California Parents Could Soon Sue For Social Media Addiction (apnews.com) 155
California could soon hold social media companies responsible for harming children who have become addicted to their products, permitting parents to sue platforms like Instagram and TikTok for up to $25,000 per violation under a bill that passed the state Assembly on Monday. The Associated Press reports: The bill defines "addiction" as kids under 18 who are both harmed -- either physically, mentally, emotionally, developmentally or materially -- and who want to stop or reduce how much time they spend on social media but they can't because they are preoccupied or obsessed with it. Business groups have warned that if the bill passes, social media companies would most likely cease operations for children in California rather than face the legal risk.
The proposal would only apply to social media companies that had at least $100 million in gross revenue in the past year, appearing to take aim at social media giants like Facebook and others that dominate the marketplace. It would not apply to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu or to companies that only offer email and text messaging services. [...] The bill gives social media companies two paths to escape liability in the courts. If the bill becomes law, it would take effect on Jan. 1. Companies that remove features deemed addictive to children by April 1 would not be responsible for damages. Also, companies that conduct regular audits of their practices to identify and remove features that could be addictive to children would be immune from lawsuits. "Monday's vote is a key -- but not final -- step for the legislation," adds the report. "The bill now heads to the state Senate, where it will undergo weeks of hearings and negotiations among lawmakers and advocates. But Monday's vote keeps the bill alive this year."
The proposal would only apply to social media companies that had at least $100 million in gross revenue in the past year, appearing to take aim at social media giants like Facebook and others that dominate the marketplace. It would not apply to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu or to companies that only offer email and text messaging services. [...] The bill gives social media companies two paths to escape liability in the courts. If the bill becomes law, it would take effect on Jan. 1. Companies that remove features deemed addictive to children by April 1 would not be responsible for damages. Also, companies that conduct regular audits of their practices to identify and remove features that could be addictive to children would be immune from lawsuits. "Monday's vote is a key -- but not final -- step for the legislation," adds the report. "The bill now heads to the state Senate, where it will undergo weeks of hearings and negotiations among lawmakers and advocates. But Monday's vote keeps the bill alive this year."
Dont threaten me with a good time (Score:5, Funny)
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You beat me to it, I'm not seeing the downside.
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That's the obvious first condition of a consent decree. The plaintiffs, direct and imputed, agree to deny their children access to a phone or computer unless it has verifiable firewalling and security software preventing access (as if that ever works, but hey...). Second condition, anyone furnishing these children a phone or computer without this software is banned from these services, minimum two years, or until they turn 18/whatever.
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Because accessing Facebook and TikTok is not the sole function of smartphones. If you don't want your kids addicted to social media, you should block them from making phone calls, taking photos, checking email, and reading news as well?
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Nice FP joke and too true. The topic deserved more funny...
My new meme along these lines is "Trauma Considered as a Helix of Semi-Valid Tweets", but I can't figure out where the joke is supposed to fit...
Sure (Score:2)
Any parent with a $100k or so burning a hole in their pocket can mount a multi-year legal battle against a $billion+ social media company in an attempt to collect a $25k judgement.
Is this constitutional? (Score:2)
How is this not effectively a bill of attainder?
I hate advertising companies posing as "social media" as much as the next guy, but these bills that target companies of a specific size and are defined vaguely enough so that such suits are probably indefensible... doesn't seem like the right way to go about this.
But if this does pass muster, can you please write some legislation so I can sue because my spouse is addicted? And all the other people out there? I'm definitely harmed because of all these other peo
Re: Is this constitutional? (Score:2)
Not bill of attainder. For starters, it's merely a civil cause of action not a criminal law. But, it would still violate the ex post facto clause if it was made retroactive.
But it is unconstitutional as a violation of the 1st ammendment. The thing that is allegedly causing the harm is the speech (choice of post, notifications etc displayed) of the social media companies and that unlikely to pass muster.
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But it is unconstitutional as a violation of the 1st ammendment. The thing that is allegedly causing the harm is the speech
No it's not. This has nothing to do with speech or content that people are consuming.
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But it is unconstitutional as a violation of the 1st ammendment....
No. The courts have upheld Time, Place, and Manner restrictions that don't discriminate against the content of the speech.
Passing Civil liability for damages onto social media companies for damage caused by their service is not an abridgement of free speech.
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that Reed v.s. Gilbert held that subject-matter restrictions are content based restrictions subjected to strict scrutiny. ...
