Comment by kyrers
5 years ago
There is no doubt that there's a lot wrong with social media, such as spreading fake information, privacy, etc...
Maybe they should have some king of regulation specific to them.
But I fail to see how making your product as addictive as you can, without breaking laws, is terrible. I mean, no one is forced to create a FB/TW/IG profile, as far as I know.
I'm not defending Social Networks, or saying that a case against them should not be made, I'm just saying that I can't get behind the "your product is too adictive" argument.
Just my two cents. Maybe I'm missing something right now that will force me to change my mind later.
>But I fail to see how making your product as addictive as you can, without breaking laws, is terrible
This is an interesting take. Usually I suspect people would say something more like "Making your product as addictive as possible is terrible, but definitely not illegal. And, it's difficult to design laws against something that is addictive and destructive."
I think it's pretty clear that "making your product as addictive as you can" is absolutely terrible. Again, I'm not sure that regulation can solve this problem in a constructive way, (and would love to be proven wrong here) but I fail to see how this isn't bad.
No one is forced to become obese, however it's definitely bad to have a nation full of obese people.
>I think it's pretty clear that "making your product as addictive as you can" is absolutely terrible
Why? Honest question. For instance, you mentioned obesity. Should a restaurant that makes the most delicious and sugar loaded food be forbidden to do so because its customers can't stop eating it and are getting obese?
IMO obesity is an individual problem. I'm all for helping obese people that want to change, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that they got themselves in that situation. The restaurant should not be punished for their clients lack of control. They should, however, be forced to let clients know exactly what they're eating, but after that, it's not their fault.
I think it’s probably important to define what “addictive” means with respect to social media. If it’s literally addictive in the same way opiates are (obviously to a lesser extent), e.g. the user cannot feasibly control the urge to continue consuming, then I think it’s very easy to agree it’s Bad and Wrong for the business owners to invest in making their product more addictive.
To your example if McDonalds added cocaine to their fries, we would likely agree that that’s wrong and we should stop that behavior, right?
If it’s more along the lines of addiction like “people love fast food” but aren’t actually physically addicted to it, then I think it’s fine that the business owners make it more delicious or “more addictive”. In that case I’d agree it’s likely on the consumer to make the call. (I’m going to gloss over the realities of the fast food industry preying on lower economic communities and pretend we’re operating in a vacuum where someone has equal agency/ability to go eat McD’s or eat a healthier alternative.)
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>Why? Honest question. For instance, you mentioned obesity. Should a restaurant that makes the most delicious and sugar loaded food be forbidden to do so because its customers can't stop eating it and are getting obese?
I tried to cover this in my post, but this is why I believe it's a bit of an impossible situation. I don't believe that in your example the restaurant should be forbidden from selling the addictive and unhealthy food. Because it should not be illegal does not make it good. The law and morality are not one in the same.
The usual way people talk about this sort to thing is to invoke free speech. I should not be legally prevented from insulting you, or saying rude things to you. But, it's still an awful thing for me to do.
Regarding the problem being individual. I agree that's where the blame should rest, but the reality is that moral blame is often not really as useful as people want to believe. For example, with obesity, most people are making the 'wrong' decisions. Again, I'm not suggesting that government regulation should be invoked to try to fix this. But surely, it's not good a thing that so many people are unhealthy. And therein lies the problem. Who cares about blame? I don't care whose fault it is, but I would like to fix it. It's a near guarantee that the general public will not fix it. It's not even an American problem anymore: you're even seeing obesity in some parts of Africa. When most people have access to high calorie food most of the time, they will become overweight and obese. You can (maybe even should) assign blame to people for making the wrong decisions here. But that will do nothing to modify the problem.
And, as I said, I'm not necessarily arguing for regulation. But I would be curious if you think there is any solution here, or if you think there should be any solution here.
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Perhaps the way to split the difference, in your example/metaphor, is to ban the restaurant from giving the delicious sugary food to the obese rather than banning the food altogether.
