11 ms·
Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
https://archive.ph/a3165 https://archive.ph/a3165
- hn_submit 2mo agoWhat's the gist of this case? Making social media addictive isn't a felony AFAIK. Big Tobacco has never been convicted of it either.
- binsquare 2mo agoThe case appears to be about them purposely knowing the impact of what they were doing and exploited it at the cost of children's mental health.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- demibabs 2mo agoI do wonder what’s going to happen in the future to addictive social media algorithms. Feels like one of those things that’s so powerful, but skirts by because it doesn’t feel like it should be (like targeted advertising).
- drunner 2mo agoCan we just ban algorithms for content and go back to chronological feeds circa 2004 Facebook? Or maybe ban all content that the user isn't explicitly subscribed to. Those both have problems too, I'm sure.
- shaewest 2mo agoI think the major issue is, people still have the option of those older forms of feeds, people just don't like them. New social media competitors (ie Tiktok) have won users by having even more powerful algorithms rather than other options.
- demibabs 2mo agoOf course, but the users can’t be trusted to stay away from something designed to addict them. Only real solution is regulation, although the how is still a big question mark.
- shaewest 2mo agoI would ask, where is the line drawn between 'enjoyment and addiction.' Is it the harm provided? Then what do we count as harm, and where is the line. IE, There's no one stopping me from eating unhealthy, IE sugary foods, which are heavily addictive. I ride a motorbike, and I'd consider myself addicted to that, and it's got a high chance of harm, but we don't ban those. Ditto with gaming, social media, hobby XYZ. I personally think the freedom to choose your vice is reasonable.
- 2gay 2mo agoMaybe this freedom sounds reasonable at first. Pew Research says 36% of 13–17 year olds are on social media almost constantly [0]. This is not a problem that existed 20 years ago. The ease of access to highly addictive products is rotting the soul of society. 0: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/12/09/teens-social-media-and-ai-chatbots-2025/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/12/09/teens-social...
- itake 2mo agoHow? The 2 feeds on my IG account: "posts" and "reels" show content of people that I do not follow.
- dumberquestions 2mo agoInstagram definitely doesn't have the option but youtube for instance does, there's a subscription tab that's collecting dust in most people's accounts.
- arxari 2mo ago
- TJSomething 2mo agoChronological feeds tend to be gameable by growth hacking. Still better than a lot of things. One of the tricky things for me is feed aggregation for balancing subscriptions between people who post a lot and people who don't. It also might be interesting if video recommendations were curated feeds by the creator.
- jrflo 2mo agoI build a safari extension to do just this (block all content that isn't explicitly subscribed to by the user) and it's a remarkably better experience. This is my hot take that most people seem to disagree with: the vast majority of culture wars we are having today would not exist without content recommendation algorithms.
- NietTim 2mo agoWe have that in the EU, they mandated it. It finally made instagram use-able for me again. Did instagram geo-gate that feature? Wouldn't surprise me, but still.
- andrewrn 2mo agoWith the amount of money behind them, I regret to say I don’t think they’ll get legislated away. My best guess is that social shaming slowly dwindles their usage. It’s actively shameful to scroll at dinner among Gen Z, for example. The problem becomes using the apps alone at home.
- jrflo 2mo agoI really hope it gets legislated away or kneecapped to the point where it isn't so effective. With all the legislation coming out regarding kids and social media, I hope that people will start to draw a line to the fact that maybe adults shouldn't be hooked up to it too. I don't think all content recommendation algorithms should go away, but we need to dial down the intensity by an order of magnitude or two.
- select1 2mo ago[flagged]
- MengerSponge 2mo ago> fundamentally different fundamentally different how? Because they use your visual cortex to trigger neurons?
- select1 2mo agoPhysical compulsion is a pretty big difference.
- Nursie 2mo agoAll comes down to neurotransmitters in the end.