The law does not create government "Restrictions" on subject matter, thus the case is moot. The law creates a duty for social media platforms to not addict child users [ca.gov]; this is something the state has the ability to do. The 1st Amendment Only protects you against restriction by the government; it does not protect you from being sued by private entities if the laws say you are
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Lol, what do you think "muh algorithm" is? It just points people to posts, videos, images from other people. You lunatics really need to settle down about "muh algorithms". Imagine, if you will, a person making the decision to show social media users specific videos they think they might find interesting. Now, imagine that instead of that the person tasked with this just writes some software to do the same fucking thing. How exactly is that not free speech?
This reminds me of the "McDonald's is making my kid
I'm not sure how I feel about this (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other other hand if we're going to go after them how about we go after mobile game developers and sports game developers. The guys who make Candy crush are some of the most evil motherfuckers on the planet. Hell fucking Smurfs game was evil as fuck.
I do think we should regulate what these companies can do just like we regulate what can be on over the air TV. I don't think this is something we should leave to the free market any more than we leave compulsory education up to the free market.
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We should also allow people to sue sports franchises. The NFL, NBA, and NHL all try to get people to watch their games, and many people do so compulsively.
At least the professional soccer league is safe in America. Nobody watches that.
How many psychologists does the NFL (Score:2)
There's a difference between hiring marketers to put your product in the best light and hiring psychologists and psychiatrists to manipulate people into addiction
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The NFL is mostly about advertising and licensing, the game is secondary to that goal. They probably have more psychologists per megabyte of data involved in their content than Faceboot does. The NFL is just selling a lot less for a lot more.
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At least sports encourage healthy behaviour, with the possible exception of American Football. I think the general consensus is that social media is mostly harmful.
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Re: I'm not sure how I feel about this (Score:2)
And how does that differ from every highly packaged and managed band? What about the latest book trying to convince people to join some political cause or adopt some weird lifestyle? They all hire marketing people to make them more appealing. Hell, psychology isn't even 200 years old and we've been studying how to make music irresistible for much longer than that.
Ultimately, this seems to be largely determined by the lens you look at it through. We see writing an appealing book or performing a compellin
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And how does that differ from every highly packaged and managed band?
My thoughts exactly. In my opinion, there's a huge difference between a chemical addiction - such as opiates - and a psychological addiction. Yes, I know everything is chemical because brain blah blah blah, but the two are obviously not the same.
Opiates, for instance, are addictive to EVERYONE, because of how the chemicals work. Gambling, social media or Fortnite (for instance) are not addictive to everyone. Use of these 'psychologically addictive' forms of entertainment is a CHOICE for which we must bear p
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Opiates, for instance, are addictive to EVERYONE, because of how the chemicals work. Gambling, social media or Fortnite (for instance) are not addictive to everyone. Use of these 'psychologically addictive' forms of entertainment is a CHOICE for which we must bear personal responsibility. Whilst taking opiates may be a choice, becoming addicted to them is not - it's essentially guaranteed because of biochemistry.
This paragraph is self-contradictory. You acknowledge that gambling, social media and games can be addictive to some, but then say that using these forms of entertainment is a choice. But how would you know if you're going to become addicted to them ahead of time, and your addiction is essentially guaranteed because of your biochemistry?
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There are two major differences here. First, you won't have legislation that will deal with addictions that do not cause any harm, such as listening to an earworm of a song again and again. There was a lot of research on harm that social media causes, including Facebook's own research. Second, there is a difference between on the one hand making something so fun and enjoyable that you will want to do it again and again and on the other hand exploiting specific psychological triggers that will ensure that a person keeps doing something again
Is there any aspect of this that would not apply to food industry? Obesity and type 2 diabetes are skyrocketing. Clearly massive harm being done and lots of related research establishing causation.
Irresistible sugary confections certainly "exploit specific psychological trigger" and are explicitly designed to do just that. Are there any criteria not being met?
I do agree that you have to be very careful in declaring something to be psychologically addictive as opposed to poor personal choices. However when there is enough evidence some forms of purely psychological addiction, such as gambling, are recognised and regulated.
The bill enumerates a list of things that do not count as social media (yet which comically are psychologically addictive in their own right) It n
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That is what addition is - at some point you want to stop, but you can't. Trying to make things more appealing to people is OK - they still make a choice, even if it may be a poor one. Deliberately engineering your product to try to get people addicted to it is not, because if you're addicted, you no longer have the ability to make a choice.
See also sugary confections.
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Social media might be the next tobacco.
