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Comment by Ozzie_osman | Hacker News Reader

At this point, I think all of the big tech companies have had some accusations of them acting unethically, but usually, the accusations are around them acting anticompetitively or issues around privacy.

Meta (and social media more broadly) are the only case where we have (in my opinion) substantiated allegations of a company being aware of a large, negative impact on society (mental wellness, of teens no less), and still prioritizing growth and profit. The mix is usually: grow at all costs mindset, being "data-driven", optimizing for engagement/addiction, and monetizing via ads. The center of gravity of this has all been Meta (and social media), but that thinking has permeated lots of other tech as well.

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We have evidence for this in other companies too. Oil & Gas and Tobacco companies are top of mind.

It's a well worn playbook by now. But Meta seems to be the only one where we now have proof of internal research being scuttled for showing the inconvenient truth.

The tobacco industry also did that, but in many ways it also seems different, because where tobacco was something that has existed for millennia and was a scourge introduced to the world by the tribes of the “new world”; Facebook was a primary player in creating the whole social media space, something that effectively did not exist in the predatory and malignant manner that it was used for to create a digital panopticon, or more accurately and way worse, where your participation is required for a certain kind of success.

Social media is abusive and utterly psychotic and narcissistic, because that is the type of people who created it using basic psychological abuse and submission tactics. Banks, casinos, games, hollywood/TV, news/politics, social media, contemporary academia and religion, etc.; they all function on being endorphin dealers/dispensers.

True, but there haven't even been publicly known internal research attempts at for example YouTube/Google about the content they are pushing and probably more importantly the ads they keep pushing into people's faces. I bet FB/Meta are kicking themselves now, for even running such internal research in the first place.

My point is, that all of these big tech giants will find, that they are a harmful cancer to society, at least in parts. Which is probably why they don't even "research" it. This way they can continue to act oblivious to this fact.

> I bet FB/Meta are kicking themselves now, for even running such internal research in the first place.

100%. This is what people miss in this thread when they're talking about seeing to punish companies who knowingly harm society. All that is going to do is discourage companies from ever seeking to evaluate the effects that they're having.

Won't the absence of punishing companies that knowingly harm society in a way encourage more of the same conduct? What's your suggestion?

Then internal evaluation must be made mandatory. This is something that can be regulated, there just isn't the will for it.

Chemical companies also are on this list (PFAs).

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/05/425451/makers-pfas-forever...

Petrochemical, Dow & Industrial Big Chem, Pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, finance companies, Monsanto, mining companies.

I mean, let's be real. That's really isn't a big company that achieves scale that doesn't have skeletons in the closet. Period.

Don’t forget the All-Fats-Are-Bad sugar scam.

What do you think the social effects of large scale advertising are? The whole point is to create false demand essentially driving discontent. I've no idea if Google et al have ever done a formal internal study on the consequences, but it's not hard to predict what the result would be.

The internet can provide an immense amount of good for society, but if we net it on overall impact, I suspect that the internet has overall had a severely negative impact on society. And this effect is being magnified by companies who certainly know that what they're doing is socially detrimental, but they're making tons of money doing it.

The positive benefits in education, science research and logistics are hard to understate. Mass advertising existed before the internet. Can you be more explicit about which downsides you thibk the additional mass advertising on the internet caused that can come anywhere close to the immeasurable benefits provided by the internet?

I'm somewhat unsurprised that my off the cuff hypothesis has been tested, and is indeed likely accurate. [1] Advertising literally makes people dissatisfied with their lives. And it's extremely easy to see the causal relationship for why this is. Companies like Google are certainly 100% aware of this. And saying that advertising existed before the internet is somewhat flippant. Obviously it did but the scale has increased so dramatically much that it's reaching the point of absurdity.

And a practical point on this topic is that the benefits of the internet are, in practice, fringe, even if freely available to everyone. For instance now there are free classes from most of all top universities online, on just about every topic, that people can enroll and participate in. There are literally 0 barriers to receiving a free premium quality education. Yet the number of people that participate in this is negligible and overwhelmingly composed of people that would have had no less success even prior to the internet.

By contrast the negatives are extremely widespread on both an individual and social level. As my post count should demonstrate, I love the internet. And obviously this site is just one small segment of all the things I do on the internet. In fact my current living would be impossible without it. Yet if I had the choice of pushing a button that would send humanity on a trajectory where we sidestep (or move along from) the internet, I wouldn't hesitate in the slightest to push it.

[1] - https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy

> I'm somewhat unsurprised that my off the cuff hypothesis has been tested, and is indeed likely accurate.

That study is a correlation with self reported satisfaction. The effect size is that a doubling of ad spend results in a 3% change in satisfaction. I struggled to find good numbers but it appears as if ad spending in the USA has been a more or less constant percentage of GDP growth.

