
• sys_64738 3y ago
  Why would he care? He's like a greasy used car salesman who is there to take advantage of your gullibility. Don't see him as anything other than a conman who got lucky being in the right place at the right time.
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• aaron695 3y ago
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• unsubstantiated 3y ago
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• Mrirazak1 3y ago
  I’m actually not surprised. Meta has had a history of this because their core business is unlocking that psychology in our social graphs from young to old and keeping us hooked to it. Improving mental health would be an opposite direction to their goals since they’d have to reduce usage and inform them of taking breaks and better mental health.
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• the_kLeZ 3y ago
  Stammerda. (For non-Italian people, it literally means "this piece of sh*". It's a rude yell at a person who is not behaving morally or ethically well proved of doing harm to other people, and is thus indicted of being a literal ... you know).
• caskstrength 3y ago
  Where are these dreaded "beauty filters" in Instagram app? I don't remember any from back in the day when I still used it. Just checked again and it seems there are still bunch of typical "hipster colors" old-school Instagram filters, then some basic editing options.
  • pests 3y ago
    You are missing 90% of the app. These are LIVE filters they are talking about. Not a post-processing photo effect. Don't select a photo from your phone - that brings up the boring old-school photo editor mode. You want to start a new post by clicking the "+" at the bottom and then swipe to the left or click on "Story" or "Live". This gives you the advanced AI filters with live preview. They are created and distributed by third parties through a gallery/store like interface. These are the type that say add dog ears to your head. Or detect when your mouth is open and makes a scary effect. Or can give you perfect skin and AI-upgrade you or turn you into an anime character. These are what people are talking about. Not some laughable "color filter"
• Randomizer42 3y ago
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• DueDilligence 3y ago
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• antiviral 3y ago
  "Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg allegedly halted proposals aimed at improving Facebook and Instagram’s impact on teen mental health, according to internal communications revealed as part of unsealed court documents. Zuckerberg allegedly vetoed plans to ban filters that simulate plastic surgery on Meta-owned platforms, according to the unredacted lawsuit filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell (D), and ignored requests from top executives to boost investments in teens’ well-being."
• bastawhiz 3y ago
  This is a disgustingly bad look for Meta. I can't even begin to figure out how they are (read: Zuckerberg is) able to draw even the most tenuous of connections between _plastic surgery filters_ and profit. Nobody is going to stop using Meta products or looking at ads because they can't post selfies with artificially beautified versions of themselves.
  • AlecSchueler 3y ago
    > Nobody is going to stop using Meta products or looking at ads because they can't post selfies with artificially beautified versions of themselves. No? But if they're anxious about posting with their own appearance then they might just look for a different app altogether.
    • bastawhiz 3y ago
      If a kid is experiencing dysphoria to the point that they abandon a social network [0] because they can't use built-in tools to make themselves look like they have had plastic surgery, it's even more disgusting to suggest that keeping the kid engaged and on the platform is the most valuable outcome. If you look at that situation and say "well _someone_ is going to ruin their mental health, it had might as well be us" I really weep for our future. [0] note: they're not switching, because kids are already using all of them
  • brandall10 3y ago
    TBF, is this not a result of being in competition with TikTok and Snap? I don't do social media but when I read about this issue I tend to think of those platforms first. https://nowthisnews.com/news/tiktoks-bold-glamour-filter-feature-and-plastic-surgery https://nowthisnews.com/news/tiktoks-bold-glamour-filter-fea... My understanding is because of things like this Facebook and Instagram were losing interest in the teen market (ie. 'legacy' social media), so it doesn't surprise me that they decided to incorporate similar functionality. I'm not saying Zuck is a saint here, but this is more of an issue with social media being a corrosive force in general... the modern version of big tobacco in a way.
