This seems really messy. We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing, but how do you differentiate a non-addictive platform vs an addictive platform? (aside from this specific company... I mean in general). How do you "test" whether or not they're inherently addictive?
At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the general case
Okay but suppose you have an AI chatbot which takes in context from previous chats on what your interests are. So people just keep talking with the chatbot more and more as it gains more context. This would meet the criteria. It's not necessarily addictive though because you can stop talking with the chatbot at any time.
Maybe it's something to do with the text-based interface vs short form video. Short form video is better at activating the lizard brain
Law is about intent. It is not code, and it’s a mistake to think of law like code where you need to unit test and cover all edge cases.
In law, it is sufficient to show an intent to take actions that foreseeably caused harm. Specific laws, of course but you don’t need to cover hypotheticals that capture all abstract cases in order to to show a particular actor caused harm.
Suppose you have a video service which takes context from previous videos you watched to show you more videos you're interested in. Doesn't sound very addictive, does it? You described it in an innocuous way, but I can absolutely see that being a lead-in to a parasocial "relationship" or even AI psychosis.
> you can stop talking with the chatbot at any time.
I'm not sure about that example. I'm seeing non tech people getting very addicted to their customized chat bots. Companies are very primed to eventually nudge them to enshittify the content of the responses and it could get bad.
What I meant to say was, the standard for when we call something addictive is more hazy than that. In general, text based interfaces don't light up the brain in the same way. Psychologically it's a lot easier to walk away from a chatbot vs an infinite feed of short form video... potentially that difference could help find some kind of standard to determine addictiveness
Edit: I wonder if a hypothetical digital experience like the samizdat out of infinite jest is possible? I.e. a digital experience which hits the brain in the perfect way to produce addiction without a chemical basis
If I cut my leg off with a chainsaw, am I addicted to the chainsaw? I think what matters is the intent of the design. E.g. if they design the product to make you need more of it (while it has an actively detrimental effect)
So why leave out food industry which has provably caused health harm and killed people.
Leaving out the modern food industry but going after social media shows that this is just politics as the food industry wets the beak and greases the plan generously on both sides of the aisle.
why do you think that implies leaving out the modern food industry, rather than suggesting that they, too, should be held accountable for flooding us with hyperpalatable foods to addict us? After all, they were literally engineered by the same people as Big Tobacco [1]
You can just be explicit. We already do this with controlled substances, maintain a defined regulatory schedule, and give a designated regulatory body a legally prescribed process for adding to it, removing them, or changing their classification.
But a substance is not a specific product or a corporation. Maybe you could call "infinite scroll" the substance, but then you're playing whack-a-mole with whatever new interface they cook up. But then we end up with a long list of "disallowed" software features which might not be inherently addictive
It's hard to answer in general, but does it have to be answered in general? I could imagine supporting a policy that infinite scroll in particular is addictive and app developers can't use it without strong warning labels and time alerts.
100% yes. Remember, this is somewhat adversarial: Meta increases its products addictiveness year by year. Banning individual practices fails if the rate of that growth exceeds the impact of point solutions.
If we set the barrier to entry in prediction markets to an equivalent of an age/height check on entry, it would be well north of "yes, I am a mom-and-pop first time investor, I have never been here before, I know nothing except what some spammer told me and claude"
Somehow the "you can afford to lose your entire stake, you aren't leveraged, this isn't a con you fell into" is missing.
(thats aside from "you aren't an inside trader with privileged knowledge because of family ties to the WH, are you")
It’s such a joke. But we also need to find ways to study and measure non-gambling digital platform addiction like 15 years ago. Thanks to algorithmic consumption, we’re nearing a whole generation of adults that have no idea how to navigate their societal agency and 3 trailing generations that had once learned and since forgot.
Ultimately, I think this is going to come down to proving exactly the extent of what Meta knew, and what they decided to do about it, and how that violated various laws.
I wager there is a foot gun component to this, in which Meta has tried to preemptively, either through gestures of goodwill or public reassurance or PR, institute various think tanks, work groups, and internal studies with an intent to alleviate the public's worry.
Those studies and workgroups actually could end up demonstrating that their products and algorithms and user interfaces, indeed, caused whatever this trial accuses them of doing. And if they didn't act according to what their internal data showed, I bet this is going to be the crux of the trial.
I’d bet that an exceptional legal team could make a pretty solid case based purely on the volume and testimony of behavioral psychologists on their payroll
I do wonder what’s going to happen in the future to addictive social media algorithms.
