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Jury told that Meta, Google 'engineered addiction' at landmark US trial
- Lerc 9mo ago"They don't only build apps; they build traps," Lanier said, saying Meta and YouTube pursued "addiction by design," making his arguments using props like a toy Ferrari and a mini slot machine. These are opening remarks, Perhaps we should wait until they actually present evidence.
- 6stringmerc 9mo agoYes I’m eagerly awaiting the internal emails acknowledging the priorities of revenue over user health too!
- malfist 9mo agoOne of the emails released from discovery already was about how Facebook deliberately trying to cultivate FOMO in teens, specifically sending mass notifications during school hours to make people not on facebook feel like they're being left out.
- elevatortrim 9mo agoThis is wild. I would've thought everyone working in the company implicitly knew what they were doing without no-one needing to mention it but I can't imagine someone being so dumb as to suggesting something like sending notifications during school hours in writing. Could you link to this?
- malfist 9mo agoTake a look at this (facebook saying teens are top priority): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.401490/gov.uscourts.cand.401490.2648.10.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.40... Heavily redacted document talking about the mass notifications: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.401490/gov.uscourts.cand.401490.2648.20.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.40... Here's reporting on this and other documents: https://techoversight.org/2026/01/25/top-report-mdl-jan-25/ https://techoversight.org/2026/01/25/top-report-mdl-jan-25/ HN discussion of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46902512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46902512
- chinathrow 9mo agoHave you ever used YT shorts? No further evidence needed, your honor.
- nmeofthestate 9mo agoMy YT Shorts experience: absent-mindedly watch a few, eventually think "damn, these things suck", tap the "show fewer shorts" link to reduce the chance of absent-mindedly clicking on them again soon. The format, with all its annoying little stylistic cliches, is just too irritating to be addictive. (modern Facebook is even more absurdly un-addictive).
- coffeefirst 9mo agoThe first time I walked into a casino I wanted to vomit. I hated everything about it. The lights, the smell, the sound, every sensory input rubbed me the wrong way. If hell exists, this is it. And yet some people have the opposite response. They get hooked. I suspect it’s the same here. The tactics that are wildly addictive dopamine pumps for their largest cohort actively repel you and me.
- SpaceManNabs 9mo agoPokemon Sleep and Pokemon TCG apps (ran by two different companies) are very annoying with this. I had to drop TCG because it was much worse than Sleep with all the menus. The only reason I keep up with sleep is because it allows me to gamify my sleep and it honestly has a pretty good UI with its calendar view of my sleep patterns. I suppose all "gacha" games use this pattern. I find it interesting that gachapon machines are so ingrained in Japanese culture because it is basically culturally approved gambling. Then again, the West had similar with sports trading cards, which are less popular now. Then again, again, NFTs kinda brought this back for a bit with the randomized drops.
- wat10000 9mo agoFacebook has figured out that I really like videos of people removing rust from badly corroded metal. If they don't mess up and show me something else, then it takes some serious conscious effort to stop.
- bitmasher9 9mo agoLarge portions of the tech sector thrive off the attention economy. If your goal as a product is to have someone spend hours a day everyday engaged with your product, and you focus on a data driven approach to maximize the time spent on the app, then you’ll create something not dissimilar to addiction.
- embedding-shape 9mo agoSupposedly the people working for these companies are "the brightest of the bright" but if they didn't even notice that this was what they were contributing to, what kind of intelligence is even that? Not everyone working there could possibly be so socially inept that they didn't realize what they helped building right? Or are we chalking it down to just missing morals? I feel like I'm missing something here to properly understand why people ended up working for these companies in the first place, even before it started making the news.
- LiquidSky 9mo ago> I feel like I'm missing something here to properly understand why people ended up working for these companies in the first place Money.