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Parents (Score:5, Insightful)
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Progressive legislation is all about removing personal responsibility for anything. It's never your fault, never the parents fault, only the fault of big bad . They view the government as being responsible for instituting laws and regulations to save you from yourself and to push all responsibility elsewhere.
Progressive legislation is about solving problems (Score:5, Interesting)
Individuals cannot and never have been able to stand up to mega corporations. In the distant past we called them trusts and monopolies. I don't understand why it is that we forgot the reasons why we passed laws limiting their ability to exploit us for profit... At some point this cult of the Ayn Rand style great man managed to warm its way back into our collective psyche. Coincidentally right around the time several very wealthy people bought up all the newspapers, radio stations and TV channels...
Also in this case these would be lawsuits. Lawsuits require that you can show damages. That means that the parents in question would have had damage done to their children already. By that time I'm sure they've long since realized and pulled back on their child's access to social media. The point at this time is that damage has been done and financial compensation may be warranted.
Apparent might find that they're not skilled enough to deal with addiction and need to hire a professional for that. I don't know if it's entirely unreasonable that given that we know for a fact social media companies are encouraging that kind of addiction and that the addiction is extremely likely to be harmful that they should be let off the hook for the costs involved in undoing the damage they caused knowingly.
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Stupid legislation is stupid legislation. If companies are manipulating children, then it's reasonable for a parent to restrict access to their children; furthermore, it is also reasonable to expect parents to behave in this fashion. It might also be reasonable to ban the practice of hiring shrinks to make it easier for companies to manipulate children in general.
Exposing "social media" companies to lawsuits from parents who allege addiction is a twisted way of solving the problem. Especially if the bill
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Exposing "social media" companies to lawsuits from parents who allege addiction is a twisted way of solving the problem.
It's not one problem. If social media companies are deliberately psychologically manipulating children in ways they know are harmful in order to improve their bottom line, then they should absolutely, positively, and with prejudice be subjected to costly lawsuits until they stop. There is literally no reason they should be permitted to do that, and there is every indication that this is what they are doing.
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How does a parent know that though? (Score:2)
Facebook isn't going to advertise their kids serves as "dangerously addictive". At best they do a little lip service about "screen time". This means the deck is stacked against the parents. Most media sources will go out of their way to downplay the risks and problems with social media for children. So unle
Imagine taking Ayn Rand seriously (Score:2)
She was a welfare queen and all round nasty broken person.
I’m not a communist but Spain had a communist government and it seemed to work fine according to George Orwell who generally didn’t pull punches when it came time to be critical of communists.
Re:Parents (Score:5, Insightful)
Give it a rest, John Galt. In 1962, my grandfather was a lead hand at National Steel Car...not even a foreman. He made between ten and twelve grand a year. In today's Canadian dollars, that amounts to about a hundred grand a year. With that salary, he bought a really nice lot with a view across Lake Ontario, had an architect design and build the house he put on it, and he and my grandmother happily lived in it for years. They had two cars in the driveway and garage, and the family took regular holidays. And he retired on a full pension at 55. My grandmother didn't have to work. Her job was raising kids as a full-time parent.
Why don't you tell me how many jobs Joe Average Dude and Mrs. Dude would have to hold down today to do that. These days, both parents are working...sometimes two and three jobs...just to put food on the table and a roof over their kids' heads. Productivity may have gone sky high, but wages sure as hell haven't kept up. And hey, guess what? "Back in the day, there were rigorous controls on what kind of advertising could be shown on children's shows. The art of highly manipulative advertising was in its infancy, and the idea that a giant corporation could reach into a device your kid carries for safety and psychologically manipulate them would be a story for the Outer Limits, not a real life symptom of a sick, perverted society where EVERYTHING is the parents' fault if they don't find a way to work those multiple jobs and lock down their children 24-7.
But hey, no doubt all on your own, with no help from anybody, you have done all this and more...risen to become peers with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the rest of the billionaire giants who bestride the world, telling everybody else hard work, personal responsibility and tax avoidance are the answer to everything.
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huh.
Today I learned that the Republicans are progressive. Who knew?
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I can see "both sides" of this argument pretty clearly. On one hand you have parental responsibility, how can they just let their kids run wild right? And on the other hand you've got the fact that advertising works, selective presentation works, propaganda works. People use these techniques because they work at least some of the time even on an educated populace. But that brings us to the next point, government failure. The government's public education is supposed to be useful, is it? Does it teach us wha
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I guess you don't have kids. They are usually more tech savvy than their parents, and have nothing better to do than nag their parents for internet access. Plus these days they probably need it for school work, especially in the last couple of years with pandemic lockdowns.
