First things first: Meta is a terrible company that has spent years making terrible decisions and being terrible at explaining the challenges of social media trust & safety, all while prioritiz…
Here’s a thought experiment: imagine Instagram, but every single post is a video of paint drying. Same infinite scroll. Same autoplay. Same algorithmic recommendations. Same notification systems. Is anyone addicted? Is anyone harmed? Is anyone suing?
Of course not. Because infinite scroll is not inherently harmful. Autoplay is not inherently harmful. Algorithmic recommendations are not inherently harmful. These features only matter because of the content they deliver. The “addictive design” does nothing without the underlying user-generated content that makes people want to keep scrolling.
This feels like an awful argument to make. It’s not the presence of those things that make Meta and co so shit, it’s the fact that they provably understood the risks and the effects that their design was having, knew that it was harming people, and continued to do it anyway. I don’t care if we’re talking about a little forum run by a Grandma and Grandpa talking about their jam recipes; if they know that they’re causing harm and don’t change their behavior, they should be liable.
I don’t know.
Seems like self-control issues.
People can get addicted to anything: shopping, sex, internet use, work, gaming, exercise.
I also disagree with prohibitions on gambling, drug use, prostitution: it’s their money, their body, etc.
Penalizing systems of communication & information delivery seems overreach.
The harm seems phony & averted by basic self-control.
This feels like an awful argument to make. It’s not the presence of those things that make Meta and co so shit, it’s the fact that they provably understood the risks and the effects that their design was having, knew that it was harming people, and continued to do it anyway. I don’t care if we’re talking about a little forum run by a Grandma and Grandpa talking about their jam recipes; if they know that they’re causing harm and don’t change their behavior, they should be liable.
I don’t know. Seems like self-control issues. People can get addicted to anything: shopping, sex, internet use, work, gaming, exercise. I also disagree with prohibitions on gambling, drug use, prostitution: it’s their money, their body, etc.
Penalizing systems of communication & information delivery seems overreach. The harm seems phony & averted by basic self-control.