> a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to TIME. "The full record will show that for over a decade, we have listened to parents, researched issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens
Omegalol. Cigarette maker introduces filter, cares about your health.
Cigarette makers were a dying cry of the old aristocracy. Silicon Valley is the rallying cry of the new aristocracy.
While I don’t quite believe they’ll achieve their Feudal dreams in the near-medium future. I do expect the US to transition to a much more explicitly an oligarchic republic as a large, with the pretense of “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” is largely pushed to the side.
Only solution seems to be to drop out of society to whatever degree possible.
Look, most of us here know that meta is a terrible company that has done terrible things. But what is actually being done about it? So far just some token fines and petty wrist slaps. What’s really the plan here? Because they’re not going to stop.
At the surface, it's an antitrust issue (the scale of Meta doesn't have the capacity to behave better, so it doesn't). This, like so many other things, can be traced back to a broken system of governance on a root level.
Our system of incentives, operating within a system of governmental authority baked in an age where gunpowder was the new hotness, leads to a place where the movement of individual bits of law or policy don't matter. The forces at work will roll back whatever you do to make the social situation better, if they are antithetical to the interests of capital. Fix healthcare, and the insurance companies will find ways to twist it to their profit. Fix housing, and the banks and real estate developers will find ways to charge rent anyway.
The coupling between decision making and the vox populi is weak and must be strengthened. The coupling between decision making and capital is strong and must be broken. Unless we can accomplish either, any change we make is cosmetic.
I think what we need is a dissolution of representatives in favor of a more direct form of democracy, but most dismiss this as looney/impossible. I'm inclined to agree about the impossibility but that just kind of lands us back at 'what the hell do we do about it'.
Ranked choice is a good start, perhaps. Might not 'fix it' but maybe it's a foot in the door.
For a while I worked for a company that was doing some shady
and unethical things, but just within the law.
I took em a while to understand how things worked and when I did
I found a different job.
Now this enterprise I left, could never have done what they did
it was not for the developers that made it possible.
When we talk about the giants on social media, it it us,
the developers who make it possible for them to do what they do.
If you are frustrated about how they are not being stopped from
doing what they do, encourage people to leave.
They money is great, but doe sit make it worth it?
From the other side, let us say that the US shut down Meta and
the rest of the social media beasts, how many developers would
be out on the street?
Serious question: What exactly do you want to see done? I mean real specifics, not just the angry mob pitchfork calls for corporate death penalty or throwing Mark Zuckerberg in jail.
Amend Section 230 so that it does not apply to content that is served algorithmically. Social media companies can either allow us to select what content we want to see by giving us a chronological feed of the people/topics we follow or they can serve us content according to some algorithm designed to keep us on their platform longer. The former is neutral and deserves protection, but the latter is editorial. Once they take on that editorial role of deciding what content we see, they should become liable for the content they put in front of us.
I think with the harm that these companies are doing, the angry pitchfork mobs are a serious suggestion and not just hyperbole anymore
Keep in mind that not very long ago some random person assassinated an insurance CEO and many people's reaction was along the lines of "awesome, that fat cat got what he deserved"
Don't underestimate how much of society absolutely loathes the upper class right now.
I would bet that many people are one layoff away from calling for execs to get much worse than jail
If my dog bites somebody, I'm on the hook. It should be no different with companies.
We have to create incentives to not invest in troublesome companies. Fines are inadequate, they incentivize buying shares in troublesome companies and then selling them before the harm comes to light.
I don't really get why corporate death penalty and Zuck in jail is not a good idea. It might not be the best idea, but I think it would absolutely be better than what we have now. Even a random-chainsaw-esque destruction of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple would be better than what we have now.
For one, I'd like the EU to use this as evidence to straight up ban Meta apps. If countries can ban TikTok, why not extend the same privilege to Meta?
But then again, the EU are a bunch of vacuous chicken shits incapable of pulling their heads out of their arses, never mind safeguarding their own children.
Larger fines, more robust methods for Meta to keep children off their platforms, more robust methods to stop the spread of propaganda and spam on their platforms, for Meta to start prioritizing connection between others instead of attention.
Why is the corporate death penalty or Zuckerberg in jail reduced to angry mob ideas? I think both are valid responses to the social harms that Facebook and social media generally have caused.
Are there any serious attempts to enact a "corporate death penalty" in the US? Is there even a viable route to getting something like that in the current regime?
Charter revocation is, I think, technically on the books in every state, but its not used for variety of reasons, one of which is because while it destroys the corporate entity, it mostly punishes the people least responsible for any wrongdoing (it can sometimes be accompanied by real punishment for the responsible actors, but those are separate processes that doesn’t require charter revocation, such as individual criminal prosecution or civil process that ends with fines, being barred from serving as a corporate officer, etc.)
My opinion is that if corporate personhood is OK, then the corporation should face the same consequences as people do when they break the law. So facilitation of human trafficking should go to criminal court.
For them these fines are just cost of doing business. Apparently politicians don't care too, for them imposing fines is all about bringing extra money from time to time.
Specifically when it comes to children, lots of jurisdictions are enacting actual non-bullshit age verification to ensure children aren't on social media. In my opinion this is real, substantive change.
Its basically like the history of money before banks got regulated and central banks emerged to regulate money printing. In this case its all about Attention which is functioning exactly like currency.
