12 ms·

Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

147 points by antiviral 3y ago

hnburnsy 3y ago
Boy this is so different than the MMA accusations against X. The WSJ fully reported on their methodology, gave Meta months to change, and partnered with a third party to verify the results. The advertiser responses to their ads showing next to arguably much more objectional content here are quite different.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Here is the now unredacted complaint: https://ia800508.us.archive.org/12/items/gov.uscourts.cand.419868/gov.uscourts.cand.419868.73.2.pdf https://ia800508.us.archive.org/12/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4... Employee names are still redacted. Given Zuckerberg's views on privacy, one wonders why they should remain "anonymous".
iteratethis 3y ago
The only enforceable claim is regarding usage of minors below the age of 13. All other claims are "soft" violations. Legal but unethical. How do you regulate legal but unethical? You can't. So let's make it illegal. But how? Maximum notifications per day? Deep introspection of the actual content? Good and bad influencers? Curfue? It's impossible to codify this into law, unless you're China.
nojvek 3y ago
I would pay for an adless and algo control version of Facebook, Insta and Twitter/X. With Twitter even if I pay, still get the same number ads. I want to customize what is shown in my feed.
antiviral 3y ago
https://archive.ph/yWkzu https://archive.ph/yWkzu
NickC25 3y ago
Should come as no surprise, honestly. Above all else since turning public, Meta is in the business of making money. It's not illegal to target user's vulnerabilities in order to get the user to spend more time or money on their platform. It's unethical as hell, but it's business 101 - the shareholders would revolt if Zuck came out and said "here's this opportunity to make you all a ton of money, but we're placing our personal ethics above doing this, so we're not". He'd get sued for breach of fiduciary duty. Now, are Meta's product strategies unethical (or questionably ethical), harmful to society, and setting bad precedent? Yeah, I'd agree with that. But the market and shareholders like money.
- blackhaz 3y ago
  This is like saying - hey, let everyone buy their guns without background checks, because the shop has to make money!
  - fnimick 3y ago
    If background checks weren't legally required, no store would be doing them. Every flagged check is a lost sale after all.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  Many of those shareholders are themselves Meta users or have kids who use Meta products. Crazy what kind of masochism "the system" encourages.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > shareholders would revolt if Zuck came out and said Zuckerberg has super-voting shares that give him control over Facebook [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/zuckerberg-motivates-supervoting-stock-resistance-2022-10-27/ https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/zuckerberg-motivates-s...
- BizarreByte 3y ago
  > It's not illegal to target user's vulnerabilities in order to get the user to spend more time or money on their platform. Perhaps it should be illegal to target children in such ways? I'm tired of this argument that companies should be able to do whatever they wish in the name of profit, they need to be reigned with strong regulations.
avalys 3y ago
Do grocery stores “capitalize on vulnerability” when they place name-brand products at eye level? Do carmakers “capitalize on vulnerability” when they advertise pickup trucks as big tough vehicles for tough, outdoorsy men? Do providers of health insurance for pets “capitalize on vulnerability” when they say you need to buy their product if you love your pet? At some point people need to be responsible for their own decisions. And I can’t get that worked up about Meta’s free product.
- LeroyRaz 3y ago
  There are a great number of regulations placed on products (and their advertising) to ensure customers are informed and protected. Examples: Drinking disclaimers (drink responsibly). Cigarette disclaimers and off putting mandated packet visuals. The traffic light system in the UK (which displays a colour coded breakdown warning of unhealthy food macros on the front of all ready meals). Alcoholic beverages by law having to specify their alcohol percentages. Foods by law having to specify their nutritional content and ingredients. All of these regulations have been introduced to ensure customers are not blind to unhealthy choices (e.g., the traffic light system warning against high sugar content designed to make cheap addictive food). While not always effective, I believe that on balance these regulations make society a better place to live in. Similarly one could envision mandated social media disclaimers and warnings, and to regulate this way would be entirely within the wider norm, rather than something unusual.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > At some point people need to be responsible for their own decisions This is like saying “everything in moderation” in a discussion about nutrition. No shit. We’re trying to find that delineation.
- quacked 3y ago
  Yes, yes, and yes. However, the three situations you named are targeting adults. Children and teenagers are worth insulating from the full might of advertisers, propagandists, and always-on virtual social circles.
  - 3y ago
zooq_ai 3y ago
I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except overreach. If they really want to cater to their constituents then pass specific laws.