- post-it 9mo agoBecause nobody is clocking in and willfully contributing to the addiction machine. They're completing an 8-point ticket to integrate a new scroll-tracking library, or a 5-point ticket to send an extra parameter to the logging system. When there's thousands of people working on a product, nobody feels like they're doing anything impactful.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago> Because nobody is clocking in and willfully contributing to the addiction machine. Are people really not aware of what the company's overall mission, product and impact is? I'm finding that hard to believe. If you accept employment at Facebook, regardless of what department you're in, you know exactly what kind of company you're contributing your time, energy and effort into.
- selfawareMammal 9mo agoNo shit
- DrScientist 9mo agoThis is why we have juries. What's amazing here is the Google and Facebook lawyers think they have a chance to persuade members of the public otherwise.
- timmg 9mo agoIt's true but also (could be) innocent. In the sense that if you A/B test things and look for engagement, you will almost certainly end up with "addictive" systems. I think this may also be why there is so much sugar in American food. People buy more of the sweet stuff. So they keep making it sweeter. I'm not sure who should be responsible. It kinda feels like a "tragedy of the commons" kind of situation.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoI think it's highly unlikely to be 100% innocent. The C-suite has learned not to put so much incriminating stuff into writing (after Apple/Google etc. got caught making blatantly illegal anti-poaching agreements in personal emails from folks like Jobs), so proving that is probably gonna be tough.
- embedding-shape 9mo agoAnd also, does it really matter if it was on purpose or not, the end effect is that same, purposefully designing addictive patterns meant to make people spend more time on it, regardless of the mental health of the person. I can kill a person with a car either intentionally or unintentionally. Of course one is worse than the other, but both are ultimately bad and you should face justice for either of them, even if the punishment might be different because of the motivation/background. But neither should leave you as "innocent".
- giraffe_lady 9mo agoThe definition of innocent you two are using here is absurd to me. This is, at best, willful negligence. No one sat down and drew up a plan for the child screen addiction machine, maybe, but they noticed they were making it many times and chose to continue.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoI agree, but I think even the parent poster's generous definition of "innocent" is a very low bar Facebook still can't jump over.
- farceSpherule 9mo ago[dead]
- superkuh 9mo agoThe jury is using words outside of their medical context in situations that do not justify the word then. In fact, most of society seems okay with this gross mis-use of the term to apply to things that don't actually manipulate incentive salience. We're going to end up with authoritarians in control of all 'screens' just because our schools have done such a bad job of explaining neuroscience. If you think handing the federal government control of all screens is a good idea in the USA you really need to look around. I am not saying that Facebook didn't try. I am just saying that only having access to screens, they would inevitably fail. Screens are very unlike addictive drugs and cannot directly alter neurochemistry (at least not any more than a sunset or any perception does). I strongly dislike the company and have personally never created a Facebook account nor used the website.
- ceejayoz 9mo ago> The jury is using words Mostly not. That's the lawyers' job. The jury listens. > outside of their medical context Well, sure. It's a legal context now. The defense get to make the medical argument, if they like. I think it's a losing one.
- jimnotgym 9mo ago>The jury is using words How do you know what the jury are saying? >outside of their medical context That's because medicine doesn’t own the language. People do. If the jury hear words used wrongly then, as speakers of the language, they can interpret it as they wish. They are about to hear from another attorney who will say the opposite to the first one, and they will decide which was most persuasive.
- alt227 9mo ago> Screens are very unlike addictive drugs and cannot directly alter neurochemistry Screens are able to show you things which give you small short dopamine hits, enough to keep you engaged enough to try get more. This is exactly how addictive drugs, gambling etc all work.
- skirge 9mo ago
- CGMthrowaway 9mo agoA recommender engine that tries to capture and sustain attention in 1-2 second intervals, what else would you call it? The traditional answer is "engagement," but there is a strong argument to me made that intentional engagement (engagement by conscious, willful choice) is not possible, repetitively, for a vast smorgasbord of content spinning by at short intervals
- jeffbee 9mo ago[flagged]
- otterley 9mo agoYou make it sound as though it’s completely harmless. Is there not a single personal or societal harm you can imagine to having videos attuned to your interests constantly being fed to you? “We see that you’re slightly conservative. Next up: a Nazi sympathizer video! Enjoy your ragebait!”