This argument comes around every few years. Banning chocolate at children's eye level in supermarket checkouts back in the 90s. Parenting is hard at the best of times, and people are having fewer children in part because of that. Making i
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Parenting is hard at the best of times, and people are having fewer children in part because of that
Good. At current per capita rates of consumption of resources we need a reduction of over 25% in population for sustainability. I'm open to other solutions but since they don't seem to be happening, I'm good with depopulation. I only wish that there would be more education involved so the process could be less messy.
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If you can stop your kids from going to PornHub, you can stop them from going to Facebook. There's routers you can buy with parental controls if you're not tech-literate enough to install some software to do it or configure a hosts file.
Banning chocolate is an easily enforced and easily followed rule. Law enforcement can easily tell whether a store is violating it, and the store can easily not violate it. Asking social media to not be addictive is like asking Wall Street to not make money. They are designed
What are these addictive features? (Score:2)
I think non-substance "addiction" is a gray area. It should be fairly easy to prove whether opium or sugar is addictive or not. But how do you prove a TV show or a video game is or isn't addictive?
On the other hand, maybe the target is really the personalized or algorithmic, "recommendations" on the social media platforms. Removing these feeds from the kids' version of the site could solve the problem. It would be nice if someone could post a PDF of the actual bill so we won't be engaging in what's basicall
Re:What are these addictive features? (Score:5, Informative)
Whatever a couple expert witnesses say they are. Here's the bill, which both AP and Slashdot were negligent in not linking.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca... [ca.gov]
"on their social media platforms that the company knows or should know are addictive to children"
Time for social media companies to get the hell out of California.
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"on their social media platforms that the company knows or should know are addictive to children"
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There are several factors in determining if someone is addicted, and they're fairly easy to tell, even for non-substance addictions.
It basically boils down to self control - an addicted person cannot exercise self-control in that they can stop the addictive behavior at will. Are you a slave to the notifications? Y
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You can make that diagnosis on an individual level, but you can't on a single piece of social media. There's no way to prove that a post made by XYZ at this time 1234 is addictive.
Not to mention we're talking about social media companies here. They are not psychologists and they can't make these diagnoses. Do you want them to have the brain scans of each and every child that goes on their website or app?
It would make a lot more sense for a medical professional to diagnose the addiction, then ask social medi
Of COURSE it isn't the PARENTS' fault! (Score:3, Insightful)
Who could have known that babysitting using the internet was going to have problems?
Oh...only a couple generations of people who were babysat by TELEVISIONS?
Are you the same kind of people (Score:5, Insightful)
It's almost as if the blame is always on the parent and never on the mega corporation taking advantage of a situation to make huge profits by exploiting people, particularly children and confused parents...
Your philosophy isn't internally consistent. You should take a step back and reevaluate it.
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Who post memes about how when you were a kid you did all this dangerous stuff and that you turned out fine?
*insert "survivorship bias meme" [knowyourmeme.com] here*
Is it just me, or do we just not hear as much from those that didn't turn out fine?
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There's a vast difference between paying attention to your children and watching them every second of the day.
The people I'm talking about have done NEITHER.
The only reason why it doesn't appear internally consistent is you're projecting a strawman into it.
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If prior generations were so great, why didn't they grow up to be great parents? The people doing the parenting today were raised by the people you think were doing a better job, because they were more involved. Why didn't they produce offspring who would be more involved in their children's lives?
it's always about shifting blame (Score:2)
If you've got problems it's always just that you didn't pull hard enough on the bootstraps. Nevermind that it's physically impossible to do that. That phrase was originally a cynical joke and we Americans ran with it.
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You're essentially assuming that greatness is some sort of universal trait.
If you're a great parent, you MUST be a great NASCAR driver. Or a great brain surgeon.
It doesn't work like that.
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Actually, what I'm saying is that if their supposed greatness didn't let them produce at least average offspring then they're just not that great. If your greatness comes at the expense of the future, we're better off without it.
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Oh fuck off. Your definition of parenting is helicoptering over your kid 100% of the time or making them grow up in a literal cage. If parenting was such an easy solution we wouldn't have 7 generations of chain smokers, drugs wouldn't be a thing, neither would gambling or anything else that people get addicted to.
Notice how all the things I mentioned transcend age groups? But they all have one thing that separates them from social media addiction: There's no laws preventing social media companies specifical
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Ah, another person who sees my issue with parents abandoning their "little flesh accessories" to entertainment media on the internet and jumps immediately to "Helicopter Parent the kid 24x7".