- asylteltine 3y ago
  Teenagers started having extreme and rampant mental health issues as soon as social media became pervasive. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence though.
  - megaman821 3y ago
    Actually, if you look at the data, the debut and rise of Taylor Swift is obviously causing the teenage mental health crisis.
  - BorisMelnik 3y ago
    it was bound to happen with any communication platform teens use on the internet, it was already starting in the early 2000s with text messaging, definitely MySpace
    - asylteltine 3y ago
      MySpace is social media
  - stronglikedan 3y ago
    The mental health issues correlate with the rise a lot of things besides social media. Certain medications, for one. Correlations aren't causation, of course.
  - superkuh 3y ago
    Do you think the rise in rates of diagnosed autism spectrum disorder over the same time period reflect an increase in actual expression of the phenotype in the population? Or was it from an increase in diagnosis and treatment? Do you think the rise in this premise of "rampant mental health issues" reflect an increase in actual expression of the phenotypes in the population? Or was this from an increase in diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues?
xkekjrktllss 3y ago
Marxists have long argued that the problem with capitalism is not that it's the cause of humanity's social problems, but that it systemically exploits humanity's social problems.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
crowcroft 3y ago
The nuance with social media ('digital' media generally I guess), is how hard it is for third parties to verify/audit/understand wtf is going on to be able to prove if anything negative is happening. With broadcast media like TV, I can see what the programming is, and I can watch the same ads that every other house is getting broadcast to know what's being shown to kids (and research companies do this). Similarly for retail media, I can go to a store and see what a retailer is doing. For Meta with AI newsfeeds and targeted ads, it's impossible to know exactly what any one persons experience is. I don't know the veracity of this specific case is but as a minimum I think there should be some legislation that force these companies to be auditable in some way...
splitwheel 3y ago
There is science driving the design of products to make them addictive. For teen girls - the apps are designed to scare them about being socially excluded. For teen boys - the apps are designed to fill their need to master skills. The issue that the government has to deal with with app addictions is self harm attempts by girls (e.g. emergency room visits) and underperformance of boys in the real world (e.g. low college enrollment). If you are trying to make an addictive app, this is a good reference to understand the science: https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788 https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Produc... BJ Fogg is a good reference too: https://www.bjfogg.com https://www.bjfogg.com
- superkuh 3y ago
  There is a for-profit pseudo-science, much like the anti-gay camps of the 1980s, which is spreading unsupported claims using words like "addiction" in contexts where the medical regulatory bodies and journal literature don't believe the concept applies. These people prey on the irrational behavior of parents scared for their children and try to convince them that things like addiction to a website on a screen is possible. They write popular press books, go on talk shows, etc, to keep the meme (and their funding sources) alive. But the DSM and ICD just don't support it. Neither do the recent literature; at least if you stay out of the pay for publish 3rd tier "journals" these scammers submit their "science" to. And yes, it even applies to media personalities associated with Stanford.
  - 4death4 3y ago
    Doesn't BJ Fogg work at Stanford?
  - dotandgtfo 3y ago
    What are you stating? I genuinely don't get the point. Are you saying that screens/apps don't cause addiction?
    - haltist 3y ago
      He is saying people need to be more techno-optimistic and stop paying attention to all this fear mongering hack jobs about social media algorithms. These algorithms deliver billions of dollars of value on a daily basis. Money and GDP are more important than depressed teens. It's important to focus on what actually matters: market capitalization and profitability.
dmatech 3y ago
I'd argue that Facebook itself is protected 1A speech (as are the recommendations of the YouTube algorithm). It's not a consumer product, and it's not a defective one. Parents have parental controls, and they should educate themselves on how to effectively use them. I suppose that the broader concern is over precisely what duties a company has to its customers. They obviously have the duty to be truthful when making offers, but every customer relationship will have an adversarial component where each party benefits at the other's expense (or at the expense of third parties). In cases like a bar serving alcohol to customers, there's usually some responsibility to prevent patrons from getting extremely intoxicated and getting in a car. But that case involves a clear signal that someone is dangerous. Facebook doesn't know if someone's grades are suffering or if they're having mental health issues. It doesn't know if it should tell the user to "touch grass".
haltist 3y ago
