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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   20498 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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Hizzoner Eric Adams, Mayor of New York, has filed a lawsuit in California court against TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Facebook accusing them of "fueling a youth mental health crisis".

Among his particulars are

Using algorithms to generate feeds that keep users on the platforms longer and encourage compulsive use.

Using mechanics akin to gambling in the design of apps, which allow for anticipation and craving for "likes" and "hearts," and also provides continuous, personalized streams of content and advertisements.

Manipulating users through reciprocity – a social force, especially powerful among teenagers, that describes how people feel compelled to respond to one positive action with another positive action. These platforms take advantage of reciprocity by, for example, automatically telling the sender when their message was seen or sending notifications when a message was delivered, encouraging teens to return to the platform again and again and perpetuating online engagement and immediate responses.

I dislike social media as much as the next grouch, but this to me seems like it should be booted out of court for "Failure to state a claim, and if you did have a claim it would be precluded by the First Amendment, and also I fine you 1 million dollars for using out-of-state courts for political posturing."

IANAL but I also don't think much of the complaint. It does a good job avoiding the issue many social media lawsuits have where they sue based on the content third parties have posted. However the algorithmic delivery of content is, as far as I'm aware, protected first amendment activity. Nowhere does the complaint identify what first amendment exception the described conduct falls into, or even mention the fact that it may be protected.

Another oddity that strikes me as a laymen is the way the causes of action and prayer for relief are phrased. The causes of action are "NEW YORK PUBLIC NUISANCE", "NEW YORK NEGLIGENCE", and "NEW YORK GROSS NEGLIGENCE." The first paragraph in the prayer for relief also reads:

Entering an Order that the conduct alleged herein constitutes a public nuisance under New York law;

Are state courts often called upon to apply the standards of other states? Is this a totally normal thing I'm reading too much into? Seems odd. I would think the relevant standard in California court would be California public nuisance/negligence/gross negligence.

I wonder if there are any parallels between this case and lawsuits against tobacco companies where those companies had been covering up the health risks associated with smoking. I'm not very familiar with the cases. I'm thinking there is probably some precedent that if you have internal data showing something is dangerous/addictive and then you continue to present it as not dangerous/addictive then that opens you up to legal liability.

Since social media companies collect tons of data to optimize engagement on their platforms they probably have something that shows they know social media is addictive. If you have that internal data then you put out something that says, "Facebook builds its products to create value, not to be addictive" https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/What-The-Social-Dilemma-Gets-Wrong.pdf then I could see how this case has some legitimacy. It could also be strategically correct. They know social media companies will settle out of court to avoid a discovery process that would expose the internal documents showing that social media is addictive.

There isn't really a coherent definition of addiction here. Are people addicted because they use Facebook a lot? Can we distinguish that from people just enjoying using Facebook but not being addicted? Probably not.

That’s a good point, but I think the court can ultimately conclude if something is addictive. This would be similar to how the court can conclude if something qualifies as a religion. They use a list of characteristics common to established religions and say these things indicate something could be a religion, but at the same time realize that not every religion would meet all the criteria.

Furthermore, people can become addicted to video games, gambling, or porn and there are some established criteria for what those addictions look like. In the DSM-5-TR Internet Gaming Disorder is included in the section recommending conditions for further research:

  • Preoccupation with gaming

  • Withdrawal symptoms when gaming is taken away or not possible (sadness, anxiety, irritability)

  • Tolerance, the need to spend more time gaming to satisfy the urge

  • Inability to reduce playing, unsuccessful attempts to quit gaming

  • Giving up other activities, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities due to gaming

  • Continuing to game despite problems

  • Deceiving family members or others about the amount of time spent on gaming

  • The use of gaming to relieve negative moods, such as guilt or hopelessness

  • Risk, having jeopardized or lost a job or relationship due to gaming

It's highly unlikely that Facebook has data indicating that users are experiencing these symptoms.

Target was algorithmically detecting pregnancy over a decade ago.

If Facebook doesn't have data regarding these symptoms, it's either because they haven't bothered or because they actively are trying to avoid it.

There's no external validation for someone being addicted to Facebook like there is for someone being pregnant.

In any case, as you suggested, there's no reason for Facebook to even gather this data. If it turns out there's no addiction (whatever that means), nobody will believe them anyway. If there turns out to be addiction, it's a liability.

It also strikes me as frivolous and far too general, and weirdly anachronistic. Even by politician standards, more grandstanding than substantive.

Might as well Cancel the Internet at that point. From search engines to the aforementioned sites to porn to online shopping to online gambling to vidya to The Motte. The Motte, as a sinister hive of scum and villainy, uses algorithms and likes, even if sometimes the algorithm is just sorting by new. Nefarious techniques such as meatbag-informed casual reinforcement learning is deployed via moderation and monthly “Quality Contribution”s.

Such a lawsuit, even assuming there’s sufficient standing or whatever among other issues, feels ten maybe even twenty years too late.

There's a bit of a motte and bailey with algorithms. People grandstanding against social media conflate algorithms intentionally tweaked to manipulate users with algorithms that simply give users what they want. TikTok, as far as I can tell, largely does the second. Google Search, on the other hand, extensively does the first. However, the sort of people who complain about 'algorithms' tend to approve of Google's goals in information curating.

To be clear, both types of 'algorithm' might be bad, in the same way cocaine might be bad whether a user snorts it on their own or an unsavory corporation slips it into their carbonated beverages. But banning the former is a harder sell given the moral justification for our current civilization is still technically supposed to be liberalism.

According to the articles about the enshittification of the net by Doctorow et al (on Wired and Substack), TikTok's algorithm no longer really gives users what they want anymore.

That's an interesting read, thanks. Though it sounds like TikTok is tweaking the algorithm to appeal to content creators rather than to manipulate users per se.

Cory Doctorow is an interesting cat. I remember him from the failed hamartiology of 'free culture' back in the day, so maybe I never had a good read of the man. So many of his hobby horses tag him as gray tribe, but when he talks normal politics he's as blue as lapis lazuli.

I think something of a grey tribe existed back in the day -- though I think it was really more of a self-selection of weird, intellectual men who used the internet rather than something that existed in person. But the more I really think about it, the more it seems obvious that this cohort has divided between blue-sympathetic people and red-sympathetic people, with those on each side finding more common ground with former enemies than with former friends.

So, you see grey tribe atheist types re-evaluating their views on Christianity (like you see often showing up in religious discussions on the motte) or even converting (as I did), because they started bumping up against the blue tribe in ways they didn't expect, or were directly repelled by the views of the blue tribe on cis-het-straight-white-men, who mostly made up the grey tribe. And you see the opposite too -- grey tribe people like Doctorow who have always been more into the "weird" side of the grey tribe (he's a science fiction author, after all) finding more common ground with the reformist blue tribe, or pushed that direction by a cultural, class, or regional dislike of Trumpism.

This doesn't mean these internet people go full red or full blue, but it does, I think, make people lean more in one direction or another.

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