• bdangubic 3y ago
  It is amazing how much internet bandwidth is wasted by stories like this... Expecting anything less that big tech favoring profits over EVERYTHING else is like expecting Sun not to rise tomorrow. Yet somehow each of these stories always goes viral and everyone seems "stunned" like "how can this amazing human Zuck (the worst scum of the Earth as most other big tech CEOs are) do this!?? So surprising given his impeccable record as a decent human being who cares about the well-being of our children..."!!
  • francisofascii 3y ago
    I think it is important to continually report stories like this, regardless of the expectations.
    • bdangubic 3y ago
      That seems super reasonable. However, I believe it has the opposite effect. Everyone with a shred of common sense gets numb to these stories which the effectively prepares us to be numb to even more outrageous stories that come after it
  • lostmsu 3y ago
    It is amazing how you jumped to "favoring profits" conclusion from this article, which doesn't even mention that the plans were rejected because there was no data supporting their effectiveness to any degree.
    • bdangubic 3y ago
      sure, let’s go with that :)
    • DueDilligence 3y ago
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    • j45 3y ago
      Scrolling and attention are the product that’s sold though. Can ads on the platforms in question be opted out of? I mean google lets people get out of YouTube ads. YouTube is practically unusable with ads once you’ve had adfree.
• catlover76 3y ago
  Honestly, who cares? We have recently seen much more damning information come about Facebook's role in facilitating in the Rohingya genocide. This mental health shit pales in comparison.
  • infamouscow 3y ago
    Exactly. It's pretty easy to understand why narcissists and sociopaths behave the way they do when the masses are so dumb.
• verteu 3y ago
  Is there actually strong evidence that social media harms teens' mental health? From what I can find, the correlation between social media use and mental health problems is small [1] or nonexistent [2]. There are few causal studies, and their results are even smaller, eg: halting Facebook usage for a month decreased depression by 0.09 stdev [3]. [1] "We found a small but significant positive correlation (k=12 studies, r=.11, p<.01) between adolescent social media use and depressive symptoms." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032720323727 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01650... [2] "There was no association between frequency of social media use and SITBs [self-injurious thoughts and behaviors] however, studies on this topic were limited." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735821000817 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727... [3] "A study using an experimental design measured the effects of abstaining from Facebook for four weeks in an adult population and found that there was a slight decrease (SD=0.09) in depression." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032720323727 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01650...
  • broptimist 3y ago
    I assume your third link was meant to be to this study: https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf My first criticism would be that intervening only to restrict Facebook would likely just result in a substitution effect, with instagram, snapchat, youtube, reddit, etc filling the void. Likewise, if I remove cake from my diet for 4 weeks but make no restrictions on all other forms of sugary baked goods, I'm not likely to see the same magnitude of effect as I would've otherwise. Here's an associational study that found almost 3x odds of having depression between the most and least frequent users of social media sites. This was among US adults aged 19-32 and adjusted for age, sex, race, relationship status, living situation, household income, and education level https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4853817/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4853817/
    • verteu 3y ago
      Thanks for the study! I was hoping for something about teens (not adults >=19), and ideally a meta-analysis. This article looks promising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook#Psychological/sociological_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook#Psycholo... I know the media often cites Instagram's internal research saying "we make body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teen girls", but the actual stat is not too damning IMO: 'Among teen girls with body image issues, 32% said Instagram made it worse, 22% said Instagram made it better, and 46% said it had no impact' [1] [1] page 14 of https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Instagram-Teen-Annotated-Research-Deck-1.pdf https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Instagram-Te...
• scrps 3y ago
  I have some hope, my neice referred to FB as 'legacy' and from talking to her these kids are getting smart a lot quicker about the tactics used on these platforms and by platforms themselves, they also seem very fluid and less prone to lock-in unlike their parents and grandparents. Sample size of my neice and her social circle isn't representitive but perhaps it represents a shift.
• growingkittens 3y ago
  The social sciences are not advanced enough to measure the harm caused by advances in technology. Social science is in its infancy and lacks systemic tools and viewpoints. The legal use of dark patterns needs to be eliminated. This is the core issue.