And I say this as a very light social media user, I never enjoyed it and it always felt unhealthy so I just kept off it. As I’ve watch it all unfold, was in college during facebooks college only explosion and now people are on tiktok. It’s clear, people want to be addicted to social media just as bad as zuck wants them addicted to social media. And an instagram without filters is like porn without nudity.
> It’s clear, people want to be addicted to social media
I'd say people are susceptible to addiction rather than wanting it. Suppliers of any addictive product - whether its tobacco, class A drugs, alcohol, gambling or social media - know that. Going too hard the other way into full prohibition is impractical because it starts to impinge on civil liberties: as a capable adult, why shouldn't I be able to smoke/drink/doomscroll instagram if I want?
That's why it's dificult; neither extreme liberty nor extreme prohibition is the answer. It's a grey area as GP notes. The trouble is it creates opportunities for people like Zuckerberg to exploit the middle ground and amass huge personal wealth paid for, in part, by the health detriment of those unable to self-regulate the addiction.
Drinking every day and "needing" a drink look like good indication of alcoolism to me.
In reality we are not so much in control, our psyche is easily manipulated by nudges, design that leaves you on the cusp of a dopaminic reaction is much more addictive. It's different to develop a vice to being manipulated into developing a vice. Morality should come into play on the latter, otherwise it's a free-for-all to discover the most effective ways to manipulate you into behaviours that are unhealthy but profitable.
Like, you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. _This_ is social media, but probably would not make sense to ban (merely being very irritating is not an adequate reason to ban something).
I’m not saying they’re similar though. But you used an extreme analogy and took it the wrong way.
Remember the proto social media ? They were a huge time sink, sure, but they were not this hyper optimised slot machine that they are now.
Additionally if the product is inherently unhealthy, we should protect underdeveloped frontal cortices from it, as we do with every similar thing (drugs, gambling etc).
Probably why latter should be the initiative of these 18 wellbeing experts just like how we have with drugs, gambling, tobacco, alcohol. Not by changing the product but by restricting access
But on this specific topic I'm curious what the wellness experts think about make-up, or even worse purely cosmetic plastic surgery. If digital filters are wrong, surgery should get the death penalty in comparison.
It can be in the company's interest to act for the good of society and a CEO can claim that it is his fudiciary duty to act in the interest of society.
But when society's interests are in direct conflict with the interests of the company you cannot expect a CEO to act in the interest of society.
Even if a CEO is perfectly within their rights to act against the interests of the company, it doesn't change the fact that investors might replace him if the CEO does so consistently.
What do you expect to happen in such a system?
Regulation is not done with the purpose of preventing companies from profits. It is done because companies cannot be expected to act in society’s best interest, so society has to make demands of companies, ie regulation.
Do you realize how insane this sounds?
If a CEO consistently passes up large profits to protect society then investors will attempt to put a new CEO in charge.
1. At least in our case. And China in its case, and Europe in theirs, and Russia in Russia’s.
Everyone I passed my copy around to has left Facebook almost instantly. Zuck is just one of the worst humans on the planet.
Does anyone have any recommendations for more books like these?
Tech-specific (more like Careless People):
- Empire of AI: tells the story of how the massive AI labs started and became as big as they are with a focus on OpenAI, provides new insight into the coup that outed Altman a couple years ago
- Number Go Up: digs into the crypto culture and scams with novel insight into Tether
- Bad Blood: a classic about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes and how far a technologically impossible startup can go
- Super Pumped: about Uber and the dirty tactics they employed to stay ahead, also touches on the toxic culture that was propagated there
- Money Men: about the criminal enterprise around Wirecard, hard to keep up with at times due to the focus on the FT investigation rather than the fraud but interesting anyway
Finance-focused:
- Barbarians at the Gate: a classic about the attempted takeover of RJR Nabisco (oreos and tobacco) by management and early PE firms, told from first hand accounts
- Too Big Too Fail: similar in form to Barbarians but instead focused on the 08 collapse and the attempts by the government to save all the irresponsible banks, told in too much of a sympathetic way for me but interesting to see how things happened behind the scenes
- All the Devils Are Here: on the other hand a very unsympathetic look into the 08 crisis, by the same authors as Smartest Guys in the Room
Other:
- The Smartest Guys in the Room: my favourite of them all, tells the story of Enron and their rise and incredible fall, basically a foundational text on how to do a financial crime (and not get away with it)
- Chip War: very relevant look into the production of computer chips, highlights the reliance on only a few companies and the incredible costs involved
- Empire of Pain: also a favourite, goes into the Sackler family and how they built Perdue Pharma and then proceeded to cause the devastating opioid epidemic
- The Power Broker: a classic about Robert Moses who basically built half of New York at the expense of marginalised residents, it's very long so I'd recommend reading/listening along with the 99% invisible breakdown
I've not read Character Limit so have added that to my "To Read" pile!
