Mark Zuckerberg to testify in landmark social media trial | Hacker News Reader

Mark Zuckerberg to testify in landmark social media trial

ft.com

117 points1vuio0pswjnm7106 comments

Of course he did: Zuckerberg has shown countless times that he's morally bankrupt: Each time, when given the choice (and regulatory landscape is gray) even with full knowledge of internal experts advising him against, he chose profits, even if "move fast and break things" includes the very society he and we all live in. (<- see current state of the world)

Aren’t some things just inherent with the product though. These are unhealthy products, they should be allowed to exist for what they are instead of trying to make them something they’re not.

And I say this as a very light social media user, I never enjoyed it and it always felt unhealthy so I just kept off it. As I’ve watch it all unfold, was in college during facebooks college only explosion and now people are on tiktok. It’s clear, people want to be addicted to social media just as bad as zuck wants them addicted to social media. And an instagram without filters is like porn without nudity.

Should they, tho? Laudanum (morphine in alcohol; a lot of ‘patent medicines’/snake oil were basically just laudanum) is an unhealthy product. It is not, in any meaningful sense, allowed to exist these days.

Then ban social media as a whole, cherry picking features to ban is silly. Banning features that only harm young users that probably shouldn’t even be using the app due to their age is misguided. If it’s unhealthy for kids, ban kids use.

"Then ban medicine as a whole, cherry picking medicines to ban is silly."

Like, you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. _This_ is social media, but probably would not make sense to ban (merely being very irritating is not an adequate reason to ban something).

> merely being very irritating is not an adequate reason to ban something

I think we're talking about it's large scale impact on youth mental health, slightly more reason than 'merely...irritating'

I do think it's sad that we have to ban it, because that means parents aren't doing their job - but that's the reality of it

All true but it's a circular argument: these are unhealthy products because they're _designed_ that way. That design is directed from the top - no more so that Facebook/Instagram. Zuckerberg retains a controlling interest in Meta so he can't use the excuse of other public firms where CEOs throw up their hands and say "yeah, but we need to deliver shareholder return - it's out of my hands". Zuckerberg could choose differently. As GP notes, he hasn't - he's gone consistently hard the other way.

> It’s clear, people want to be addicted to social media

I'd say people are susceptible to addiction rather than wanting it. Suppliers of any addictive product - whether its tobacco, class A drugs, alcohol, gambling or social media - know that. Going too hard the other way into full prohibition is impractical because it starts to impinge on civil liberties: as a capable adult, why shouldn't I be able to smoke/drink/doomscroll instagram if I want?

That's why it's dificult; neither extreme liberty nor extreme prohibition is the answer. It's a grey area as GP notes. The trouble is it creates opportunities for people like Zuckerberg to exploit the middle ground and amass huge personal wealth paid for, in part, by the health detriment of those unable to self-regulate the addiction.

I must just lack empathy then. I feel it’s zucks role to build the best wine, whisky, casino game, meth, cigar, etc he can. It’s the consumers job to use it responsibly. They won’t so that’s when it’s time for regulation. Which is probably now/soon. And yes, he gets to amass wealth during this time. I wouldn’t say it’s all been exploitive though. I’d say many people have healthy addictions. Just like the average American who drinks 10 alcoholic beverages a week, every single week. They’re adults, they aren’t alcoholic, they just need a drink, every day they’re not being exploited, it’s a vice of sorts. But it’s an opt-in vice.

I think that yes, it's a lack of empathy stemming from the belief that everything can ultimately be distilled into personal responsibility.

In reality we are not so much in control, our psyche is easily manipulated by nudges, design that leaves you on the cusp of a dopaminic reaction is much more addictive. It's different to develop a vice to being manipulated into developing a vice. Morality should come into play on the latter, otherwise it's a free-for-all to discover the most effective ways to manipulate you into behaviours that are unhealthy but profitable.

> Just like the average American who drinks 10 alcoholic beverages a week, every single week. They’re adults, they aren’t alcoholic, they just need a drink

Drinking every day and "needing" a drink look like good indication of alcoolism to me.

It’s how people unwind from stressful day, just like doomscrolling. But most of these people aren’t considered alcoholics by society, it’s fairly normal behavior until it affects other parts of your life. From what I can tell anyways. I also don’t drink much so don’t get it when people need to have a glass of wine or whatever after a completely normal day.

> I wouldn’t say it’s all been exploitive though.

But it was:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846784

It is pretty clear which way the wind is blowing and HN is tilting at windmills.

Those who do not work in tech, those with children- they do not like what they see and they demand action from their representatives.

