[woeirua]

If 1% of the users of your app start having suicidal thoughts as a direct result of using your app, then guess what: your app is going to be responsible for a significant number of suicides. No matter how FB spins this, it’s just disgusting. Instagram is literally killing thousands of kids a year.

FTA: “What the data shows: When we take a step back and look at the full data set, about 1% of the entire group of teens who took the survey said they had suicidal thoughts that they felt started on Instagram.² Of course, even one person who feels this started on Instagram is one too many. That is why we have invested so heavily in support, resources and interventions for people using our services. In addition, some of the same research cited by the Journal in the slide above shows that 38% of teenage girls who said they struggled with suicidal thoughts and self harm said Instagram made these issues better for them, and 49% said it has no impact.”

[throwawaylinux]

> If 1% of the users of your app start having suicidal thoughts as a direct result of using your app, then guess what: your app is going to be responsible for a significant number of suicides.

I'm not defending facebook, but even if starting to have suicidal thoughts does cause some suicides (and I'm not suggesting it doesn't), I don't agree it's quite that simple.

Internet browsers are not responsible for suicidal thoughts beginning with internet browsing, nor email clients for thoughts beginning with email. Nor with instant messaging, SMS, or telephone. For example if one of the causes was due to bullying on the platform, it's possible other platforms (or the real world) would have been used for bullying instead.

I wouldn't be surprised if 1% of children said they started having suicidal thoughts as a direct result of school, so you could also say the education system is literally killing thousands of kids a year (not that schools can't be improved in that regard or in instances a school may be culpable due to negligence or incompetence of staff).

It's important to try to really understand and be clear about what the issues are and not be overwhelmed by emotions. If parents get scared by ban it without understanding the issues, their child can become isolated and marginalized, or it can encourage their child to be dishonest with them. It's not necessarily the best approach to take.

[sodality2]

>Internet browsers are not responsible for suicidal thoughts beginning with internet browsing, nor email clients for thoughts beginning with email

Except browsers aren't "curating" content specifically designed to keep you obsessed and checking it constantly, which commonly includes things that will make users feel self-conscious (which teens will OF COURSE be susceptible to).

[throwawaylinux]

I'm just stating that those things are not necessarily responsible for suicidal thoughts. Not trying to claim they are exactly the same as instagram. Good point that all my examples are somewhat more passive though, I could add some others:

Making or curating content people like to consume does not necessarily make something responsible for those thoughts. Television stations, Hacker News, video games, magazines, books, movies, whatever.

I'm not saying instagram can't be criticized or improved, I'm saying it's not as simple as just assigning complete blame of all suicides to the place or thing where suicidal thoughts first arose. It's simplistic and I don't see how it is helpful or will lead to actual improvements.

[SubuSS]

Have you seen the efforts in chrome around the home page with ‘Discover’?

There is too much value in the curation business for an entity like google to ignore.

[sodality2]

That's nowhere near the level of algorithmically-induced addictivity though. The goal may very well be the same, however.

[jrochkind1]

Yeah, 1% actually seems shockingly high to me. Are there other products or entertainments in which 1 in 100 users have suicidal thoughts they attribute to the product? I was surprised to see Facebook bragging that "only" 1%.

[bostonsre]

At least drug companies give you a heads up that some products may give you suicidal thoughts. Seems shitty that Facebook hid this until they were caught.

[kevinmchugh]

The drug companies have legal requirements to publicize side effects

[bostonsre]

Yea, definitely feels like there needs to be regulation around social media. Fb almost feels like the new Philip Morris. They may not give you cancer, but they have a product that affects the mental health of millions.

[DoingIsLearning]

Not just mental health.

- Multi-level marketing ponzi schemes

- Anti-vaccination

- Far-right extremism

- Islamic extremism

- Totalitarian government political propaganda

- Censorship of anti-totalitarian movements leading to incarceration and torture.

All of these had an exponential growth amplification platform, all of these would have otherwise had an organic growth at best.

Teen suicide is just one negative aspect that happened to be studied in more detail probably due to CYA liability more than anything else.

[mavhc]

Stop following idiots, I don't see any of that.

[nowherebeen]

It’s disgusting how they are reducing human life to relative percentage of 1%. In absolute terms, there are 1 billion users meaning 10 million users have suicidal thoughts because of the app. That’s a large city population. NYC has 8.5 million population, imagine every single person in NYC is suicidal. That’s a frightening thought.

[mavhc]

Not because of the app though, while using the app. The app isn't making causing those thoughts, society is.

Society is promoting being attractive/thin/wealthy/always happy/being envious

[nowherebeen]

> The app isn't making causing those thoughts, society is.

