Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams says company targeted ads at teens based on their ‘emotional state’
[...] She said the company was letting advertisers know when the teens were depressed so they could be served an ad at the best time.
[...]
Have we collectively forgotten that Facebook tested manipulating users emotional states all the way back in 2014?
Where they tested to see if people with depression can be even more depressed if their social media feeds are manipulated to take away positive interaction.
That’s back when I attempted suicide
They are the asbestos of the internet.
asbestos at least was the best option until a couple years ago for numerous applications.
It probably still is. It's a miracle material. It's a real shame that it's so toxic.
I would liken them to the automotive industry. Both have deeply harmed society by isolating people from each other (it sounds counterintuitive, I know). Both have created infrastructure that prioritizes individual consumption over collective well being, restructured daily life around corporate products, and normalized a form of privatized existence that erodes public space, shared culture, and relational life. Just as cars gutted walkable communities and made human scale living subordinate to machines, Big Tech has gutted organic social interaction, subordinating communication and attention to platforms designed for extraction and control. #fuckcars #fuckbigtech
Don't forget the cycle of buying up all patents and shelving them if they are a threat to their goals. What a future we've wasted.
Reminds me of a part I've recently read on The Dawn of Everything, comparing the Great Lakes natives' freedoms to our corporate owned "freedoms": while we're busy with the "possibility of freedom", they cared about the exercise of their freedoms.
Before the colonization, they were free to visit other places because they almost always had someone that belonged to their clan living there and who would receive them with open arms. They didn't have to pay anything for the travel proper, but obviously needed to take some supplies to spend the days on the wilderness. For us, if we don't have money, we don't have freedoms: gotta pay for the car+gas (or plane or ship ticket), food, housing.
Except, you know, tobacco companies are modern day tobacco companies. They were never defeated.
it's an analogy; the author is drawing parallels between them. Obviously Tobacco companies were not "defeated" but they were regulated to hell, and I'm sure the author would say that's what we need to do with social media too.
Yeah, it's crazy how many commenters here are completely missing the point. I should really stop assuming people have any sort of intelligence.
The tobacco industry was monopoly busted, and heavily regulated for 30 years. That’s the point. Yes they still exist, but not like they did in 1970. We should do that to social media. It’s crazy how you missed that point yet harp about intelligence.
It’s crazy how you missed that point yet harp about intelligence.
I'm not sure why you said that. The person you are responding didn't 'miss that point'. They were themselves pointing out that other people have missed it. You are both criticising people for missing the same point.
The flaw in the analogy is that it assumes that those effects are limited to some companies when in reality every single company that existed in history has behaved this way if they weren't stopped by regulation.
Most companies aren't peddling a toxic product like cigarettes (or social media).
The flaw in the analogy is that it assumes that those effects are limited to some companies
no it doesn't.
Muted in the English world. I argue junk food commercials draw a lot of parallels with cigarette commercials of the past. For some reason obesity isn't worth prevention so the advertisements are pretty gross.
Soft drinks. Coca Cola especially really loves to tie emotions and sports/holidays to sugar water.
Muted in the English world.
I don't know think you've been to Europe much... Just a guess
They won't stop mega corping like they used to, they got supplemented by cars then oil then banks and now tech/pharma
They were never defeated.
When you say "defeated", what exactly do you mean? You mean that they should cease to exist to be considered as such? If that's the case then I would say it's an unrealistic expectation.
I would say that they've been largely contained. If I remember correctly, back in the '50s almost half of the American population used to smoke. The percentage of people smoking has been consistently decreasing over the years thanks to regulation and increased taxation. Tobacco companies are definetly not as influential as they once were.
Thank You for Posting (2025)
Great callback. I haven't thought of Thank You For Smoking in ages.
That is a prescient little film from my teenage years back in earlly 00's. The film was a nice stab at the culture of "spin" and how lobbying was gonna dig us into the hell we are now.
Hmmm, Thank You For Posting would be an actual relevant sequel in the time of endless sequels. Backdropping it with the lobbying for the Turd Reich and the ascension of Fascism and you got something there...
Thank you for reminding me of Thank You For Smoking.
20 years ago, as well
I think that, in 10-20 years, the research around social media addiction will bear out this way, yes. It's wild to me how every time the discussion around regulating social media comes up, most people just kind of ignore its effects on kids' mental health.
Wait. If tobacco companies do not exist anymore, then who are making cigarettes?
Or do they mean that Meta, X and Google are producing cigarettes like tobacco companies are doing right now, like with filters or that they are putting warning labels on their products? Because I haven't seen any warning labels or Google cigarettes.
The title is very confusing.
Although I do think Google, X and Meta should have at least 75% of their banner state their platforms are brainrot and spreads misinformation. You know, like modern day tobacco companies have to warn for the risks of using their junk.
I've been telling this to family and friends, apparently they didn't want to agree. At least there is article now. I do think current social media will be looked at in future like tobacco/smoking is currently looked at.
Y'all, one of the far-reaching Broligarchy ideas they're hoping emerges from the ashes of the United States is the DAO, decentralized autonomous organization.
Every action in the block chain. They facilitate, and are predicated on, the idea of treating every aspect of life as a social network. Everything you do is recorded. So daily life ends up incentived toward constant, persistent, corralled engagement. The Network State is the term.
The difference is that you can't build a society on the mechanics of the tobacco industry. But you can on a human reaction industry.
And this yet another reason why we should be using cryptocurencies that provide actual privacy, like anyone could go right now and see every drug transaction on silk road, or any hacker getting their Bitcoin confiscated, or any transaction ever, except for those done through monero and some with zcash.
Btw where'd you hear abt this? or did you just come up with it?
Even though I knew about most of this, I never realized how striking the parallels are.
Wow. I don't know why I've never made the parallel before, but yes, this is a good way to explain to people the woes of these companies that can be overlooked in the moment but are painfully clear in hindsight.
considering that tobacco companies are still here, it's kind of a weird title
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
