alt Hacker NewsIt's true but also (could be) innocent. In the sense that if you A/B test things and look for engagement, you will almost certainly end up with "addictive" systems.
I think this may also be why there is so much sugar in American food. People buy more of the sweet stuff. So they keep making it sweeter.
I'm not sure who should be responsible. It kinda feels like a "tragedy of the commons" kind of situation.
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Obviously the government should be responsible to monitor these patterns and regulate them when they are becoming unhealthy at a statistical level? Having allowed the likes of facebook to grow to this point is clearly a policy failure.
I think it's highly unlikely to be 100% innocent.
The C-suite has learned not to put so much incriminating stuff into writing (after Apple/Google etc. got caught making blatantly illegal anti-poaching agreements in personal emails from folks like Jobs), so proving that is probably gonna be tough.
>I'm not sure who should be responsible.
If the lawsuit is about children getting addicted to your apps, who else could be held responsible? The children?
Internal memos have shown that they knew children were becoming addicted and didn't take steps to reduce harm where possible, hence the lawsuit.