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TikTok is harming children at an industrial scale
- aliahmed680 1y ago[flagged]
- aliahmed680 1y ago[flagged]
- aliahmed680 1y ago[flagged]
- aliahmed680 1y ago[flagged]
- aliahmed680 1y ago[flagged]
- JimmaDaRustla 1y agoStop framing TikTok, this is a social media problem which will continue to exist even if TikTok is banned tomorrow.
- tonetheman 1y ago[dead]
- bix6 1y agoGreat, Meta next?
- qoez 1y agoWon't someone think of the profits??
- ok123456 1y ago[flagged]
- dmamills 1y agoOr it could be that it doesn't fit into the age demographics. Not many studies on child behaviour are conducted at the Bingo Hall.
- ok123456 1y agoMeta owns Instagram, which is still very popular with people who have most of their original teeth.
- lolinder 1y agoThis is an ignorant assumption about the author's motives that doesn't withstand even the least bit of scrutiny. Meta came first under Haidt's crosshairs and has been targeted since this article was released. Snapchat was targeted with a partner piece to this one yesterday: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat Haidt isn't anti-China, he's anti-all-social-media.
- sanderjd 1y agoIf you have read anything Haidt has written, you'll probably note that this implied criticism of him being only anti TikTok is quite far off the mark.
- Xelbair 1y agoHopefully all social media. and all of them should be run by non-profit organizations unconnected to any charity nor politically motivated organization nor state.
- rvz 1y agoAgree with this. All of them. That includes the new ones such as Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon. No exceptions.
- BlueTemplar 1y agoAh, but would you also include NH, Stack Overflow, LinkedIn, GitHub, Quora... too ? (Speaking of, this was important, but I still spent too much time on it on HN... EDIT : heh, as immediately proved by the "posting too fast" rate limiter...) P.S.: Platforms are also a very related but not identical evil.
- lolinder 1y agoHe's already been on Meta for years now: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aafterbabel.com+instagram https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aafterbabel.com+instag... https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aafterbabel.com+Facebook https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aafterbabel.com+Facebo...
- zehaeva 1y agoMeta is currently on trial for antitrust. As was pointed out elsewhere in this post Jon Haidt has been railing about social media for a while now, and has written several books on the subject. https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/ https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/
- bsenftner 1y ago[flagged]
- zaphod420 1y ago[flagged]
- excalibur 1y ago[flagged]
- skyyler 1y agoWhat makes the Chinese government evil in a way that the US Government is not?
- zaphod420 1y agoWhy so much Whataboutism? Can't you just accept the fact that the CCP is Evil?
- skyyler 1y agoI'd like to know on what grounds you're declaring them evil, is all.
- Workaccount2 1y agoWhat makes the Chinese government good in a way that the Russian government is not? These comparisons are so stupid and just meant to derail conversations into the mud of an endless spire of unfaithful subjective comparisons.
- whateveracct 1y agoAdults too
- kelseyfrog 1y agoParents even
- ulfw 1y agoSame goes for instagram reels, the cheapest and shittiest copy seen in a generation
- Ancalagon 1y agoYouTube shorts too
- ulfw 1y agoGosh I forgot those were a thing. Does anyone use this cheaper than cheap copy of a cheap copy?
- hx8 1y agoI hate when people copy other's ideas. Gmail was such a hotmail/yahoo copy.
- ulfw 1y agoGmail was an improvement though. What did Youtube Shorts improve on tik tok exactly?
- hx8 1y agoI don't think it matters if it's better or worse. There are plenty of bad browser based email implementations. I think we should be encouraging companies to borrow and steal good software ideas from each other, because otherwise we end up stifling innovation.
- lacerrr 1y agoI don't know why exactly, but I don't get almost any "watch part 2" content on YouTube shorts. That's actually the only reason I started using it instead of TikTok - those really enraged me.
- danielbln 1y agoI did, before I disabled the watch history which then also disables shorts, effectively. Shorts may be the wish/temu version of TikTok (though increasingly less so), but is absolutely as addictive.
- ilrwbwrkhv 1y agoI would love to first shut off Facebook before we do anything to TikTok.
- Zambyte 1y agoI would love action to be swift and simultaneous.
- MaxHoppersGhost 1y agoBetween TikTok and fentanyl China is covertly doing serious damage to the USA, and most people don't care.
- ziddoap 1y agoBetween Meta/X and opioids, the USA is overtly doing serious damage to the USA, and most people don't care. (In all seriousness, I do agree that TikTok is awful, but I find the fascination with TikTok while ignoring all other social media and their dangers to be interesting)
- apercu 1y agoLook, I hate the current admin deeply, but China is very much not our "friend"
- ziddoap 1y ago>but China is very much not our "friend" Sorry, but which part of my comment implied that I think they are?
- bee_rider 1y agoExtremely few countries are “friends.” Maybe the past Canada/US relationship could have been considered legitimate friendship between two countries, but it was a very rare thing. China is just a competitor, not some sort of boogeyman. The US is a competitor with a lot of countries. Maybe they should ban our social media, but for whatever reason that is mostly not done. If we want to set that as the convention, it is certainly worth considering.
- ekianjo 1y agoKids don't use X and Facebook is for their grandparents now
- xnx 1y ago> Facebook is for their grandparents now I use Facebook for the local buy nothing group. Everytime I open Facebook I'm shocked by the manipulative AI slop (person in a boat pulling barnacles off a dolphin that's standing up in the water) that shows up in the first screen. I'm terrified that grandparents who vote are engaging with this stuff.
- magicseth 1y ago[flagged]
- tyleo 1y agoHonestly the message seems pretty tone deaf. I feel like each subsequent social media platform has been the next example of, “doing it right.” Only to ultimately fall into the same footsteps as predecessors. I don’t mean to say it’s a bad idea, but your promotion of it in this thread doesn’t land with me.
- athorax 1y agoHmm, yes. Serving AI slop to children is certainly what we need in these trying times.
- squigz 1y agoI think more harm is being done by everyone retreating to their own echo chambers, and being unwilling to have their views challenged; then they forget how to discuss things rationally and reach a compromise. This also applies to parenting, which is why people instead turn to products such as these and insane privacy-destroying laws, instead of... talking to their children; developing a trusting relationship with their child where the child can talk to their parent (and vice versa) about what they're seeing online, what they believe, etc.