They aren't going to stop because LifeLog was as Darpa project before they found a private stoog to build it for the military. Remember it's only dystopian to spy on every aspect of a persons life, if YOUR THE GOVERNMENT. Private entities in the U.S. basically can do anything they want, especially now when they can rent a President too pardon it away.
Has that ever really worked? And considering meta has billions of users on not just Facebook, but also WhatsApp and instagram, I’m skeptical. I know people who hate meta, but can’t shake instagram.
When my kids were born I told my family I wouldn't be posting their pictures on any Meta owned platform. That was all I needed to move the family group, photos etc. to another app.
So much of this audience already knows the job
is to collect comprehensive analytics and never run the analyses on your product’s externalities.
to be obvious enough to downplay, it must be impossible to miss while looking the other way. To be impossible to miss, it must be inextricably linked to the profits.
It's even more egregious in this case because Meta's employees were turning a blind eye to child sexual exploitation that they knew fine well their work was enabling.
Maybe those fat bonuses and generous stock options wiped away the feelings of guilt, if these Silicon Valley sociopaths even felt any in the first place.
I mean, duh. They’re this generation’s cigarettes. Employees of Meta should be ashamed of themselves.
Edit: Meta employees, downvoting this comment won’t absolve you of your involvement in the largest child abuse organization we’ve seen yet. Look what your own company said about what it’s doing to teenage girls.
Social media is going to be seen to future generations the way we currently see tobacco and alcohol. Look at what social media has done to the wellbeing of teen girls. There's been a dramatic decline in the mental health of teen girls. All those filters, OF fans, stars with eating disorders (just look at the Wicked cast), is literally killing teen girls with social anxiety.
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Omegalol. Cigarette maker introduces filter, cares about your health.
Dead Comment
While I don’t quite believe they’ll achieve their Feudal dreams in the near-medium future. I do expect the US to transition to a much more explicitly an oligarchic republic as a large, with the pretense of “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” is largely pushed to the side.
Only solution seems to be to drop out of society to whatever degree possible.
> listened to parents
...but not taken significant actions
> researched issues that matter most
...but ignored the results of the research
> made real changes to protect teens
...sure, insignificant changes
Our system of incentives, operating within a system of governmental authority baked in an age where gunpowder was the new hotness, leads to a place where the movement of individual bits of law or policy don't matter. The forces at work will roll back whatever you do to make the social situation better, if they are antithetical to the interests of capital. Fix healthcare, and the insurance companies will find ways to twist it to their profit. Fix housing, and the banks and real estate developers will find ways to charge rent anyway.
The coupling between decision making and the vox populi is weak and must be strengthened. The coupling between decision making and capital is strong and must be broken. Unless we can accomplish either, any change we make is cosmetic.
I think what we need is a dissolution of representatives in favor of a more direct form of democracy, but most dismiss this as looney/impossible. I'm inclined to agree about the impossibility but that just kind of lands us back at 'what the hell do we do about it'.
Ranked choice is a good start, perhaps. Might not 'fix it' but maybe it's a foot in the door.
I took em a while to understand how things worked and when I did I found a different job.
Now this enterprise I left, could never have done what they did it was not for the developers that made it possible.
When we talk about the giants on social media, it it us, the developers who make it possible for them to do what they do.
If you are frustrated about how they are not being stopped from doing what they do, encourage people to leave. They money is great, but doe sit make it worth it?
From the other side, let us say that the US shut down Meta and the rest of the social media beasts, how many developers would be out on the street?
Serious question: What exactly do you want to see done? I mean real specifics, not just the angry mob pitchfork calls for corporate death penalty or throwing Mark Zuckerberg in jail.
Keep in mind that not very long ago some random person assassinated an insurance CEO and many people's reaction was along the lines of "awesome, that fat cat got what he deserved"
Don't underestimate how much of society absolutely loathes the upper class right now.
I would bet that many people are one layoff away from calling for execs to get much worse than jail
If my dog bites somebody, I'm on the hook. It should be no different with companies.
We have to create incentives to not invest in troublesome companies. Fines are inadequate, they incentivize buying shares in troublesome companies and then selling them before the harm comes to light.
> corporate death penalty
I don't know man these don't seem very specific. From your whole comment I do agree Mark should be in jail
But then again, the EU are a bunch of vacuous chicken shits incapable of pulling their heads out of their arses, never mind safeguarding their own children.
…why not?
> she was shocked to learn that the company had a “17x” strike policy for accounts that reportedly engaged in the “trafficking of humans for sex.”
There’s no way in hell this isn’t just tacitly incentivized the facilitation of trafficking activities through the site.
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Confiscate their wealth
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Georgism gave a good lenses on these kind of issue. All the sudden, late stage capitalism starts looking like monopolies.
to be obvious enough to downplay, it must be impossible to miss while looking the other way. To be impossible to miss, it must be inextricably linked to the profits.
Maybe those fat bonuses and generous stock options wiped away the feelings of guilt, if these Silicon Valley sociopaths even felt any in the first place.
So although this is being spun as “trafficking”, that doesn’t seem accurate.
This classification sounds like it includes selling “your own services”.
Edit: Meta employees, downvoting this comment won’t absolve you of your involvement in the largest child abuse organization we’ve seen yet. Look what your own company said about what it’s doing to teenage girls.