I have children and don’t work in tech, I was able to self moderate myself and keep kids away from it. It’s simply not that hard to see it for what it is, and never has been. It’s bad. Glad people are finally seeing what’s obvious.

Takes some minimal effort to be honest to tell the kid no and give them other outlets for their boredom. I never did tablets or small screens at all. Parenting today, and last decade or so, instead puts infants in front of tablets. Its insane. All media is then altered to steal attention and maximize engagement. It’s to be expected. Zuck is basically cocomelon. Garbage that people love to eat.

Oh and we did ban cocomelon. My kids watch plenty of Tv and I’m not going to rave about it, it’s crappy kid TV, we try to push some educational stuff too. But It was obvious that when cocomelon was on kids eyes glaze over, they forget to blink, they have no idea what is going on around them, and just look like zombies staring at a TV/screen. Let’s be honest though, that’s what most parents like about it.

If you distill everybody involved down to a single function, this makes sense. But that's not all we are. It is not a physical law that Zuckerberg make his products the most addictive and harmful as they can be; he can choose to be more responsible with his influence. Consumers cannot always simply just choose not to be addicted; when you grow up with these things and people & companies are constantly pushing you to try them, it's very hard to avoid.

There is a big difference between a potentially unhealthy product, and intentionally making a product as unhealthy as possible by data driven engagement maximising.

Remember the proto social media ? They were a huge time sink, sure, but they were not this hyper optimised slot machine that they are now.

Additionally if the product is inherently unhealthy, we should protect underdeveloped frontal cortices from it, as we do with every similar thing (drugs, gambling etc).

I disagree with first point but fully agree with latter.

Probably why latter should be the initiative of these 18 wellbeing experts just like how we have with drugs, gambling, tobacco, alcohol. Not by changing the product but by restricting access

People want to be addicted to fentanyl after they’ve tried it a few times, does that mean we should legalize that too?

If we feel these are comparable items, then we should treat social media like we treat fentanyl. Not the other way around.

I’m not saying they’re similar though. But you used an extreme analogy and took it the wrong way.

Yeah but if he listened to a single wellness expert they'd probably tell him to shut down most or all of social media, so what's the point of articles like these. Unless it's unlawful and they get fined nothing changes.

But on this specific topic I'm curious what the wellness experts think about make-up, or even worse purely cosmetic plastic surgery. If digital filters are wrong, surgery should get the death penalty in comparison.

What's troubling in these cases isn't just one person's intent, but that the system seems to consistently resolve internal debates in favor of engagement when there's a tradeoff

I'll bite: Who is a wellbeing expert? What is the ground for calling some people wellbeing experts? How does one earn it? How general is their expertise? Would you trust your psychologist with everything they say? Or even a group of psychologists that align with some contemporary majority opinion? How often in the past did accepted "facts" change completely?

> includes the very society he [..] live in.

He lives in a very different society from you and me. Not saying you don't know this, but it's staggering that so many people don't realize how different the world is for billionaires and the rest. I know few can experience this first hand, but it's not difficult to read/see/understand that the difference is vast.

If and when aliens ever land, I think the difference between them and us will be smaller than between us and the 0.01%.

I suggest anyone who hasn’t reads Careless People.

Everyone I passed my copy around to has left Facebook almost instantly. Zuck is just one of the worst humans on the planet.

I suggest we crowdfund a campaign to gift each employee this.

It was a good read though nothing too surprising after following this saga from the McNamee Zucked to the Wylie /. Cambridge Analytica case.

Wylies Mindfuck is another great one.

Yeah, I think fo anyone who’d been keeping an eye on Facebook there was very little new there. I don’t remember any major revelations, but having it all presented in one shot is… well, it’s a thing.

Wasted effort. I worked in an adjacent area. There’s a large supply of people without an ounce of morality who don’t give a shit if they are paid up. Anyone who cares or couldn’t be bought left already.

I have a list of no hire/tainted companies now and they are on the list.

Careless People is very good. However, I'm currently reading "Character Limit" about the acquisition of Twitter by Musk which I think is even more interesting.

Does anyone have any recommendations for more books like these?

Will buy that today. Thanks for the recommendation.

maybe take a look at "Bad Blood" by John Carreyrou

Yes - already read that, it's also very good!

Edit: Maybe I should find one about the shenanigans in the crypto space...