- tehjoker 1y ago[flagged]
- ferguess_k 1y agoOK let's ban social media and roll back to 20 years ago. I'm perfectly happy with that. With social media it's so easy to manipulate than emails, websites and phones. Technological advancement is not always good (for ordinary people).
- commandlinefan 1y agoLets ban TV, video games, rock and roll music and dungeons and dragons, too. When I was growing up, those were what was harming children at an industrial scale.
- TFYS 1y agoI guess nothing can ever again harm us now that it turned out those things didn't, nice. Do you have a link to the studies that say those things didn't do any harm, btw?
- just-working 1y agoTV, video games, rock and roll music, nor dungeon and dragons were specifically designed for compulsory use, reduced the users' ability to focus, or exposed them to the kind (or sheer quantity) of harmful material that TikTok does. You could get reprieve. With TikTok on mobile, it's ubiquitous.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoWell, TV might have been. But then TV was pretty bad for us.
- jajuuka 1y agoTV, video games and rock and roll music is just as ubiquitous as TikTok. All of these things are on the same mobile device. They are also designed for compulsory use and can expose them to harmful material as well. Nobody writes a song you only want to listen to once or a game you only play for 10 minutes then never again. This type of hyper fixation on TikTok is pop science and self soothing. It springs from the generational anxiety that the kids are not okay and something must be wrong with them. TikTok can be that boogey man for boomers, gen x and millennials. Same as older generations felt about TV, video games, rock and roll music, and D&D.
- greenavocado 1y agoThe main reason TikTok is being targeted is because it doesn't silence pro-Palestinian perspectives on the conflict. This is a direct threat to the leadership of the people in charge because it fractures their narrative they work tirelessly to promote (the perpetual victim).
- CivBase 1y agoWasn't the previous ban put in place by the Biden administration? And then Trump flipped sides to become the savior of TikTok or something like that? Doesn't exactly align with your claim.
- greenavocado 1y agoOf course it does. https://www.instagram.com/p/DIepR0EMuRN/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DIepR0EMuRN/
- CivBase 1y agoThen why does the current administration keep suspending the ban?
- tstrimple 1y agoBecause they stroked his ego. Just like other tech leaders are attempting. > "In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive," the company said in a statement. "It's a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States." https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-restoring-service/story?id=117857636 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-restoring-service/sto...
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- Henchman21 1y ago[flagged]
- krapp 1y ago[flagged]
- rolodexter1 1y agoSo is YouTube
- micromacrofoot 1y agoabsolutely, people are saying what about facebook, instagram, etc... but youtube has a much bigger impact on children than any of the older social networks
- LunicLynx 1y agoInstagram is just as bad, meaning it should be put to the same scrutiny. It’s not ok just because it’s from the US
- verdura_low 1y ago[dead]
- margorczynski 1y agoTikTok, Snapchat, Meta (FB, Instagram) - all this garbage needs to go, at least for anyone younger than 18. We have a plethora of evidence on how destructive social media has been for (especially young) people and still nothing is being done about it.
- avodonosov 1y agoYoutube (esp. shorts)
- sho_hn 1y agoI think it's because a lot of adults cannot empathize with the lack of self-regulation in children and young adults. They imagine themselves being able to reject the social media firehose (whether true or not ...) and have no real model of being in a formative state.
- radicalbyte 1y agoSorry but have you seen "most adults"? They're the worst. It's how we have America ran by a guy who makes Idiocracy's president look amazing.
- sho_hn 1y agoI know. I guess I tend to focus on the adults who I think are in principle trying and reachable, because I think there we can make a difference by popularizing the right information.
- red1reaper 1y agoImpliying those are adults and not oversized children /s
- hermitShell 1y agoI was like this(having a lack of self regulation when young), in NA our philosophy leads us to think we have lots of ‘free will’ but our will is not arbitrarily strong and this should be our model of self. Celebrating individualism is good but taken too far makes us think ‘oh I could quit heroin at any time, it’s just a question of willpower, which is the best virtue’
- ycui1986 1y agoALL social media are harming children at industrial scale.
- sanderjd 1y agoThe author of this blog is one of the leading proponents of this idea! I'm really starting to think all these whataboutism posts are bots. It just seems too hard to believe that so many people would come here to make this same idiotic point in response to a post by this particular author.
- tgv 1y agoYou hear the addiction speak. These people are afraid their dependency may be taken away from them.
- smnthermes 1y agoCherrypicking? What about all the TikTok content promoting body positivity, etc?
- criddell 1y agoIf you have studied the matter and have research showing the positives of Tik Tok outweighs the negatives, publish it!
- nachox999 1y agotiktok bodypositivy videos or an IQ > 80, choose one
- smnthermes 1y agoIQ is 80% heritable.
- tptacek 1y agoFirst of all, no it's not. Second of all, whether you wear earrings is drastically more heritable than IQ. A good rule of thumb: unless the thread is literally about bioinformatics, the concept of "heritability" is probably an unuseful distraction.
- SoftTalker 1y agoBody positivity is a myth. Being obese is not healthy or anything to celebrate.
- smnthermes 1y agoPeople like you are the cause of the problems described in the article, not TikTok.
- yimby2001 1y ago[dead]
- callc 1y ago> But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text. Incredibly hilarious. Only leet hackers can pull this off though, same as pressing F12 in the browser to hack the mainframe!
- xnx 1y agoHow is this still happening?
- noisem4ker 1y agoAdobe Acrobat even warns you if you pick black as highlighter color!
- SoftTalker 1y agoMaybe it should instead do actual redaction? Or at least ask if that's what the user wants?
- mbreese 1y agoI think that's actually hard... because you have to know what the text is you're redacting to get the spacing for the letters right. You want to redact specific words, but keep the rest of the document the same. This means that you need to know the letters (and their order due to kerning). The best way to redact a PDF is with a printer, a sharpie marker, and a scanner.
- prashnts 1y agoBetter to draw boxes, print, then scan. I reckon it will somehow be possible to see through the sharpie -- for example change in shine.
