Meta, YouTube must pay $3M to woman who got hooked on apps as a child
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Even if you allow that YouTube is just a streaming site and not social media, it's laughable to insist that it isn't designed to keep you sucked in and constantly scrolling and clicking on videos for maximum engagement.
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EFF the effing effers… it’s been a long time coming since “web 2.0” ruined everything.
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My explanation of YouTube to my son: "Remember, it's the app that tricks you into watching things".
Pretty much banned from our house except for a rare treat of BBC programming that can't be found, bought, etc, elsewhere.
Side note: why is BBC so bad about getting it's shows on DVD? I'd happily pay a large premium to avoid YouTube.
Pretty much banned from our house except for a rare treat of BBC programming that can't be found, bought, etc, elsewhere.
Side note: why is BBC so bad about getting it's shows on DVD? I'd happily pay a large premium to avoid YouTube.
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Ridiculous. Social media is not addictive and I should know because I've been following the trial every single minute on X, QQ, Meta, Bluesky, Insta, WhatsApp, Tiktok, Pinterest, and Google Maps since it started.
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Google Maps
Can't stop talking about it with my friends on ICQ & posting every day on my Friendster account. Clearly not addictive!
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Do jury verdicts not have to be unanimous? I thought that was the whole point of a jury.
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I'm glad that the modern Internet business model, whatever you want to call it, is finally costing companies money. There's really no reason that society benefits from allowing it to evolve the way it has. It's all just intentionally addictive stuff, in the context of surveillance capitalism ad networks, with messaging controlled by billionaires.
I'm always somewhat skeptical of governments trying to regulate tech or media. But seriously, if a physical product like this stuff existed, with the same negative effects, and the intrusions on privacy being more visible, it would have been banned in the first week. Product liability lawsuits would have scorched the field to ashes. The harms were just to abstract, and happening at too big a scale in a distributed way, for people to really engage with it. I miss the 90's Internet. Which isn't something I could have imagined myself saying in the 90's when I was so excited about the possibilities of the future, and so frustrated with the limitations of the time.
I'm always somewhat skeptical of governments trying to regulate tech or media. But seriously, if a physical product like this stuff existed, with the same negative effects, and the intrusions on privacy being more visible, it would have been banned in the first week. Product liability lawsuits would have scorched the field to ashes. The harms were just to abstract, and happening at too big a scale in a distributed way, for people to really engage with it. I miss the 90's Internet. Which isn't something I could have imagined myself saying in the 90's when I was so excited about the possibilities of the future, and so frustrated with the limitations of the time.
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Juries are fact finders, determining which set of facts they find true.
In a criminal case, the Supreme Court has held that juries must be unanimous. In civil cases, it depends. This was a case in California State Court, so California State rules say a jury must agree 3/4ths for a verdict.
I think interestingly, there will be another jury trial in this case now, because civil cases also allow juries to determine damages, where in general juries don't give sentences in criminal cases.
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Maybe creating a business that values engagement over anything else isn't the most awesome company value idea ever?
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state civil trials don't always have to be unanimous (varies by state)
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Generally, in criminal cases yes, in civil cases no, a majority is sufficient.
Edit: Or 3/4 in this particular jurisdiction (thanks Ninja justsomebytes).
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Their argument that Youtube is primarily a video host ("streaming platform") had more merit before they rolled out Youtube Shorts specifically to compete with IG and Tiktok. Shorts really do try everything to keep you scrolling mindlessly.
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Can I find it weird that they are reacting to news about the trial about being addicted to phone apps... on their phone app?
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And recommendations, and auto-play. Those basically made YouTube in to a continuous stream of what Google wants you to see.
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It seems to have started with a complete lack of parenting. I have no problem finding Google and Meta responsible, but this girl's parents, or more likely parent, should be found equally at fault.
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I'm pretty much back to web 1.0, reading substack blogs, States Newsroom, The Guardian, TPM, and of course ARS.
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XSportSeeker
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Just so people know, it's because of lawsuits and judges going this direction that Facebook/Meta is pushing hard on the current string of age gating strategies - because they want to dilute liability.
For people who are not aware of this, some independent research came to the conclusion that a whole ton of the effort to push bills forward that are advancing and forcing age gating stuff into everything is being funded and spearheaded by lobbying groups that have major social network ties - Meta being a big one among those.
One reason for this, obviously, has to do about mass private data collection, but it also is a strategy to dilute liability in cases like the one in this article - they wanna push forward an argument that they are not responsible for damages done to children and teens, because other pieces in the system were supposed to age-gate those from their platforms.
It is extremely unfortunately that every win seems to also come with a loss, but for Big Tech this particular win will result in further push to force users to surrender positive ID and end anonymity in their platforms further, putting more and more people at risk for crimes of impersonation, of criminals and corrupt people abusing power with easy positive id methods once all that data gets hacked or leaked, and so on.
So, at the same time I think the woman was absolutely right to sue, and I'm glad that she won, the consequences of it still seem dire.
To me personally, it's not about kids - it's about everyone. Everything that Big Tech has created came with too much of a penalty, and their line goes up economics manner of doing everything has ruined everything good that could come from their platforms.
Social media specifically, I don't think anyone at any age should be using those. But the corruption spreads throughout the totality of American Big Tech and beyond.