Thus the only real conclusion you can draw from your argument is that any increase in unhappiness caused by the internet was caused by its associated GDP growth increasing ad spend per capita.

Personally, I do think advertising has become more damaging precisely due to the internet but good luck proving it.

> And a practical point on this topic is that the benefits of the internet are, in practice, fringe, even if freely available to everyone

Ok, nevermind. I can't take anything else you say seriously when you call the ways the the internet has improved people's lives "fringe". I take it you never tried to take a bus pre-internet? Drive a car across the cohntry? Or lookup any information? The internet's effects on people is so far from fringe that it has seeped into almost everything we do at a fundamental level. Perhaps because of that you can't see it.

As the article mentions a 3% drop in life satisfaction is "about half the drop in life satisfaction you’d see in a person who had gotten divorced or about one-third the drop you’d see in someone who’d become unemployed." And advertising spending is increasingly exponentially. Good numbers on ad spend are available here [1], as that's the source they used (the exact date).

Ad spending was estimated at growing around 14% per year. In current times it's settled around 5-10% per year, but of course keep in mind that that's a compounding value. So a doubling isn't every 10-20 years but every ~7-14. And furthermore in their study they were able to demonstrate that shifts in happiness followed even local shifts in advertising. So when advertisers scaled back for various reasons, life satisfaction increased, and then began diminishing as the advertising returned.

Mass advertising will likely be the tobacco of our time once you consider the knock-on effects of societies full of individuals being made intentionally discontented.

[1] - https://www.zenithmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Adspe...

> And advertising spending is increasingly exponentially. Good numbers on ad spend are available here [1]

I don't see a single place in that PDF that lists historical ad spend data. You do realize that is a "forecast" not a mearement?

And even that forecast contradicts the point you are trying to argue. It projects that ad spend will grow exponentially...at a rate lower than GDP.

So again, the only evidence here that the Internet increased advertising spending is by arguing that the Internet increased GDP.

> Ad spending was estimated at growing around 14% per year

This is false. The only place that numer was used in your cited text was here:

>> We forecast paid search to grow at an average rate of 14% a year to 2016

So that isn't a measurement, it is a forecast. It is also not for all ad spending growth, but for "paid search".

I too dislike mass advertising, but if you wanna argue against it you need to do MUCH better.

You have yet to offer a single coherent counter-argument or explanation. Rather you are wildly flailing with seemingly endless weak claims that mean nothing. Like here if I look it up and the ad spend was indeed growing at somewhere in the ballpark of their numbers (since their predictions are obviously going to align with trends), are you going to change your opinion? Obviously not, no more than you're going to change your opinion after realizing that a 3% decline in satisfaction was indeed a lot, or that the study did indeed make some significant effort to demonstrate causality.

Or now if you learn that economies, especially European, grow dramatically slower [1] than you seem to think, are you going to change your opinion? No, because once again you're not making a logical or rationale argument whatsoever, but behaving like somebody on the defensive desperately trying to argue against something but having no foundation beyond the dislike of a seemingly inescapable conclusion.

[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/euu/eur...

> 3% decline in satisfaction was indeed a lot

That is 3% if you double ad spend. You've failed to demonstrate that the internet increased ad spend at all, let alone came anywhere near doubling it.

> Or now if you learn that economies, especially European, grow dramatically slower

I just was telling you what your own source claimed, not endorsing those claims...

> behaving like somebody on the defensive desperately trying to argue against something but having no foundation beyond the dislike of a seemingly inescapable conclusion.

Perhaps you should re-read the comment you just left...

So what is your argument supposed to be? That people don't see anymore ads than they used to, or that the internet is having no impact on the number of ads people are seeing? See the problem with how you're arguing? Obviously you don't believe these things, but it seems that's what you've apparently found yourself trying to argue.

It also just occurred to me in our discussion that you may have missed the fundamental point. The study used ad spend as a proxy for ads viewed. This is because measuring exactly how many ads people see, let alone over time, is impossible to measure, but it's undoubtedly increasing with a sharp exponential, largely thanks to the internet.

Ad spend works as a passable proxy for it, and is likely understating the impact in modern times since advertising has become cheaper than ever, again thanks to the internet. So ad spend is going up at the same time that the number of ads per spend is increasing, at a rate substantially faster than during their study period.

> The study used ad spend as a proxy for ads viewed

Yes, clearly that was the intent. That doesn't mean you can generalize from your proxy to the thing you have a hard time measuring.

> So ad spend is going up at the same time that the number of ads per spend is increasing, at a rate substantially faster than during their study period.

It seems like you are just making up facts.