Feels like one of those things that’s so powerful, but skirts by because it doesn’t feel like it should be (like targeted advertising).
With the amount of money behind them, I regret to say I don’t think they’ll get legislated away. My best guess is that social shaming slowly dwindles their usage. It’s actively shameful to scroll at dinner among Gen Z, for example. The problem becomes using the apps alone at home.
Of course, but the users can’t be trusted to stay away from something designed to addict them.
Only real solution is regulation, although the how is still a big question mark.
I would ask, where is the line drawn between 'enjoyment and addiction.'
Is it the harm provided? Then what do we count as harm, and where is the line.
IE, There's no one stopping me from eating unhealthy, IE sugary foods, which are heavily addictive. I ride a motorbike, and I'd consider myself addicted to that, and it's got a high chance of harm, but we don't ban those. Ditto with gaming, social media, hobby XYZ.
I personally think the freedom to choose your vice is reasonable.
IIRC, the lovely book Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas claims that gambling addiction was a concept pushed by the casinos, to put the blame onto individuals, rather than the machine.
the underlying cause of addiction is very different. But if there is enough evidence that they're similarly damaging (in magnitude), I think that fundamental difference is irrelevant.
Biological addiction is different from psychological addiction, sure. But both are addictive. And personally I believe both cigarettes and Meta products are damaging to a subset of the people consuming them.
Why only a subset? Because not everyone gets cancer from cigarettes. But, like social media, the probability of a negative outcome is too high to ignore.
The big tobacco lawsuits hinges on the same things these will:
(1) Did they know they were hurting users?
(2) Can the harm be shown.
The big tobacco companies intentionally suppressed studies that showed harm, and promoted their product while knowing that. Facebook appears to have done the same.
Is the argument here that social media wasn't designed to be addictive? And no, cigarettes were not designed to cause cancer. It makes no sense to design a product that kills the customer.
Not when they condition children and allow access to them by predators. Reports of bad content, fake, and scam behavior go deliberately rejected and Meta profits from scammers doing their scamming among children. (Read up on Officer Gomez reports of grooming all over Instagram and Facebook and TikTok)
So what are your thoughts on tavern slot machines where legal? No chemicals but plenty of people who will openly tell you they wish they weren’t doing thus while they cash out a 90% loss and buy another beer to head back in for another round of punishment
They're also not doing that to pay for tobacco. Come on. Heroin is justifiably illegal for good reason already; you're stretching the analogy past breaking point.
"By the early 1960s, however, Philip Morris scientists had discovered that ammonia could also be used to increase the free nicotine in cigarette smoke, providing a more powerful nicotine kick than the milder low-pH tobaccos traditionally used in American-blend cigarettes."
They referred to it as 'crack nicotine' internally. It was an entire, giant scandal. They made a movie about it.
This product that kills the users of it with remarkably high rates and has effectively no positive use is fundamentally different from light and sound.
This seems really messy. We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing, but how do you differentiate a non-addictive platform vs an addictive platform? (aside from this specific company... I mean in general). How do you "test" whether or not they're inherently addictive?
At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the general case
“Do you use personal / behavioral data / usage to shape the user experience and recommendations, creating a reinforcing loop?”
Roughly that.
Okay but suppose you have an AI chatbot which takes in context from previous chats on what your interests are. So people just keep talking with the chatbot more and more as it gains more context. This would meet the criteria. It's not necessarily addictive though because you can stop talking with the chatbot at any time.
Maybe it's something to do with the text-based interface vs short form video. Short form video is better at activating the lizard brain
Law is about intent. It is not code, and it’s a mistake to think of law like code where you need to unit test and cover all edge cases.
In law, it is sufficient to show an intent to take actions that foreseeably caused harm. Specific laws, of course but you don’t need to cover hypotheticals that capture all abstract cases in order to to show a particular actor caused harm.
You’ve not already noticed that the end of every consumer-facing LLM chat always includes an invitation for just one more turn to keep the loop going?
Suppose you have a video service which takes context from previous videos you watched to show you more videos you're interested in. Doesn't sound very addictive, does it? You described it in an innocuous way, but I can absolutely see that being a lead-in to a parasocial "relationship" or even AI psychosis.
> you can stop talking with the chatbot at any time.
doubt. Lonely people will get addicted.
I'm not sure about that example. I'm seeing non tech people getting very addicted to their customized chat bots. Companies are very primed to eventually nudge them to enshittify the content of the responses and it could get bad.