You are right in that the app isn't making it, but it is promoting it with their algorithm to maximize engagement.

[mavhc]

Their algorithm to maximize engagement automatically promotes what's popular. What's popular is a side effect of society and how human brains work.

Every supermarket magazine is doing the same thing, just they're not as good at it.

[nowherebeen]

> Their algorithm to maximize engagement automatically promotes what's popular.

No, their algorithm is maximizing conflict. There's no algorithm needed for what's popular. A 5 year old can write that algorithm. Go read up on research on what drives engagement on social media. Popular != maximum engagement.

[ta988]

Ask them the same thing about school, or living with their family members. Unfortunately environment can be extremely stressful to teens and it usually gets dismissed by adults because "they have been through it, it was not that bad" except that it was and still is a source of trauma for many people.

[mgraczyk]

It doesn't seem high to me. Almost 30% of people 18-24 claim to have seriously considered suicide as a result of the pandemic, for example

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm

[Sebb767]

If your bar for a consumer product (intended for leisure!) is to be better than an actual global catastrophe, there's nothing I could add to make it clearer that something is seriously wrong.

[dataflow]

>> Are there other products or entertainments

> the pandemic

You might be the first person on the planet who's found the pandemic to be entertaining (or a product...)

[jtsiskin]

“If 1% of the people who go to college start having suicidal thoughts as a direct result of going to college, then guess what: higher education is going to be responsible for a significant number of suicides. No matter how educators spins this, it’s just disgusting. College is literally killing thousands of kids a year.”

[Sebb767]

And that would be absolutely true as well. If colleges were/are so horrible that 1% of people contemplate suicide, it is quite obvious that something needs to change.

[yunohn]

I’m quite sure that this is already the case, and the numbers are higher than 1%. Modern society has a lot of pitfalls which we are blaming on FB/Insta instead.

[nielsbot]

These are additional suicides attributed to FB/Insta, right? We can and should blame FB/Insta for those.

[yunohn]

The feelings are invoked by the other humans posting content on FB/Insta. Again, this is a societal ill, and nobody wants to acknowledge it.

A similar example is when newspapers report on a high-profile suicide, and you have multiple copycat suicides occur afterwards. You wanna ban news reporting too?

[rodonn]

When Berkeley surveyed their graduate students, 47% were depressed and 10% had considered suicide... https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/22/berkeley-stud...

Now I agree with your conclusion that "it is quite obvious that something needs to change" with our graduate education system.

[sailingparrot]

How many lives has education saved? Thanks to education we have developed science and technology that save and extend billions of lives.

And if you were to drop everyone out of college today, how would the suicide rate evolve over the long term? I'm pretty sure it would be worse.

You should finish your analogy and tell us, what exactly, is the long term benefit of instagram/FB that makes up for it's short term negative effect?

[croon]

Life is responsible for all suicides, I still don't see your point.

College has a societal value, Instagram doesn't.

[mavhc]

Pretty sure talking with your friends is societal value, and people do that on Instagram

[croon]

People did that long before Instagram, and will do it long after, both online and off.

[rektide]

> Of course, even one person who feels this started on Instagram is one too many.

If we only accept risk-free things into the world, and claim that everything made is fully responsible for all that it begets, we are going to have to shut down, remove, bury a huge amount of the world.

Risk is a part of nature, and one of the best parts of being human. Good things have their shadows. We all become entailed into the world, into the things we care about, and our hopes for these things rarely fully materializes as we'd hoped. That is distressing, but it's a part of maturing, growing, aging, and learning to cope, being able to cope, with the vast great reality out there: that's life, that's living.

Social media is interesting, in that it exposes us to each other in a much more raw, lower-context form. We don't have socialization cues, we don't really witness the repercussions on other people of the actions we take. This is a very wild, very difficult field to navigate.

Even though social media is, I agree, dangerous, I reject the core premise. One person is not too many. That is absolutism. It doesn't try to see or understand, it doesn't accept the reality of the situation, doesn't consider potential: it simply dictates terms of discussion to the world, based off a maxim you personally hold. I cannot accept your starting position.

[woeirua]

You are replying to a direct quote from FBs article. I don’t personally think that 1 person is too many, but clearly 1% of their user base is a lot of people.

[jdavis703]

I’m curious how they define suicidal thoughts. Almost all of us think about suicide. What matters (and what’ll get one sent to a psychiatric hospital) is thoughts that are actively planning a suicide like time and place. Are these users engaged in suicidal ideation? Or are they an active danger to themselves? I would assume not, because product research on actively suicidal people would likely exceed the scope of human subject review board parameters.

[watwut]

> Almost all of us think about suicide.

Really? Almost all?

