> "We will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms while simultaneously claiming they are harmful."
Wow.. That is quite a statement. Am I right in saying that in order to claim for the class action lawsuit, which facebook has been 'found negligent', that the victims need to take an action collectively in order to claim ? IE They need to be reached somehow to inform them of the possibility ?
Seems the most obvious place to advertise would be Meta.
I understand Meta can basically do whatever they like with their ToS but the statement from the Meta spokesperson seems like an extremely bad idea.
I understand the impulse, but there are not only significant differences, i.e., the requirement to add labeling to cigarettes was mostly a judicial or legislative action, but there is also that rather perverse fact that this kind of legislation that people are championing is often funded by profit and greed just like the harm being sued over.
The article even at least mentions that at least one of the suits is private equity funded; which generally will result in the partners and/or investors of the private equity firm and the attorneys suing, which are often all one and the same in what is just a financial and legal shell game, net tens of millions of dollars, while the supposed victims will end up with nothing but pennies on the dollar of harm and injury.
I get the impulse to also “cheer” for the lawsuits, but if you thought Meta, etc. are bad; you really don’t want to look into the vile pestilence that is the law firms that are basically organized crime too by the core definition of crime being an offense and harm upon society.
I don’t really know a solution for this problem because it is so rooted in the core foundation of this rotten system we still call America for some reason, but for the time being I guess, the only moderately effective remedy for harm and injury is to combat it with more harm and injury.
It would be a better analogy if tobacco companies sold ad space on their packs and chose not to do business with a private for-profit anti-smoking solicitation group.
> the statement from the Meta spokesperson seems like an extremely bad idea.
All corporate CYA ideas sound that way, but ultimately end up benefiting the company in the end. Meta is right to do this. That's not to say it's right to do, but it's right for the company.
I mean those class action lawsuits enrich trial lawyers and maybe force companies to behave better (though i bet empirical evidence would show that its more a cost of business).
The 20$ dollars people get is nothing but a guise that the trial lawyers are helping people.
I'm not sure if the lower price means that class actions shouldn't still be taken.
It's to allow companies to not have to deal with individual claims for each person. I see that the ranges can be substantial though, several thousands, but seems to be criteria.
> Nearly nine months later, Mark received a notification that his claim had been approved. Two weeks after that, $186 was deposited into his bank account. While the amount wasn’t substantial, it covered a grocery run and a phone bill—and more importantly, it reminded him that companies can be held accountable, even in small ways. [0]
If the fine's don't dissuade companies from bad practices, the class actions with theoreticaly no upper limit might be a better option to enforce proper behaviour.
I can agree with that -- however the amount of money the trial lawyers make comparatively is wildly disproportionate. I think that 186$ figure is an example on the high side of payouts to individuals.
As an aside, class-action lawsuits seem less than ideal for the public. The awards benefit the lawyers and perhaps a small handful, but the actual plaintiffs only get $0.05. In addition, successful class-action suits prevent further litigation from being allowed for the same issue.
Individuals bringing their own lawsuits seems like it would affect better change as 1) the award money would be better distributed instead of concentrated and 2) the amounts levied against the companies would be higher and more of concern than the class-action slap-on-the-wrist they currently get.
Reminds me of Carl Sagan’s Contact, where Haden, the millionaire funding Ellie’s work, made a TV ad blocker and then sued the TV companies when they refused to play ads for his product.
Zuckerberg is a rich and high profile guy, so photographers capture many pictures of him, and news editors often find that choosing unflattering pictures of people their readers don't like is helpful for reach. This picture in particular was taken after he'd just finished testifying for 8 hours in a February trial, which I think would wear down the best of us, and even among Getty's extensive gallery of pictures taken then (https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mark-zuckerber...) this one is particularly unflattering IMO.
The idea that Meta is obligated to be so impartial that it must allow lawsuits against itself to be promoted on its own platform is a bit naive and utopian.
TOS are not laws. In fact, they often partially violate laws and those parts are then void. In some countries, anything written in TOS that is not "expected to be there" is void.
Ok but I don’t really see why this specific term would violate any law? Do we really want a society where platforms are forced to present speech that is harmful to them? If you own a store and I put a sign up on your wall advertising a rival store wouldn’t it be reasonable for you to disallow that?
An alternative reply, with analogy, if you like them:
You own a restaurant, where you sell poisoned (intentionally and knowingly) food. A group of people band up for class action lawsuit for poisoning them, and have the lawyers post a sign at your restaurant, that everyone poisoned there should reach out and get some compensation.
It’s a lawsuit, with the users of the platform as the damaged party, against the platform. Removing the possibility to reach the users should result in a default judgement with maximum damages immediately.