> It's not necessarily addictive though because you can stop talking with the chatbot at any time.
You can also stop taking drugs at any time. Or stop drinking. Or stop smoking. Or stop doomscrolling.
What I meant to say was, the standard for when we call something addictive is more hazy than that. In general, text based interfaces don't light up the brain in the same way. Psychologically it's a lot easier to walk away from a chatbot vs an infinite feed of short form video... potentially that difference could help find some kind of standard to determine addictiveness
Edit: I wonder if a hypothetical digital experience like the samizdat out of infinite jest is possible? I.e. a digital experience which hits the brain in the perfect way to produce addiction without a chemical basis
> What I meant to say was, the standard for when we call something addictive is more hazy than that.
If you as a person engage with a product to a degree where it causes demonstrable, measurable harm to yourself or your life, you are addicted.
If I cut my leg off with a chainsaw, am I addicted to the chainsaw? I think what matters is the intent of the design. E.g. if they design the product to make you need more of it (while it has an actively detrimental effect)
> If I cut my leg off with a chainsaw, am I addicted to the chainsaw?
If you repeatedly willingly do so despite the harm, then yes.
What product does not listen to how users use the product to design the first or later version of a product?
Most products don't spy on you?
So why leave out food industry which has provably caused health harm and killed people.
Leaving out the modern food industry but going after social media shows that this is just politics as the food industry wets the beak and greases the plan generously on both sides of the aisle.
In fully supportive of prosecuting wrongdoing in the food industry.
But it seems strange to use belief in widespread wrongdoing in the food industry to oppose punishing wrongdoing in the tech industry.
Is it just nihilism? All industries are corrupt, therefore prosecute none of them?
why do you think that implies leaving out the modern food industry, rather than suggesting that they, too, should be held accountable for flooding us with hyperpalatable foods to addict us? After all, they were literally engineered by the same people as Big Tobacco [1]
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/09/19/addiction...
Unlike big tech, which would never do that.
You can just be explicit. We already do this with controlled substances, maintain a defined regulatory schedule, and give a designated regulatory body a legally prescribed process for adding to it, removing them, or changing their classification.
But a substance is not a specific product or a corporation. Maybe you could call "infinite scroll" the substance, but then you're playing whack-a-mole with whatever new interface they cook up. But then we end up with a long list of "disallowed" software features which might not be inherently addictive
It's hard to answer in general, but does it have to be answered in general? I could imagine supporting a policy that infinite scroll in particular is addictive and app developers can't use it without strong warning labels and time alerts.
> does it have to be answered in general?
100% yes. Remember, this is somewhat adversarial: Meta increases its products addictiveness year by year. Banning individual practices fails if the rate of that growth exceeds the impact of point solutions.
> It's hard to answer in general, but does it have to be answered in general?
Maybe not? Maybe if enough minors experience harm from a platform, that's enough to restrict it for minors.
> We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing
Except when it's called "prediction markets" and therefore it isn't.
If we set the barrier to entry in prediction markets to an equivalent of an age/height check on entry, it would be well north of "yes, I am a mom-and-pop first time investor, I have never been here before, I know nothing except what some spammer told me and claude"
Somehow the "you can afford to lose your entire stake, you aren't leveraged, this isn't a con you fell into" is missing.
(thats aside from "you aren't an inside trader with privileged knowledge because of family ties to the WH, are you")
It’s such a joke. But we also need to find ways to study and measure non-gambling digital platform addiction like 15 years ago. Thanks to algorithmic consumption, we’re nearing a whole generation of adults that have no idea how to navigate their societal agency and 3 trailing generations that had once learned and since forgot.
Ultimately, I think this is going to come down to proving exactly the extent of what Meta knew, and what they decided to do about it, and how that violated various laws.
I wager there is a foot gun component to this, in which Meta has tried to preemptively, either through gestures of goodwill or public reassurance or PR, institute various think tanks, work groups, and internal studies with an intent to alleviate the public's worry.
Those studies and workgroups actually could end up demonstrating that their products and algorithms and user interfaces, indeed, caused whatever this trial accuses them of doing. And if they didn't act according to what their internal data showed, I bet this is going to be the crux of the trial.
I’d bet that an exceptional legal team could make a pretty solid case based purely on the volume and testimony of behavioral psychologists on their payroll
I do wonder what’s going to happen in the future to addictive social media algorithms. Feels like one of those things that’s so powerful, but skirts by because it doesn’t feel like it should be (like targeted advertising).