Yet another hack job about the dangers of algorithms. Do these journalists not understand that Meta is worth at least several billion dollars? Do they not get how much value Meta and all its products have delivered to people all over the world? Just terrible reporting all around.
siliconc0w 3y ago
It seems like basically all marketing and advertising is human pen-testing. Thought is serialized into video or audio and then deserialized back into thought which is evaluated. Sometimes this evaluation causes downstream thoughts and actions (including propagating the vulnerability). The question is whether the resulting action is 'organic' or a RCE - overriding the agency of the actor. I think a core class that should be taught is how to safety deserialize sensory input as to avoid causing RCEs. Or basically 'patching' these known vulnerabilities.
stanislavb 3y ago
Now, please, let’s discover and discuss how TikTok is designed … I think it’s even worse.
- ketzo 3y ago
  This is why I support a TikTok ban -- we can't discover that. Not with the U.S. justice system and press, anyway, not in any way that matters.
- amelius 3y ago
  The problem is the freakin' advertising-based monetization model. It makes kids the product instead of the customer. No wonder they turn into addicts.
Curvature5868 3y ago
The dilemma parents are grappling with is this: tablets and smartphones, while beneficial for children's learning and socializing, also expose them to constant marketing and propaganda, even within the confines of their bedrooms, as they attempt to connect with peers or complete tasks. Previously, children's exposure to marketing and propaganda was mostly confined to their entertainment hours, during which they watched television or read magazines. There was at least some hope for moderation. However, "apps" have blurred these boundaries, as the same devices used for education and social interaction are also channels for persistent advertising and messaging, making it harder to limit exposure to just "entertainment" time.
- LesZedCB 3y ago
  > while beneficial for children's learning and socializing citation needed? or are we just assuming because, well, there's education and social information and apps available on them?
  - Curvature5868 3y ago
    I think it is hard to argue that you can't learn anything or socialize on your phone.
    - atoav 3y ago
      This is not what needs to be argued. What needs to be argued is that the form of socializing and learning that can only can come through phones/tablets is worth the negative aspects. As someone who grew up just before smartphones became a thing, I kinda also managed using books and shit.
      - HDThoreaun 3y ago
        no, the claim was that phones and tablets make it easier to learn and socialize, not that you can't without them.
        deleted 3y ago
ericra 3y ago
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that Meta (and most other big tech companies) have long been in the business of hiring a large number of recent social science Ph.D. graduates from top U.S. universities. People with a lot of knowledge of statistics and some domain-specific knowledge in their fields that could possibly be applicable to their job. The whole purpose of doing this is to create teams of marketing people doing in-house research to figure out how to best manipulate others by maximizing "engagement" or whatever other metric. Isn't this just how all big tech companies operate as a normal business practice? Certainly Youtube is no better when it comes to targeted content and advertisements to children to their detriment. My main point is that I don't think it makes any difference whether Meta has some internal document proving that they specifically target children with these practices. The problem is so much bigger than a single policy or company, and legislatures need to figure out a better way to address the overarching problems. I don't have much faith that these one-off lawsuits will make that much of an impact given that they almost always lead to some fine or settlement that is an acceptable business loss for the company. I'm all for Meta being decimated by a thousand cuts in the form of lawsuits from various levels of government, but at best it would just be replaced with something else unless more regulation exists at the top levels (US / EU / etc).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tomohawk 3y ago
The problems of social media go far beyond exploiting teens. It used to be you only saw mob behavior when a large group got together. With social media, you can have a virtual mob going all the time, and ready to materialize IRL for kinetic impact. We now just shrug when things like this happen (Jewish high school teacher forced to go into hiding because of students rampaging). https://nypost.com/2023/11/25/metro/jewish-teacher-hides-in-queens-high-school-as-students-riot/ https://nypost.com/2023/11/25/metro/jewish-teacher-hides-in-...
ShamelessC 3y ago
Nowhere else on the internet will you find so many people defending such obviously bad practices. With such blatantly obvious biases, too.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  Well... There's a lot of people defending an active genocidal land grab right now, but I take your point. And guess what - Meta is aggressively supporting that too. Not saying this to start a flame thing, just advocating a sense of perspective for the sake of 8,000 murdered children, their mothers, and our shared humanity.
extr 3y ago
Disclaimer: I worked at Meta for a time (not in areas relevant to this lawsuit). My experience was that many people working there also have children, cared deeply about this issue, and wanted to find ways to solve it.

