Comment by acdha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acdha | Hacker News Reader

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No, it's not the same as a physical product but there's a growing body of research, supported by some of Facebook's internal commentary, suggesting that it has similarly addictive characteristics, which is why I made that comparison. The point, again, is simple: most people recognize that it will not be optimal to tell everyone that it's their job to ignore a billion-dollar promotional system run by a company which makes more money if they get addicted.

There are some things which you could try regulating: for example, a lot of what drives the dubious aspects comes back to algorithmic promotion maximizing time on site and advertising views. Legislators could ban algorithmic promotion for children, require companies to identify and curb addictive levels of consumption, or require companies to put more effort into moderation on the posts & comments which they promote.

Similarly, I believe at least some countries are exploring requirements to clearly indicate photos which have been modified or retouched.

There are quite a few things to think about here: 1) When do we agree science has actually reached a conclusion about something? Facebook is quite a new phenomenon. Social studies research is notoriously difficult to replicate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis While it's pretty clear social media has drawbacks, I am not convinced they are materially worse for kids than Netflix or pop culture. 2) Why do we only think about the kids? If we say that social media is more harmful than good - why not ban it altogether? There's this sense that after 18 years old we are all responsible autonomous creatures worthy of maximum freedom but I think that's not based on anything. 3) What happens if we decide to hold everything in our lives to the same yardstick of how good it is to our mental health? I mean social media shouldn't be the exception right? Is watching a violent sadistic show like Games of Thrones good for our mental health? Or watching T.V in general for more than 1 hour a day? How about using Twitter? Or the internet in general? Owning a smartphone? Looking at your smartphone for more than 30 minutes a day? The list of things in our modern lives that have a questionable effect on our mental well-being is enormous.

Cigarettes aren't highly regulated because they are addictive, they are regulated because they literally rot and kill your internal organs.

"Some people feel bad about their bodies after viewing social media" doesn't nearly meet the threshold of measurable harm that tobacco does. And algorithmic promotion can be positive, unlike the universally health-corrosive effects of cigarettes.

That's not the relevant part of the comparison: the point we were talking about is that there are plenty of examples of things where society uses regulation rather than expecting most individuals to make good choices all of the time.

Where the impact of cigarettes is relevant is in the discussion of how _strong_ a particular regulation should be. A deadly threat certainly warrants stricter rules than something minor, just as we do not enforce zoning violations with the death penalty.

If there's a specific policy proposal you could talk about whether you think it'd be effective or overkill but instead you appear to be arguing that there's no need to even consider the range of policy options.

I agree that content consumed by facebook/instagram can be addictive. But I don't think this is unique to them, I think youtube (my personal weakness), netflix, television, video-games and movies all fall into this category. The particular problem with instagram is that it encourages people to post the "highlights" of their life. Therefore people end up consuming a super un-real version of what life is and end up depressed when they compare it to their own. This issue is not a problem of an algorithm or moderation but of one's personal expectations.

There are tons of great examples where algorithmic feed is useful, particularly when your feed is related to activities such as cooking, music and exercise.

In theory I think the concept of forcing the companies to behave a certain way is ideal but I'm still unsure of what type of legislation could be put in place to address the problem in the article.

Yes, I don't think anyone is saying that this is unique to Facebook — they just get the most attention by virtue of popularity and profitability, and having lied about what they knew and when in various related areas. Ignoring the question of the exact effects of all of the political use of social media in the previous decade, that simply happening to the degree it did guaranteed that they'd get a lot more scrutiny.

I definitely agree that there isn't a proven solution for this problem — that's normal for major technological changes. We saw the same thing with printed books, magazines, and newspapers; radio; TV; the internet; etc. — not to mention things like cars which weren't communications technologies but definitely had major impacts on society. I think the best thing we can get right now is more of the data companies like Facebook and Google tend to avoid sharing, especially after various governments experiment with rules and it becomes possible to see what does and doesn't work.

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