With the amount of money behind them, I regret to say I don’t think they’ll get legislated away. My best guess is that social shaming slowly dwindles their usage. It’s actively shameful to scroll at dinner among Gen Z, for example. The problem becomes using the apps alone at home.
Can we just ban algorithms for content and go back to chronological feeds circa 2004 Facebook?
Or maybe ban all content that the user isn't explicitly subscribed to.
Those both have problems too, I'm sure.
I think the major issue is, people still have the option of those older forms of feeds, people just don't like them.
New social media competitors (ie Tiktok) have won users by having even more powerful algorithms rather than other options.
Of course, but the users can’t be trusted to stay away from something designed to addict them. Only real solution is regulation, although the how is still a big question mark.
I would ask, where is the line drawn between 'enjoyment and addiction.'
Is it the harm provided? Then what do we count as harm, and where is the line.
IE, There's no one stopping me from eating unhealthy, IE sugary foods, which are heavily addictive. I ride a motorbike, and I'd consider myself addicted to that, and it's got a high chance of harm, but we don't ban those. Ditto with gaming, social media, hobby XYZ.
I personally think the freedom to choose your vice is reasonable.
Chronological feeds tend to be gameable by growth hacking. Still better than a lot of things.
One of the tricky things for me is feed aggregation for balancing subscriptions between people who post a lot and people who don't.
It also might be interesting if video recommendations were curated feeds by the creator.
Big Tobacco sold a product that was designed to give cancer to the users of it.
Heroin is addictive, nicotine is addictive. Light and sound are fundamentally different.
> Heroin is addictive, nicotine is addictive. Light and sound are fundamentally different.
Gambling is also an addiction with a non-chemical basis
IIRC, the lovely book Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas claims that gambling addiction was a concept pushed by the casinos, to put the blame onto individuals, rather than the machine.
the underlying cause of addiction is very different. But if there is enough evidence that they're similarly damaging (in magnitude), I think that fundamental difference is irrelevant.
Biological addiction is different from psychological addiction, sure. But both are addictive. And personally I believe both cigarettes and Meta products are damaging to a subset of the people consuming them.
Why only a subset? Because not everyone gets cancer from cigarettes. But, like social media, the probability of a negative outcome is too high to ignore.
The big tobacco lawsuits hinges on the same things these will:
(1) Did they know they were hurting users? (2) Can the harm be shown.
The big tobacco companies intentionally suppressed studies that showed harm, and promoted their product while knowing that. Facebook appears to have done the same.
Is the argument here that social media wasn't designed to be addictive? And no, cigarettes were not designed to cause cancer. It makes no sense to design a product that kills the customer.
Not when they condition children and allow access to them by predators. Reports of bad content, fake, and scam behavior go deliberately rejected and Meta profits from scammers doing their scamming among children. (Read up on Officer Gomez reports of grooming all over Instagram and Facebook and TikTok)
so you draw the line at smell-o-vision?
I draw the line at physical compulsion, but everyone is different.
So what are your thoughts on tavern slot machines where legal? No chemicals but plenty of people who will openly tell you they wish they weren’t doing thus while they cash out a 90% loss and buy another beer to head back in for another round of punishment
Fundamentally different yet with practical outcomes that are close enough. Wildly impressive what we as a species achieved.
The headline talks about parallels. A closer example is gambling if you are concerned with physical properties of a system. Light and sound.
No one is breaking into cars to pay for Facebook, but they absolutely are with regards to heroin.
People are breaking into cars because of social media trends. Remember Kia Challenge? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge
Facebook is legal, like alcohol. People drive drunk and kill people. People drive while using facebook and kill people as well.
They're also not doing that to pay for tobacco. Come on. Heroin is justifiably illegal for good reason already; you're stretching the analogy past breaking point.
> fundamentally different
fundamentally different how? Because they use your visual cortex to trigger neurons?
Physical compulsion is a pretty big difference.
All comes down to neurotransmitters in the end.
> designed
What?
"By the early 1960s, however, Philip Morris scientists had discovered that ammonia could also be used to increase the free nicotine in cigarette smoke, providing a more powerful nicotine kick than the milder low-pH tobaccos traditionally used in American-blend cigarettes."
They referred to it as 'crack nicotine' internally. It was an entire, giant scandal. They made a movie about it.
This product that kills the users of it with remarkably high rates and has effectively no positive use is fundamentally different from light and sound.
While that is terrible, it's still nowhere near proving your original assertion.