147 points by antiviral 3y ago

Boy this is so different than the MMA accusations against X. The WSJ fully reported on their methodology, gave Meta months to change, and partnered with a third party to verify the results. The advertiser responses to their ads showing next to arguably much more objectional content here are quite different.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

Here is the now unredacted complaint: https://ia800508.us.archive.org/12/items/gov.uscourts.cand.419868/gov.uscourts.cand.419868.73.2.pdf https://ia800508.us.archive.org/12/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4... Employee names are still redacted. Given Zuckerberg's views on privacy, one wonders why they should remain "anonymous".

iteratethis 3y ago

The only enforceable claim is regarding usage of minors below the age of 13. All other claims are "soft" violations. Legal but unethical. How do you regulate legal but unethical? You can't. So let's make it illegal. But how? Maximum notifications per day? Deep introspection of the actual content? Good and bad influencers? Curfue? It's impossible to codify this into law, unless you're China.

nojvek 3y ago

I would pay for an adless and algo control version of Facebook, Insta and Twitter/X. With Twitter even if I pay, still get the same number ads. I want to customize what is shown in my feed.

antiviral 3y ago

https://archive.ph/yWkzu https://archive.ph/yWkzu

NickC25 3y ago

Should come as no surprise, honestly. Above all else since turning public, Meta is in the business of making money. It's not illegal to target user's vulnerabilities in order to get the user to spend more time or money on their platform. It's unethical as hell, but it's business 101 - the shareholders would revolt if Zuck came out and said "here's this opportunity to make you all a ton of money, but we're placing our personal ethics above doing this, so we're not". He'd get sued for breach of fiduciary duty. Now, are Meta's product strategies unethical (or questionably ethical), harmful to society, and setting bad precedent? Yeah, I'd agree with that. But the market and shareholders like money.

blackhaz 3y ago
This is like saying - hey, let everyone buy their guns without background checks, because the shop has to make money!
- fnimick 3y ago
  If background checks weren't legally required, no store would be doing them. Every flagged check is a lost sale after all.
AlexandrB 3y ago
Many of those shareholders are themselves Meta users or have kids who use Meta products. Crazy what kind of masochism "the system" encourages.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> shareholders would revolt if Zuck came out and said Zuckerberg has super-voting shares that give him control over Facebook [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/zuckerberg-motivates-supervoting-stock-resistance-2022-10-27/ https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/zuckerberg-motivates-s...
BizarreByte 3y ago
> It's not illegal to target user's vulnerabilities in order to get the user to spend more time or money on their platform. Perhaps it should be illegal to target children in such ways? I'm tired of this argument that companies should be able to do whatever they wish in the name of profit, they need to be reigned with strong regulations.

avalys 3y ago

Do grocery stores “capitalize on vulnerability” when they place name-brand products at eye level? Do carmakers “capitalize on vulnerability” when they advertise pickup trucks as big tough vehicles for tough, outdoorsy men? Do providers of health insurance for pets “capitalize on vulnerability” when they say you need to buy their product if you love your pet? At some point people need to be responsible for their own decisions. And I can’t get that worked up about Meta’s free product.

LeroyRaz 3y ago
There are a great number of regulations placed on products (and their advertising) to ensure customers are informed and protected. Examples: Drinking disclaimers (drink responsibly). Cigarette disclaimers and off putting mandated packet visuals. The traffic light system in the UK (which displays a colour coded breakdown warning of unhealthy food macros on the front of all ready meals). Alcoholic beverages by law having to specify their alcohol percentages. Foods by law having to specify their nutritional content and ingredients. All of these regulations have been introduced to ensure customers are not blind to unhealthy choices (e.g., the traffic light system warning against high sugar content designed to make cheap addictive food). While not always effective, I believe that on balance these regulations make society a better place to live in. Similarly one could envision mandated social media disclaimers and warnings, and to regulate this way would be entirely within the wider norm, rather than something unusual.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> At some point people need to be responsible for their own decisions This is like saying “everything in moderation” in a discussion about nutrition. No shit. We’re trying to find that delineation.
quacked 3y ago
Yes, yes, and yes. However, the three situations you named are targeting adults. Children and teenagers are worth insulating from the full might of advertisers, propagandists, and always-on virtual social circles.
- 3y ago

zooq_ai 3y ago

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media. This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society. You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except overreach. If they really want to cater to their constituents then pass specific laws.

