Aral BalkanJan 8, 2023

“Seattle city school district filed a novel lawsuit blaming #BigTech for poisoning youth with social media addiction, saying schools can’t fulfill their educational mission while students are suffering from anxiety, depression and other psychological troubles.

#Alphabet Inc., #Meta Platforms Inc., #Snap Inc. and #ByteDance Ltd., owner of #TikTok, are responsible for hooking young people on their platforms and creating a mental health crisis, according to the complaint”

https://www.inkl.com/a/ZommJnURLnR

Seattle Schools Sue Big Tech Over Youth Mental Health Crisis

The Seattle city school district filed a novel lawsuit blaming Big Tech for poisoning youth with social media addiction, saying the schools can’t fulfill their educational mission while students are suffering from anxiety, depression and other psychological troubles.

inkl
Show threadMax AnderlitschkaJan 8, 2023
@aral I sympathies with all parents incl. myself having Samir issues, but where do you draw the line between responsibility of oneself and the offerer of a product? What about the gaming industry that sucks people into addiction? What about bad food being produced that you consume (example sugar). We have to be responsible for ourselves. I do agree that these algorithms are bad and should be changed, but it is not only Social Media that sucks us into bad habits
Show threadAral BalkanJan 8, 2023

@Manderli Indeed, this is why we always check the food we buy at the store isn’t toxic and why we have to teach our kids they shouldn’t listen to the smoking ads they see during cartoons. Oh, wait, no, we have regulations that protect us from such things.

We already live in a world where corporate greed is decimating our habitat and gross systemic inequality has left whatever remains of the social contact in tatters. We should welcome any attempt, however small, to right the scales of justice.

Show threadMr. Teatime

@aral
The question makes sense, though: What is the test to determine if something should be outlawed, modified, limited to certain ages, carry a mandatory warning (of what size?), is totally fine?

I find it too hard to avoid fat and sugar when buying food, but absolutely welcome efforts to legalize weed, shrooms and MDMA, and decriminalize heroine and cocaine/crack.

Without objective criteria that are independent of what *I* get mad about, that seems kinda random to most people.
@Manderli

Jan 12, 2023 at 2:39pmWeb
Show threadMr. TeatimeJan 12, 2023

@aral
...and I think particularly in the online "platform" realm, those criteria are extra hard to develop because there's no substance to test, the effects depend on scale, and new stuff haooens way faster than regulators can figure it out (if they ever...)

But while I'd be happy to see MS, Googe, Amazon & co burn ... "people like it too much" was a bad argument against weed back when, and it's a bad one now.
"'pay with your data' is an unethical business model" -- much better!
@Manderli

Show threadMr. TeatimeJan 12, 2023

@aral
...but that wouldn't address the issue of people getting sucked into social media, spending more time than they should on it and developing psychological problems. Hell, for all I know that can and does happen with Mastodon, too!

So, how to address that? I think personal resilience has a big part to play there, but we can't rely on just that. I'm not sure what else it takes, but I'm pretty sure that outlawing social media would make it worse.
@Manderli

Show threadMax AnderlitschkaJan 12, 2023
@Mr_Teatime @aral I agree to a lot of your arguments. I think it is a matter of personal preference. Governmental regulation or liberalism. I love to take my own conscious decisions about what I use and what I don’t & I love to give this freedom to my kids including the tools to take conscious decisions. The question is what needs to be forbidden for the sake of society. But it is a delicate line between freedom of choice & legislation telling you what to do.
Show threadMr. TeatimeJan 13, 2023

@Manderli
...and it's not really a binary decision, or a 1D scale, either.
Everything you permit with "people know what they're doing" requires people to actually understand the topic at hand, and have the necessary information. Everything you forbid assumes that either they don't or that no sane person would do it if they knew enough -- which is also almost never quite true.

I think one way to reduce that tension is open, independent and verifiable tests/analyses, and clear labelling.

@aral

Show threadMr. TeatimeJan 13, 2023

@Manderli
... back to the topic of social media: the GDPR tried to introduce clear labelling but most providers sabotage that, ofc.

Outlawing social media is never going to work, but outlawing "pay with your data" actually makes sense: it's never technically necessary, the drawbacks are very long-term (like smoking, the worst consequences happen years later), and it's in crass contradiction to democratic values and personal autonomy, thus dangerous to society.
@aral

Show threadMr. TeatimeJan 13, 2023

@Manderli
In that sense, regulation should be a lot like food safety: we don't outlaw ice cream, but there are strict rules to avoid salmonella problems. And if you sellal drinks containing methanol, you have a problem.

What I wish for in food as well as online: *good* and healthy things should be easier to find and cheaper to buy -- they should be the default. And that's possible without making peanut butter chocolate bars hard to get.

...also, I talk too much. will shut up now.
@aral