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A lot of this is about parent/child relationships and making sure our kids won’t feel such a degree of shame about something like this happening that they’d res

A lot of this is about parent/child relationships and making sure our kids won’t feel such a degree of shame about something like this happening that they’d resort to taking their own life, but also unless these companies have some skin in the game, they have no motivation to help combat these types of things from happening.

Syonyk 3y ago
Likely internal opinion based on observed external actions: > Of course not. They're on the platform using it, viewing ads, aren't they? > I mean, it's a shame that some people die, because they won't be able to view ads, and the negative press might impact other people's opinion of the platform leading to potentially reduced ad view, but, heeeeeyyyyyy it's easy enough to prevent certain platform-hostile opinions from being surfaced too much on the platform, you know? "Vagueries of the Algorithm" and all! (insert a large rolleyes here) I'm sure we'll get the Standard Tech Appopollylolly: "We are so, so sorry that you caught us enabling this bad behavior, and we will try to do the work to ensure you don't catch us doing it next time." > The lawsuit, filed in South Carolina state court last week, accuses Meta’s social media platforms of causing a range of problems in children, including depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and eating disorders. It alleges that Meta uses algorithms to aggressively target adolescents and does not do enough to keep them safe from harm. Of course it doesn't. Depressed, low self esteem, and anxious? That's their dream user - likely to be online a lot, and easily influenced by Meta's actual customers, those paying to influence the thinking of others. The more people like that Meta can produce out of formerly well adjusted individuals, the more money they make. Their incentives are entirely opposite that of larger society. Healthy, well adjusted, offline individuals are mostly worthless to Meta, because they're likely to be on the platform far less often. You just need enough that the platform looks like it's well adjusted people on it. I hope the lawsuit succeeds. It's long past time for the social media companies to face the consequences of what they've created for their own short sighted profit numbers.
- theossuary 3y ago
  It's so strange to me that HN has this view of social media, but not other things, like fast food. Fast food uses deceptive advertising and purposefully tries to get kids addicted to their product; which slowly kills them over time. But I remember HN being against sugar taxes, and other laws to help prevent it. But for some reason social media is different? I don't see why it would be. Are the people on HN pushing for social media bans also pushing for unionization, banning pharmaceutical commercials, and preventing fast food stores in highschools? Because if they aren't it seems really hypocritical.
  - jondwillis 3y ago
    I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I think you have presented a false dichotomy, re: meta <> fast food ads <> sugar tax opposition. HN also isn’t a monolith…
  - moritzwarhier 3y ago
    It's because its on an entirely different level, a meta level you might say. As gp correctly put it, they are brokers for human mindshare.
  - rurp 3y ago
    For one, HN isn't a monolith. There are plenty of people on here who agree and disagree on each of the topics you listed. On the topic of social media, I think that there is a widespread belief that we could have tools that give us the social benefits of social media without including all of the toxic manipulative tracking and algorithmic feeds. Unfortunately the market has become dominated by a few maximally greedy companies, which sucks but doesn't have a clear solution.
    - plussed_reader 3y ago
      '...doesn't have a clear solution.' So what are some tools we have available to remove the profit motive from this situation?
      - lupire 3y ago
- throwanem 3y ago
  (If you're borrowing from Nadsat here, I believe it would properly be "appy polly loggy".)
vdaea 3y ago
And what exactly are they supposed to do? Monitor all private communications? At that scale you would need an AI. Once the AI sees something possibly bad, either you have a real person check it (people would complain about privacy, the mental health of those employees having to see awful things) or you have the AI ban (people would complain about lost accounts) No matter what instagram does they lose. So I think doing nothing is the right thing. Maybe the parent should have done some parenting.
- bandyaboot 3y ago
  Well since I don’t have visibility into the inner workings of these companies, I can’t say what exactly they can/should do, but I also don’t accept the premise that the only thing they could do is monitor all private communications. I don’t think it’s impossible that there might be some objective heuristic that could help flag potentially abusive accounts and then put some roadblocks in place to protect minors from those accounts.
  - ajma 3y ago
    isn't that basically what Apple did by using algorithms to scan for CSAM material. Even with the level of trust that Apple has, people weren't ok with this.
tibbydudeza 3y ago
I reckon the son was gay hence the sextortion and his dad political leanings is probably to the right which regards being gay to be worse than being on social welfare. From his website - yep called it. "Brandon Guffey is an unapologetic conservative who shares our passion for faith, family, freedom and life." He is clearly deflecting the blame here.