The parent comment brings up the ToS as an example of why it's naive to believe Meta is obligated to do something, but what Meta is obligated to do depends on the law.
I’m not against these companies losing their Section 230 immunity. Social media platforms are, in my personal opinion, publishers in their current form.
If they went back to operating as “friends and family feed providers” then letting them keep their 230 immunity would be easier to justify.
To me that’s how it should be. They shouldn’t have to run ads against themselves yet they should be liable or accountable for harm they are found guilty of.
I tend to agree with you on this. I wanted to add however that Meta itself lets so many TOS violating ads in, that it seems like special treatment for ads that are much less undesirable than the ads normally pushed.
Companies have to inform affected individuals of data breaches, especially when HIPAA gets involved. Brokers have to inform clients of transaction errors. Auto manufacturers have to inform owners of recalls. Retirement funds have to inform plan participants of lawsuits involving those funds.
You don't even have to invoke the idea that Meta is big enough to be regulated as a public utility for this to have broad precedent in favor of forcing a malicious actor to inform its victims that they might be entitled to a small fraction of their losses in compensation.
Well we aren’t discussing the government requiring meta to inform users. We are discussing whether meta can choose which private actors’ ads to allow. It would seem silly that a platform would be forced to allow all ads.
That idea was not expressed in the article, only the fact that the ads were removed. This is worth covering, especially when coupled with the context for what ads Meta regularly does allow. One does not have to believe that they're obligated to do so while also believing that it's incredibly scummy behavior that consumers should be aware of and question.
It indeed doesn't, but conservative lawmakers signalled repeatedly that they were unhappy about Meta's protection under section 230 if their moderation policies were not politically neutral
Maybe, but so what? Your remark lacks a conclusion.
Mine is that it could then well be required to do so by law. Companies are not individuals, so I don't think they are owed any freedoms beyond what is best for utility they can provide.
at certain scales, reality has to win out over whatever ideal you have in your head about how things should be. facebook is massive, a lot of society is on it, and its a problem to make recourse invisible to people most affected by the thing stealing their attention.
There is a humor that these law firms won a case against Meta and the first thing they did is give them advertising money won from the court case. That said the ads sound pretty aggressive, and from what I've read it sounds like it wasn't a very fair decision. I understand the conflict of interest but I have sympathies for Meta here
"Anxiety. Depression. Withdrawal. Self-harm. These aren't just teenage phases — they're symptoms linked to social media addiction in children."
Seems like they couldn't write even three lines without a LLM.
> "We will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms while simultaneously claiming they are harmful."
Wow.. That is quite a statement. Am I right in saying that in order to claim for the class action lawsuit, which facebook has been 'found negligent', that the victims need to take an action collectively in order to claim ? IE They need to be reached somehow to inform them of the possibility ?
Seems the most obvious place to advertise would be Meta.
I understand Meta can basically do whatever they like with their ToS but the statement from the Meta spokesperson seems like an extremely bad idea.
Tobacco lawyers "Putting that cigarettes are harmful on the box would be devastating to our profits!"
I understand the impulse, but there are not only significant differences, i.e., the requirement to add labeling to cigarettes was mostly a judicial or legislative action, but there is also that rather perverse fact that this kind of legislation that people are championing is often funded by profit and greed just like the harm being sued over.
The article even at least mentions that at least one of the suits is private equity funded; which generally will result in the partners and/or investors of the private equity firm and the attorneys suing, which are often all one and the same in what is just a financial and legal shell game, net tens of millions of dollars, while the supposed victims will end up with nothing but pennies on the dollar of harm and injury.
I get the impulse to also “cheer” for the lawsuits, but if you thought Meta, etc. are bad; you really don’t want to look into the vile pestilence that is the law firms that are basically organized crime too by the core definition of crime being an offense and harm upon society.
I don’t really know a solution for this problem because it is so rooted in the core foundation of this rotten system we still call America for some reason, but for the time being I guess, the only moderately effective remedy for harm and injury is to combat it with more harm and injury.
It would be a better analogy if tobacco companies sold ad space on their packs and chose not to do business with a private for-profit anti-smoking solicitation group.
Imagine NYT banning an ad in it's newspaper telling people how to cancel and sue NYT?
Wild stuff
Literally every ceo
You missed an adjective: literally every megacorp CEO. Plenty of small companies with transparent and honest CEOs.
Also why we need much less megacorps than there are now.
> the statement from the Meta spokesperson seems like an extremely bad idea.
All corporate CYA ideas sound that way, but ultimately end up benefiting the company in the end. Meta is right to do this. That's not to say it's right to do, but it's right for the company.
Would be really entertaining if all the lawyers affected banded together and made a class action lawsuit full of lawyers as the plaintiffs.