I love these kind of books, some recommendations:

Tech-specific (more like Careless People):

- Empire of AI: tells the story of how the massive AI labs started and became as big as they are with a focus on OpenAI, provides new insight into the coup that outed Altman a couple years ago

- Number Go Up: digs into the crypto culture and scams with novel insight into Tether

- Bad Blood: a classic about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes and how far a technologically impossible startup can go

- Super Pumped: about Uber and the dirty tactics they employed to stay ahead, also touches on the toxic culture that was propagated there

- Money Men: about the criminal enterprise around Wirecard, hard to keep up with at times due to the focus on the FT investigation rather than the fraud but interesting anyway

Finance-focused:

- Barbarians at the Gate: a classic about the attempted takeover of RJR Nabisco (oreos and tobacco) by management and early PE firms, told from first hand accounts

- Too Big Too Fail: similar in form to Barbarians but instead focused on the 08 collapse and the attempts by the government to save all the irresponsible banks, told in too much of a sympathetic way for me but interesting to see how things happened behind the scenes

- All the Devils Are Here: on the other hand a very unsympathetic look into the 08 crisis, by the same authors as Smartest Guys in the Room

Other:

- The Smartest Guys in the Room: my favourite of them all, tells the story of Enron and their rise and incredible fall, basically a foundational text on how to do a financial crime (and not get away with it)

- Chip War: very relevant look into the production of computer chips, highlights the reliance on only a few companies and the incredible costs involved

- Empire of Pain: also a favourite, goes into the Sackler family and how they built Perdue Pharma and then proceeded to cause the devastating opioid epidemic

- The Power Broker: a classic about Robert Moses who basically built half of New York at the expense of marginalised residents, it's very long so I'd recommend reading/listening along with the 99% invisible breakdown

I've not read Character Limit so have added that to my "To Read" pile!

Thanks - "Number Go Up" is just what I was looking for.

Unfortuantely Empire of AI is incredibly sour and pessimistic, choosing to present only one side of the story. I would def read it, but with a grain of salt.

Great list - thank you!!

Empire of AI was quite bad

There was a blip of time when Mark Zuckerberg seemed to be somewhat human, maybe the last couple of years, but since then he's shown what kind of guy he really is, that he doesn't really care.

He really had a chance.

It sounds like you were duped into thinking his Augustinian PR campaign showed any sense of humanity. This is not a good person- Zuck is a freak and a hypocrite and deserves all the worst treatment from all of us - including NOT using their products.

> Mark Zuckerberg overruled 18 wellbeing experts to keep beauty filters on Insta

Is there a source for this? The article doesn't seem to mention it. On that topic, should we update the title to match the article title?

From the article:

"Mark Zuckerberg told a jury on Wednesday that he overruled concerns about teen wellbeing from staff and 18 experts to lift a ban on Instagram beauty filters because he was concerned about "free expression"."

"Instagram temporarily suspended beauty filters - which digitally alter people's appearance - to conduct a review of the features in 2019. All of the 18 experts Meta hired concluded they presented a wellbeing issue."

Works where archive.ph is blocked, no CAPTCHAs, no Javascript:

   printf '%s\r\n%s\r\n%s\r\n\r\n' \
   "GET /content/0c6d8ff6-f207-431b-bfb9-1d8b42bb4b6d HTTP/1.0" \
   "host: www.ft.com" \
   "user-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Java) outbrain" \
   |busybox ssl_client www.wsj.com  >1.htm
   firefox ./1.htm

As someone who was working there in a technical role while all this shit was going on... I've never breathed easier than the day I quit

Mmm.

Way back in the early days, I attended an in-person Facebook developer event in London. This was just as they'd realised they'd gotten as many users as they were likely to be able to get, and were now talking about maximising time spent on the site.

Immediately changed my opinion of them from "cool tech company" to "slimy digital crack dealers".

How does US products liability law work (personal injury plaintiffs)

How does US public nuisance law work (local government/school district plaintiffs)

For example,

what are the claims

what do the plaintiffs have to prove to succeed

what about strict liability

what about causation

what about duty to warn

and so on

Here are the master complaints for

(a) the personal injury plaintiffs

https://dn710108.ca.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

(b) the local government/school district plaintiffs

https://dn710108.ca.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

The defendants have not had much success in dismissing any of the plaintiffs' claims nor in excluding plaintiffs' experts' testimony (so far)

e.g., https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.40...

