Mark Zuckerberg Testifies During Landmark Trial On Social Media Addiction (nbcnews.com) 31
Mark Zuckerberg is testifying in a landmark Los Angeles trial examining whether Meta and other social media firms can be held liable for designing platforms that allegedly addict and harm children. NBC News reports: It's the first of a consolidated group of cases -- from more than 1,600 plaintiffs, including over 350 families and over 250 school districts -- scheduled to be argued before a jury in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Plaintiffs accuse the owners of Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snap of knowingly designing addictive products harmful to young users' mental health. Historically, social media platforms have been largely shielded by Section 230, a provision added to the Communications Act of 1934, that says internet companies are not liable for content users post. TikTok and Snap reached settlements with the first plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified in court as K.G.M., ahead of the trial. The companies remain defendants in a series of similar lawsuits expected to go to trial this year.
[...] Matt Bergman, founding attorney of Social Media Victims Law Center -- which is representing about 750 plaintiffs in the California proceeding and about 500 in the federal proceeding -- called Wednesday's testimony "more than a legal milestone -- it is a moment that families across this country have been waiting for." "For the first time, a Meta CEO will have to sit before a jury, under oath, and explain why the company released a product its own safety teams warned were addictive and harmful to children," Bergman said in a statement Tuesday, adding that the moment "carries profound weight" for parents "who have spent years fighting to be heard." "They deserve the truth about what company executives knew," he said. "And they deserve accountability from the people who chose growth and engagement over the safety of their children."
[...] Matt Bergman, founding attorney of Social Media Victims Law Center -- which is representing about 750 plaintiffs in the California proceeding and about 500 in the federal proceeding -- called Wednesday's testimony "more than a legal milestone -- it is a moment that families across this country have been waiting for." "For the first time, a Meta CEO will have to sit before a jury, under oath, and explain why the company released a product its own safety teams warned were addictive and harmful to children," Bergman said in a statement Tuesday, adding that the moment "carries profound weight" for parents "who have spent years fighting to be heard." "They deserve the truth about what company executives knew," he said. "And they deserve accountability from the people who chose growth and engagement over the safety of their children."
The Motivation to Do What is Right (Score:3)
I wonder if publicly owned companies are the problem.
An individual who owns a successful company is motivated to keep making profits. But once they reach a certain level of wealth, they often start to come over all philanthropic. This can of course be partly for show, but I think there is a genuine motivation to feel good about one's self - and providing the funding to help others is one way of doing that.
But - If this individual at some point turns their company into a publicly (shareholder) owned company, you suddenly go back to the situation where the owner(s) have mostly not reached that sufficient level of wealth, where the desire to make even more money is outweighed by the desire to make a positive impact on the world. So by going public, the individual steers away from the philanthropic path (although they might still so some of that on their own), and sticks to the continuous profit making path. Not that profit making is bad in itself, but as in the case of addictive social media, it can get in the way of doing the right thing.
The Disease of Greed, is unrelenting. (Score:1)
I wonder if publicly owned companies are the problem.
An individual who owns a successful company is motivated to keep making profits. But once they reach a certain level of wealth, they often start to come over all philanthropic. This can of course be partly for show, but I think there is a genuine motivation to feel good about one's self - and providing the funding to help others is one way of doing that.
Consider the fact they might get "all philanthrophic" because of straight guilt. Derived by all those "dumb fucks" that made the suddenly-inexplicably-shocklingly philanthrophic-rife billionaires oddly feeling quite guilty about the addict junkies they hooked over a lifetime of wealth-building, offering their product for free not unlike the new drug dealer often does.
Meh, who is anyone kidding. CEOs of mega-corps floated every taxable penny through Ireland, absolving them of any real moral responsibility
Re: (Score:2)
There's not much desire by the current crop of American billionaires to be philantropic.
There is desire to.... be seen to be philanthropic .... by promising some future action that is 1) sufficiently far into the future that people will forget about it before it happens and 2) can be reneged on quietly, and 3) reaps a mention in the news now.
In other words, fake philanthropy. Par for the Zeitgeist.
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Using the household model of economics, companies are just made up of individuals. At the end of the day what happens is based on the whim of a few at the top. One man's philanthopy is another man's abuse, different perspectives.
The problem is the maintenance of an imperfect market. Monopoly, barriers to entry... Some part of the process has been corrupted. What happened to Myspace? Facebook came out of nowhere. Like it was being pushed by a powerful group with more control than the public would be comforta
Not about section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
Section 230, a provision added to the Communications Act of 1934, that says internet companies are not liable for content users post.
This lawsuit is not about user generated content. It is about the design and behavior of the site/app. The inclusion of psychologist designed dark patterns created specifically to be addictive. This goes beyond the general business desire to have an appealing product that people want to use and into the realm of willful negligence. They knew that certain features would trigger an addiction response in susceptible users and chose to include those features, even to make those features central to the product design.
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This lawsuit is not about user generated content. It is about the design and behavior of the site/app. The inclusion of psychologist designed dark patterns created specifically to be addictive. This goes beyond the general business desire to have an appealing product that people want to use and into the realm of willful negligence.
