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Comment by threatofrain | Hacker News Reader

To what degree should companies be responsible for goods which, without structured or disciplined use leads to harm, especially when the good in question has an apparently reasonable use case?

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> goods

Drugs. The term you are looking for is drug, because numerous studies have shown the effect on brain chemistry[2] and behavior[1] from social media addiction could be as bad as hard drugs.

[1] https://www.addictioncenter.com/news/2019/09/excessive-socia...

[2] https://neurogrow.com/what-social-media-does-to-your-brain/

I feel this way about HN. I open it every day, and check back far more than Facebook. Maybe we'll have a senate hearing someday about HN. :P

You mean like alcohol? companies can definitely get in trouble if they overserve or serve minors.

Alcohol would be a good example, as would be unhealthy foods from the restaurant industry and food supply chain. But restrictions to drugs are made on an ad-hoc basis and not from a general principle.

While not banned, a lot of countries restricted television advertising of unhealthy food to children during childrens programming. I dont know how effective this was/is, but I suspect it's been erroded by new marketing channels(internet etc) anyway.

A better analogy is – should beverage companies get into trouble if minors routinely consume their products?

Ask anyone who died of smoking-related illnesses.

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