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Posted by mdhb 5 days ago

Meta suppressed research on child safety, employees say(www.washingtonpost.com)
506 points | 346 commentspage 4
mixedbit 5 days ago|
I hate that Meta and Google - companies that are among the leaders in AI and invest billions in cutting-edge machine learning R&D - pretend they are unable to detect that children are accessing their platforms in violation of age restrictions (13 years in most cases).
djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago|
The responsibility to protect children should be put on their parents.

If they want to give their children devices to use unsupervised, then they should block access to whatever they deem harmful.

watwut 5 days ago|||
Because it is totally reasonable to expect parents to have total surveillance of all their kids every single moment of kids life up to 18 years old.

The only thing it achieves is ever growing helicopter parenting and related anxieties ... while the same people who complained about parents not controlling everything complain when they try.

We expect shops and passerbys to not sell porn or steal from kids in real life.

djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago||
Stealing from anyone is already illegal, so that's not relevant here. And I don't think kids seeing porn is particularly harmful.
freejazz 4 days ago||
> And I don't think kids seeing porn is particularly harmful.

That's not what is happening on Facebook and there is no way I could believe you genuinely think that's what everyone is talking about. Did you even read the article? Porn isn't mentioned once. Pedophiles are asking kids to send them photos, trying to connect with them to arrange sex. You, upthread, told me that the sexual solicitation of minors was only harmful "subjectively" whatever that means.

noitpmeder 5 days ago||||
Does this logic extend to other things society has deemed vices? Should it be soley on the parents to prevent your kid from accessing drugs? What about cigarettes/weed/alcohol? Or anything that society has put in place age-based or other legal gates.

Now imagine all government restrictions on these are removed, and there is a store within walking distance of your house that is staffed by employees that will willingly, without question, sell these items to your kids and their friends? Is it still all on the parents to prevent access?

What about if this store has advertisements specifically targeted toward children? Or has discounts on cigarettes/alcohol/... aimed at the lower age brackets? "First pack free if you're under 18".

Now put this "store" on the internet, accessible from your kid's cellular device.

There's a spectrum here.

djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago||
> Does this logic extend to other things society has deemed vices?

Yes. When a child is too young, parents should be directly preventing access to those vices. As their children get older, parents should have instilled enough values into their children that constant surveillance is no longer required.

AlexandrB 5 days ago||
Do you have children? Were you ever a child? It really doesn't sound like it. It's easy to stop a 4 year old from going to the liquor store. Basically impossible to stop a 14 year old. And 14 year old kids will do all kinds of dumb stuff for approval/attention from friends or (especially) the opposite sex.
djrj477dhsnv 4 days ago||
Doing dumb stuff and experimenting as a teenager is part of growing up. I don't see anything wrong with that.
mixedbit 5 days ago||||
If social media is harmful to children, each child deserves to be protected, no matter what is their parents' opinion. This is obvious for other harmful things, we don't argue that it is up to parents to decide if their child should be allowed to use alcohol or cigarettes.
djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago||
Harm is subjective and I'd much rather parents make that call than the government.

And there absolutely isn't consensus on when it's harmful to give children alcohol. Many would say it's good to give a child a glass of wine at a family dinner so that they learn to drink responsibly.

Msot agree that cigarettes are harmful at all ages, so that's not really relevant.

mixedbit 5 days ago|||
The government already made the call, that's why due to child privacy or other protection laws, terms of service of social media platforms require age 13 or up. My complain is that companies pretend they are unable to enforce it.
freejazz 5 days ago||||
>Harm is subjective and I'd much rather parents make that call than the government.

Is that what Meta's research indicated?

djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago||
Its subjectivity is a fact, so no research required.
freejazz 4 days ago||
Are you saying that the sexual predation of minors is not objectively harmful to them? Are you aware that the sexual solicitation of a minor is a crime?
djrj477dhsnv 4 days ago||
I don't agree that anything can be objectively harmful. I personally agree that it is harmful for minors up to some age. So again I would maintain it's the parents' responsibility to protect them until they reach that age.
freejazz 4 days ago||
Do you think the sexual solicitation of minors should not be illegal? Whether or not it's the parent's responsibility to protect their own children is besides the point. It can also be true that others facilitate and turn a blind eye. I can only assume you think a party in the scenario (one who connects a child with a sexual solicitor) should bear no responsibility? Either civilly or criminally?

> I don't agree that anything can be objectively harmful.

How principled of you. Why don't you go shoot yourself in the head and report back.

djrj477dhsnv 4 days ago||
If there is sexual activity involving a minor, yes, the parents should be able to pursue criminal and civil cases. Solicitation without any actions doesn't seem that important.
freejazz 4 days ago||
Well, I'm pretty sure every state in the US disagrees with you and I'm not going to be continuing this conversation any further given that you think it's fine for adults to solicit sex from minors so long as "actions" don't happen (again, whatever the heck that actually means). I need to shower this thread off of me.
zasz 5 days ago|||
Ahaha, by this logic we should just ban vaccines if that's popular.
djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago||
What? I'm saying the government shouldn't be involved in bans at all. It should be up to the individual or their legal guardians.
freejazz 4 days ago||
Yawn. Is this supposed to be charming? Principled? I don't get your shtick. People act like it's politics but it really comes off more as just being foremost disagreable and unreasonable.

Jumping into a conversation about pedophiles to offer that their harms are only subjective is just ridiculous but for some reason I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but I've come to realize that was wrong.

dataflow 5 days ago||||
How do you expect your child to react when they end up the only ones in their classes left our of whatever others are doing?
djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago||
If there are good reasons to restrict them, I'd expect them to deal with it.

