States sue Meta claiming its social platforms are addictive and harm children's mental health
States sue Meta claiming its social platforms are addictive and harm children's mental health
Dozens of U.S. states, including California, New York, Arizona and Indiana are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people’s mental health and contributing the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to the platforms.
They're about 17 years too late. There's nothing left of Facebook to be addicted to. It's a terrible little site that forces content on you that you have no interest in, no way to block categories, and is all basically stuff stolen from other sites that is already 3 weeks old. Facebook is a fucking garbage fire of its former self.
I’m the last person who would leap to Meta’s defense, but I gotta ask: how, exactly, does one draw the line between a service being addictive and one that’s just well designed and pleasant to use?
I wouldn’t want this lawsuit to discourage quality web design.
Well designed service and addictive are completely different concept.
Addiction is not about how likely you are to use something and if you like doing so. That's naïve.
Okay, I have no problem admitting I’m naïve on the subject. If I guessed wrong, though, what is addiction about? It’s hard for me to imagine getting addicted to something you aren’t likely to use and don’t like.
Sure, I can see people changing their mind about something once they’re already addicted, but that’s not the same thing.
quality web design sure, but Meta/Facebook is also well known for using dark patterns to promote stickiness and engagement. They’ve built Facebook to be addictive and keep people on it.
I wouldn’t want this lawsuit to discourage quality web design.
What does that have to do with Meta?
I don’t have an account on any of their stuff, but even I recognize that this is a nice burn.
The more I've delved into free and open source, the more I've seen what isnt normal: stuff that isnt designed out of the box to be eye-candy. Seeing the complete opposite side of the spectrum, its clearer that Facebook isnt just eye candy, good animations, timely pop-ups, and perfectly targeted ads. It's everything and more. The addictive tactics have created an emergent highly addictive quality. And dont even get me started on Instagram.
Interesting (and disturbing) contrast. I haven’t done any programming, so I appreciate the perspective!
There are plenty of information and even research onto the deliberately addictive design of Facebook.
There are more and better articles out there that I have read but this is one that I can find right now.
I can't give you a clear answer, maybe bots? Something is "missing" here on Lemmy, as somedays I spent as much as 8 hours on Reddit, whereas I spent 30 min at most per day here on Lemmy. It feels like Lemmy is mostly informative for me and not so much entertainment. But good riddance, I have so much more time to read books now!
Any good recent reads?
A lawsuit filed by 33 states in federal court in California, claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of federal law. In addition, nine attorneys general are filing lawsuits in their respective states, bringing the total number of states taking action to 41 and Washington, D.C.
“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its social media platforms,” the complaint says. “It has concealed the ways in which these platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children.”
The suits seek financial damages and restitution and an end to Meta’s practices that are in violation of the law.
one conspicuous state absent to this lawsuit: Texas, which has otherwise gladly railed against "big tech" for dumb reasons that mostly seem to boil down to "you moderate too much and it's affecting people's ability to say heinous things on your platform"
I like (no) how everyone knows this is about everybody’s mental health but you can only push things these days if iT iS aBoUt cHilDrEn or other touchy topic. Apparently adults can’t have mental health issues I guess, otherwise how will they do their jobs for cents
You're absolutely not wrong, but I think they're making the case that it's like tobacco or gambling which society kinda agrees is stupid but allows adults to have the freedom to indulge in. Honestly I think it's a good comparison.
The issue is their privacy violations. Let's not be China where we restrict and track Children's time usage.
The way some people plop a screen down in front of their toddlers, we are really gunning for government and ad networks being our babysitters.
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Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its social media platforms,” the complaint says.
“Kids and teenagers are suffering from record levels of poor mental health and social media companies like Meta are to blame,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement.
The broad-ranging federal suit is the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont.
It follows damning newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2021, based on the Meta’s own research that found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues.
Following the first reports, a consortium of news organizations, including The Associated Press, published their own findings based on leaked documents from whistleblower Frances Haugen, who has testified before Congress and a British parliamentary committee about what she found.
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now” from the harms of social media.
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