[gambiting]

Like, I've never ever considered commiting suicide, but sure, I have wondered what it would be like, just like I have wondered what it would be like to fly to the moon or to do heroin - does that count as a "suicidal thought"? I'd hope not.

[umanwizard]

> your app is going to be responsible for a significant number of suicides. No matter how FB spins this, it’s just disgusting.

It being “disgusting” may well be true, but doesn’t follow logically, and therefore needs more argumentation than what you’ve given here. It’s entirely possible for something that causes deaths to be worth it from a utilitarian perspective. Cars (and industrial development in general) are the cliché examples.

Disclaimer: I worked for Facebook in the past, but my opinions are my own and haven’t changed much since before I worked there.

[bostonsre]

> It being “disgusting” may well be true, but doesn’t follow logically, and therefore needs more argumentation than what you’ve given here

Why doesn't it follow logically? Some teens are depressed, Instagram makes them even more depressed, they kill themselves, and it's disgusting that Facebook knew about it and hid it. Seems pretty logical to me.

[tylerhou]

I think their argument is that if IG makes the rest of their users much more happy, that happiness outweighs the cost of making a small portion of users suicidal.

First of all, it's not clear that this is the case -- that Instagram makes some teenagers so much happier that it outweighs the downside.

Second, any product with the capacity to make some population of their users die or harm themselves (1% suicidal maybe leads to 0.01% of people actually attempt suicide; not counting other detrimental effects like eating disorders or depression) should be regulated for safety. C.f. cars, guns, tobacco, alcohol, food, medicine, etc. Such a product should not be under the control of one private company.

I.e. it should not be Facebook's choice to create winners and losers for those who use Instagram. We need regulation from some independent entity that is not motivated (or as motivated) by Facebook's profit. The best candidate would probably be some independent government agency.

[umanwizard]

You are correct, but none of what you said contradicts what I said. I just said that the original comment was not a logically sound argument; I didn’t make any counter-argument of my own, nor did I even say that his conclusion was necessarily untrue.

Indeed it’s not at all clear without further study whether Instagram increases people’s happiness enough to be worth the downsides.

[cybernautique]

I quibble with your notion that this argument needs be logically sound in the first place. Logic is about consequence; this is a question of values.

It is my value judgment that Facebook is disgusting, and my arbitrary desideratum for this judgment is that Facebook (allegedly) spun a narrative to cover their suicide machine.

You'd be right in saying that this line of thought is decidedly not sound; nor could it ever have been sound in the first place, because it's irrational and arbitrary. Does its irrationality and arbitrariness make it less valuable than logically sound arguments? If so, why?

[umanwizard]

Alcohol makes some depressed people more depressed, and they kill themselves. Is it disgusting that liquor companies know this yet keep manufacturing the product?

[techdragon]

And this is why we don’t let minors drink. Adults get to do lots of potentially dangerous things, as adults we as a society (generally speaking, the specific details are different from country to country but the general principle seems universal) let adults decide such things for themselves.

[bostonsre]

Yes, it is, but we as a society attempt to limit its impact on children. The fact that there are alcohol and cigarette companies that do shitty things should not give facebook a free pass to do shitty things as well.

[woeirua]

It’s simple math, if even 1% of the 1% who have suicidal thoughts as a result of Instagram are successful in a suicide attempt then based on the size of their user base that would mean thousands of people die from suicides at least partly caused by Instagram.

1% may not be a bad estimate. This article [1] suggests that 1/31 individuals with suicidal ideation will attempt suicide.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33351435/

[allears]

If 1% of drivers died because of driving, then yes, it would be a big problem.

[umanwizard]

Nobody is talking about 1% of Instagram users dying, and furthermore, nobody ever said it’s not a big problem.

[mgraczyk]

What you're saying is not true.

If your product causes 1% of people to have suicidal thoughts, and causes 2% or people not to have suicidal thoughts who otherwise would have, your product has prevented suicides overall.

In this case, the data is closer to the latter case. Given the sample size of the survey and background prevalence of suicide, the result should not be considered significant either way.

[woeirua]

First the article directly contradicts you on the number of people sampled:

“ ² According to the raw unweighted data, we surveyed 1,296 teens in the US and 1,309 teens in the UK and asked them if they experienced a range of feelings or experiences in the past month. Of those teens that self-reported struggling with suicidal thoughts, the survey then asked if the feeling started on Instagram. A very small percentage of the total number of teens surveyed (~1%) said they had these feelings and felt they started on Instagram.”

Second the CDC directly refutes you on the teenage suicide rate: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/NVSR-69-11-508.pdf

Suicides amongst adolescents have increased over 50% since 2005, which coincides perfectly with the rise of social media.