- solid_fuel 2mo ago> Physical compulsion is a pretty big difference. Have you experienced addiction before? Nicotine withdrawal doesn't make your hand move on it's own, it makes you crave a cigarette, and then you pick up a cigarette and smoke it to make the craving go away. If you crave scrolling instagram, even when you want to be doing anything else, isn't that the same thing? Maybe you can't point at a specific molecular basis - yet (if you were to look at dopamine and other neurotransmitters, I wouldn't be surprised if social media spikes them in a way similar to other vices) - but the outcome is the same.
- fragmede 2mo agoRight. There's now chemical, biological and digital addictions to account for. GLP-1s seem to help with some of the needy hunger for, not just food, but the dopamine rush of gambling. Science is still waiting on studies to prove this is true, but anecdotally, it's a thing. So there's my hope for the future, that we can science our way out of some of the problems we've created.
- 2mo ago
- AndrewKemendo 2mo ago[dead]
- lxe 2mo agoUltimately, I think this is going to come down to proving exactly the extent of what Meta knew, and what they decided to do about it, and how that violated various laws. I wager there is a foot gun component to this, in which Meta has tried to preemptively, either through gestures of goodwill or public reassurance or PR, institute various think tanks, work groups, and internal studies with an intent to alleviate the public's worry. Those studies and workgroups actually could end up demonstrating that their products and algorithms and user interfaces, indeed, caused whatever this trial accuses them of doing. And if they didn't act according to what their internal data showed, I bet this is going to be the crux of the trial.
- mslt 2mo agoI’d bet that an exceptional legal team could make a pretty solid case based purely on the volume and testimony of behavioral psychologists on their payroll
- SwtCyber 2mo agoYeah, the internal research could be far more damaging than the existence of the harmful effects themselves
- intended 2mo agoPeople at Meta knew it was bad, and brought it up to higher leadership. At some point choices were made, with full awareness of the tradeoffs, to move products in a specific direction. Absolutely none of this, the harms, the patterns, the tech, is unknown to people who work in trust and safety, content moderation, and policy. At various times, meta and other tech firms did try to hold the line, but they eventually succumbed to the financial pressures they were under. If there is any lesson to be taken, it is that ideals don’t survive beyond a few years in contact with market incentives.
- lxe 2mo agoYup and this is what discovery is looking for / has already found.
- matrix87 2mo agoThis seems really messy. We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing, but how do you differentiate a non-addictive platform vs an addictive platform? (aside from this specific company... I mean in general). How do you "test" whether or not they're inherently addictive? At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the general case
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- Pxtl 2mo ago> We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing Except when it's called "prediction markets" and therefore it isn't.
- ggm 2mo agoIf we set the barrier to entry in prediction markets to an equivalent of an age/height check on entry, it would be well north of "yes, I am a mom-and-pop first time investor, I have never been here before, I know nothing except what some spammer told me and claude" Somehow the "you can afford to lose your entire stake, you aren't leveraged, this isn't a con you fell into" is missing. (thats aside from "you aren't an inside trader with privileged knowledge because of family ties to the WH, are you")
- mslt 2mo agoIt’s such a joke. But we also need to find ways to study and measure non-gambling digital platform addiction like 15 years ago. Thanks to algorithmic consumption, we’re nearing a whole generation of adults that have no idea how to navigate their societal agency and 3 trailing generations that had once learned and since forgot.
- m4ck_ 2mo agoThose are relatively new and the president's children have financial interests in them, so they won't see any regulation any time soon. But it's certainly possible they will be regulated in the future... if we ever have a less-openly-corrupt government again.
- kkotak 2mo agoIf nothing, at least 'Social Reckoning' movie will get some blockbuster success due to the timing.
- Cider9986 2mo agoMeta, good reminder to buy diversified funds and not whatever hot company. (-29% - 1 year) Fidelity zero is compelling, in a retirement account.
- loeg 2mo agoFZROX (Fidelity Zero) is relatively highly concentrated in Meta (1.7%) (because Meta is a large chunk of the US stock market).