- noworriesnate 1y agoWhile I don’t agree with the whole “Palestinian views should be censored” thing, that might be the ticket we need to set a precedent for regulating children’s access to social media. That’s the thing about politics—you have to be willing to make compromises with people you don’t see eye to eye on. If your principles get in the way of making compromises that could help, you’re letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Something to think about.
- xg15 1y agoReminds me of the "stimulus" cheques during Covid. Giving people money so they can pay rent and buy food during lockdown? Preposterous! Giving people money so they can "stimulate the economy"? Now we're talking!
- bmurphy1976 1y agoPlease add YouTube to the list. I'm watching my kids' brains slowly melt as they go from YouTube short to YouTube short like little crack addicts trying to get their next fix. Throw in a bunch of AI generated bottom of the barrel swill and I'm on the verge of blocking YouTube entirely yet again. I blocked YouTube for years because of all the garbage child targeted auto generated videos that were flooding the platform. It's very frustrating because there is a lot of good content that I would like them to continue to have easy access to, but the cost of entry is way too high.
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- sanderjd 1y agoThe author of this blog wrote a whole freaking book about exactly this! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. How is this like 95% of the comments here, as if Haidt didn't write an incredibly well known book about how all of this is bad!
- Apocryphon 1y agoBecause even though he is reposted here every few months not everyone has deigned to actually read any of his stuff
- sanderjd 1y agoThat's fine, but if you're going to post "now do X" in response to a criticism of Y, it behooves you to understand whether the author might have already opined on X.
- lolinder 1y agoMost people here didn't even follow the link and are just responding to the title. They don't know who wrote the piece, much less what it actually says.
- salynchnew 1y agoRelated critcism of the book and the authors of this site: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/07/why-academics-are-annoyed-with-jonathan-haidt-again.html https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/07/why-academics-...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- CharlesW 1y agoGreat read, thanks for posting. What I like about it is that while it notes Haidt's ideas get flimsier the closer they're examined, it also thoughtfully gives him credit for a more important observation — that the increasing loss of societal structure is the actual and larger problem (and seemingly the target of his next book), with social media as one of many symptoms or contributors, depending on how you look at it.
- seydor 1y agothe same old story repeating with every generation. historically however, none of the 'devilish technologies' was banned
- tomaskafka 1y agoLike cocaine drops or widespread smoking? Or leaded gasoline? Or forever chemicals?
- setgree 1y agoHaidt is not the world's most careful data analyst [0], so a determined skeptic would probably not find this persuasive. But I think he's been directionally correct about all his major points in the past decade: * Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms [1] * Social media is making many people a little worse off and it makes some people a lot worse off * having our phones on us all the time is bad for just about everything that requires sustained attention [2], including flirting and dating [3] * Technology won't solve this problem. AI will make things worse [4]. If TikTok gets banned and some slightly more benevolent version takes it place, we're still headed in the wrong direction. What we need is culture change, which Haidt is trying his darndest at. Hats off to him. [0] https://matthewbjane.github.io/blog-posts/blog-post-7.html https://matthewbjane.github.io/blog-posts/blog-post-7.html [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/business/jonathan-haidt-smartphones-coddling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/business/jonathan-haidt-s... [2] https://thecritic.co.uk/its-the-phones-stupid/ https://thecritic.co.uk/its-the-phones-stupid/ [3] https://www.sexual-culture.com/p/its-obviously-the-phones https://www.sexual-culture.com/p/its-obviously-the-phones [4] https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/726709657/sometimes-fascinating-sometimes-excruciating-fall-hums-with-energy#:~:text=But%20his%20best,its%20best%20moments. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/726709657/sometimes-fascinati...
- csours 1y ago> Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms This one is VERY morally and emotionally weighty, and I think you have to do quite a bit of work to ACTUALLY understand what is going on here, but I agree. In the middle of a fight, no one wants to look reasonable. In a fight, reasonable looks weak. In a fight, no one wants democracy, we just want to win. Unfortunately that fight mindset also shuts down the whole thinking part of the the brain; which is how you get people who gleefully vote for a king, because they feel like the king is their champion in the fight.
- pjc50 1y agoIt's also especially vulnerable to "motte and bailey" arguments. Harassing people over competing fandoms is out of order. However, a lot of #metoo gets filed under "cancel culture" when often there is no other working means of getting redress for sexual harassment or assault other than going public, and hoping the perpetrator gets worse backlash than the victim.
- Workaccount2 1y agoChina will need to have 4 undercover agents meet in the same place at the same time. They won't all meet each other, but a series of hand offs. Conveniently, a small local college asian club wants to have a stop asian hate rally on the weekend of the 17th, at a local park which would be an ideal location. Tiktok gets word from Bytedance, who by Chinese law have party members on their board, that this rally needs to be heavily promoted organically to other Asians who live in the area. No ads, if someone talks about it in their tiktok, push it. Push it especially towards beloved Asian influencers with a large follwing. The day comes and the turnout is a total blowout. A sea of Asians filling the park to support a noble cause. 80% of them are there because the CCP wanted them there to cover their operation, but when asked, every single one laughs at the idea that "Tiktok is a tool for propaganda". They say "I have never seen anything that promotes red flag communism or CCP ideals." The scenario above is why the US government wants tiktok banned. The privacy stuff is second and the screen addiction stuff a far far third.
- Bukhmanizer 1y agoYou think that TikToks strategic advantage is being able to coordinate “seas of Asians” so that undercover Chinese spies can meet, and presumably since all Asian people look alike no one will be able to know?
- SoftTalker 1y agoIt's one example. More generally, think of any case where directing public attention in a particular way might be advantageous.
- Workaccount2 1y agoThe takeaway is that you can be a useful pawn while being totally unaware of it. Kim Jung Un had his brother assassinated by local actors who were hired to star in a prank video series in Malaysia. They killed someone while being totally oblivious. An extreme example, but these entities are way smarter than the average "I never see propaganda" tiktok user. It's totally idiotic to trust them, especially authoritarian governments.