Edit: Maybe I should find one about the shenanigans in the crypto space...
It was a good read though nothing too surprising after following this saga from the McNamee Zucked to the Wylie /. Cambridge Analytica case.
Wylies Mindfuck is another great one.
I have a list of no hire/tainted companies now and they are on the list.
I'd wager that one day, his grandchildren (possibly even children), are going to call for his arrest and imprisonment, as a means to stop themselves being judged for his sins.
He really had a chance.
Is there a source for this? The article doesn't seem to mention it. On that topic, should we update the title to match the article title?
Way back in the early days, I attended an in-person Facebook developer event in London. This was just as they'd realised they'd gotten as many users as they were likely to be able to get, and were now talking about maximising time spent on the site.
Immediately changed my opinion of them from "cool tech company" to "slimy digital crack dealers".
* what in Earth is a "wellbeing expert".
This title sounds entirely made up, and I doubt there is such a degree.
If there is no degree, what were they basing their recommendations on?
What research? Papers?
If they have no formal schooling, what makes them experts or not?
Were these just Meta employees?
If they are, were other Meta employees equally skilled saying it was OK?
Ah well. Maybe the article says.
But basically it's about Zuckerberg testimony and evidence in an ongoing court case in California. I believe case 23SMCV03371 but there's a number of coordinated cases. [0]
From reading other articles[1][2][3][4] about the testimony I think "18 wellbeing experts" is referring to external consultation funded by Meta/Instagram that appears to have overwhelmingly turned up concerns about the impact beauty filters could have on young girls (who weren't even supposed to be on the platform in the first place).
There's some stuff with internal Meta employees also raising concerns. I didn't see anything about internal Meta employees saying it was ok but of course it's hard to know without free access to actual court transcripts and exhibits.
Zuckerberg himself said they decided to allow the filters but not recommend them and that not allowing the filters would have been paternalistic.
[0] https://www.lacourt.ca.gov/pages/lp/access-a-case/tp/find-ca...
[1] https://www.wunc.org/2026-02-18/zuckerberg-grilled-about-met...
[2] https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-testifies-social...
[3] https://www.kten.com/news/business/takeaways-mark-zuckerberg...
[4] https://www.wandtv.com/news/national/zuckerberg-testifies-at...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/18/nazi-billionai...
Are you a welness expert?
This seems like entirely normal human behavior at every level of society, no? Of course asking Zuckerberg is a bit like asking a bartender, but we know very well that it's not only bartenders who'd be against stopping alcohol sales.
It is strange to condemn Zuckerberg for doing this unless you're also willing to implement the all the other (vastly more important) advice from wellbeing experts that we as a society have pretty decisively rejected.
I'm only pointing out that the headline is describing perfectly normal human behavior.
I think you'll find quite a few bartenders would be pro stopping alcohol sales. Something about having to deal with the damage alcohol causes on a daily basis...
It's the people really profiting from alcohol (and alcohol addiction) you want to keep your eye on (i.e. the owners and investors in the bars/breweries/distileries/etc)
Not completely true. Some states in India have complete bans on alcohol, and even some parts of the US prohibit its sale.
Do you know Zuckerberg well enough to be able to engage in an interesting conversation about whether or not he would continue to grant a specific person access to filters, knowing that they're harming that specific person?
I guess not. Speculating about it seems pointless at best.
Social media offers many more benefits than alcohol does, and it could certainly be banned for children. Alcohol is almost certainly less beneficial and more harmful to its users than social media.
You are correct that alcohol has been around for a while, but that hardly explains why it should be treated differently.
They’re both unhealthy products and I feel they deserve to be just that. Allow social media to be what it wants. But also approach it with moderation and regulation around access. The wellness experts shouldn’t be dictating what social media is, they should be promoting more healthy ways regarding how it’s used. It’s an uphill battle for a reason though, we like it too much.
If it's harming your mental health, stop using it. The "Delete App" button is right there.
Just like tobacco, alcohol and porn we didn’t make it cancer and addiction free or remove the nudity - we banned kids from accessing it
(I'm basing this on the headline because the article is paywalled)
There was a major public campaign in the 1950s to ban rock & roll music, and in the 1980s to ban heavy metal. In each case, there were legions of "experts" calling those genres "harmful", and they were taken seriously -- congressional hearings were held, etc.
Point is, "promoting a harmful product" is very much in the eye of the beholder, and doesn't work as an objective moral standard.