The fact is that global spending on advertising is a fairly steady percentage of the GPD. It does occilate a little up and down, but the "exponential" growth you are talking about is merely the exponential growth of GDP.

Thus your argument that internet has increased ad spend and thus decreased happiness is false.

Addionaly, while this is also hard to quantify, the trends for cost per ad view does seem to be moving in the opposite direction. The cost of an impression seems to be moving upwards, not downwards.

The study started in 1980 and carried on to 2013. So they started in an era where you had a mixture of extremely expensive (television) or extremely low reach (local newspaper classifieds) ads. In the internet era you have high reach low cost options such that for less than $100, like $30 adjusted to 1980 dollars, you can hit tens of thousands of people. And there are vastly more people advertising precisely because of that.

Your GDP thing is a complete red herring. GDP has no relevance on the meaning of increases in advertising. Finally here [1] is a graph of global advertising spend over the years. Yes it is increasing exponentially, and obviously so are the number of ads people are seeing.

[1] - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/evolution-global-advertisin...

> In the internet era you have high reach low cost options such that for less than $100, like $30 adjusted to 1980 dollars, you can hit tens of thousands of people.

You could buy a classified with the same or better reach and same price in 1980.

> Your GDP thing is a complete red herring. GDP has no relevance on the meaning of increases in advertising.

You've claimed that internet cause ad spending to grow. Ad spending only grew because the GDP grew so you can't blame the internet for it.

> Yes it is increasing exponentially

Again, because GDP is increasing exponentially.

Also your graph doesn't show total spend, only the breakdown by sector.

Obviously GDP growth does not magically make spending on something increase.

And similarly obviously classifieds didn't have even remotely near the same reach. Classifieds were an opt-in categorized system that was delivered to a small subset of classified viewers that was, itself, a small subset of all newspaper subscribers in society. And you're paying for small lines of text delivered to this opt-in audience as opposed to as opposed to graphical images, or even videos, imposed on people against their will.

> Obviously GDP growth does not magically make spending on something increase.

Its not magic, but spending on certain types of things do increase with GDP. Insisting that they don't, despite the evidence that they do historically because it is inconvenient for your argument isn't convincing.

> And similarly obviously classifieds didn't have even remotely near the same reach.

You are claiming that a classified in 1970 would not routinely reach tens of thousands of people?

> as opposed to graphical images, or even videos, imposed on people against their will

The nature of advertising has changes and I don't really doubt it has been made more harmful. What I don't see is a line between that and your fantastical claim that the internet is somehow a net negative.

Once again GDP has nothing to do with anything here. Whether it was higher, lesser, or whatever else does not matter. Advertising spending increased exponentially only because exponentially more money was being spent on advertising. How exactly that relates to GDP has no relevance, whatsoever.

In 1980 (this study didn't even cover 1970), there were something like 1750 newspapers for something like 60 million readers. So the subscribers per paper was already (relatively) very low. And with classifieds you get a very tiny subset of that that opt-in to reading the classifieds, and further opt-in to the section you are listed in. It should be beyond obvious that this has basically no relationship whatsoever to modern advertising.

> How exactly that relates to GDP has no relevance, whatsoever.

You are claiming that the increased spending on advertising is due to the internet. The relationship between GDP and ad spending pretty clearly indicates that the internet was not the cause of increased ad spend, except in as much as it increased GDP.

If the internet has any effect on ad spend growth, you would have seen the growth rates of GDP and ad spend diverge with the birth of the internet.

To see how clearly wrong you are consider this, part of GDP growth is population growth. You are claiming that population growth is irrelevant to ad spend growth?

> It should be beyond obvious that this has basically no relationship whatsoever to modern advertising.

Even your own numbers pretty clearly indicate that the pricing can be equivalent, which was my point.

GDP is an abstract measurement of other things that, itself, has no causal effect on anything. Yes, population can increase while GDP decreases. And spending on things also does not just naturally increase. It increases if, and only if, there is more spending on it. And no, classifieds are not like modern advertising and you clinging onto this reflects that you are not arguing in good faith.

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No, you. As already clarified, they didn't compare in any way whatsoever, including reach.

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I agree false demand effects exist. But sometimes ads tell you about products which genuinely improve your life. Or just tell you "this company is willing to spend a lot on ads, they're not just a fly-by-night operation".

One hypothesis for why Africa is underdeveloped is they have too many inefficient mom-and-pop businesses selling uneven-quality products, and not enough major brands working to build strong reputations and exploit economies of scale.

> But sometimes ads tell you about products which genuinely improve your life.

I’d argue that life improvement is so small it’s not worth the damage of false demand. I can maybe think of one product that I saw a random ad for that I actually still use today. I’d say >90% of products being advertised these days are pointless garbage or actually net negative.

Advertising is cancer for the mind and our society severely underestimates the harm it’s done.