- internet_rand0 1y agothe panda is dissatisfied tiktok is geofenced
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- internet_rand0 1y agothere are two kinds of hackers those with children those without as a hacker without children because i got priced out of the market, why should i care about what tiktok does or ceases to do? honest question, if tough to answer or maybe i'm only trying to explain why I don't have a model of being in a formative state.... I mean, dogs don't use tiktok
- entropicdrifter 1y ago>as a hacker without children because i got priced out of the market, why should i care about what tiktok does or ceases to do? Because you want to live in a society where people have the attention spans necessary to e.g. drive cars safely without distraction and you want people to not be so vastly ignorant at scale that they collectively endorse or tolerate fascist behavior from governments and corporations?
- micromacrofoot 1y agohave you considered the fact that you have to co-exist in the same space as other people, and that negative societal outcomes can also harm you?
- PeterCorless 1y agoMy favorite part is how incompetent they were in handling the redaction: "But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text. It is great fun to do this — try it yourself! Or just read our version of the brief in which we have done this for you."
- fny 1y agoI'd venture to guess this was deliberate. What would you do if you want to convince the public but can't technically share the evidence?
- PeterCorless 1y agoHanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence." https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/hanlons-razor https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/hanlons-razor
- yapyap 1y agoI think a tangential proof of this that is very telling and does get brought up often enough (but I’ll repeat it oncemore just in case) is that they have a different app in China, that’s the Chinese tiktok; Douyin. Made by the same company and although it has short form content all the same the difference is that the algorithm in China is designed for Nationalist content, educational content and is restricted to 40 minutes a day for minors. This is like the children of silicon valley CEOs growing up without phones and tablets and such but on a worldwide scale. It’s frighteningly genius to be honest, douse the next generation of countries you are competing with with quick dopamine hits till they are basically just existing to swipe, scroll, etc and then rake in all the power for yourself / your own country.
- tstrimple 1y agoDouyin follows Chinese law which is why it has these restrictions. TikTok does not so it isn't allowed. Kind of weird what happens when countries pass legislation around activities they don't want instead of just trying to ban a foreign app while allowing all of the same dark patterns in the domestic competition. China just does a better job of protecting its citizens from this sort of thing. The US could have laws around social media for children like China, but they are more interested in perpetuating the yellow scare and maximizing profit.
- ArinaS 1y agoThis is NOT a productive discussion in this thread.
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- hello_computer 1y agoforeign adversary my ass. our sons of bitches don't like competition from their sons of bitches. add facebook and youtube and twitter and twitch and... to the list, and i'll get on board.
- Havoc 1y agoInstagram isn’t far behind when it comes to questionable content.
- puppymaster 1y agonot just children. just go to testosterone sub and we have been getting weekly posts from 16-18 years old looking to inject due to tik tok gym bros. They are literally destroying their body.
- nekochanwork 1y agoI don't disagree with the claim that brainrot literally rots brains. But, I strongly oppose laws that ban social media on the grounds of "protecting children." Parents are fully capable of monitoring and regulating their children's internet usage without Daddy Government getting involved.
- codydkdc 1y agothis is a bad argument in the abstract. "drivers are fully capable of navigating intersections without Daddy Goverment getting involved" so we shouldn't have traffic laws and stop lights the evidence says otherwise. I agree an outright ban probably isn't the best solution
- AlexandrB 1y agoI would argue that traffic laws and signage is more about efficiency than capability. Not every country has a culture of following traffic laws and people still manage to navigate motor vehicles around somehow. My personal experience with this is from Mexico where, in heavy traffic, lanes are not really a "thing" and people will pack their vehicles in wherever possible. This leads to much more chaotic traffic flow and more unexpected stops though.
- hnpolicestate 1y agoThe correct argument has become taboo in our technocratic puritan age. The only word that matters now is SAFETY, no matter the collateral damage.
- charlie90 1y agoExcept parents can't control what their children's peer's internet usage is. A common argument to let kids use social media is that their friends use it and they would be left out. This problem can't be solved by individuals, it needs collective action.
- tstrimple 1y agoAnd some kids feel left out because their parents won't buy them a Stanley water bottle that their peers have. Guess we need to ban Stanely water bottles so those kids don't feel left out. Won't someone think of the children?!
- onetimeusename 1y agoI am surprised how common it is for younger women and teenagers to receive requests for gifting and get sexualized comments which this article mentions. I don't see a lot of people talking about it but I think it would really warp someone's mind to be under 18 and be receiving requests for foot pics, "spoiling", and more. I've wanted to put this out there for a long time but felt like no one wanted to talk about it.
- arresin 1y agoI can imagine it would completely warp your idea of men especially if you were young and not able to put it into perspective (even very old people can’t do this). That could have a serious impact on your life.
- astura 1y agoI'm a woman who grew up pre-internet. I started getting catcalled on the street around 12 (and I always looked many years younger than I was). From 12 to around 30 (when I got fat) I wasn't able to leave the house without being harassed on the street. This is just a new medium for a very old behavior.
- knowitnone 1y agoor is it parents who don't control their children's access to such content?
- _JoRo 1y agoJust children? I've had to block social media for myself because of how addictive it was / how much time I was wasting. I will say though, if you are trying to watch videos more from an educational perspective then it can be useful. Although, I would advise getting an LLM summary of the video, and then speed reading the summary in order to determine if their is any useful content in there.
- BlueTemplar 1y agoYes, but it's still a whole other can of worms when someone else is responsible for your behaviour and relationships with most of the society.
- kobenni 1y agoCould you give a description of how you block social media? All methods I found so far can be undone within seconds.
- psteinweber 1y agoFor me apps like Opal work really well.
- nicbou 1y agoRemove app, block website like it's an ad, parental controls, unfollow everything, log out, forget credentials, delete account. You don't need to make the website unreachable, only to delay the impulse for long enough.
- smeeth 1y agoWhen we talk about harm on the internet, we often separate the activity from the harm, e.g., a problem with [activity] is that it could cause [harm]. But it's now clear that the activity is the harm. The issue isn’t that using TikTok might make you addicted; the issue is that you are using TikTok. Just as there’s no such thing as responsibly huffing paint fumes, there’s no such thing as responsible social media use, only sub-diagnosable use.