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- throwyawayyyy 2mo agoI do wonder about intent. Meta has spent 20 years paying its engineers and others vast amounts of money to Increase Engagement, and punishes those who fail to find ways to do so (over the past few years, by firing them). And it's worked! Engagement has increased greatly over the years, Meta survived the effective end of Old social media (you know, the stuff from your friends) and thrives in the new world of infinite content. Was the intent to _addict_ people? It doesn't have to be, to create a system people have become addicted to. Even if the harm is not intended, does that mean it cannot be regulated? Surely not! Let's ban infinite scroll for a start. The question of whether to punish Meta is quite separate from the question of how to reduce the harms of its products.
- nsuh 2mo agoI agree. Our policy going forward needs to be as precise as a scalpel.
- shant_extry 2mo agoI think this captures the essence. Many posts on here, however valid or invalid, are arguing intent. While I think punitive measures are definitely warranted, now that we know for certain about the harm caused (and how it was caused), the discussion can shift to prevention via precise policy.
- SwtCyber 2mo agoThe distinction between punishment and prevention seems important here. Meta's intent might matter when deciding liability or penalties, but if a design pattern is demonstrably harmful, "we only wanted more engagement" isn't much of an argument against regulating it
- danfunk 2mo ago"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair
- 2mo ago
- Taikhoom10 2mo ago[flagged]
- solid_fuel 2mo ago> Meta has not done anything illegal Interesting assertion. Sounds like something that should be proven in court. > Instead, we are debating if Instagram is bad for kids? Really? Considering there is considerable scientific evidence that Instagram is bad for kids, and that Meta knew it was bad for kids and designed it to be addictive to kids and teens anyway, yeah. Really.
- DonHopkins 2mo agoFacebook causes Face Cancer: their interface and algorithm are so toxic that it causes users to React by scratching their eyes out because it hurts so much to look at and use.
- SwtCyber 2mo agoInvestors not panicking seems rational. Companies this large can survive astonishingly large fines...
- pertymcpert 2mo agoMeta employees reading this: whether you work in Reality Labs, ads, operations, ML compiler, LLMs, marketing, whatever. You're all complicit in the harm. Remember that.
- yard2010 2mo agoEven those working on React? Asking for a friend
- ruvie8812 2mo agoAbsolutely! :D
- owebmaster 2mo agoEven bigger harm since Vercel/nextjs takeover
- pertymcpert 2mo agoEven React.
- fliwjerljlj 2mo agoI'm delighted to see this headline because I've been comparing Facebook to cigarettes for more than a decade. The parallels are striking. Both industries knew their products were poisonous and intentionally hid that knowledge while intentionally engineering them to be as addictive as possible, and ended up marketing them directly to children.
- ernst_klim 2mo ago> It could, for instance, do so on the grounds that it is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Act, which safeguards platforms from legal liability for content posted by third parties. But then the platform decides what to show and to whom. It's not an impartial medium anymore, not since the engagement algorithms become a norm.
- tzs 2mo agoSection 230 has nothing to do with whether a platform is impartial or not. All it does is make it so they are not treated as the publisher or speaker of third party content. So if I post something on Facebook full of libelous statements about you section 230 means you sue me, not Facebook, over that libel because that libel is my speech, not Facebooks. If Facebook figures out that libels posts about you are engaging and starts pushing them in everyone's feeds section 230 would protect Facebook if you wanted to sue them for libel. I don't think section 230 would care though if you wanted to sue Facebook over their engagement seeking algorithm.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- jatins 2mo agoI am old and used to use FB back when it was cool. Think 2010-14 period, and it was addictive even then even when it was just content from friends. Humans have deep need for connection with other humans and they will be addicted to anything that provides it given that modern society is increasingly isolated. People are addicted to reddit, heck I know people who are addicted to Stocks app because they just need something to scroll. Modern day addictions are complex and products are not the sole cause imo, they are just filling a void. Why that void exists needs to be answered. You remove Instagram and that time will be replaced by Reddit, tiktok or whatever product gives you some dopamine
- fireflash38 2mo agoPeople are lazy. If you give people an easy way to "fill that void" they will do so, even if it's detrimental to their long term health. No social media? People will still find ways to socialize. It might not be as easy, but they will do it. Maybe you'll even see a resurgence in social clubs.