It's on the same scale of chemical companies covering up cancerous forever chemicals.

Cigarette companies hiding known addictive effects?

And more recently, pretending vapes are a solution to cigarettes.

PG/VG base is exactly the same stuff that has been used in foggers/hazers for decades. If there were negative health effects associated with the stuff, we'd have spotted it long ago. As for nicotine, well, it's the same stuff as in cigarettes, we know about its effects again thanks to decades of research.

The only thing left is questionable flavoring agents and dodgy shops with THC oil vapes (although that kind of contamination is now known and it's been ages since I last heard anything).

At large, vapes are better than cigarettes.

>PG/VG base is exactly the same stuff that has been used in foggers/hazers for decades. If there were negative health effects associated with the stuff, we'd have spotted it long ago.

How many people are directly exposed to it daily? Technicians and performers are probably it. Everyone else is very rare so it's possibly any side effects took a while for medical community to pick up on until everyone started vaping.

>At large, vapes are better than cigarettes.

Better yes, they are harm reduction over cigarettes. However, it's not "good" and should be as regulated as cigarettes are.

Cite?

There is zero comparison. Atmospheric 'fog' versus closed system directly into lungs with intention of cellular respiration is the same thing.

Before this the pro-vape crowd used to push the trope of "it's used in nebulizers", nope, it's not. Ventolin does not use propylene glycol: https://www.drugs.com/pro/ventolin.html Maxair? Nope: https://www.drugs.com/pro/maxair-autohaler.html Airomir did not.

> There is one study looking at the potential to use PG as a carrier for an inhaled medicine (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18158714) and another which mentions that PG or ethanol may be used as a cosolvent (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12425745) in nebulizers, but no evidence presented of an asthma inhaler or nebulizer that is actually used today containing PG.

Even then, there's a huge difference between "being on stage with a fog machine", and 3-4 puffs a day of a smaller amount of a nebulizer, than chronic hundreds of puffs a day with vapes.

It wasn't inhaled in the way vapes are. The dose is higher and the exposure is chronic.

> Meta (and social media more broadly) are the only case where we have (in my opinion) substantiated allegations of a company being aware of a large, negative impact on society (mental wellness, of teens no less), and still prioritizing growth and profit

Them doing nothing about hate speech that fanned the flames for a full blown genocide is pretty terrible too. They knew the risks, were warned, yet still didn't do anything. It would be unfair to say the Rohingya genocide is the fault of Meta, but they definitely contributed way too much.

> Meta are the only case where we have substantiated allegations of a company being aware of a large, negative impact on society

Robinhood has entered the chat

Why would one specific industry be better? The toxic people will migrate to that industry and profit at the expense of society. It’s market efficiency at work.

I do think an industry is often shaped by the early leaders or group of people around them. Those people shape the dominant company in that space, and then go off to spread that culture in other companies that they start or join. And, competitors are often looking to the dominant company and trying to emulate that company.

> I do think an industry is often shaped by the early leaders or group of people around them

Yes, but did any industry live long enough to not become the villain?

Early OpenAI set the tone of safe, open-source AI.

The next few competitors also followed OpenAI’s lead.

And yet, here we are.

> Early OpenAI set the tone of safe, open-source AI.

Um, wat?

> Um, wat?

https://github.com/openai

"Safe"?

> Early OpenAI set the tone of safe, open-source AI.

Early OpenAI told a bunch of lies that even (some of) their most-ardent fans are now seeing through. They didn't start off good and become the villain.

not sure how much sense that makes when the overarching culture is profit seeking

For the uninformed, what large negative impact has Robinhood had on society?

Gamifying day trading is just turning the retail market into gambling. Obvious objections will be that this has been possible for a long time now. But never did I know young men to casually play the market day to day like Wall Street Bets do now the way they would follow sports in the past.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/gambling-addi...

tip of the iceberg.

Gamifying and advertising the shit out of options trading to make it more attractive to morons isn't, strictly speaking, an improvement of our world.

Exploring unsophisticated investors. Trading on margin used to be for extremely experienced and educated people working for a large financial institution. The risk of margin trading is extreme with unlimited losses.

Losses on long positions are limited to the value at risk. It does not matter whose money it is.

Also, tobacco companies and oil companies famously got into trouble from revelations that they were perfectly aware of their negative impacts. For the gambling and alcohol industry, it probably wouldn't even make the news if some internal report leaked that they were "aware" of their negative impact (as if anyone thought they would not be?)

Social media is way down on the list of companies aware of their negative impact. The negative impact arguably isn't even central to their business model, which it certainly is for the other industries mentioned.

The leaders and one of the announcers of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines got 30 years to life sentences for their part in the Rwandan genocide.

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