[nowherebeen]

> I'm sure FB is doing their best, though.

Is it though? Their entire business model is like alcohol. The higher the alcohol proof the more money they earn. Their algorithms purposefully makes people have wide swings in emotions to drive engagement in order to generate money. Blaming suicidal thoughts on addicts isn't the solution, lowering the alcohol proof is. You can have freedom of speech without the algorithm purposefully pitting one person with another to drive engagement. Exposing alcohol to teens couldn't be a worse idea.

[krono]

That was meant as sarcasm ;)

[sktrdie]

I understand the problem but then shouldn't also videogames (for instance) be controlled/regulated? They also provide high-swings in emotions coupled with almost real virtual world that can mimic much more vividly experiences that could lead to high-addiction.

[nowherebeen]

Despite violent games like Call of Duty, they have never caused players to want to physically harm themselves nor others. Video game developers set out to create an enjoyable experience for the players because players are the users and, ultimately, the paying customers. People are addicted to video games because they enjoy it (positive emotion).

In contrast, Facebook's customers are not the users. Their customers are advertisers and users are simply the product. They maximize their algorithm to satisfy the customers and advertisers are addicted to Facebook because of how much user data they contain which helps them sell better.

Since users aren't the customers, Facebook doesn't care if users experience either positive or negative emotions. In fact, a combination of both has been shown to increase engagement. Facebook set out to optimize this combination with their algorithms.

So if video games did cause people to periodically experience negative emotions such as suicidal thoughts and they are purposefully doing so to maximize profits from their customers, then yes they should be regulated. But that isn't the case with video games.

[sktrdie]

Regardless of who the customer or product is, the actual thing is built with the capitalistic idea that more people = more money.

Hence everything is pretty much built to attract and keep people attracted for the most possible time.

Saying social media is different because of their ad-based sales model is a bit misleading. They're both essentially interested in addicting users to their product, regardless of their behavior afterwards.

[nowherebeen]

I am not arguing that both are not trying to attract people to become addicted. I am arguing why one causes users to have suicidal thoughts and the motivation behind it. In your terms, because it brings in more money.