- SpicyLemonZest 9mo agoI can imagine harms like that, absolutely. If I ran Youtube I'd work much harder to evict Nazi sympathizers and avoid ideological rabbitholes. But it's legal to broadcast things that will convince people of terrible ideas. What I don't find plausible is the specific kind of harm alleged in the case discussed in the source article, where having videos attuned to your interests constantly fed to you causes you to become depressed and suicidal.
- otterley 9mo agoIt might help you understand if you have a preteen or teenage daughter. They are extremely self conscious, prone to humiliation, have a very narrow view of the world, and don’t have all the rational capabilities of an adult.
- SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
- myrmidon 9mo agoCurious how this is gonna turn out, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd argue that we basically incentivise companies to cause harm whenever it is unregulated and profitable because the profits are never sufficiently seized and any prosecution is a token effort at best. See leaded gas, nicotine, gambling, etc. for prominent examples. I personally think prosecution should be much harsher in an ideal world; if a company knows that its products are harmful, it should ideally be concerned with minimising that harm instead of fearing to miss out on profits without any legal worries.
- komali2 9mo ago> "This case is as easy as A-B-C," Lanier said as he stacked children's toy blocks bearing the letters. > He contended the A was for addicting, the B for brains and the C for children. I gotta admit, I find this really trivial and silly that this is how court cases go, but I understand that juries are filled of all sorts of people and lawyers I guess feel the need to really dumb things down? Or maybe it's the inner theater kid coming out?
- embedding-shape 9mo agoIt's all about putting things into the juries head that they can remember and draw back to once they're in deliberation. Word-puzzles like those tries to imprint "addicting, brains, children", so those things will be more prominent during the deliberation.
- LanceH 9mo agoCourt is about establishing fact, not discovering truth. Fact is defined by whatever the jury believes.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoJury selection weeds out the enthusiasts who want to be on a jury, the people who can manage to get out of it, and the people who have too much domain knowledge related to the case. The lawyers are performers in a play, to some extent. Theatricality can pay off, in the right amounts.
- quotemstr 9mo ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 9mo ago> It's not possible to be "addicted" to words… Never met a narcicist?
- quotemstr 9mo agoThe state of being a narcissist, in itself, is not something that creates civil or criminal exposure. Nor is being a braggart.
- takklob 9mo ago[flagged]
- quotemstr 9mo ago"It doesn't work", therefore, tyranny? Because the most important thing in the world is the state ensuring people not make bad choices? So any time the system tries something to stop them and it "doesn't work", that's a justification for increasing state power until it works? We're talking about words and images. Addiction cannot enter the body through the eyes and ears. Enjoy your doubleplus goodthink.
- pixl97 9mo ago>Addiction cannot enter the body through the eyes and ears. Please tell me what planet your from, 'cause it ain't earth. -Addiction is a reinforcement-learning pathology driven by dopaminergic reward circuits. Sensory input alone can trigger it. Please for god sake learn about how addiction actually works.
- elevatortrim 9mo agoIf engineering addiction for children is illegal, it should obviously be illegal to target adults too?
- Spooky23 9mo agoThat’s the thing that is so ridiculous. Why is it magically OK to drive harmful compulsive behavior on your 18th birthday. The interns at work talk incessantly about gambling. It’s just weird and wrong.
- pixl97 9mo agoThe answer to that is 'it depends'. We know certain substances like alcohol and tobacco can be/are addictive and yet the product still sells with warnings.
- elevatortrim 9mo agoIn the case of alcohol and tobacoo, I do not think these products are engineered for addiction, they are engineered for taste and addiction is a side-effect. If they could be produced to have the same short-term (< a few hours) effects while avoiding the long term effects (addiction), the companies would (hopefully) choose to do that. I do not imagine these companies to build these products in a way that maximises their addiction. social media platforms however, ...