[bryan_w]

But teens weren't allowed to use Facebook until 2007 and Instagram wasn't popular until 2010 so by your own data the increase in adolescent suicide couldn't be caused by FB

[grayhatter]

> Instagram is literally killing thousands of kids a year.

Even if I accepted your premise (which I don't). I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

[woeirua]

This is the same argument that people who have bullied others into committing suicide have used to try and avoid responsibility. The courts disagree with you.

[grayhatter]

my issue was more over the phrase, "literally killing". Unless I'm grossly mistaken about the feature set of Instagram, I'm pretty sure the best you could charitably get is "directly responsible for" and I'd still need a lot of convincing to get me past "could be and indirect or contributing factor".

About said court decisions, without knowing what court cases you mean specifically I'm left assuming that they were able to prove malicious intent where as I don't think you get that from software. Can you?

[cybernautique]

I'm a fan of your delivery; "Unless I'm grossly mistaken about the feature set of Instagram" gave me a hearty chuckle.

Anyway, if you could spare me a moment of charity and suppose that Instagram _is_ directly responsible for teen suicides, why shouldn't we consider that equivalent to "literally killing"? I'm unsure if there's real value to be preserved in splitting these hairs.

If I'm "directly responsible" for fatally hitting someone with a car, then I've "literally killed" that person.

[grayhatter]

What if someone pushes them infront of your car, did you still kill them? Is it still fair to say you "literally killed them"? What if they decided to kill themselves, and intentionally jumped in front of your car? Samething? Both sound more misleading than true. Technically true granted, but i don't think the bar for reasonable is should be "technically true, but misleading"

What about planters nuts? Is it reasonable say they are "literally killing" children/teens/people as well?

[cybernautique]

Well, I explicitly asked for your charity. If you're unwilling to grant me that, then we're already at an impasse.

Yes, what if what if what if, a hundred times over. Imagine whatever mitigations you deem appropriate to obviate this corporation. We obviously disagree. I'm not trying to argue you into my position, but can you understand where my ire comes from?

It's not that I've done the cost-benefit analyses and rationally found Facebook deficient. I'm saying that in this specific circumstance, with these specific actors, I find Facebook directly responsible for every suicide that any teenager wishes to blame on Instagram.

I value Instagram and their sniveling PR bureaucrats far less than I value the absence of any harm they've wrought from their profit motive.

I'm not stating that you hold the contrary opinion; I believe that there is a set of morals you can hold that allows you to not blame Facebook, while not precluding the goodness of your character. In fact, I'm willing to give you the charity of assuming that you hold some such set of morals; if I didn't think you were engaging in good faith, I wouldn't engage you at all.

I believe I understand what you're saying. I don't agree with your values, such as I understand them. So I'll ask again: will you grant me the charity of assuming, just this once and solely for the purpose of my argument, that Facebook is directly responsible, without mitigation? And, under this assumption, can you relate to me what value you find in delineating between "directly responsible" and "literally killing"?

If you can't grant me this charity, then that's entirely fine. I'll still believe we're engaging in good faith, with good humor; and, in fact, I'll enjoy our engagement all the same. But if you can't grant me this charity, may I ask: why?

[jimbob45]

We can’t start living in hamster balls just because something might be dangerous. Many of us grew up with a Facebook or a FB-like and survived just fine because our parents understood that it’s the parent’s job to parent, not Facebook’s. When are we going to start pointing the finger where it belongs - the deficient parenting?

[drekipus]

Yeah kids, listen to your dang parents, not that hip social media.

"Why would anyone do drugs when they can just mow a lawn"

[klyrs]

Parents these days are children of the hippie generation. "Hey kids, why mow a lawn when you can tear it up and replant it with weed? You'll make a lot more money that way..."

[Broken_Hippo]

Are you so sure about your timeline? Don't most folks place hippies in the 60's and early 70's?

That's my mother's generation. People my age are having grandchildren - I'm in my mid 40's. We dressed up as hippies from time to time, though. A lot of today's parents were born in the mid 80's to 2000, approximately (a few stragglers on either side). I really don't think this is the hippie generation.

I'll add that smoking pot is much, much more widespread than anything "hippie", even if someone takes on part of hippiedom as their personality. In fact, a lot of folks look to older hippies and laugh because they were wrong about it never being legal again.

[klyrs]

Meh, I'm in my 40s and have a young kid, and my parents were hippie-adjacent. Some people breed faster; generations are a horrible measure of time.

[Broken_Hippo]

The point really is that most folks having children are younger: You aren't, and you still aren't the hippie generation.

Generations are a horrible measure of time, to an extent, but they do bind people together with events and movements at times and I'm pretty sure this is one of those. Plus, I'm not sure what would take their place that is actually better.