brandon

Look, maybe it’s true that parents should be doing a better job here. The thing is, that’s an individual solution. This is a systemic problem. How kids (and adults) interact socially and consume media is fundamentally changed over the last thirty years and we’re going to have to find ways to adapt to that as a society.

Yeah, in any particular individual case you can probably come up with a list of things the parent could have done differently. The reality is that this is a problem for tens (hundreds?) of millions of parents.

You can hand wave away any problem that affects children with “parents should do a better job”. It didn’t work for obesity, it didn’t work for child traffic deaths, it didn’t work for fentanyl overdoses, it didn’t work for school shootings, it didn’t work for measles, and it’s not going to work for this either.

I’m just going to copy/paste what I wrote in a previous comment in a similar thread:

Everybody is so quick to blame the parents in these situations. Maybe there is some truth to that, but people also need to reckon with the fact that kids (and adults) are being constantly inundated by Skinner box apps, and “platforms” full of engagement bait designed to be as addictive and attractive as possible. All run by corporations with functionally no regard for the safety of their users.

Yeah, sure, if you’re giving advice to an individual parent, they should probably be keeping a closer eye on what their kids are doing.

But there are systemic problems here that can’t be fixed with individual action. By laying the blame solely at the feet of the parents here, you are in effect putting individual parents up against dozens of huge corporations, each with armies of expert advertisers, designers, and psychologists working to build these products. It’s hardly a fair fight.

You can walk into any Walmart in America and buy a cheap smartphone for $30.

This approach is even less effective than “just don’t give them drugs”.

Not judging the software at all, but the fact that OnlyOffice is owned/developed by a semi-sketchy Russian corporation would probably preclude it from getting any endorsement from a Western government.

Everybody is so quick to blame the parents in these situations. Maybe there is some truth to that, but people also need to reckon with the fact that kids (and adults) are being constantly inundated by Skinner box apps, and “platforms” full of engagement bait designed to be addictive and attractive as possible. All run by corporations with functionally no regard for the safety of their users.

Yeah, sure, if you’re giving advice to an individual parent, they should probably be keeping a closer eye on what their kids are doing.

But there are systemic problems here that can’t be fixed with individual action. By laying the blame solely at the feet of the parents here, you are in effect putting parents up against dozens of huge corporations, each with armies of expert advertisers, designers, and psychologists working to build these products. It’s hardly a fair fight.

I know most of these companies have large logistics operations in other countries, for example Mexico.

Can/will they attempt to dodge the tariffs on China by redirecting shipments through some other country with lower tariffs on the product’s way into the United States? Would it be legal for them to do so? (It seems to me that a tariff happy country might prefer to view that as undesirable behavior–would the Trump administration have any recourse against that sort of thing?)

The enshittification of the English language.

I got it from the library, so I won’t comment how much money it’s worth.

Hard to say I enjoyed it, since the conduct described within is nearly without expection horrifying. I expect that most people on Lemmy would probably be unsurprised by it.

I found it to be a pretty quick read, and I’m glad it’s out there. If you’re interested in the topic I’d say to give it a shot.

I didn’t see the testimony, but I did read her book.

When most people think “targeted advertising”, I think they are thinking about something like: this user is a middle-class woman between 18 and 25 who enjoys bicycles, so we’ll show her ad X.

According to Wynn-Williams, Facebook/Meta is doing things like detecting when a user uploads, then immediately removes a photo–detecting that as a moment of emotional vulnerability (that is, the user was feeling self-conscious about their appearance), then bombarding them with ads in that moment for beauty products.

I think the former is ‘obvious’ to most people, but the latter probably isn’t–probably because Meta and other advertising companies have put a lot of effort in to keep this on the down low–which is why Wynn-Williams is speaking about it publically.

(not accusing you of defending them BTW, just my 2¢ that this goes beyond what most people would consider obvious, imo)

If you’re in the US and a citizen, you do not have to divulge your password to the authorities or even a judge, per the 5th Amendment. However, they can force you to use your fingerprint or FaceID to unlock your phone.

They can, however, probably seize your phone, and refuse to return it to you. Something to keep in mind when deciding to take your primary device, or a burner.