Syonyk 3y ago

Likely internal opinion based on observed external actions: > Of course not. They're on the platform using it, viewing ads, aren't they? > I mean, it's a shame that some people die, because they won't be able to view ads, and the negative press might impact other people's opinion of the platform leading to potentially reduced ad view, but, heeeeeyyyyyy it's easy enough to prevent certain platform-hostile opinions from being surfaced too much on the platform, you know? "Vagueries of the Algorithm" and all! (insert a large rolleyes here) I'm sure we'll get the Standard Tech Appopollylolly: "We are so, so sorry that you caught us enabling this bad behavior, and we will try to do the work to ensure you don't catch us doing it next time." > The lawsuit, filed in South Carolina state court last week, accuses Meta’s social media platforms of causing a range of problems in children, including depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and eating disorders. It alleges that Meta uses algorithms to aggressively target adolescents and does not do enough to keep them safe from harm. Of course it doesn't. Depressed, low self esteem, and anxious? That's their dream user - likely to be online a lot, and easily influenced by Meta's actual customers, those paying to influence the thinking of others. The more people like that Meta can produce out of formerly well adjusted individuals, the more money they make. Their incentives are entirely opposite that of larger society. Healthy, well adjusted, offline individuals are mostly worthless to Meta, because they're likely to be on the platform far less often. You just need enough that the platform looks like it's well adjusted people on it. I hope the lawsuit succeeds. It's long past time for the social media companies to face the consequences of what they've created for their own short sighted profit numbers.

theossuary 3y ago
It's so strange to me that HN has this view of social media, but not other things, like fast food. Fast food uses deceptive advertising and purposefully tries to get kids addicted to their product; which slowly kills them over time. But I remember HN being against sugar taxes, and other laws to help prevent it. But for some reason social media is different? I don't see why it would be. Are the people on HN pushing for social media bans also pushing for unionization, banning pharmaceutical commercials, and preventing fast food stores in highschools? Because if they aren't it seems really hypocritical.
- jondwillis 3y ago
  I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I think you have presented a false dichotomy, re: meta <> fast food ads <> sugar tax opposition. HN also isn’t a monolith…
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  It's because its on an entirely different level, a meta level you might say. As gp correctly put it, they are brokers for human mindshare.
- rurp 3y ago
  For one, HN isn't a monolith. There are plenty of people on here who agree and disagree on each of the topics you listed. On the topic of social media, I think that there is a widespread belief that we could have tools that give us the social benefits of social media without including all of the toxic manipulative tracking and algorithmic feeds. Unfortunately the market has become dominated by a few maximally greedy companies, which sucks but doesn't have a clear solution.
  - plussed_reader 3y ago
    '...doesn't have a clear solution.' So what are some tools we have available to remove the profit motive from this situation?
    - lupire 3y ago
throwanem 3y ago
(If you're borrowing from Nadsat here, I believe it would properly be "appy polly loggy".)

vdaea 3y ago

And what exactly are they supposed to do? Monitor all private communications? At that scale you would need an AI. Once the AI sees something possibly bad, either you have a real person check it (people would complain about privacy, the mental health of those employees having to see awful things) or you have the AI ban (people would complain about lost accounts) No matter what instagram does they lose. So I think doing nothing is the right thing. Maybe the parent should have done some parenting.

bandyaboot 3y ago
Well since I don’t have visibility into the inner workings of these companies, I can’t say what exactly they can/should do, but I also don’t accept the premise that the only thing they could do is monitor all private communications. I don’t think it’s impossible that there might be some objective heuristic that could help flag potentially abusive accounts and then put some roadblocks in place to protect minors from those accounts.
- ajma 3y ago
  isn't that basically what Apple did by using algorithms to scan for CSAM material. Even with the level of trust that Apple has, people weren't ok with this.

tibbydudeza 3y ago

I reckon the son was gay hence the sextortion and his dad political leanings is probably to the right which regards being gay to be worse than being on social welfare. From his website - yep called it. "Brandon Guffey is an unapologetic conservative who shares our passion for faith, family, freedom and life." He is clearly deflecting the blame here.