- electrondood 1y ago> An internal presentation on the 2021 strategy for TikTok describes the company as being in an *"arms race for attention"* We have a collective psychological experiment in the form of social media, but short-form content combined with an endless scrolling feed is functionally identical to the experiment with the rat pressing the cocaine button. It is not beneficial for the population to have an increasingly shrinking attention span. If you can't pay attention for 30 minutes to look up candidate position while voting, or you can't even be bothered to pay attention to that boring "politics stuff" in the first place, then we have a major problem.
- openplatypus 1y agoTikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter ... no need to single out TikTok. They are all equally bad.
- jampekka 1y agoThis is in the footnote 12: "Of course, if TikTok is removed, many children will just move to TikTok’s competitors: Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. This is why it’s so important for countries to follow Australia’s lead: raise the age for opening social media accounts to 16 and require the companies to enforce it." But indeed focusing on TikTok is probably counterproductive for establishing general regulation. Why not just apply the same regulation to TikTok?
- micromacrofoot 1y agoThey're not actually, many more children use tiktok than the others
- uuddlrlrbaba 1y agoI love the parents in the tech community. They had unfettered computer and internet access which formed them into the successful people they are today. But they were special and their circumstance was special and their kids are not allowed to use the internet because now its bad. old_man_yells_at_cloud.jpg
- marcellus23 1y agoLots of people in the tech community also struggle with attention and social disorders. Being good at computers is not the only thing that matters in life.
- ccozan 1y agoYeah but this is the old debate old vs new. Plus is not the kids is the parents. Let me give another example: a nice village where I spend my childhood. Every day on the streets, forests, you name it. No time/hours limit, no space limit - play until fully tired. Now, visiting again, there are no kids on the streets. I thought to ask my relatives and people I know. And I find out that is not that kids do not want to play outside, they are _not allowed_ to play outside!!. Why? "the kids are now kidnapped from the street" - "how?" "I heard from a neihbour from her cousin that lives in the village 10km that this happened!" ( not true - the kid got in a black car which was the uncle showing of his new BMW )..". Another example "Rapist are now free!" ... "no way!" "Yes, yes, this happened" ( was a case 3 years ago in a city 30 km away - a normal man got in a quarrel with a girl and the little mischevious said to get away that he touched ...no comment ). yelling_and_pulling_hair.tiff
- JKCalhoun 1y agoIt's true, by the time I was in college, I did have unfettered access to USENET. ;-)
- bryanhogan 1y agoIt's not that the internet is bad, the internet is very different from what it used to be. Apps using mainly algorithmic based recommendations, such as TikTok, use that and other dark design patterns to exploit users more than ever before.
- ThinkBeat 1y agoI do not disagree that tiktok is a negative experience for anyone. However the hyperfocus on Tiktok these investiationds had on tiktok is entirely clear from the context. What should be mentioned in an article ccondemming tiktok is that most other social media young people may try are horrible as well. The amountr of sexual explitation that takes place on snapchat is quite staggering from what I have read. I do not see how Tiktok would be any less of a threat and cause less harm if it is partially owned by a US company. There is no evidence that US social media doing a fanastic job avoiding harm for kids and teens. I would go so far as to say modern social media is nearly founded on the idea of addiction, and endless attempe at behavioral manipulation to sell ever more ads.
- oxqbldpxo 1y agoAs new tech, Facebook gave us Trump, I cannot imagine the nemesis that ChatGPT will bring about.
- simonw 1y ago> We conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,006 Gen Z young adults (ages 18-27). We asked respondents to tell us, for various platforms and products, if they wished that it “was never invented.” [...] and the most regretted platforms of all: TikTok (47%) and X/Twitter (50%). Ouch, Gen Z really hate Twitter.
- jwmoz 1y agoSocial media is hurting all of us on a worldwide scale. It's a shame because there are good sides to it too.
- RKFADU_UOFCCLEL 1y agoHow do I pretend to fit in here, what is the actual number one proof that some random websites are "causing serious harm" to children? I had to stop reading to stop my blood from boiling at the quote below, before making it to the slew of legal pontification. > As one internal report put it: >> “Compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” in addition to “interfer[ing] with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”1 This doesn't prove or imply anything. They can believe they are killing people (and probably do, especially with the "large amount of users = woah, i'm god" effect). It still won't be true unless they actually are (which I doubt, but I have never seen this supposedly ground breaking social media webpage before). There are companies causing actual harms on the internet and those are the ones censoring everything and spying on users (coincidentally, not to be a point against this thread) and making false narratives of why everyone needs to buy their spying product and put it on their web page and require using google chrome or mozilla firefox to view the website to be compatible with their spyware. Edit: I just scrolled through and only read the CSAM part because that's the only big enough bait to get me to read it and: > PARA 112: these leaders knew about agencies that recruited minors to create Child Sexual Abuse Material and commercialized it using LIVE. That sounds incredibly unlikely, when you interpret it at face value. So you're saying some good boy CS grad like everyone on HN - the most milquetoast people on the planet - just went from being afraid of even publishing easily rebukable misinformation, to knowingly assisting people in the most punishable crime on the planet? > PARA 114: TikTok has long known that virtual gifting is used as a predatory grooming tactic on LIVE. TikTok has internally acknowledged that “perpetrators tend to use tactics such as gift giving, flattery, and gifting money to win the trust of minors.” Are we supposed to conclude that "gifting" causes child sexual abuse? Okay, then what about the fact that being able to communicate at all does?
- erelong 1y ago> In this post we argue that Americans should welcome the disappearance of TikTok because the company is causing harm to children, adolescents, and young adults at an industrial scale. protip: this isn't the reason people are trying to ban the app, and it shouldn't be banned. Currently I think you have to be 13+ to go on the app. If you think it's harming kids as the reason to ban it, you could advocate maybe for 18+ access instead. The fact this isn't the advocated change, to me suggests that's not the reason why people are trying to ban it (concern for children's well-being). If this were the case, you'd also have to ban probably the other U.S. social media. It's probably also important to note how much good social media does by freely sharing valuable information (while people focus on the negative info that's shared).
- hnpolicestate 1y agoThe content on Tik Tok is far superior to YouTube shorts and IG reels. There are even memes about it. Shorts and especially reels is geared more towards a millennial to boomer audience.
- Julesman 1y agoTL;DR If you have a kid, please be a parent.
