Seriously losing confidence in the American judicial system with rulings like this. Facebook is already blocking children below age 13 and now with social media bans in place in many states the cut off is now 16. So frankly rulings like this just seem like the government seeing dollar signs and asking for hand outs. And all because people apparently can't accept any personal responsibility.
Disclaimer: I do not have a FB account.
This seems totally reasonable. It is designed to be addictive, and they definitely target folks under 18. The article specifically mentions teens.
You still haven't convinced me that is inherently bad that is warrants some sort of monetary damages. All entertainment is addictive. That's the whole point.
This is just people seeing dollar signs asking for handouts. Nothing of an real value to society. Why is it okay for FB to be sued but not say Pokemon? I think Pokemon is way more dangerous, addictive, and is basically gambling with the card packs.
Have some personal responsibility for once.
> All entertainment is addictive
But not all entertainment is made equal, a simple example is single player games and microtransactions based games.
Similarly, social media as we know it abuses reward mechanism specifically to maximise engagement and screen time with complete disregard of the person's well being and proclivity for compulsive behaviour.
> Have some personal responsibility for once.
I am of this same opinion, people need to assume some level of responsibility for them to get better, but the fact is that addiction forces people to make choices they regret later. It robs the person from their individuality.
Have some personal responsibility for once.
We literally treat minors differently under the law because they are assumed to be incapable of personal responsibility.
They are already blocked from the platform. What do you want Meta to do? Specifically.
For starters, there's a discrepancy between the age of majority (18 in the US) and Meta's age limits (13, which are tied to a different law - COPPA). So there's a ~5 year window where Meta could design the services to be addictive to minors.
> Have some personal responsibility for once.
its probably a bit unrealistic to expect children to "Have some personal responsibility for once." id agree with you if a 50 year old said, "omgolly meta, you used trickery on me."
but if the evidence shows they have specifically targeted children, then i can understand the concerns.
and yes, im aware how dangerous it is to declare "lets protect the children" but we also have to recognize this is a messy situation, and one that needs to be sorted out. i dont pretend to hold the answers, but to hand waive it away as hysteria or whatever is probably not a good solution.
Wait, you seriously believe the point of all entertainment is addiction?
As in, the only form of entertainment that society should (or does) offer should be specifically designed to trigger as much addictive behavior as possible?
I can see why a person, looking at our current world, might think that. Hello Dopamine Fracking.
But is that the world we want? It certainly is not the world that existed before modern extractive capitalism started turning to extracting from the people it is supposed to serve.
Fortunately, capitalism is more efficient that state/centralized planning, so capitalism is doing a better job of turning us into their farm animals than lords ever could do for their serfs.
I suggest personal responsibility for high profile managers and CEO for once. And for those who enable them.
> This is just people seeing dollar signs asking for handouts. Nothing of an real value to society.
this is exactly facebook's business model ???
"Personal responsibility" stops working when all your friends and family have a Facebook[0] account and you want to contact them. Facebook builds their platforms like roach motels - easy to get in, hard to get out of - and uses your friends to hold you hostage on the platform.
My personal preference would be laws to restrict ad surveillance and laws to mandate third-party interoperability to break that calculus. But absent that, I'll take massive damage awards from the legal system.
[0] Or Instagram, or Whatsapp, or...
Literally hard to get out of beyond network effects, too. Talk about GDPR all you like but I know of at least one person whose account got reactivated after deleting it and then promptly showed up on People You May Know
This is fraud. Promising something you didn't deliver is fraud
Society won't collapse if we ban kids from social media.
Sure some tech bros won't get their Lambos but I can live with that.