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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 vulnerab

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.
- liquidpele 3y ago
  It’s also BS. Companies have branding and PR teams because they know it matters for profits. The issue with meta, twitter, etc is their real customers are advertisers. They can piss off users, and just pretend some % of bots are users. And let’s be real, few marketing companies are held accountable to their level of actual impact.
- megmogandog 3y ago
  I didn't read the comment you're replying to as endorsing Meta's actions, but rather stating that it is the only thing you should expect given the current lack of regulation.
erellsworth 3y ago
I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I would suggest that this kind of thinking is largely at the root of a lot of society's problems. Big corporations have become almost as powerful as governments in many respects. They are integral to our lives in a myriad of was we probably don't even notice. Yet we don't just allow them to be completely amoral, we expect them to behave that way, almost demand that they do. The result is that we have a lot of amoral institutions playing a key role in our society.
GlibMonkeyDeath 3y ago
Just as putting actual cocaine in Coca-cola at first also optimized shareholder value. And it was perfectly legal, and not really even considered unethical - heck, it boosted energy, the user gets a beneficial service! Of course, we know how that worked out. What is galling is that Meta absolutely knows it is creating a bunch of cocaine addicted children.
- megaman821 3y ago
  Or Coca-cola was made using the coca leaf and the kola nut for flavor and energy reasons. The coca leaf has trace amounts of cocaine in it but is not like they were mixing cocaine powder into their drinks. They still use the coca leaf today but with the cocaine part bred out. Bringing up wrong historic points about "evil capitalists" doesn't really help your case against Meta.
  - GlibMonkeyDeath 3y ago
    Hmm, let me scan my words again - did I say they were evil capitalists or used cocaine powder? ...Nope don't see that anywhere. They used a natural product that contained cocaine. They very much "put this in" their drinks. The analogy is actually excellent because probably the early makers of Coca-cola didn't understand the dangers of what they were doing, either.
floatrock 3y ago
> "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. having a social media company that's a B-corp would be a nice world.

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.

liquidpele 3y ago
It’s also BS. Companies have branding and PR teams because they know it matters for profits. The issue with meta, twitter, etc is their real customers are advertisers. They can piss off users, and just pretend some % of bots are users. And let’s be real, few marketing companies are held accountable to their level of actual impact.
megmogandog 3y ago
I didn't read the comment you're replying to as endorsing Meta's actions, but rather stating that it is the only thing you should expect given the current lack of regulation.

erellsworth 3y ago

I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I would suggest that this kind of thinking is largely at the root of a lot of society's problems. Big corporations have become almost as powerful as governments in many respects. They are integral to our lives in a myriad of was we probably don't even notice. Yet we don't just allow them to be completely amoral, we expect them to behave that way, almost demand that they do. The result is that we have a lot of amoral institutions playing a key role in our society.

GlibMonkeyDeath 3y ago

Just as putting actual cocaine in Coca-cola at first also optimized shareholder value. And it was perfectly legal, and not really even considered unethical - heck, it boosted energy, the user gets a beneficial service! Of course, we know how that worked out. What is galling is that Meta absolutely knows it is creating a bunch of cocaine addicted children.

megaman821 3y ago
Or Coca-cola was made using the coca leaf and the kola nut for flavor and energy reasons. The coca leaf has trace amounts of cocaine in it but is not like they were mixing cocaine powder into their drinks. They still use the coca leaf today but with the cocaine part bred out. Bringing up wrong historic points about "evil capitalists" doesn't really help your case against Meta.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 3y ago
  Hmm, let me scan my words again - did I say they were evil capitalists or used cocaine powder? ...Nope don't see that anywhere. They used a natural product that contained cocaine. They very much "put this in" their drinks. The analogy is actually excellent because probably the early makers of Coca-cola didn't understand the dangers of what they were doing, either.

floatrock 3y ago

> "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. having a social media company that's a B-corp would be a nice world.