- bhouston 1y agoThe world my kids inhabit, they spend most of their time on SnapChat.
- lolinder 1y agoFunnily enough, just yesterday the authors posted a follow up to this piece focusing on Snapchat: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat
- dang 1y agoThanks! I think it makes more sense to have a thread about the recent article, especially since some of the comments in the current thread are criticizing the author for focusing only on TikTok, which is obviously not true.
- kypro 1y agoI hold the opinion that any parent willing allowing their child use content apps like TikTok and YouTube unsupervised are knowingly harming their children and should be ashamed of their behaviour. And if this is you then shame on you. It's honestly shocking what kids are watching on these apps. "Brain-rot" is obviously a funny euphemism that's come about for this content in recent years, but it's a pretty good description of reality. I watched a kid last weekend skipping YouTube every 30 seconds because he couldn't concentrate beyond a minute, and the content he was watching included a video featuring a dude who lives a house full of piss bottles. The kid in question is 7 for context. The fact his mum just allows him to do this for hours on end I think is disgraceful. It's so obviously doing him harm and despite the vast majority of people being aware that these apps are harming children for some reason (I guess because it's legal) there is no moral outrage. It's vile parents are doing this to their children.
- troyvit 1y agoIs it TikTok harming the kids or families who don't regulate their kids doing the harm? In other words if I leave my kid alone in the house with a liquor cabinet, and the kid gets drunk every day, did the liquor do the harm or did I? That's an imperfect analogy though, because -- at least in the U.S. -- our society has already aligned itself such that our institutions and our devices raise our kids, not our families. As long as we keep that norm, then in a nation that values free speech and capitalism as much as the U.S. does, we're certain to have this problem. So as another commenter said, if we ban TikTok something slightly more benign will take its place, and that's because we aren't dealing with the real issue: we don't raise our kids anymore. Personally I look at the commonality of nuclear families[1] as a big culprit here. Once you isolate kids from aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents you're left with just the parents to raise them. Those not rich enough to afford daycare have to either split the duty so they can afford a roof over their heads or leave the kids alone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family#Compared_with_extended_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family#Compared_with_e...
- xurias 1y agoThe ship has sailed on hoping for individual solutions. Probably sailed long before we as a species could be considered homo sapiens. I'm not sure why there's this weird reluctance to make systemic changes and improvements, and instead solely pushing the responsibility on every single person that interacts with kids.
- troyvit 1y agoNuclear families became popular long after our species was considered homo sapiens, and even today they aren't the norm for most of our species, so I don't understand what you mean when you say the ship has sailed. I'm all for systemic changes, but lets make them more real than a national firewall, which is only treating a symptom, and instead focus on how we can make raising kids economically and socially feasible again. I never said we should "push" responsibility on "every single person that interacts with kids," however, it wouldn't hurt if families would actually "take" a little responsibility in it. If we had UBI it would be a lot simpler for them to do so, but I'm guessing that's not on many peoples' list of systemic changes.
- throwaway1854 1y agoIn the U.S. people under 18 are allowed to own and shoot firearms, typically rifles. It's silly to allow that that and then complain about a tiny box that shows videos. Parents are responsible for their children. If a parent doesn't feed their kid, they go to jail. If a parent harms or allows harm through negligence to children, the parent is the one who suffers the consequences and has the child taken away. If a parent is giving a child a phone and allowing them to use a harmful product, the parent is at fault and should suffer the consequences. Not the rest of us. I don't know why I should have my access to anything restricted because of bad parents. Parents choose to be parents and have and/or keep children and that is their business. Bad parents should suffer consequences and one of those can be no longer being allowed to be a parent. It's one thing if a provider is specifically trying to get children on its platform - and if a company advertises its services in public places, it's again on the parent to be in control there. Social media companies aren't holding a gun to children's heads trying to get them to join. Kids wanting to do stuff because other kids think it is cool has always existed and that happens when children are not supervised or disciplined. Kids not doing what they are supposed to be doing of their own choice is a parental failure. Someone under 18 shouldn't be able to purchase a cell phone, and if a parent wants to get them a cell phone, then the parent should accept responsibility for everything on that phone. The addiction argument is tired. Anything pleasurable can be addictive. If you want people addicted to less things, design society where everyday life is less boring (getting rid of 2 hour commutes and having more parks would be a good start).
- lcfcjs6 1y ago100 percent agree. These politicians are trying to explain how dangerous TikTok is to our children while allowing general citizenry to own AR-15s. The hypocrisy is unreal.
- sirbutters 1y agoThe next question is, what lobby is more powerful: the gun lobby or the social media lobby?
- itomato 1y ago
- cynicalpeace 1y agoTo all the people saying- "but there are benefits!": Well of course, numbnuts, or else no one would use this stuff. There are benefits to caffeine, nicotine and other drugs that we still agree we shouldn't expose to children. Because the harms outweigh the benefits! Simply don't give your kids a screen. No iPad, no iPhone, no video games, no nothing until they reach a more appropriate age. What that age is might vary from child to child, but it's certainly not 3 years old!
- Glyptodon 1y agoParents who let their kids mindlessly use TikTok, YouTube, etc., are guilty of neglect IMO.
- onemoresoop 1y agoThey’ll pay the price firsthand but sadly we’ll all pay for it.
- bryanhogan 1y agoThe problem is not TikTok in isolation. It's all of the deeply algorithmic based apps out there trying to get you addicted. Apps are able to utilize so many dark design patterns and there is almost no protection, especially for young people.
- MPSFounder 1y agoEver since Meta was found to cooperate with Israel and ever since they tried to buy Tiktok through bids, I became sure all those articles are merely intended to control a social media outlet to control narrative.
- reverendsteveii 1y ago"The Chinese government is using TikTok to harm our kids. Someone else should be using TikTok to harm our kids, and other people should be using other apps to harm our kids." Infinite, algorithmically-curated content is the problem. It's designed to be addictive and manipulative. There's data that shows that stuff like this basically exploits our ability to delay gratification by offering big pops of reward at random intervals. This develops pathways that encourage continued interaction because, essentially, you don't know when a reward is coming but you know that a reward is coming eventually so your brain keeps drip-feeding you from the memory of the last reward. It's similar to how people end up mindleslly bashing away at penny slots all day for years and years.