asylteltine 3y ago
Teenagers started having extreme and rampant mental health issues as soon as social media became pervasive. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence though.
- megaman821 3y ago
  Actually, if you look at the data, the debut and rise of Taylor Swift is obviously causing the teenage mental health crisis.
- BorisMelnik 3y ago
  it was bound to happen with any communication platform teens use on the internet, it was already starting in the early 2000s with text messaging, definitely MySpace
  - asylteltine 3y ago
    MySpace is social media
- stronglikedan 3y ago
  The mental health issues correlate with the rise a lot of things besides social media. Certain medications, for one. Correlations aren't causation, of course.
- superkuh 3y ago
  Do you think the rise in rates of diagnosed autism spectrum disorder over the same time period reflect an increase in actual expression of the phenotype in the population? Or was it from an increase in diagnosis and treatment? Do you think the rise in this premise of "rampant mental health issues" reflect an increase in actual expression of the phenotypes in the population? Or was this from an increase in diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues?

xkekjrktllss 3y ago

Marxists have long argued that the problem with capitalism is not that it's the cause of humanity's social problems, but that it systemically exploits humanity's social problems.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

crowcroft 3y ago

The nuance with social media ('digital' media generally I guess), is how hard it is for third parties to verify/audit/understand wtf is going on to be able to prove if anything negative is happening. With broadcast media like TV, I can see what the programming is, and I can watch the same ads that every other house is getting broadcast to know what's being shown to kids (and research companies do this). Similarly for retail media, I can go to a store and see what a retailer is doing. For Meta with AI newsfeeds and targeted ads, it's impossible to know exactly what any one persons experience is. I don't know the veracity of this specific case is but as a minimum I think there should be some legislation that force these companies to be auditable in some way...

splitwheel 3y ago

There is science driving the design of products to make them addictive. For teen girls - the apps are designed to scare them about being socially excluded. For teen boys - the apps are designed to fill their need to master skills. The issue that the government has to deal with with app addictions is self harm attempts by girls (e.g. emergency room visits) and underperformance of boys in the real world (e.g. low college enrollment). If you are trying to make an addictive app, this is a good reference to understand the science: https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788 https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Produc... BJ Fogg is a good reference too: https://www.bjfogg.com https://www.bjfogg.com

superkuh 3y ago
There is a for-profit pseudo-science, much like the anti-gay camps of the 1980s, which is spreading unsupported claims using words like "addiction" in contexts where the medical regulatory bodies and journal literature don't believe the concept applies. These people prey on the irrational behavior of parents scared for their children and try to convince them that things like addiction to a website on a screen is possible. They write popular press books, go on talk shows, etc, to keep the meme (and their funding sources) alive. But the DSM and ICD just don't support it. Neither do the recent literature; at least if you stay out of the pay for publish 3rd tier "journals" these scammers submit their "science" to. And yes, it even applies to media personalities associated with Stanford.
- 4death4 3y ago
  Doesn't BJ Fogg work at Stanford?
- dotandgtfo 3y ago
  What are you stating? I genuinely don't get the point. Are you saying that screens/apps don't cause addiction?
  - haltist 3y ago
    He is saying people need to be more techno-optimistic and stop paying attention to all this fear mongering hack jobs about social media algorithms. These algorithms deliver billions of dollars of value on a daily basis. Money and GDP are more important than depressed teens. It's important to focus on what actually matters: market capitalization and profitability.

dmatech 3y ago

I'd argue that Facebook itself is protected 1A speech (as are the recommendations of the YouTube algorithm). It's not a consumer product, and it's not a defective one. Parents have parental controls, and they should educate themselves on how to effectively use them. I suppose that the broader concern is over precisely what duties a company has to its customers. They obviously have the duty to be truthful when making offers, but every customer relationship will have an adversarial component where each party benefits at the other's expense (or at the expense of third parties). In cases like a bar serving alcohol to customers, there's usually some responsibility to prevent patrons from getting extremely intoxicated and getting in a car. But that case involves a clear signal that someone is dangerous. Facebook doesn't know if someone's grades are suffering or if they're having mental health issues. It doesn't know if it should tell the user to "touch grass".

