It's almost like the people who spend their time thinking and researching the positives and negatives of a particular company/service come to different conclusions than the people who make money off the company or are directly marketed it.
It's almost like the people who spend their time thinking and researching the positives and negatives of a particular company/service come to different conclusions than the people who make money off the company or are directly marketed it.
> people who spend their time thinking and researching the positives and negatives
If only we could trust such big hearted people who selflessly donate their time and expertise for thinking and researching - without asking those pesky little questions like "what do they stand to gain? what hidden agenda do they have? what ideology dictates their value system? what axes to grind and biases do they harbor?"
I'd rather trust the people directly involved, whose interests are mostly clear and known.
>I'd rather trust the people directly involved, whose interests are mostly clear and known.
That seems like a wild statement to me. Just so I understand what you're saying. Are you saying you would trust Meta's statements on if their algorithms are harmful to youth/society over independent researchers because those researchers might have some hidden bias?
No, I am not saying I trust Meta's statements at all. I am just saying that I have ZERO trust in those "independent researchers".
I am old enough to remember when "researchers" and "experts" where warning us about the evils of violent FPS gaming, the whole panic over teens and kids playing Doom. The Columbine shooting. The end was nigh! Of course, it was all blown out of proportions...
If you ask any of those questions to people directly involved, the answer is the same for all 4: money
At least for meta, its employees, and its customers (advertisers), and its users, you can infer easily why they are involved. Researchers have other motivations like currying favor via an opinion or paper with a particular benefactor, or the tenure game, or 1000 other hidden things you cannot reason about without disclosure on their part.
PS I'm not a fan of Meta.