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Comment by Draiken | Hacker News Reader

Not to sound pessimistic but... have they been really regulated?

The most common example of this is the tobacco industry and it's pretty much still there. Smaller, sure.

But do we really regulate the sugar industry killing millions every day? Or the car industries destroying the environment, cities and people? Oil industry perhaps?

There are many other examples of these. They are "regulated" in the strict sense, but in reality, they control governments and keep doing whatever they want.

I don't think anything will ever change in this scenario. After all, capitalism is the answer to every problem, right? /s

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There is plenty of reason to see it as a bit grim, but a lot of good has been done. I was specifically thinking of the industrial revolution and the abysmal human rights records, pollution and desperate mill towns which ground people to death. It’s a low bar, but things have got better.

>But do we really regulate the sugar industry killing millions every day?

Hyperbole much? Only 150,000 people die each day worldwide from all causes.

If an industry was committing a literal holocaust every few weeks I think we would notice.

So social media is like the tobacco industry? And what weas users knowingly, purposely share online should be regulated? And by which government? Companies like Facebook are global.

Probably a lot worse than the tobacco industry in the long term. With a lot more unknown effects and problems.

Again, the problem is not sharing. The problem is that they knowingly manipulate the sharing. How they do that is their problem.

I have no idea how to go about enforcing this. But it's impossible for me to look at it and say "just let it run it's natural course".

And smokers still knowingly smoke, causing themselves and others harm. Because of this (and also arguably for revenue) the behaviour of the multinational tobacco companies is regulated by the governments in the countries they operate in.

Regarding what should be regulated, I’d say that assisting genocide should be blocked for a start.

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