I honestly think the world would be better if the entirety of Big Tech was extinguished, along with all of the ill effects it had throughout the world. Going from the company themselves, all the way up to the systems that finance it, and the politics that supports it.
We'd go back years in tech terms, but perhaps with a chance to learn how everything went wrong, to rebuild it with chances of doing it right this time. Wishful thinking.
But you know, this probably won't happen, and we're heading towards extinction anyways. So... I guess yay for this decision? Try to look into the age gating thing in another context.
For people who are not aware of this, some independent research came to the conclusion that a whole ton of the effort to push bills forward that are advancing and forcing age gating stuff into everything is being funded and spearheaded by lobbying groups that have major social network ties - Meta being a big one among those.
One reason for this, obviously, has to do about mass private data collection, but it also is a strategy to dilute liability in cases like the one in this article - they wanna push forward an argument that they are not responsible for damages done to children and teens, because other pieces in the system were supposed to age-gate those from their platforms.
It is extremely unfortunately that every win seems to also come with a loss, but for Big Tech this particular win will result in further push to force users to surrender positive ID and end anonymity in their platforms further, putting more and more people at risk for crimes of impersonation, of criminals and corrupt people abusing power with easy positive id methods once all that data gets hacked or leaked, and so on.
So, at the same time I think the woman was absolutely right to sue, and I'm glad that she won, the consequences of it still seem dire.
To me personally, it's not about kids - it's about everyone. Everything that Big Tech has created came with too much of a penalty, and their line goes up economics manner of doing everything has ruined everything good that could come from their platforms.
Social media specifically, I don't think anyone at any age should be using those. But the corruption spreads throughout the totality of American Big Tech and beyond.
I honestly think the world would be better if the entirety of Big Tech was extinguished, along with all of the ill effects it had throughout the world. Going from the company themselves, all the way up to the systems that finance it, and the politics that supports it.
We'd go back years in tech terms, but perhaps with a chance to learn how everything went wrong, to rebuild it with chances of doing it right this time. Wishful thinking.
But you know, this probably won't happen, and we're heading towards extinction anyways. So... I guess yay for this decision? Try to look into the age gating thing in another context.
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Good. considering they were openly bragging that their products were highly addictive and no easily discernible warnings, they got what they deserved. frankly, most social media has been as stained on modern existence and has likely caused problems that we haven’t even qualified yet. These companies should’ve had similar protections and requirements made of news industries, and that they fought for decades.
Social media companies always claim that it would be cost prohibitive and detrimental to their platforms if they had to follow the same rules. No one bothered to weigh the cost to people until now. Bring on the court cases and bury them until they reform or are purged.
Social media companies always claim that it would be cost prohibitive and detrimental to their platforms if they had to follow the same rules. No one bothered to weigh the cost to people until now. Bring on the court cases and bury them until they reform or are purged.
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Ad-based streaming services are naturally designed to maximize content consumption. More you watch = more ads seen. The “find-watch-quit” workflow is not something these services are optimized for.
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ubercurmudgeon
Ars Tribunus Militum
IIRC, part of it is that the BBC has blanket agreements to use pretty much any incidental music for TV shows broadcast within the UK, but when released on DVD the rights holders have to agree terms on a case-by-case basis.
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Let's do some rough math.
If a website/app has 1 billion users, and one out of every 10,000 users (0.01%) has a problem with it, that's 100,000 people. If 100,000 people get $3 million each, that's $300 billion, or roughly all of Meta's revenue (not profits, revenue) for the next five years.
I really think that if this judgement stands, it could open up a black hole under social media as we know it. Back to blogs for everyone.
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You Friendsters, you need to be on MySpace instead. That's where all the cool peeps are.Google Maps
Can't stop talking about it with my friends on ICQ & posting every day on my Friendster account. Clearly not addictive!
At least you're ahead of AOL users on GeoCities!
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I’m heartbroken you weren’t following my LinkedIn series, “the shocking thing I learned from the Meta trial that really supercharged growth at my AI startup, parts 1-7”
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Your terminology is incorrect. This isn't a fine. It is an award of compensation for damages caused to this particular individual. While governments can impose fines/penalties that are unconnected to any specific damage caused by the conduct, a jury in a civil liability trial cannot. The jury can award compensation for damages it finds were caused by the wrongful conduct of an actor (in this case Google and Meta). Establishing that individuals can hold entities like Meta and Google liable and forced to compensate for damages caused by their platforms is a big deal because it doesn't rely on government action in order to pursue the irresponsible entities.
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Is there some way to codify that like.. products should be sold for a price in dollars and be designed to exclusively benefit the purchaser, with the only benefit the seller receives being the sale? Maybe I'm looking through rose tinted glasses but I feel like that used to be a lot more common, if not even the norm.
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What a complete and utter line of horse shit. I can't believe they tried to use this as a defense. Everything about YouTube for the past 15 years has been designed to keep you clicking, watching, and absorbing (for ads).
This is like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar arguing that no, he wasn't actually grabbing a cookie, he was just feeling their texture.
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How did they determine the 3 million dollar amount for compensation? Is a large part of that just to pay the plaintiff's legal costs? Where does health insurance come into this? (I'm English and don't understand much about the American legal and health systems).
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