mrjaeger2d ago

Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Case

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/technology/social-media-trial-verdict.html

Meta and YouTube Found Negligent in Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial

A jury found the companies harmed a young user with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress.

The New York Times
Show threadfraywing

I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species.

Anecdote, but it does seem like a lot of younger folks I speak with are exhausted by the dark patterns and dopamine extraction that top-k social media platforms create.

If agents/AI/bots inadvertently destroy the current incarnation of social media through noise, I think we'll be better for it.

Mar 25 at 5:58pmWeb
Show threadidle_zealot2d ago

> I'd hope the next iteration of social media tools humanity builds are less about reinforcing the individual ego and more about collective improvement, learning, and supporting the health of our species

Do you have a mechanism for this in mind, incentives-wise? I can't see this making money.

Show threadslopinthebag2d ago

It doesn't need to make money directly (and probably shouldn't).

The incentives would be those which have motivated people throughout history: to create something which benefits humanity.

Show threadpixl972d ago
Ah yes, I too love free servers and bandwidth.
Show threadslopinthebag2d ago
Lol, it doesn't have to run for free and servers are really powerful these days (especially if you don't use a slow language). There are other monetisation strategies besides exploiting users for profit.
Show threadbenoau2d ago
I guess the real question is whether a website where you communicate with friends and close ones needs to be a multi-trillion dollar company in the first place... historically most of them have not been worth very much at all.
Show threadpixl972d ago
The question then becomes how can you make a website with all your friend (and by association all their friends) make enough profit to run itself?
Show threadhatsunearu2d ago
I feel like discord is kind of like this used correctly, but with the recent drama and such it feels terrible
Show threadasim2d ago

It will come. The problem is. So will the addictive stuff. The key is going to be real meaningful connection. Social media wasn't about community. Web 2.0 was. In 2005 we were connecting with real people we knew and probably up until 2011-2012 maybe we still were, but I guess friends of friends, colleagues, people in our network. Then it got really bad.

Getting back to community is key.