- pixl97 9mo ago>obacoo, I do not think these products are engineered for addiction, Cigarettes were 100% engineered for addiction. >I do not imagine these companies to build these products in a way that maximises their addiction. Holy hell, you need to go watch the big tobacco trials of the past to see the CEOs knew exactly what they were doing. And then how much they spent on outright buying scientists to say bullshit so they could drag the matter on for years. Tobacco set the stage for companies to use doubt of every kind to hide their intentional actions.
- 9mo ago
- BeaverGoose 9mo agoPeople aren't customers anymore. They are the resource to be mined. Advertisers are the customers.
- dana321 9mo agoAnything where you scroll through posts or endlessly watch short videos is highly addictive. If you think its not and just "similar to addiction", just try blocking these sites in your browser/phone and see how long you last before feeling negative effects.
- jeffbee 9mo agoI really have never understood this. Short form videos are no more or less interesting to me than any other. I also do not find the YouTube main page very compelling, and rarely follow the things that are suggested at the ends of videos. I certainly do not feel ill if I forget to use YouTube for a week.
- direwolf20 9mo agoI've been using YouTube for a long time, and the suggestions are usually things I find interesting.
- jeffbee 9mo agoYeah, they are interesting. They are related to things that I have watched. But I rarely follow them. I just don't see how compelling that presentation is, how it amounts to an invitation to addiction.
- direwolf20 9mo agoYouTube classic isn't generally labeled as addictive. YouTube shorts, which emulates tiktok, is getting that label.
- jeffbee 9mo agoOK. To be honest I appreciate the information but I still can't see it. I clicked on a random short and there are no suggestions at the end of the video, it just plays the same video in a loop forever. Is an infinite loop of "FutureCanoe" making fried chicken the worst these devious cognitive hackers could do to me?
- rPlayer6554 9mo agoIgnoring what I think of the case itself, I hate how many headlines now are just the talking points for one side or the other in a dispute. At least try to pretend you’re being a neutral reporter rather than regurgitating what someone with an agenda says.
- kklisura 9mo agoThe interest of corporations, the interest of capital is above the interest of society at large. Nothing will pan out of this trial.
- rzerowan 9mo agoWill there be any outcome to remedy the situation from this even if actual harm is proven to the letter of the law? Seems not so far back the Sacklkers were proven(?) to have profited and fueled the oiod crisis while colluding with the healthcare industry - and last i heard they were haggling over the fine to pay to the state. While using various financial loopholes to hide their wealth under bankrupcy and offshore instruments. What then the trillion dollar companies that can drag out appeals for decades and obfuscate any/all recommendations that may be reached.
- incahoots 9mo agoAnd before that, it was the crack epidemic—and cigarettes before that. None of this is new tho, just the medium. I recall Philip Morris pivoting their main business when it began hemorrhaging money. Essentially this pivot came in the form of becoming the largest “box-to-mouth” food producers in the world, of course applying the same addictive principles that fueled their tobacco empire to maintain profitability. I doubt, however, social media corps like Meta will follow suit today—mostly because accountability feels more like a suggestion these days.
- lukah 9mo agoI'm not at all familiar with the American justice system, but would the fact that this case specifically describes the targeting of minors with such addictive tactics change things at all?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- incahoots 9mo agoNot really, cigarette companies targeted minors, same with alcohol, they got slapped on the wrist. Worth mentioning this happened during the rise of a neoliberal policy order of checks & balances.
- kayo_20211030 9mo agoIs this a replay of the comics and video games are doing irreparable harm arguments from not too long ago? I find myself in the uncomfortable position of sympathizing with both sides of the argument - a yes-but-no position.