I never had access to cable television or video games growing up, while nearly all my classmates did. It wasn't a big deal.

freejazz 4 days ago||
> It wasn't a big deal

You seem unsocialized, for what it's worth. Probably still not something TV or video games would fix.

11101010001100 5 days ago||||
All the responsibility should be put on the parents? I suggest you run through scenarios of what that might look like....
djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago||
Yes. What scenario did you have in mind?
GuinansEyebrows 5 days ago||||
if that were the most effective solution to the problem, we wouldn't be having this conversation. just because something appears to be simple doesn't mean it will be effective.
xrd 5 days ago|||
I laughed out loud at this. It is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

I'll give you a hard reason of which you must not be aware: it actually takes two parents to have a child.

Think about why that's important. If one parent is too addicted to their own usage of Instagram, and models that for the kids, the kids will pull that towards them, no matter what the other parent does.

You cannot monitor children constantly, unless you are are, say, a billionaire tech executive who has willingly ignored all data to show that his products have damaged society and children in pursuit of personal profit.

There is only one person in the world that can afford to do what you suggest, and his initials are MZ.

djrj477dhsnv 5 days ago||
It's pretty trivial to block access to certain sites or apps. Or better yet, you raise your kids well so that you don't need to rely on technology to keep them away from bad things.
xrd 4 days ago||
If I block them when the kids are with me, and then my ex-wife unblocks them when the kids are with her, the hordes are past the gate.

I'll do my best raising my kids well, as you said.

djrj477dhsnv 4 days ago||
Well that's an inherent problem of having multiple people with custody of a single child.

Ideally a compromise can be reached, but in extreme cases I suppose it could end up with litigation. But still, this is a private dispute, not something that should require outsourcing parenting to the government.

RianAtheer 5 days ago||
Meta employees have raised serious issues about the company downplaying or even suppressing research on child safety risks, especially in virtual reality spaces. They said that the company suppressed research on child safety risks, especially in VR. Meta denies it, but it’s a serious concern
utyop22 5 days ago|
Would those same employees (assuming they get stock based compensation) be happy to forgo capital gains that have/would be achieved by said firm that has increased its wealth by not investing in child safety projects? Thats what would happen if reinvestment was increased.
philjohn 5 days ago||
I worked on Integrity at Meta for 4 years, including a stint on the child safety team.

Absolutely, I would have been fine with the stock not growing as fast (it would still have grown, Meta has billions of users), as would every single one of the IC's I regularly worked with.

utyop22 5 days ago||
Its much easier to vote with your feet than to get Mr Zuckerberg to change.

So why didnt you? Thats my question.

IM guessing you worked in London? I met a few PMs from Meta. And just to put it mildly, they fit the description of what I described - gave a big talk about how bad it was inside, but when faced with the option of walking and giving away monetary gains - nah. Self interest is king.

Whether you like it or not, or want to admit it, you have profited handsomely from a firm that has caused a great deal of harm / and in many cases has intentionally created an environment that has heightened the senses, for financial gain.

I also saw you joined circa 2020 and have enjoyed the rapid growth in share price - and left just on the 4 year mark, enjoying the SBC to the max. Easy to say that you'd give all that up, after you received the gains and left.

intended 4 days ago||
Isn’t this simply moving your goal posts?

You are also creating a contorted argument to hold onto your blame, making a bonfire out of your credibility. Which is possibly why you are using a new account?

utyop22 4 days ago||
1) nope 2) new acccount?
haileyLlyod3 4 days ago||
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alchemical_piss 5 days ago||
Zuckerberg is one of the most evil men in America.
s5300 5 days ago||
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halico_chops 4 days ago||
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micromacrofoot 5 days ago||
"Meta suppressed research on child safety" again ... why is anyone still using this company for anything ever?
ITB 5 days ago|
You don’t like it when they release research, you don’t like it when research leaks, you don’t like it when research is suppressed. Hard for Meta to do anything right on this topic.
realz 5 days ago||
Have you considered that maybe the outrage is about what the research results contain?
ITB 5 days ago||
I’m not saying social media is good for children.

I’m just saying that some companies might release more information if the reaction wasn’t always adversarial. It’s not just meta. There’s a constant demand for outrage against big companies.

jermberj 5 days ago|||
I don't want to beat a dead horse, since sibling commenters have covered this, but I'd implore you to imagine the spectrum of reactions which Meta _could_ have had when discovering their research indicated they were having a negative impact on people.

Some of those reactions on that spectrum would lead to greater human flourishing and well-being, others of those reactions would lead to the opposite. Now think about the reaction they actually _did_ have. Where on the aforementioned spectrum would their actual reaction fall?

Zooming out, how have they reacted to similar circumstances in the past when their own internal research or data indicated a negative impact on people?

The continued "outrage" is that they've exhibited a recurrent pattern across myriad occurrences.

freejazz 5 days ago|||
Is the issue that meta didn't "release" the research or that they didn't do anything about the findings and told workers to ignore it?
tuckerman 5 days ago|||
I think if it weren't suppressed and released alongside some real, substantive changes for improving child safety it might be seen as Meta finally deciding to do something about it.

It's also worth pointing out this comes hot on the heels of the internal ai chatbot <> children memo leak [1] so people might not be likely to give them the benefit of the doubt atm...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44899674

Eddy_Viscosity2 5 days ago|||
> You don’t like it when they release research, you don’t like it when research leaks

Who doesn't like these?

nova22033 5 days ago|||
We also don't like it when this happens: "their boss ordered the recording of the teen’s claims deleted, along with all written records of his comments."
add-sub-mul-div 5 days ago|||
You're so close to getting it. Maybe there's one more option...
barbazoo 5 days ago||
Who is "you" here?