haltist 3y ago

Yet another hack job about the dangers of algorithms. Do these journalists not understand that Meta is worth at least several billion dollars? Do they not get how much value Meta and all its products have delivered to people all over the world? Just terrible reporting all around.

siliconc0w 3y ago

It seems like basically all marketing and advertising is human pen-testing. Thought is serialized into video or audio and then deserialized back into thought which is evaluated. Sometimes this evaluation causes downstream thoughts and actions (including propagating the vulnerability). The question is whether the resulting action is 'organic' or a RCE - overriding the agency of the actor. I think a core class that should be taught is how to safety deserialize sensory input as to avoid causing RCEs. Or basically 'patching' these known vulnerabilities.

stanislavb 3y ago

Now, please, let’s discover and discuss how TikTok is designed … I think it’s even worse.

ketzo 3y ago
This is why I support a TikTok ban -- we can't discover that. Not with the U.S. justice system and press, anyway, not in any way that matters.
amelius 3y ago
The problem is the freakin' advertising-based monetization model. It makes kids the product instead of the customer. No wonder they turn into addicts.

Curvature5868 3y ago

The dilemma parents are grappling with is this: tablets and smartphones, while beneficial for children's learning and socializing, also expose them to constant marketing and propaganda, even within the confines of their bedrooms, as they attempt to connect with peers or complete tasks. Previously, children's exposure to marketing and propaganda was mostly confined to their entertainment hours, during which they watched television or read magazines. There was at least some hope for moderation. However, "apps" have blurred these boundaries, as the same devices used for education and social interaction are also channels for persistent advertising and messaging, making it harder to limit exposure to just "entertainment" time.

LesZedCB 3y ago
> while beneficial for children's learning and socializing citation needed? or are we just assuming because, well, there's education and social information and apps available on them?
- Curvature5868 3y ago
  I think it is hard to argue that you can't learn anything or socialize on your phone.
  - atoav 3y ago
    This is not what needs to be argued. What needs to be argued is that the form of socializing and learning that can only can come through phones/tablets is worth the negative aspects. As someone who grew up just before smartphones became a thing, I kinda also managed using books and shit.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      no, the claim was that phones and tablets make it easier to learn and socialize, not that you can't without them.
      - deleted 3y ago

ericra 3y ago

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that Meta (and most other big tech companies) have long been in the business of hiring a large number of recent social science Ph.D. graduates from top U.S. universities. People with a lot of knowledge of statistics and some domain-specific knowledge in their fields that could possibly be applicable to their job. The whole purpose of doing this is to create teams of marketing people doing in-house research to figure out how to best manipulate others by maximizing "engagement" or whatever other metric. Isn't this just how all big tech companies operate as a normal business practice? Certainly Youtube is no better when it comes to targeted content and advertisements to children to their detriment. My main point is that I don't think it makes any difference whether Meta has some internal document proving that they specifically target children with these practices. The problem is so much bigger than a single policy or company, and legislatures need to figure out a better way to address the overarching problems. I don't have much faith that these one-off lawsuits will make that much of an impact given that they almost always lead to some fine or settlement that is an acceptable business loss for the company. I'm all for Meta being decimated by a thousand cuts in the form of lawsuits from various levels of government, but at best it would just be replaced with something else unless more regulation exists at the top levels (US / EU / etc).

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

tomohawk 3y ago

The problems of social media go far beyond exploiting teens. It used to be you only saw mob behavior when a large group got together. With social media, you can have a virtual mob going all the time, and ready to materialize IRL for kinetic impact. We now just shrug when things like this happen (Jewish high school teacher forced to go into hiding because of students rampaging). https://nypost.com/2023/11/25/metro/jewish-teacher-hides-in-queens-high-school-as-students-riot/ https://nypost.com/2023/11/25/metro/jewish-teacher-hides-in-...

ShamelessC 3y ago

Nowhere else on the internet will you find so many people defending such obviously bad practices. With such blatantly obvious biases, too.

mandmandam 3y ago
Well... There's a lot of people defending an active genocidal land grab right now, but I take your point. And guess what - Meta is aggressively supporting that too. Not saying this to start a flame thing, just advocating a sense of perspective for the sake of 8,000 murdered children, their mothers, and our shared humanity.

extr 3y ago

Disclaimer: I worked at Meta for a time (not in areas relevant to this lawsuit). My experience was that many people working there also have children, cared deeply about this issue, and wanted to find ways to solve it.