In the Google antitrust litigation Google resorted to unusual, creative tactics to avoid a jury trial

Will a jury get to decide on the plaintiffs' claims here, or will the remaining defendants settle

We will know soon enough

Then HN can return to 100% "AI" topics

But a substantial portion of the evidence gathered in this litigation will live on in the public record; not everything is sealed

There was a time before so-called "social media" when personal websites did not force visitor to "sign in", when personal websites did not have millions of pages, let alone millions of pages authored by other people, and when a third party's personal website was not used by members of the public to communicate with each other "directly" while being surveilled by the website's operator, who aims to sell them out to advertisers

The internet is still in its infancy. It's still evolving

Regardless of the verdict, I suspect the long-term impact will be more about design norms than liability

Original HN title: Mark Zuckerberg overruled 18 wellbeing experts to keep beauty filters on Insta

Somebody should tell him that the character of Mr Burns in The Simpsons was meant to be a satirical parody of evil tycoons, not a role model.

I'd wager that one day, his grandchildren (possibly even children), are going to call for his arrest and imprisonment, as a means to stop themselves being judged for his sins.

History shows it's pretty rare for tech founders to be personally punished in the dramatic way people imagine

So the new wave of reptiloid zuck memes incoming.

Unironically, Zuckerberg should be in the Hague. We tried people in Nuremberg for less than he has done in his life.

Ah, but did you know almost all the rich Nazis got off silently without any fanfare?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/18/nazi-billionai...

Questions, as the article is paywalled and I don't know:

* what in Earth is a "wellbeing expert".

This title sounds entirely made up, and I doubt there is such a degree.

If there is no degree, what were they basing their recommendations on?

What research? Papers?

If they have no formal schooling, what makes them experts or not?

Were these just Meta employees?

If they are, were other Meta employees equally skilled saying it was OK?

Ah well. Maybe the article says.

Would you be equally sceptical if the heading of a similar lay article referred to "computer experts"? That's also a made-up title and there's no such a degree.

Honestly yes I would. "Any man who must say 'I am the king' is no true king" . Same for any self titled expert. Or even worse - credentialist.

But there are no self-titled experts here?! The phrase was chosen by the author or editor at FT. Presumably because you can’t fit everything in the headline. "Experts" is an entirely standard word to use in a headline.

“wellbeing” used as if it were the label of a discipline is almost invariably used for grifts that are intended to be viewed by the audience targeted as being in either (or straddling both) the physical or psychological health spaces, but where the grifter wants to avoid explicitly claiming to be operating in either of those spaces for liability or other reasons.

https://archive.md/VQNcJ (sadly this isn't the updated version with the 18 wellbeing experts line)

But basically it's about Zuckerberg testimony and evidence in an ongoing court case in California. I believe case 23SMCV03371 but there's a number of coordinated cases. [0]

From reading other articles[1][2][3][4] about the testimony I think "18 wellbeing experts" is referring to external consultation funded by Meta/Instagram that appears to have overwhelmingly turned up concerns about the impact beauty filters could have on young girls (who weren't even supposed to be on the platform in the first place).

There's some stuff with internal Meta employees also raising concerns. I didn't see anything about internal Meta employees saying it was ok but of course it's hard to know without free access to actual court transcripts and exhibits.

Zuckerberg himself said they decided to allow the filters but not recommend them and that not allowing the filters would have been paternalistic.

[0] https://www.lacourt.ca.gov/pages/lp/access-a-case/tp/find-ca...

[1] https://www.wunc.org/2026-02-18/zuckerberg-grilled-about-met...

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-testifies-social...

[3] https://www.kten.com/news/business/takeaways-mark-zuckerberg...

[4] https://www.wandtv.com/news/national/zuckerberg-testifies-at...

The Epstein Harvard roofie class, of which Zuck is a product, views women and girls as nonhuman property, so of course beauty filters were kept.

> They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks.

Paywall article, sadly but understandable

Voters overrule countless well-being experts to keep alcohol available everywhere.

This seems like entirely normal human behavior at every level of society, no? Of course asking Zuckerberg is a bit like asking a bartender, but we know very well that it's not only bartenders who'd be against stopping alcohol sales.

It is strange to condemn Zuckerberg for doing this unless you're also willing to implement the all the other (vastly more important) advice from wellbeing experts that we as a society have pretty decisively rejected.

So you're saying we should implement age restrictions until the person is deemed mature enough to understand what the implications of their decisions are?

Sure, why not? I don't use Instagram and I don't give a shit. Filters provide me absolutely zero joy.

I'm only pointing out that the headline is describing perfectly normal human behavior.

Not all bartenders would serve alcohol to anyone at at all times. But Z would, I'm sure.

Discussing whether or not Zuckerberg would do that seems like a better fit for some reddit gossip board than HN.

Seems like a great analogy to me..

Do you know Zuckerberg well enough to be able to engage in an interesting conversation about his hypothetical behavior if he was a bartender?

