[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.