Executives from three social media companies have denied their platforms are inherently addictive to children and young people, in a combative appearance before MPs in Westminster.
Representatives from Meta, Roblox and TikTok faced robust questioning from the cross-party education select committee about the impact of screen time and social media on children.
A fourth executive, from Snapchat, had been due to attend Tuesday’s hearing but was said to have cancelled “at quite short notice”, drawing a sharp rebuke from the committee chair, Helen Hayes.
She warned Snapchat the committee would use its powers to summon a witness if they did not cooperate and agree to appear at a meeting next week.
A Snapchat spokesperson said later: “Due to unforeseen circumstances we were unable to attend today’s meeting. As we’ve been discussing directly with parliamentary authorities, we are fully committed and engaged in this process and look forward to a productive discussion next week.”
Hey! The tobacco companies said the same thing! I’m starting to think these business leaders are not telling the truth. But to what end? Is it the money? Could it be the money? I think it’s the money!!
Yeah and crack dealers say crack isn’t addictive.
So not inherently addictive, but instead, specifically tuned to be?
It’s true, they’re not. It’s how they design their feed and recommendation algorithm that makes it harmful.
Facebook and Instagram were fine, back when your feed was what you and or your friends posted. Now it’s short-form videos from influencers, misleading ads, and engagement and ragebait.
I mean, algos make it far worse and should be criminalized, but it’s not just their algos. I see tons of ragebait trending on Lemmy too, at the expense of niche communities.
My new belief is that platforms and communication forms all have a set life, and should die when they go bad (for a variety of reasons). The Big Tech platforms are just examples that have lived waaaay too long.
And while I like to think the Fediverse is aging slower, it copied existing platforms a little too closely, without trying to correct their structural issues.
I locked down my FB account about 15 yrs ago. I didn’t delete it because I’ve lived all over the place and it’s sometimes the only way to keep in touch.
But recently I reconnected with some old and dear friends so tried to add them. What a fucking mess that was, and a fucking shit-show FB has become.
The infinite scroll is a major part of it.
I don’t understand why, when a specific product or company is accused by scientists and others of being harmful, we give any airtime whatsoever to said product or company. Did we not learn from the tobacco industry and oil industry and pharmaceutical industry that this is either a colossal waste of everyone’s time, or allows them to muddy the waters sufficiently to continue doing more harm in the interim? Why do I need to hear from sociopathic techbros that their products are fine actually?
If someone accuse me of doing something, I should have a right to reply, this is the same thing.
Someone publicly accuse social media of deliberately being addictive, then the company accused should have the option to answer the accusation in the same way it was fires at them.
You have the right to reply, But due to obvious conflict of interest, your reply in such a situation has no value except as a declaration of self-interest.
“cigarette spokesman: cigarettes are not inherently detrimental to health”
Couldn’t ask for a more biased source. It’s not even with reporting this.
As if questioning CEOs would ever get you any real answers. These ghouls have a fiduciary obligation to their shareholders ; acquiescing to accusations of this kind would be bad for the stock, they probably could get sued for telling the truth.
This post was fueled by wrath and is for entertainment purposes only.
Guy that makes guns says they don’t kill people
Inherently may be the keyword here. They are not automatically addictive, but they were redesigned over two decades to become addictive and exploit backdoors in human cognition.
Tobacco CEO denies products are addictive.
Well they would say that, wouldn’t they?
2027: “Well, yes, twelve studies by well-respected universities concluded that our social media app is addictive, especially to children. But, we didn’t intentionally design it that way, it’s just a consequence of…”
2028: “Yeah! We did it! So what?! What are you going to do about it!? Yeah! That’s what I thought, bitch!”
A long time ago, I decided I was not going to pay attention to Roblox because life is short and I don’t wanna, but it seems to have been a poor choice because somehow it qualifies as every kind of software known to humankind. I won’t be surprised if the next time I read about it is because The Kids These Days now have jobs and prefer to do their spreadsheets in Roblox rather than Excel, and so I need to buy Robux to see our company’s financials.
Lol roblox.