"Lawyer benefitting from cases about prostitution equals to a pimp" kind of argument.
The judge should have ordered Meta to place a banner on FB so that everyone can see it and join if they're a victim.
[delayed]
Wow this is a really good idea. I wonder if the various state trials happening as well should use this for remediation too.
It's not a hard thing to implement on their end and should be mandated by a judge as you said.
Filing this away for later use.
They wouldn't profit if the cases didn't have merit.
I mean those class action lawsuits enrich trial lawyers and maybe force companies to behave better (though i bet empirical evidence would show that its more a cost of business).
The 20$ dollars people get is nothing but a guise that the trial lawyers are helping people.
I'm not sure if the lower price means that class actions shouldn't still be taken.
It's to allow companies to not have to deal with individual claims for each person. I see that the ranges can be substantial though, several thousands, but seems to be criteria.
> Nearly nine months later, Mark received a notification that his claim had been approved. Two weeks after that, $186 was deposited into his bank account. While the amount wasn’t substantial, it covered a grocery run and a phone bill—and more importantly, it reminded him that companies can be held accountable, even in small ways. [0]
[0] https://peopleforlaw.com/blog/how-much-do-people-typically-g...
If the fine's don't dissuade companies from bad practices, the class actions with theoreticaly no upper limit might be a better option to enforce proper behaviour.
I can agree with that -- however the amount of money the trial lawyers make comparatively is wildly disproportionate. I think that 186$ figure is an example on the high side of payouts to individuals.
Meta wants to be an impartial platform only and exactly when it suits them to be.
That's exactly what they're saying.
Name one platform that doesn't, and I'm not just talking about lip service.
I think there’s a clear difference in restricting advertising vs organic posts.
Meta does both. It has long been said that businesses have little organic reach in Meta’s platforms, as an incentive for them to use ads.
What difference is that?
I mean, they spun up a bullshit "Oversight Board" that they can fully 100% choose to ignore and decline to implement their demands when they're made.
Repeal section 230
As an aside, class-action lawsuits seem less than ideal for the public. The awards benefit the lawyers and perhaps a small handful, but the actual plaintiffs only get $0.05. In addition, successful class-action suits prevent further litigation from being allowed for the same issue.
Individuals bringing their own lawsuits seems like it would affect better change as 1) the award money would be better distributed instead of concentrated and 2) the amounts levied against the companies would be higher and more of concern than the class-action slap-on-the-wrist they currently get.
A hundred million identical court cases might not be too good for the legal system
Thus begins another Streisand Effect meme campaign of
"MZ Is A Punk-Ass B
payed for by Person & Guy LLP"
I wonder what would happen posting these ads to truth social and twitter.
Reminds me of Carl Sagan’s Contact, where Haden, the millionaire funding Ellie’s work, made a TV ad blocker and then sued the TV companies when they refused to play ads for his product.
I wonder if that is what will happen next.
So they remove class action lawsuits but not pedos. Got it.
Since literally everyone is calling everyone they don't like a pedo nowadays, it's pretty much impossible for any platform to get rid of the pedos.
Do photogs do that on purpose, or does Zuck really always have that sociopath stare?
Both.
Zuckerberg is a rich and high profile guy, so photographers capture many pictures of him, and news editors often find that choosing unflattering pictures of people their readers don't like is helpful for reach. This picture in particular was taken after he'd just finished testifying for 8 hours in a February trial, which I think would wear down the best of us, and even among Getty's extensive gallery of pictures taken then (https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mark-zuckerber...) this one is particularly unflattering IMO.
I'm sure if people were taking 500 pictures of you, they would capture you in a state like that. Are you a sociopath?
Keep in mind Zuckerberg is someone who supports things like this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198
Zuckerberg was told about gay people being added to groups and it outed them by posting to their wall, and he ignored it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRYnocZFuc4
And obviously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122 (guess we don't get access to his other messages, though https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16770818)
His stare isn't the only thing about him that's sociopathic
Edit: oh yeah and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178
Guys, there's no need to insta-downvote. I provided substantive evidence. Look in the mirror, and evaluate who you work for
The idea that Meta is obligated to be so impartial that it must allow lawsuits against itself to be promoted on its own platform is a bit naive and utopian.
Its own TOS states that they won’t allow that.
TOS are not laws. In fact, they often partially violate laws and those parts are then void. In some countries, anything written in TOS that is not "expected to be there" is void.
I kind of wish countries would just define, "terms of service" for everyone and not allow companies to modify them further.
Ok but I don’t really see why this specific term would violate any law? Do we really want a society where platforms are forced to present speech that is harmful to them? If you own a store and I put a sign up on your wall advertising a rival store wouldn’t it be reasonable for you to disallow that?
