Meta and Google found liable in social media addiction trial (bbc.co.uk)
89 points by ColinWright 2 hours ago
pow_ext 13 minutes ago
Apps like instagram and YouTube should be required at least to give an option to disable reels and shorts
polskibus 7 minutes ago
Don’t forget WhatsApp. Kids are allowed to have WhatsApp as messaging but they get fed videos there too. There is no way to really disable them . Also this be allowed as parental supervision, not something that kids can override.
xvxvx 30 minutes ago
In before someone says ‘blame the parents’ and not the multi-billion dollar companies who’ve spent decades targeting children for lifelong addiction, ignoring the negative effects on their mental health.
dmitrygr 13 minutes ago
It need not be either-or.
The guy who made the drugs is guilty. The guy who sold the drugs to kids is guilty. But parents who failed to warn kids about drugs and to oversee them properly are also guilty...
gusgus01 2 minutes ago
Generally in an article about arresting or sentencing a drug dealer, people don't bring up that the drug users are actually to blame.
Now if we're in a discussion around the cartels, plenty of people do bring up (and there's also those that get annoyed by it) that the drug users are actually the ones funding the cartels via their drug use.
Along these lines, I think another fun comparison might be opioid use and Purdue.
psychoslave 7 minutes ago
So is the judicial system that is not making this illegal or don't enforce laws to prevent people targeting kids to create early dependence on drugs.
dmitrygr 4 minutes ago
kakacik 17 minutes ago
The thing is, it should be both. Parents often give too little fucks for long term welfare of their children, often also guilty of same vices. Issue is, these addictions are way more destructive to young forming mind than to adults. Nobody having small kids now had fb or instagram access when they were 5, did they.
Maybe you don't do this. Certainly I don't. But when looking around, its much less rosy and... lets say in blue collar families its too common to drug kids with screens so parents have off time. Heck, some are even proud how modern parents they are. Any good advice is successfully ignored, and ideas of passing some proper time with kids instead are skillfully avoided. People got lazy and generally expect miracles from life without putting in any miracle-worth efforts.
Companies just maximize their profits till laws allows them (and then some more), and expecting nice moral behavior by default is dangerously naive and never true.
ApolloFortyNine an hour ago
This just seems ripe for selective enforcement if not codified in law. I agree the algorithm they use can be addicting, but it's because it's simply good at providing content the user wants to consume.
Besides a general 'don't be too good' I'm really not sure what companies should do about it. It just seems like it'll lead to some judges allowing rulings against companies they don't like.
Television's goal was always viewer retention as well, they were just never able to target as well as you can on the internet.
kelseyfrog 16 minutes ago
I see it as similar to the public health crisis created when protonated nicotine salts made their way into vapes along with flavors allowing 2-10x more nicotine to be delivered and the innovation that made Juul so popular with children.
The subsequent effects - namely being easier to consume and more addictive - eventually resulted in legislation catching up, and restrictions on what Juul could do. It being "too good" of a product parallels what we're seeing in social media seven years later.
Like most[all] all public health problems we see individualization of responsibility touted as a solution. If individualization worked, it would have already succeeded. Nothing prevents individualization except its failure of efficacy.
What does work is systems-level thinking and considering it an epidemiological problem rather than a problem of responsibility. Responsibility didn't work with the AIDS crisis, it didn't work on Juul, and it's not going to work on social media.
It is ripe for public health strategies. The biggest impediment to this is people who mistakingly believe that negative effects represent a personal moral failure.
tmpz22 10 minutes ago
Lets just be honest, if you make enough money its legal in America.
Unless you hurt children, then its mostly legal and a slap on the wrist.
carabiner 33 minutes ago
Nukes are the same as knives, just different in magnitude. Should one have special rules?
woah an hour ago
Are there any takeaways here for builders of social media applications who are not Facebook or Google? Is this a warning to not make your newsfeed algorithm "too engaging" or is it only really relevant for big companies?
vaylian 20 minutes ago
I'm not an authority on this matter. But if you say "I can stop any time", and it is not true, then you have a problem.
Handy-Man 37 minutes ago
IMO, parents share just as much blame here, if not more. Giving your kids independence doesn't mean being oblivious to what they're doing online. Too many parents confuse hands-off parenting with not parenting at all.
bluedevil2k 33 minutes ago
Have you met kids? They’re devious, tech knowledgeable, and scheming and can find ways around any rule. Plus, no matter how good of a parent you are, you’re somewhat at the mercy of their friends’ parents as well. I can block TikTok from my daughter’s phone, but can’t block her from watching her friend’s phone while she’s out of the house.
ChrisArchitect 2 hours ago
Notably a different case from the other one in New Mexico:
Jury finds Meta liable in case over child sexual exploitation on its platforms
dmix 44 minutes ago
> During his first-ever appearance before a jury in February, Meta's chairman and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, relied on his company's longstanding policy of not allowing users under the age of 13 on any of its platforms.
> When presented with internal research and documents showing that Meta knew young children were in fact using its platforms, Zuckerberg said he "always wished" for faster progress to identify users under 13. He insisted the company had reached the "right place over time".
Soon there will be government IDs required to use social media sites because parent's can't take phones away from their kids.