- conartist6 9mo agoThey're not afraid of the idea of programming people. When I worked there every week there would be a different flyer on the inside of the bathroom stall door to try to get the word out about things that really mattered to the company. One week the flyer was about how a feed video needed to hook the user in the first 0.2 seconds. The flyer promised that if this was done, the result would in essence have a scientifically measurable addictive effect, a brain-hack. The flyer was to try to make sure this message reached as many advertisers as possible. It seemed to me quite clear at that moment that the users were prey. The company didn't even care what was being sold to their users with this brain-reprogramming-style tactic. Our goal was to sell the advertisers on the fact that we were scientifically sure that we had the tools to reprogram our users brains.
- Atlas667 9mo agoTo me this is simply a consequence of the capitalist mode of production.
- jerf 9mo agoYes, because governments are so restrained in their use of propaganda. What it is is the consequence of the power existing. 200 years ago nobody was arguing about how to hook people in the first 0.2 seconds of video, but it's not because nobody would have refused the power it represents if offered. They just couldn't have it. It's humans. People want this power over you. All of them.
- ffsm8 9mo agoWell adjusted people so not want that power over other people It's sociopaths and narcissists which want it. And as Atlas667 pointed out, it's also a direct consequence from a capitalistic world view, where it has replaced your morals. This is not in relationship to state propaganda. Multiple things can cause abhorrent behavior, and just because we've identified something as problematic doesn't inherently imply that other unrelated examples are any better.
- skizm 9mo agoAll of these things they're saying are unethical, but not illegal, right?
- bsimpson 9mo ago"I let an iPad raise my kid and now she sucks" is a wild lawsuit premise.
- direwolf20 9mo agoUsually to sue someone for causing harm, they have to actually cause the harm, it can't help hypothetical. So you see lawsuits that are like "I saw this CEO speak on TV and then I relied on this information when deciding to buy the product" Why aren't you asking: why is it possible for an iPad to raise a child? Why is the iPad keeping the child's attention for so long? Is it not because it was designed to? Why was it designed to?
- InMice 9mo agoIs it really landmark tho? First it was nicotine and big tobacco, then the same addiction engineers designed ultra processed foods. Kraft, nabisco, etc all spun off by tobacco companies... Normalizing food addiction in children. And now it's screens and social media. It's the same fundamental physiology but it seems like society can't learn a lesson either. I thought it was kind of pathetic how quickly they shoved ipads into schools with no real long term data, no research whatsoever. Just insane really. And now here we are yet again.
- puzzlingcaptcha 9mo ago"But if we don't engineer addiction, China will beat us to it! It's a national interest!"
- AlexandrB 9mo agoIronically, China actually mandates time limits on its addictive social media: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58625934 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58625934
- youknownothing 9mo agoThis is just one data point, but I once talked to a person who worked for YouTube. I asked him if he had children, he said yes. I asked him if he let them use YouTube Kids and he said "no way, that's completely banned at home". That told me everything that I needed to know. Don't consume your own product.
- Upvoter33 9mo agoWe're going to see the same kind of thing we saw with the tobacco industry - CEOs claiming they had no idea the product was engineering to be addictive. I have even less faith that this anyone will hold anybody accountable though.
- doublerabbit 9mo agoIt's like stoner logic I heard from someone once: "I smoke weed to get high, it's not the weed that gets me high" "Social media is addicting, it's not the social media that makes it addictive."
- notepad0x90 9mo agoThere is no law that dictates these two things: 1) You can't stalk someone deliberately and persistently, using any means, or medium; even if you're a company, and even if you have good intentions. 2) You can't intentionally influence any number of people towards believing something false and that you know is against their interest. These things need to be felony-level or higher crimes, where executives of companies must be prosecuted. Not only that, certain crimes like these should be allowed to be prosecuted by citizens directly. Especially where bribery and threats by powerful individuals and organizations might compromise the interests of justice. The outcome of this trial won't amount to anything other than fines. The problem is, this approach doesn't work. They'll just find different ways that can skirt the law. Criminal consequence is the only real way to insist on justice.