Going absolutist for the strawman. As opposed to admitting there are nearly infinite fine gradations and nuance in there.
Then basically giving up and doing the "Well, it's gonna happen anyhow."
This is the lazy attitude that will ultimately leave you wondering why your crotchfruit went rotten and hurt a bunch of people.
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Going absolutist for the strawman. As opposed to admitting there are nearly infinite fine gradations and nuance in there.
But aren't you going absolutist for the strawman too? Implying that kids are addicted to social media because the "parents abandon[ed] their "little flesh accessories" to entertainment media on the internet"?
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I didn't say "social media". I said "the computer".
It's being used as a babysitting device instead of spending time with the children.
And nowhere did I say the parents have to be in their kids shit 24x7.
Simply to PAY ATTENTION AND BE INVOLVED...PERIOD.
You park a kid in front of a computer or a television instead of engaging with them AT ALL, yeah, you're going to wind up with some severely maladjusted individuals.
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And nowhere did I say the parents have to be in their kids shit 24x7.
Of course not, but you seem to imply that the only kids who could possibly be negatively affected by social media are those that are basically abandoned by their parents. By saying stuff like this:
You park a kid in front of a computer or a television instead of engaging with them AT ALL, yeah, you're going to wind up with some severely maladjusted individuals.
I just find it funny that you said
Going absolutist for the strawman. As opposed to admitting there are nearly infinite fine gradations and nuance in there.
yet so much of what you're sayiing is quite the strawman.
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Ah, another person who sees my issue with parents abandoning their "little flesh accessories" to entertainment media on the internet and jumps immediately to "Helicopter Parent the kid 24x7".
I didn't jump on it. You did. Either that or you don't understand how addiction works. I assume you're the same kind of person that says "one hit is okay" or "I can stop any time".
Please get a clue. You either lock your kid in a cage or they will get addicted to addictive substances / practices. There's a reason this shit is regulated, and it's precisely so idiots like you don't propose everyone become a bad parent.
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"I didn't jump on it."
You do not "jump on" a conclusion. You jump TO it.
You, specifically, jumped TO it.
As for the rest, are you even following the conversation?
Or are you REACTING to your perception of what the conversation is?
My basic point is that if a parent exhibits a certain amount of involvement in their childrens' lives, it becomes much harder for them to wind up deranged lunatics because of all the shit they encounter, unsupervised.
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There may be something to what you say.
And I WAS dropped on my head quite frequently as a child...
Remember, social media hired psychologists (Score:3)
I thought I read that social media companies hired professionals in psychology to determine how to engage and retain user attention... to "hack dopamine." Of kids, too.
Re: Remember, social media hired psychologists (Score:2)
Ok, so what if they did. How is that different than every advertiser ever?
But sure, they want you to use their product. And maybe that product is even harmful but I don't see how this differs in the slightest from insane clown posse making albums that appeal to youth with sounds they know people like based on 100s of years of study into what makes appealing music? Or the intensely managed production and marketing of artists like Taylor Swift or your favorite boy band.
And every religion ever is a finely m
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This is such a bullshit argument. It's the same one some people use to claim the food companies are "hacking" our brains to addict us to food.
Here's the problem - that "hacking" is also called "making taste good". You're just applying a silly label to it to make it sound sinister. They hired people to discover how to make social media more engaging and entertaining, but since people have an agenda they decided to play with words to manipulate opinions and called that (lol) "hacking dopamine". It's transpare
Golly (Score:2)
1st ammendment issues (Score:2)
I expect them to run into serious 1st ammendment issues with any such lawsuits. At the end of the day, the claim is based on the content of the social media platform's speech (what posts they choose to display, visual design of their sites, notifications etc...). Indeed, it might even be considered viewpoint. It's going to be hard to overcome the existing first amendment doctrine which imposes some high barriers to such laws.
And rightly so. Maybe social media is unhealthy in a way that rock music or com
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I expect them to run into serious 1st ammendment issues with any such lawsuits.
You have the right to free speech, not the right to freedom from consequences. You can say anything you want, but if you're knowingly and deliberately saying it to cause harm for profit purposes then there's no reason why you not get your comeuppance.
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Did you just say "durr durr, derpity derp, durr durr"? Because that's what I heard. It's pure asinine gibberish.
Sorry, Mr Welch, we don't like your anti-government speech. You have the right to free speech, but not the right to freedom from consequences so you're going to prison.