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Near my office in SF there is a guy who sits on the street corner with his pants rolled up so you can see that his calves were pretty much just two big, open, leaking sores as a side effect of so many injections. I bought him some bandages but he wouldn't use them until the end of the day because showing them off got him more sympathy money that he needed in order to purchase more injections. The motivation center of his brain has been completely hijacked by a product. Suffering to death is no longer a concern for him. Only the product matters.
I don't know what physical processes are behind a facebook addiction, but I doubt it's as serious a condition as that caused by a chemically addictive product. I would equate it more with gambling addiction. Not to say that it's not a problem, but I have a hard time equating the two. That might just be my naivete' though. I've been lucky enough not to encounter either type of addiction.
The desperation I've seen in addicted gamblers in Las Vegas doesn't seem so different from the despair I've seen from junkies. Both of these are addictions to which some people lose everything.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/19/problem-gamb...
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To me, It’s not just that it’s addictive that is the problem, it’s that the addiction is accelerating the spread of misinformation and allows national/global hate groups to not only exist but flourish.
Many have suspected it for a long while but this testimony proves that Facebook profits from hate groups and the spread of misinformation. That’s not hyperbole, that’s now fact.
It has also accelerated the pace at which good information can spread. What happened to the idea of free-speech and countering bad-ideas with better ones?
Perhaps the real acceleration is in the ballooning expansion of who we consider a "hate-group" -- which seems to have no fixed definition and is thrown around rather cavalierly.
>What happened to the idea of free-speech and countering bad-ideas with better ones?
Go on Twitter or Facebook, or 4chan, 8chan, Voat or wherever you can find these crazies, and try to engage them in rational debate, and convince them their ideas are bad and yours are better. Let us know how that turns out.
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> I fail to see how making your product as addictive as you can, without breaking laws, is terrible.
I think it's important to be clear about "addictive" because people use it in different ways. If by "addictive" you mean "really compelling" then, sure, it may not be intrinsically terrible. A product that, for example, makes it really compelling for users to improve their physical health or fight climate is probably not terrible.
But the clinical definition of "addiction" which is why "addiction" has a strong negative connotation is that for something that is so compelling that your need to use it causes significant disruption to your quality of life of that of those around you.
Read the testimony again. The argument here is not just that Facebook is super engaging. It's that Facebook use harms its users and the world at large and its level of engagement magnifies that.
For sure. But I mentioned the "too addictive" argument specifically. I understand and agree that facebook does more harm than good, and that is wrong and must be addressed. I just don't understand this addiction angle. Making your product as addictive as you can, without breaking laws, is not wrong IMO.
But I think I see where you coming from. They're getting people addicted to something wrong, did I understand you?
> They're getting people addicted to something wrong, did I understand you?
That is part of it, yes.
Also, the mechanism of addition itself often causes the harm. With chemical addiction, the same components that make the substance addictive also cause miserable withdrawal symptoms.
With social media, this is more nebulous, but I do think part of what makes systems like Facebook "engaging" is the anxiety they create when you aren't on them, and the low self-image that users try to assuage by posting flattering photos of their life.
Part of addiction (and advertising too, for that matter) is creating a need for your product in the mind of the user. They were probably happier before they had that need in the first place.
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It's bad if you accept that people deserve agency: the ability to freely choose how they act.
The primary purpose of making an addictive product is to remove peoples' agency by hijacking known deficiencies in our minds/bodies. It's a form of coercion, because your goal is to prevent people from being able to choose whether they use your product or not.
But they can't do it without said people help, correct?
If they aim to remove agency, it's because you have it in the first place, meaning you can stop it from happening with proper information.
I understand that some people might not understand they are being targeted and should be clearly told what could happen to them. But the majority of people must know FB is addictive.
After that, I can't see how people still getting addicted is the company's fault.
> stop it from happening with proper information.
Well, when the product is mis-information that has been carefully tailored, evolved and tested to counteract proper information...
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This is a very philosophical view of why addiction is bad. I doubt you can convince politicians to act based on this reasoning.