- lolinder 1y agoWho exactly do you think you're quoting there? I can't find it in TFA, and the article actually says exactly the opposite: that the current US approach is misguided because it focuses on the ownership of the company rather than the fact that the product is just plain dangerous in any hands. Here's an actual quote from the conclusion of TFA, with a footnote: > These harms may not be presented tomorrow to the Justices of the Supreme Court, but we think they should be decisive in the court of public opinion. TikTok should be removed from American childhood. 12 > 12. Of course, if TikTok is removed, many children will just move to TikTok’s competitors: Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. This is why it’s so important for countries to follow Australia’s lead: raise the age for opening social media accounts to 16 and require the companies to enforce it.
- tgtweak 1y agoyoutube shorts, same - instagram reels, same - snapchat stories - same. I honestly think the solution has to be external as these platforms cannot govern themselves and are incentivized to keep your eyes on them at every waking moment.
- lenerdenator 1y agoSomeone should do something, like pass a law. ... Oh wait.
- neallindsay 1y agoThe general problem is media companies that: 1. show you more stuff automatically, and 2. optimize for engagement when choosing what to show you next That optimization works, and they have little incentive to optimize for anything else (like minimizing harm to users). TikTok is not the only offender, but they are the best at it (read: worst for users). It is an additional concern that they are ultimately controlled by a foreign country that is relatively hostile to us and has low transparency to our law enforcement apparatus and regulators. Facebook and YouTube have to at least be worried about breaking our existing laws or annoying our Congress. This reins them in at least a little bit. TikTok actually did annoy Congress enough to prompt bi-partisan action (a very high bar in today's climate), but successfully won a game of chicken, as the law they are violating is officially being ignored.
- JohnMakin 1y agoEach and every one of these points applies to Meta in a huge way: > 1. Addictive, compulsive, and problematic use 2. Depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and suicide 3. Porn, violence, and drugs 4. Sextortion, CSAM, and sexual exploitation 5.TikTok knows about underage use and takes little action Hell, it's even a matter of congressional record! https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211339737/meta-failed-to-address-harm-to-teens-whistleblower-testifies-as-senators-vow-act https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211339737/meta-failed-to-add... it doesn't make it right, but this current political climate's myopic focus on tiktok alone destroys any credibility on this.
- sodality2 1y agoJonathan Haidt has written and published huge amounts of posts, papers, and an entire book targeting social media and technology as a whole (not shying away from American-owned media, if anything, specifically targeting them). Literally yesterday, he published the same format of post against Snapchat [0]. Why does reading a single post targeting one social media destroy any credibility at all? [0]: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat
- like_any_other 1y agoI wish parents blocked such sites on their children's devices, so we didn't have to expand the censorship & surveillance state to protect them.
- awakeasleep 1y agoI didn't realize how backwards and unhelpful the way we talk about this was until I became a parent. In general, we talk about "iPad kids" and blame the tablets and phones themselves. Slightly more sophisticated people will blame the apps like YouTube or Roblox. That stopped making sense to me once I saw the problem first hand with my peers and my own children. The actual issue is parents wanting to (basically) anesthetize their kids so the parents can do something as if they didn't have the kids. Devices and Apps give parents the ability to zonk their kid into outer space for extended periods of time with unlimited videos or games that never end. But that isn't an inherent quality of the device. Like if you block all the apps and just let the kid use the iPad for drawing. Or if you do the YouTube kids thing where they can only watch videos you add to an allowlist. The app makers do hold a lot of responsibility for the defaults on their apps, but the real issue is parents who are choosing to blackhole their kids for extended periods of time. (I am agreeing with you btw)
- like_any_other 1y agoIt would be good to make this as easy as possible for parents - user-friendly, easy-to-install filtering programs, with good defaults. There is of course the danger whoever controls those defaults will abuse them for (unwanted) censorship, like the Comics Code Authority, but that's a lesser danger than giving those defaults the force of law.
- dcchambers 1y ago> The actual issue is parents wanting to (basically) anesthetize their kids so the parents can do something as if they didn't have the kids. 100% this. Many parents are so addicted to their own phones/social media that they need to give their kids iPads and other infinite distraction machines so that they don't have to deal with them and they can spend more time themselves endlessly browsing Instagram/TikTok/etc. But it's not only that. I think modern society has failed parents and kids in a lot of ways. Many public spaces have become so kid-hostile that as a parent you feel like the MOMENT your kid starts acting out you need to break out the iPad just to shut them up and survive dinner or whatever. Guess what? Kids are loud and often crazy and they are LEARNING how to behave. Part of the learning is doing things poorly.
- g8oz 1y agoYouTube shorts and Instagram reels are no better.
- diamondfist25 1y agoI think the first thing that needs to be broken up is Apple’s grip on how screen time can be exported. If screen time data can be accessed, then we can actually know how much time we spend on these doomscrolling social media apps. Only allow X time and no more
- Duanemclemore 1y agoI don't have kids, so I'm not in the trenches on this one. But a personal anecdote that might serve as evidence that other things are possible to everyone navigating tech and kids... When I was a kid living in a trailer in the midwest in the eighties I asked my parents to buy me a secondhand set of 1973 Encyclopedia Britannica from our local library - for $7. It fed the same curiosity and joy of discovering new things that you would want your kid to get from resources online. When we went on trips we always drove. And even if I didn't already have a book or books from the library that I was reading at the time, my parents would suggest I take a volume of the Encyclopedia. And sure enough if I got bored I'd break it out. (Unless it was too dark to read at which point I'd just fall sleep.) That's all to say there are alternatives that cut the gordian knot, which kids can really dig if you frame it right. My parents were both voracious readers themselves, and it didn't take long for their reading to my sibling and I to turn into reading on our own. So when we got something that provided the novelty and agency of navigating your own way through an encyclopedia, it was a huge hit. Of course things are very different today. And I'm not a luddite or even someone who believes that old ways are intrinsically better. But there are ways to feed the many various and often contradictory needs kids have that aren't reliant on contemporary tech.
- BlueTemplar 1y agoOr pre-recorded audio (tapes, CD...) if reading in a wobbly vehicle makes you sick.