- qnleigh 9mo agoThe probably with 2 is you then need someone to be the arbiter of truth, and the truth is often a hard thing to find. This would end up letting governments jail people they disagree with. How would you write the law to to prevent that?
- direwolf20 9mo agoThe whole point of a court is to find truth. They do it all the time. Actually you would need to prove someone knew something is untrue, because it's innocent until proven guilty. You wouldn't have to prove what you said is true to get let off, just bring enough doubt to ward off your opponent's accusation of untruth.
- notepad0x90 9mo agoI don't get what you mean? proving whether you've done something against someone's interest is already on the books for embezzlement, fraud,etc.. intention and planning are covered under many conspiracy laws. the influence part would need to be proven using internal documents, whistleblowers,etc..
- ChrisArchitect 9mo agoRelated: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46902512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46902512
- tock 9mo agoI mean everyone knows this right? There are even leaked memos. They are public companies who need to grow revenue and they gain that revenue mostly through ads and attention.
- wslh 9mo agoIt’s a matter of time, it could be decades, until we shape those "engineered addiction" similarly to the Tobacco trials.
- rexpop 9mo agoThat's optimistic! I worry the attack on discourse and community has fundamentally undermined democracy.
- exabrial 9mo agoListen, it sounds a lot less evil when you label it "audience engagement" mmk?
- Devasta 9mo agoJust ban personalized advertising and be done with it, they will do any amount of harm so long as it gets a click.
- visarga 9mo agoThey will have personalized feeds for engagement and non-personalized ads, still get the addictive effect.
- lingrush4 9mo agoThat would solve exactly zero of the complaints surfaced in this lawsuit. Companies still have an incentive to maximize app usage regardless of whether the advertising is personalized.
- parsimo2010 9mo agoI am generally displeased with the way social media has evolved, but I'm not in favor of this lawsuit. It seems like a way to blame tech companies for Congress' failure to regulate businesses properly. None of the engineers involved thought of their work as a way to rot the minds of future generations. Their thought process was straightforward- 1. We sell ads to make money 2. If we keep eyeballs on our apps more than competing apps, we can increase the price for our ads and make more money 3. Should we implement limits to kick kids off the app after they've been doomscrolling for an hour? Absolutely not, that would violate our duty to our shareholder. If parents complain, we'll say they should implement the parental controls present on their phones and routers. We can't make choices to limit our income if parents don't use the tools they already have. I'm sorry that social media has ruined so many kids' lives, but I don't think the responsibility lies with the tech companies in this case. It lies with the society that has stood by idly while kids endured cyber-bullying and committed suicide. This isn't something that happened recently- the USA has had plenty of time to respond as a society and chosen not to. Want to sue someone? Sue Congress. Google and Meta are rational actors in a broken system. If you want to change something you should change the rules that they operate under and hold them accountable for those rules going forward. Australia (and Spain) is doing something about it- now that social media is banned for kids under 16 in those countries, if social media companies try to do anything sneaky to get around that you actually have a much stronger case. Now if there were evidence that they were intentionally trying to get kids bullied and have them commit suicide then by all means, fine them into oblivion. But I doubt there is such evidence.
- arijun 9mo agoThat seems like a really bad excuse to void responsibility. Consider a cigarette maker: 1. We sell cigarettes to make money 2. The more people crave cigarettes, the more money we can make 3. Should we make cigarettes less appealing to children? Absolutely not, we would make less money. Parents should just stop their kids from buying cigarettes. Also, people in there last few decades have been using “duty to shareholders” as a way to excuse bad behavior, as if it’s a moral imperative higher than all others. I don’t really see why it would.
