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Comment by vinayms | Hacker News Reader

Lately, I am reading about such product features a lot. I wonder if there is some kind of intelligence about class action suits in the making against tech sites like YouTube, Facebook etc for being addictive and dangerous to health, because I can't imagine these companies taking interest in these sort of things suo moto. Seems they are preempting a future legal hassle.

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Share a similar cynical view of this, smells like a preemptive CYA move. Reminds me casinos with the help numbers for gambling addicts posted.

There's been high profile articles shining a light on the predatory design tactics in tech recently so the awareness of the issue is on the rise. The idea of a 'design ethicist' while novel seems fundamentally opposed to the attention-economy.

Overly cynical view is this is google angling to make the case to self-regulate vs. managing an intrusive regulatory body investigating/fining them for violations once more people are aware of the current shenanigans.

> Reminds me casinos with the help numbers for gambling addicts posted

At least one of the problem gambling hotlines has an IVR option to redirect you to a hotel reservation system.

AFAIK there's no legal threats in the pipeline, I think they are wanting to avoid the negative media attention Facebook has been receiving. There doesn't need to be a legal threat, enough negative press could be very detrimental to their business model, which revolves around YouTube being a de facto monopoly in the video space.

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