Sorry, Ms Gimble, you have the right to free speech but not the right to avoid being sued over it. MegaCorp didn't like your reviews, pay them $5M or we'll confiscate it at gunpoint. But fear not, we respect your free speech just no
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Did you just say "durr durr, derpity derp, durr durr"?
No, I said you're a big idiot who wants his thinking done for him.
You have the right to free speech, but not the right to freedom from consequences so you're going to prison.
Free speech has never been a blank check. Your insistence otherwise is either ignorance or malice. Either way, "durr durr, derpity derp, durr durr".
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Of course it hasn't. There are very specific exceptions for incitement, slander, imminent endangerment, etc..
But you lot try to confuse the issue. Claiming that you aren't "free from consequences" from your speech is just another way to say there is no free speech. Consequences and "free" are literally antithetical.
I get why you make the argument, you think it opens up the ability to censor speech you don't like under the "not free from consequences!" concept. I guess it's a nice gig if anyone buys it.
In f
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Of course it hasn't. There are very specific exceptions for incitement, slander, imminent endangerment, etc..
Okay, so if you understand that, what's the problem? I noticed you didn't mention fraud. Is that because you approve of fraud? Because that's what we're talking about here.
In fact, by definition, you are indeed free from consequences from government action of any kind (including civil) for speech that doesn't fall under the very narrowly defined exceptions as mentioned.
Except you didn't mention the only relevant one here, which I have to suspect is on purpose.
Can Social Media companies counter sue? (Score:2)
Seems only fair that if you can sue for their kids becoming addicted to something most people don't then the company should be able to sue the parents for being shitty parents right? I mean why did you let your kid sit in front of a computer long enough to become a junkie for this?
California has too much time on its hands and refuses to spend it doing the obvious. Parenting.
"companies that conduct regular audits..." (Score:2)
Companies that conduct regular audits of their practices to identify and remove features that could be addictive to children would be immune from lawsuits.
Given that caveat, it seems the main outcome of this bill will be that social media companies hire a few interns or psychology grad students (the grad students are probably cheaper...), have them do an annual "audit", and make some token tweaks based on what they find.
Political fundraiser (Score:2)
This is how politicians raise money nowadays. Once social media companies have handed over a sufficient sum of money this bill will surely disappear.
Regulation is good until it's not (Score:2)
That is a stupid idea! (Score:2)
If you support this kind of legislation, then do you als
Who benefits from this? (Score:2)
The parents sue. It settles out of court. The lawyers got paid a crap ton of money. The social media company gets bufu'ed but they really don't because they pass it on to the advertisers paying to keep the company in business and the stockholders in reduced or eliminated dividends. Who also benefits from this? The state of California that gets to tax every transaction along the way. Nice work if you can get it.
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If the shareholders get less profit then they will want the corporation to change behavior so that they get more profit. You make it sound like this law is a good idea which will be effective. Was that your intent?
Because... (Score:2)
Because everyone except parents is the reason their kids are f-ed up.
The stupidity is breathtaking (Score:2)
What's next?
Pedophiles suing schools because they offer the product they are addicted to, children, making it hard to live around them?
Whiny crybaby parents who can't parent (Score:2)
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Are you trolling or do you actually believe it's wrong to teach your children that people should be held accountable for their actions?
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That's child endangerment. Please never have children.
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When you raise a child, you don't start eliminating bad things, because there'll be not end to it. Instead you teach your child how to spot bad things and avoid them.
'
There is no good reason not to do both. Historically we have done both. If dingos are eating your babies you don't try to teach babies to avoid dingos. You cut back on the human-dingo interaction.
Blaming social media companies for the subject is just putting a band-aid on that's going to fall off real soon.
Social media companies are knowingly and willfully emotionally abusing people of all ages in order to increase engagement. They are deliberately showing people a selection of content designed to get them fighting with other people because this increases engagement more than showing them a selection of content whic
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Be careful with that logic or you'll be accused of trolling! (see above)
Yes, a good parent will use multiple strategies to keep their children safe. As any engineer worth hiring understands, redundancy is good for safety. But for some reason that I don't understand, holding others accountable for their actions app
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I just don't see how you can hold the social media companies responsible for the outcome.
You can teach your kids not to get in a van for free candy, and also still make it illegal for someone to kidnap your kids in a van. Social media companies are deliberately and willfully negatively emotionally manipulating children for profit. There is literally no social justification for permitting or enabling that behavior. I would argue that we shouldn't permit corporations to willfully mislead anyone for any purpose, but children are especially vulnerable because they don't have adult experience.
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