- Shocka1 1y agoWell thought out comment here. One of the things I've done with my kids is steered them into screen time with a learning or logical factor to it. Examples are the Chess.com app, Kerbel Space Program, flight simulators, etc.
- nukizz 1y agoInfinite scroll itself should be outlawed anywhere in the world.
- alganet 1y agoThat is absurd. A competing children-harming platform that is not north american? Only the US can harm children in industrial scales. Any threat to its sovereigness will be dealt with by our child soldiers.
- kurtis_reed 1y agoHuh?
- alganet 1y agoI just asked ChatGPT to explain my own response. It got the tone and message good enough. Give it a try! The prompt was "explain me this answer on an article about tiktok harming children" followed by my comment. It will save us some time.
- vroomvrooom 1y ago[flagged]
- jmyeet 1y agoIt's no coincidence that the anti-Tiktok rhetoric is ratcheting up at the exact same time as the Trump administration is fomenting a trade war, and possibly an actual war, with China. Every criticism you can make of Tiktok applies to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Reddit, Twitter or Snapchat. So why single out Tiktok? Easy: because every other company is American-owned and operates in lockstep with American foreign policy. Social media is just an extension of mass media and both play a key role in manufacturing consent [1]. [1]: https://chomsky.info/consent01/ https://chomsky.info/consent01/
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- CommenterPerson 1y agoAt some point in the distant future (if we haven't blown each other up by then,or reduced ourselves to Somalia) .. We will figure out good robust rules and regulations to snuff out this depravity from the tech giants. .. Thankfully, my kid is already in grad school. Maybe in time for her grandchildren.
- SamuelAdams 1y ago> But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text. It is great fun to do this — try it yourself! Or just read our version of the brief in which we have done this for you. I feel like there needs to be more education about redaction and obfuscation tools, namely this black box tool and blurring. It is usually possible to reverse blurring. Not redacting information properly is just embarrassing.
- krackers 1y agoJust saying "draw a black box" is not sufficient, you need to know the implementation details. If the software saves in a layer-based format, that's no good. If there is alpha channel then it's no good. If there is pre-existing compression artifacts that can leak information. You basically need to know that it does the dumbest thing possible when editing the image. I guess mspaint is probably the best option.
- momojo 1y agoFrom the badly redacted Kentucky AG PDF: > As the U.S. Surgeon General recently explained, children’s and parents’ attempts to resist social media is an unfair fight: “You have some of the best designers and product developers in the world who have designed these products to make sure people are maximizing the amount of time they spend on these platforms. And if we tell a child, use the force of your willpower to control how much time you’re spending, you’re pitting a child against the world’s greatest product designers." This struck a chord. I struggle with addictive tendencies and I've been having to re-teach myself that stumbling is not always because "I didn't try hard enough" but because I live in a world thats optimizing for retention/subscriptions/etc...
- motes 1y agoIt's not surprising that TikTok is this damaging--YT Shorts, IG Reels, Twitter's auto play video feature after finishing any video clip originally embedded on a post are all lumped into that for my anecdote here. Throughout the past four years or so, as more of my friends (all range 22-35) in my wider social bubble have started consuming shortform content in general, I've noticed that I'm unable to hold a conversation without my friends making reference to some obscure shortform video they saw. It's fine, I don't think thats the crux of the issue I'm griping about. Reverberating things recently-seen is common in all conversations--I'd be a hypocrite to say I don't do the same. The only shortform content I consume are things only sent to me by my friends who would think I would enjoy it--most of which I do, but I leave my consumption at that. Having my social sphere as a filter in which I consume that stuff is the best way to keep it at arms length, at the expense of knowing everyone around you scrolls endlessly and deeper into it. What's really the issue is when your friends are unable to talk about anything without prefacing that what I've said reminds them of something they saw, or reciting an opinion of someone else without actually forming their own. I'm seeing my creative friends drop their hobbies because they feel like they have no time for it anymore when they don't realize how much time they waste scrolling. While I'm in between tech jobs amongst the chaos of the market right now and moving across the country, two of my closest friends that I'm happy to be working with as they referred me this nice warehouse job alongside them, do nothing but scroll youtube shorts in between our tasks at the office and it's mind numbing and just sad to see. When I met them nearly a decade ago, they were making music and learning new ways to make art and perform, now it's just tiktok slop and memes and bottom of the barrel stuff. I'm just one of two friends out here spurring them to make art again in an environment that is robbing people of their creative thinking, they're having a hard time finding how to even get into that flow state of creativity again. I can't imaging what that's going to do to children who want to scroll and never play.
- neilv 1y ago> As one internal report put it: [...damning effects...] I recall hearing of related embarrassing internal reports from Facebook. And, earlier, the internal reports from big tobacco and big oil, showing they knew the harms, but chose to publicly lie instead, for greater profit. My question is... Why are employees, who presumably have plush jobs they want to keep, still writing reports that management doesn't want to hear? * Do they not realize when management doesn't want to hear this? * Does management actually want to hear it, but with overwhelming intent bias? (For example, hearing that it's "compulsive" is good, and the itemized effects of that are only interpreted as emphasizing how valuable a property they own?) * Do they think the information will be acted upon constructively, non-evil? * Are they simply trying to be honest researchers, knowing they might get fired or career stalled? * Is it job security, to make themselves harder to fire? * Are they setting up CYA paper trail for themselves, for if the scandal becomes public? * Are they helping their immediate manager to set up CYA paper trails?
- calepayson 1y agoIt's the tension between the plush job and the desire to do good. No one wants to be evil but losing a job is hard. Most people will try to push back against something that seems wrong and, when faced with the choice of being Morally Right or Financially Secure, are going to chose the path that keeps food on the table and ensures their kids can keep going to the same school.
- arrosenberg 1y agoWe can keep social media, but the content algorithms must be made illegal. If Meta, et al. were really serious about communities they would focus on that, instead Facebook is a morass of anger and scams intended to feed the beast.
- dang 1y agoRelated ongoing thread: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43704382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43704382
- andrepd 1y agoHow come this is off the front page :/
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- _blz2 1y ago[flagged]
- thewileyone 1y agoJust children?