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Comment by mentalgear | Hacker News Reader

Of course he did: Zuckerberg has shown countless times that he's morally bankrupt: Each time, when given the choice (and regulatory landscape is gray) even with full knowledge of internal experts advising him against, he chose profits, even if "move fast and break things" includes the very society he and we all live in. (<- see current state of the world)

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Aren’t some things just inherent with the product though. These are unhealthy products, they should be allowed to exist for what they are instead of trying to make them something they’re not.

And I say this as a very light social media user, I never enjoyed it and it always felt unhealthy so I just kept off it. As I’ve watch it all unfold, was in college during facebooks college only explosion and now people are on tiktok. It’s clear, people want to be addicted to social media just as bad as zuck wants them addicted to social media. And an instagram without filters is like porn without nudity.

Should they, tho? Laudanum (morphine in alcohol; a lot of ‘patent medicines’/snake oil were basically just laudanum) is an unhealthy product. It is not, in any meaningful sense, allowed to exist these days.

Then ban social media as a whole, cherry picking features to ban is silly. Banning features that only harm young users that probably shouldn’t even be using the app due to their age is misguided. If it’s unhealthy for kids, ban kids use.

"Then ban medicine as a whole, cherry picking medicines to ban is silly."

Like, you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. _This_ is social media, but probably would not make sense to ban (merely being very irritating is not an adequate reason to ban something).

> merely being very irritating is not an adequate reason to ban something

I think we're talking about it's large scale impact on youth mental health, slightly more reason than 'merely...irritating'

I do think it's sad that we have to ban it, because that means parents aren't doing their job - but that's the reality of it

All true but it's a circular argument: these are unhealthy products because they're _designed_ that way. That design is directed from the top - no more so that Facebook/Instagram. Zuckerberg retains a controlling interest in Meta so he can't use the excuse of other public firms where CEOs throw up their hands and say "yeah, but we need to deliver shareholder return - it's out of my hands". Zuckerberg could choose differently. As GP notes, he hasn't - he's gone consistently hard the other way.

> It’s clear, people want to be addicted to social media

I'd say people are susceptible to addiction rather than wanting it. Suppliers of any addictive product - whether its tobacco, class A drugs, alcohol, gambling or social media - know that. Going too hard the other way into full prohibition is impractical because it starts to impinge on civil liberties: as a capable adult, why shouldn't I be able to smoke/drink/doomscroll instagram if I want?

That's why it's dificult; neither extreme liberty nor extreme prohibition is the answer. It's a grey area as GP notes. The trouble is it creates opportunities for people like Zuckerberg to exploit the middle ground and amass huge personal wealth paid for, in part, by the health detriment of those unable to self-regulate the addiction.

I must just lack empathy then. I feel it’s zucks role to build the best wine, whisky, casino game, meth, cigar, etc he can. It’s the consumers job to use it responsibly. They won’t so that’s when it’s time for regulation. Which is probably now/soon. And yes, he gets to amass wealth during this time. I wouldn’t say it’s all been exploitive though. I’d say many people have healthy addictions. Just like the average American who drinks 10 alcoholic beverages a week, every single week. They’re adults, they aren’t alcoholic, they just need a drink, every day they’re not being exploited, it’s a vice of sorts. But it’s an opt-in vice.

I think that yes, it's a lack of empathy stemming from the belief that everything can ultimately be distilled into personal responsibility.

In reality we are not so much in control, our psyche is easily manipulated by nudges, design that leaves you on the cusp of a dopaminic reaction is much more addictive. It's different to develop a vice to being manipulated into developing a vice. Morality should come into play on the latter, otherwise it's a free-for-all to discover the most effective ways to manipulate you into behaviours that are unhealthy but profitable.

> Just like the average American who drinks 10 alcoholic beverages a week, every single week. They’re adults, they aren’t alcoholic, they just need a drink

Drinking every day and "needing" a drink look like good indication of alcoolism to me.

It’s how people unwind from stressful day, just like doomscrolling. But most of these people aren’t considered alcoholics by society, it’s fairly normal behavior until it affects other parts of your life. From what I can tell anyways. I also don’t drink much so don’t get it when people need to have a glass of wine or whatever after a completely normal day.

> I wouldn’t say it’s all been exploitive though.

But it was:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846784

It is pretty clear which way the wind is blowing and HN is tilting at windmills.

Those who do not work in tech, those with children- they do not like what they see and they demand action from their representatives.

I have children and don’t work in tech, I was able to self moderate myself and keep kids away from it. It’s simply not that hard to see it for what it is, and never has been. It’s bad. Glad people are finally seeing what’s obvious.

Takes some minimal effort to be honest to tell the kid no and give them other outlets for their boredom. I never did tablets or small screens at all. Parenting today, and last decade or so, instead puts infants in front of tablets. Its insane. All media is then altered to steal attention and maximize engagement. It’s to be expected. Zuck is basically cocomelon. Garbage that people love to eat.

Oh and we did ban cocomelon. My kids watch plenty of Tv and I’m not going to rave about it, it’s crappy kid TV, we try to push some educational stuff too. But It was obvious that when cocomelon was on kids eyes glaze over, they forget to blink, they have no idea what is going on around them, and just look like zombies staring at a TV/screen. Let’s be honest though, that’s what most parents like about it.

If you distill everybody involved down to a single function, this makes sense. But that's not all we are. It is not a physical law that Zuckerberg make his products the most addictive and harmful as they can be; he can choose to be more responsible with his influence. Consumers cannot always simply just choose not to be addicted; when you grow up with these things and people & companies are constantly pushing you to try them, it's very hard to avoid.

There is a big difference between a potentially unhealthy product, and intentionally making a product as unhealthy as possible by data driven engagement maximising.

Remember the proto social media ? They were a huge time sink, sure, but they were not this hyper optimised slot machine that they are now.

Additionally if the product is inherently unhealthy, we should protect underdeveloped frontal cortices from it, as we do with every similar thing (drugs, gambling etc).

I disagree with first point but fully agree with latter.

Probably why latter should be the initiative of these 18 wellbeing experts just like how we have with drugs, gambling, tobacco, alcohol. Not by changing the product but by restricting access

People want to be addicted to fentanyl after they’ve tried it a few times, does that mean we should legalize that too?

If we feel these are comparable items, then we should treat social media like we treat fentanyl. Not the other way around.

I’m not saying they’re similar though. But you used an extreme analogy and took it the wrong way.

What's troubling in these cases isn't just one person's intent, but that the system seems to consistently resolve internal debates in favor of engagement when there's a tradeoff

Yeah but if he listened to a single wellness expert they'd probably tell him to shut down most or all of social media, so what's the point of articles like these. Unless it's unlawful and they get fined nothing changes.

But on this specific topic I'm curious what the wellness experts think about make-up, or even worse purely cosmetic plastic surgery. If digital filters are wrong, surgery should get the death penalty in comparison.

I'll bite: Who is a wellbeing expert? What is the ground for calling some people wellbeing experts? How does one earn it? How general is their expertise? Would you trust your psychologist with everything they say? Or even a group of psychologists that align with some contemporary majority opinion? How often in the past did accepted "facts" change completely?

> includes the very society he [..] live in.

He lives in a very different society from you and me. Not saying you don't know this, but it's staggering that so many people don't realize how different the world is for billionaires and the rest. I know few can experience this first hand, but it's not difficult to read/see/understand that the difference is vast.

If and when aliens ever land, I think the difference between them and us will be smaller than between us and the 0.01%.

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