An alternative reply, with analogy, if you like them:
You own a restaurant, where you sell poisoned (intentionally and knowingly) food. A group of people band up for class action lawsuit for poisoning them, and have the lawyers post a sign at your restaurant, that everyone poisoned there should reach out and get some compensation.
Should you be allowed to take the sign down?
It’s not a rival store, or speech against them.
It’s a lawsuit, with the users of the platform as the damaged party, against the platform. Removing the possibility to reach the users should result in a default judgement with maximum damages immediately.
No one says ToS are laws and especially not the parent commenter.
The parent comment brings up the ToS as an example of why it's naive to believe Meta is obligated to do something, but what Meta is obligated to do depends on the law.
And which laws state that Meta is obligated to show ads like this?
Fair enough. If they're not impartial then lets hold them accountable for the content published in their platform.
No! Massive corporations should get to have their cake and eat it too.
I’m not against these companies losing their Section 230 immunity. Social media platforms are, in my personal opinion, publishers in their current form.
If they went back to operating as “friends and family feed providers” then letting them keep their 230 immunity would be easier to justify.
Yes, if they went back to being chronological feeds of people you follow, then they should get to keep Section 230 immunity.
When they are making editorial decisions about what to content to promote to you and what content to hide from you, then they should lose it.
You are relying on the wrong people to be able to understand that nuanced distinction.
To me that’s how it should be. They shouldn’t have to run ads against themselves yet they should be liable or accountable for harm they are found guilty of.
>They shouldn’t have to run ads against themselves
This is not how it works when you're found guilty of committing harm. Tobacco companies are a good example of this.
If the government mandates them then yes. If it’s not mandated they have the right to refuse service.
The bigger you get the more iffy it gets refusing service to others. Also it can and will be used against you in future civil and criminal cases.
I tend to agree with you on this. I wanted to add however that Meta itself lets so many TOS violating ads in, that it seems like special treatment for ads that are much less undesirable than the ads normally pushed.
It's not just a Meta issue either.
Companies have to inform affected individuals of data breaches, especially when HIPAA gets involved. Brokers have to inform clients of transaction errors. Auto manufacturers have to inform owners of recalls. Retirement funds have to inform plan participants of lawsuits involving those funds.
You don't even have to invoke the idea that Meta is big enough to be regulated as a public utility for this to have broad precedent in favor of forcing a malicious actor to inform its victims that they might be entitled to a small fraction of their losses in compensation.
Well we aren’t discussing the government requiring meta to inform users. We are discussing whether meta can choose which private actors’ ads to allow. It would seem silly that a platform would be forced to allow all ads.
Remember when we forced the tobacco companies to run ads saying cigarettes are dangerous?
Meta can go fuck themselves with a chainsaw if they think they can produce a harmful product without consequences.
This is why courts are empowered to infringe upon the rights of parties to the case.
That idea was not expressed in the article, only the fact that the ads were removed. This is worth covering, especially when coupled with the context for what ads Meta regularly does allow. One does not have to believe that they're obligated to do so while also believing that it's incredibly scummy behavior that consumers should be aware of and question.
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...
> The idea that Meta is obligated to be so impartial
Is their defence of Section 230 protections not in part rooted in that claim of impartiality?
No. Section 230 doesn't mention anything about impartiality.
It indeed doesn't, but conservative lawmakers signalled repeatedly that they were unhappy about Meta's protection under section 230 if their moderation policies were not politically neutral
There are so many ads for nostrums, cults, get rich quick scams, and other junk that violate TOS, that Meta has a legitimacy problem with their TOS.
Okay? They're exactly the assholes everyone says they are. That's the point.
Let’s force them to be obligated to do that, then. “Just let them hurt people, and then let them hide that hurt” kind of sucks for society.
Maybe, but so what? Your remark lacks a conclusion.
Mine is that it could then well be required to do so by law. Companies are not individuals, so I don't think they are owed any freedoms beyond what is best for utility they can provide.
The idea that a company can override laws via its TOS is a bit strange.
Genuinely curious. By not allowing a specific type of ad, what law are they breaking?
Fuck them and their TOS. They are not a nation state and it would be nice if the government finally showed them that
at certain scales, reality has to win out over whatever ideal you have in your head about how things should be. facebook is massive, a lot of society is on it, and its a problem to make recourse invisible to people most affected by the thing stealing their attention.
Reminds me of ChatGPT insisting all news about OpenAI is unverified speculation.
There is a humor that these law firms won a case against Meta and the first thing they did is give them advertising money won from the court case. That said the ads sound pretty aggressive, and from what I've read it sounds like it wasn't a very fair decision. I understand the conflict of interest but I have sympathies for Meta here