- 9mo ago
- shevy-java 9mo agoThis is weird because ... at which point does an addiction start? People used to be addicted to watching TV, right? Well, nobody was made responsible for that. If it is addiction, and I am not necessarily saying this is not, then all websites would fall under the same category IF they are designed well enough to become addictive. Most games would fall under that category too. I don't think this is a good category at all. Both Meta and Google should pay simply for wasting our time here, but the "you designed your applications and websites in an addictive manner" ... that's just weird.
- deepsun 9mo agoNo TikTok?
- direwolf20 9mo agoThey just spent so much money and political capital to steal it from those evil Chinese communists. Who would they sue? The evil Chinese communists who are too far away to enforce a judgement, or the new freedom–loving American owners who only just got it?
- laweijfmvo 9mo agoTikTok settled ahead of the trial.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- carabiner 9mo agoAny tech company funded primarily by ad money is dirty.
- adolph 9mo agoWould it be ironic if Meta and Google were required to add "a landing page that displays information about responsible [social media use]" similar to their policies regarding gambling ads (example below)? https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/15132179?hl=en https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/15132179?hl=en
- squeefers 9mo agoabsolute hysteria from everyone on here
- charcircuit 9mo agoDo they expect social media sites to show less posts of things you are interested or less posts from your friends to make you use it less. They provide good products which people like.
- halestock 9mo agoThere's a difference between "things you are interested in" and "things that will make you addicted".
- munificent 9mo agoHow do you know that people like them? If the answer is "well, they keep using them". Then by that same definition, people like slot machines, cocaine, and over-eating junk food. Is it a good, useful definition of "like" if it describes behavior that people feel compelled to do but are remorseful about after?
- charcircuit 9mo agoSocial media sites literally have a ui affordance for liking a post.
- munificent 9mo agoLiking a post doesn't mean you like the app.
- charcircuit 9mo agoI made the assumption that people like interacting with things they like.
- goldenshale 9mo agoRestaurants try to make food you will remember and want again. Authors try to write books you can't stop reading. It's silly to imagine that any type of media would do anything other than seek to gain your interest and attention. It's our job to have personal hygiene and to control our information diet. This postmodern social construction perspective that tries to blame everyone for our problems is a lame approach to the problem.
- trueismywork 9mo agoYou do go to restaurants for food, you do buy books (story books at least) to be enchanted. And even then addictive substances are banned from food. Not everyone goes to social media for entertainment, and there's no way to maintain hygiene apart from just going off it.
- thesmtsolver2 9mo ago[dead]
- recroad 9mo agoI see where you are coming from, but this is different because: 1. The restaurant isn't lacing your food with cocaine 2. The author is incentivizing reading, which is generally a good thing You are right, it is our job to control our information diet but when the ability to control is diminished through the consumption, then we have a problem which doesn't fit into the model of "get your shit together". There's also a social responsibility you inherit when you start selling products that have harmful side-effects. Auto manufacturers have to comply with emission testing, drug makers have to prove efficacy, air conditioning manufacturers have to adhere to air quality standards etc. What do social media companies have to do? Very little if anything, and that's the problem. We've yet to find a counter-balance that works and protects the consumer, so we're in this era where we're trying to find out what we can do, but the landscape is changing so fast that we're trying to hit a moving target.
- lostmsu 9mo ago
- caycep 9mo agoI wonder if there's something from addiction neuroscience that can be utilized as "evidence" in the legal sense; or if it's used in the process of product development. i.e. how google/meta/frito lay/P&G maximize dopamine hits in the ventral segmental area, etc
- h4kunamata 9mo agoThe problem started when people asked about privacy, they reply with "I have nothing to hide" That gives big techs the power to do whatever, and once power is granted, it hardly ever is revoked.
- trinsic2 9mo ago>The plaintiffs said they would call expert witnesses that will argue that young people's brains are not yet developed to withstand the powers of the algorithms being flung at them on Instagram and YouTube. I'm all for preventing addictive algorithms, but if you are letting your 6 year old watch you-tube, you got problems. This is just going to be used to push age restrictions