Social media's big tobacco moment

[EyeballKid]

The present Congress should at least try and get a grip on this stuff

The present congress is (A) too old to understand the dangers inherent in social media and AI technology, and (B) dependent upon funding from the founders and owners of the platforms and technologies they should be regulating.

 

[mpaer]

The present congress is (A) too old to understand the dangers inherent in social media and AI technology, and (B) dependent upon funding from the founders and owners of the platforms and technologies they should be regulating.

Without question

 

[4thgenheel]

The big question will be if/when the social media companies knew? Did they know there was addictive behavior? Did they know there was damage being done to minors? Did they modify anything as a result, or carry on (or make it worse)?

i'm gonna (educated) guess: probably at least a decade ago, yes, yes and no modifications, carried right along.

 

[mpaer]

i'm gonna (educated) guess: probably at least a decade ago, yes, yes and no modifications, carried right along.

The potential for Billions of $ of profits-well that's Murica
I am 100% sure that same type of thing will happen with "AI"-for the same reason

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

So, not a guy who had a secretary, but I used to work with a guy who didn’t just print his emails. He would print out each time he got a reply in an email chain. He’s print the original email. Then he’d print it again once there was a reply. Then the next reply, he’d print again. When I had to help clean out his files, I found emails of 15-20 reply chains, each one of which had been printed and stapled and then paper clipped with the other emails from that chain. Some of these were probably close to 100 pages, single sided, of the same things printed over and over and over again.

His computer screen was also totally full of icons. No apparent organization, just randomly scattered and with no free space.

He also made folder and file names so long and descriptive that he’d run out of space, back when there were still character restrictions on the length of a file name.

I bet he referred to all the women in the office as "sweetie" or "Honey".

 

[duluoz]

I hope they all get a red hot poker up their ass. Unfortunately they won’t.

My guess is some damages which they won’t even flinch to pay. And no substantive platform changes. They haven’t been vilified enough for that. And the reason they haven’t is that everyone is either too addicted and/or profiting too much off the current model (especially including political donations of course, but influencers and corporations too).

The kids are effectively on their own to navigate their way through this psychologically and emotionally damaging gauntlet to adulthood, at which point they’ll become active instead of passive cogs in the social media machine. And the wheel turns no matter how many kids it crushes or turns into warped adults.

 

[TarHeeledTexan]

I bet he referred to all the women in the office as "sweetie" or "Honey".

While he did not do that, I also ended up managing two of his projects because the female client project managers couldn’t stand working with him; mainly for his condescending affect with them.