Do you know Zuckerberg well enough to be able to engage in an interesting conversation about whether or not he would continue to grant a specific person access to filters, knowing that they're harming that specific person?

I guess not. Speculating about it seems pointless at best.

Eh? It seems like a reasonable metaphor. Facebook has constantly avoided any sort of harm reduction where it might interfere with profits.

Alcohol is a cultural universal where it is not outlawed and has been for thousands of years. It has the benefit of precedent social media does not have and it’s banned for children. Terrible point.

Social media has become a cultural universal.

Social media offers many more benefits than alcohol does, and it could certainly be banned for children. Alcohol is almost certainly less beneficial and more harmful to its users than social media.

You are correct that alcohol has been around for a while, but that hardly explains why it should be treated differently.

It’s a great point really. They’re both unhealthy products used by large portion of the human population. We treat one with moderation and regulate it heavily. The other we treat with utter gluttony and have not formed any social norms regarding restrictions, moderation, and things that would lessen the addiction and impacts to wellness it causes.

They’re both unhealthy products and I feel they deserve to be just that. Allow social media to be what it wants. But also approach it with moderation and regulation around access. The wellness experts shouldn’t be dictating what social media is, they should be promoting more healthy ways regarding how it’s used. It’s an uphill battle for a reason though, we like it too much.

> bartenders who'd be against stopping alcohol sales

I think you'll find quite a few bartenders would be pro stopping alcohol sales. Something about having to deal with the damage alcohol causes on a daily basis...

It's the people really profiting from alcohol (and alcohol addiction) you want to keep your eye on (i.e. the owners and investors in the bars/breweries/distileries/etc)

> Voters overrule countless well-being experts to keep alcohol available everywhere.

Not completely true. Some states in India have complete bans on alcohol, and even some parts of the US prohibit its sale.

I don't see the problem. He's offering a completely legal product to an eager audience. If people want to propose banning social media in some capacity, that could and should be voted on-- but Zuck isn't violating any legal or moral law I've ever heard of, and he shouldn't have to guess what products will be illegal in 20 years and preemptively withdraw them.

If it's harming your mental health, stop using it. The "Delete App" button is right there.

Same with asbestos, I mean what could go wrong in 20 years?

The main discussion here about offering this for kids. So, no! "if it's harming your mental health, stop using it" is not appropriate.

Maybe kids shouldn’t be using it. It’s reaching the point where parents aren’t doing their jobs so the government should ban it to protect the kids.

Just like tobacco, alcohol and porn we didn’t make it cancer and addiction free or remove the nudity - we banned kids from accessing it

Banning something just for kids is an easy win for any politician, since that's one of the few groups that can't punish you in the next election. For that reason alone, I assume we'll get some law within 5-15 years mandating that Facebook ban kids. I assume the kids will trivially bypass it the block, or switch to foreign social media, and we'll go back to business as usual.

Not everything that's legal is good. One presumes that if it's found to be bad and Congress isn't extremely corrupt (as if) it'll become illegal.

Right-- at which point, companies like Facebook will (hopefully) have to obey the law. But we're not there yet. Currently, people are moralizing at Zuck for not voluntarily killing his own products because they're "obviously harmful."

And just stop buying those cigarettes. This is where cultural differences matter, the US has much less concern about the negative societal impact of products than many countries, particularly its erstwhile allies. It's also precisely why it's imperative other countries decouple from US owned social media unless they want to import US values.

in the USA, we largely did "just stop buying cigarettes"

I mean, you realise that legal over the counter heroin used to be a thing, right? Cigarettes are still legal. There is a gap between “obviously harmful thing is legal” and “it is ethical to make great piles of money out of selling the obviously harmful thing (to children, at that)”. The CEO of Phillip Morris, say, isn’t doing anything illegal, but they are a _bad person_ who is knowingly harming society. Same for Zuckerberg.

What is a "moral" law as opposed to a "legal" one? If he is actively promoting a harmful product, I think that would fall into many people's definition of 'morally wrong'.

(I'm basing this on the headline because the article is paywalled)

A product can be helpful to one person and harmful to another. Most products are like that. All sorts of things can be addictive to some people, from potato chips to video games.

There was a major public campaign in the 1950s to ban rock & roll music, and in the 1980s to ban heavy metal. In each case, there were legions of "experts" calling those genres "harmful", and they were taken seriously -- congressional hearings were held, etc.

Point is, "promoting a harmful product" is very much in the eye of the beholder, and doesn't work as an objective moral standard.

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