Indeed. Meta employs more than 50,000 people. Even if only 1 in 5 of those are directly involved in design/test/debug/deploy of the core applications (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) - you don't need a software team of 10,000 just to create an infrastructure that receives, catalogs, and organizes all the stuff other people post. You need a team that large to curate algorithms that make enticing content bubble to the top, while drivel settles to the bottom. You need the team to justify its existence by increa
I would hardly (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
In the end, Meta will lose, regardless of the facts or the law. They will lose because a California jury will look at the amount of money Meta has, and decide to take as much of it away as possible. I'll predict a billion dollar verdict or more, if Jesus personally came down to testify that, being God, and knowing everything about everyone, had Personally created man to not be capable of becoming addicted to Facebook. Facts simply don't matter.
The appeals will go on for years, and in the end, the only thing
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How likely do you think it is that Meta was acting ethically here? I could totally see them designing their algorithm solely to drive engagement and higher ad revenue while ignoring the negative impact on users, including high prevalence of addicitve behavior among younger users.
Re: (Score:2)
How likely do you think it is that Meta was acting ethically here?
As I said, it doesn't matter. They could literally resurrect dead babies on live television and the jury would find against them because they have a lot of money. Or they could eat live babies on television, and the appeals will go exactly the same, with the SCOTUS ruling being based solely on who sits on the court at the time.
Facts only matter in a legal case. This isn't a legal case. It's a political case, and facts are literally not allowed to matter.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess I have more faith in juries than that. If the jury thinks the plaintiff is making stuff up to score some cash, I don't think they'll find in favor of the plaintiff.
But in this case, I think it's going to be hard for Meta to look credible. It'll still depend somewhat on how good the plaintiff's story is and how sympathetic they seem.
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I guess I have more faith in juries than that.
In general, so do I. But a) most juries are not dealing with trillion dollar companies run by people regularly referred to as robotic, and b) this is California, and worse, southern California, and worst of all, Los Angeles, the more wretched hive of sum and villainy.
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Mostly, in the wallet.
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The initial selection for the jury pool is random. They're going to get all sorts. And they have to go through voir dire. I don't think people go crazy just by virtue of living in California either.
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The initial selection for the jury pool is random.
A random selection filtered down to people who can devote weeks, if not months, to jury duty without sufficient hardship to get excused. That generally means either wealthy (and they never bother to even show up, why would they?) or unemployed people, often chronically unemployed, and in southern California, that is a demographic that leans pretty hard left. And it is very, very fashionable on the left to hate on tech bros these days.
They're going to get all sorts.
LA has all sorts of crazies, yes.
And they have to go through voir dire.
And once both sides use up their perempto
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure there are some chronically unemployed MAGA types in LA. Might get at least a few of those in the jury pool.
And it is very, very fashionable on the left to hate on tech bros these days.
Makes me sad to here this. Hopefully hatred for companies like Meta will become more bipartisan as time goes on.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure there are some chronically unemployed MAGA types in LA.
Not really, no. They mostly moved to Florida a long time ago. Again, you've obviously never been to LA.
Might get at least a few of those in the jury pool.
Statistically speaking, very unlikely.
Brain Rot and social media addiction (Score:3)
“This is brainrot, the term Gen Z coined to describe the cognitive fog that settles in after hours of consuming rapid-fire digital content. The phenomenon has moved from internet slang to legitimate psychological concerns, and the numbers certainly paint a disturbing picture.”
Interesting Zuckberberg quote from the trial (Score:2)
"Robots cannot suffer addiction. Nor can we feel remorse."
Re: (Score:3)
Every time he gives a speech and there are comments on the video or article, someone will respond to the effect that their AI is getting much better and Zuckerberg almost passes as human this time.
Re: (Score:2)
Zuck is a lizard. Get up to speed man.
Re:Interesting Zuckberberg quote from the trial (Score:4, Funny)
That's silly. Zuckerberg is an older model and has non-upgradeable firmware.
"Addiction" is the new witchcraft (Score:2)
Addiction sounds like a more plausible problem than witchcraft to most of us. The word even had a meaning, once! If you were an addict and stopped using your drug of choice, you'd be facing chills, sweats, vomiting, and convulsions.
Oddly enough, that hardly ever happens when you stop using social media.
Re: (Score:3)
Addiction sounds like a more plausible problem than witchcraft to most of us. The word even had a meaning, once! If you were an addict and stopped using your drug of choice, you'd be facing chills, sweats, vomiting, and convulsions.
Oddly enough, that hardly ever happens when you stop using social media.
Clearly, you've not seen what happens to teenagers when they're forced to go cold turkey due to power outages or family vacations where there's no wifi available. I'd describe the symptoms very similarly to withdrawal, except with a lot more screaming involved.
What's the statistical def. of clinical addiction? (Score:1)
Couldn't find this with a Google search so am asking: what's the statistical definition of clinical addiction? The plaintiffs, I presume, have to statistically demonstrate that the products of Meta and YouTube are "defective" (am using quotes because am unsure if this is the exact word used in the lawsuit) because they induce behavior that's similar to addictive products, such as drugs and alcohol.
So, surprisingly, I couldn't find a website that simply explains the statistical definition of clinical addicti
greasy stuff (Score:2)
brain damage measurable via MRI (Score:2)
They are well and truly caught - there's brain damage that's visible via MRI. Doomscrolling is the cognitive equivalent of that Hitachi wand that some women come to regret owning. At a macro level it's a bit like bit tobacco in the late 20th century, only this time the addictive thing is also what we use to conduct political debates. That's a flavor of weird the dystopian authors of yesteryear never really contemplated. If only Aldous Huxley were alive to see what we've become.
We are going to have to protec
Court Room Man, Court Room Man (Score:2)
What's he done wrong, what's he done right?
Nobody knows, court room maaan.