- scottious 2mo agoI wouldn't say social media is just "filling a void". I feel like it's more accurate to say that social media is exploiting weaknesses in the human brain for profit and causing harm to individuals and society as a whole. I'd even say that it's preventing people from filling that void because it's sucking away people's time. Imagine if a tobacco executive said "you remove cigarettes and people will just replace it with alcohol or other drugs or another vice altogether". It may be true for some people but overall we've reduced harm by fighting back against cigarettes
- shevy-java 2mo agoAt worst Suckerberg just pays money. So the issue is not being solved. These US corporations operate outside the law - and they are protected by the orange king who is just too incompetent for anything other than pocketing away more money from the people, which is the only real skill he has.
- Kenji 2mo ago[dead]
- gigatexal 2mo agoA 1.4T penalty if due in 30 days would kill them. If paid over the course of 20-30 years maybe not so much. That’s where it ends the analogy cuz big Tabacco still exists
- dev1ycan 2mo agoHopefully META loses so they can stop this forceful age verification at OS level garbage being financed by META, f..k META.
- Scaled 2mo agoYes, but important to note that the prosecutors are pushing for AV (ID Checks) at the site level. Both sides of this fight are actively anti-privacy.
- ck2 2mo agoand since all that tobacco money changed human behavior and gave people healthcarea and access to ways to quit smoking so they did, they lived happily ever after oh wait no, what the states did is use all that money for other projects and let the smoking addicts pump up sales tax gains on the insane cigarette prices instead so they are going to do the same with all that facebook money, nothing will change, they won't "protect the children" and they will funnel the millions into other projects for themselves
- alexthedigger 2mo agoJust another shakedown
- shimman 2mo agoGood there should be way more. Meta is an enemy of humanity and they must be destroyed.
- alexthedigger 2mo agoYeah but follow the money, those affected never get any of it. All goes into the government coffers.
- Art9681 2mo agoSocial media is the worst thing we've ever created. The current political state of the world is entirely to blame on it. The misinformation. The deceit. The false impression that everyone's opinion is equal. It's not.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2mo agoBrief summary https://attorneygenerallynnfitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Meta-suit-summary.pdf https://attorneygenerallynnfitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024... Alternative to archive.ph No risk of CAPTCHA or geo-blocking No cookies x="Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 14) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/127.0.6533.103 Mobile Safari/537.36 Liskov" ( printf 'GET /business/2026/08/18/metas-blockbuster-trial-draws-parallels-to-big-tobacco HTTP/1.0\r\n' printf 'host: www.economist.com\r\n' printf 'user-agent: '$x'\r\n' printf '\r\n' sleep 1 ) \ |bssl client -connect 104.18.42.19:443 -server-name www.economist.com > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm Alternatives to bssl #|busybox ssl_client www.economist.com > 1.htm #|openssl s_client -connect 104.18.42.19:443 -servername www.economist.com -ign_eof > 1.htm #FTPUSERAGENT="$x" \ #tnftp -4o1.htm https://www.economist.com/business/2026/08/18/metas-blockbuster-trial-draws-parallels-to-big-tobacco #busybox wget --no-check-certificate -O1.htm -U "$x" \ #https://www.economist.com/business/2026/08/18/metas-blockbuster-trial-draws-parallels-to-big-tobacco #curl -o1.htm -Haccept: --no-alpn -0 \ #--resolve www.economist.com:443:104.18.42.19 \ #-A "$x" \ #https://www.economist.com/business/2026/08/18/metas-blockbuster-trial-draws-parallels-to-big-tobacco #links -http.fake-user-agent "$x" \ #https://www.economist.com/business/2026/08/18/metas-blockbuster-trial-draws-parallels-to-big-tobacco #elinks -dump -eval \ #'set protocol.http.user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 14) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/127.0.6533.103 Mobile Safari/537.36 Liskov" ' \ #https://www.economist.com/business/2026/08/18/metas-blockbuster-trial-draws-parallels-to-big-tobacco