"IG is a drug": Internal messages may doom Meta at social media addiction trial

106 points by mikestew 2 days ago|29 comments

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mediumsmart 2 days ago

I can’t get past the 225 partners that care about my privacy but I’m sure the commercial technical ass site has a point.

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giancarlostoro 2 days ago

All social media is a drug, and I lump Discord in there as Social Media, especially if WhatsApp is social media for many outside of the US.

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falcor84 2 days ago

Some are harder drugs than others. I'd say that HN is caffeine, discord and whatsapp are alcohol, and Instagram is meth.

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giancarlostoro 22 hours ago

I would lump Tik Tok as the direct IG competitor imho. It doesn't make sense because that was not its roots, but the way I see people use IG is the way I also see people use Tik Tok.

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JuniperMesos 2 days ago

Discord doesn't fundamentally do anything that IRC didn't do, except work reliably on a smartphone. If that's a drug, then that seems pretty close to saying that any kind of online interaction with other human beings is a drug.

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bloqs 5 hours ago

Irc had screensharing and group video chat i had no idea

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giancarlostoro 22 hours ago

You havent met people who are terminally on Discord yet have you? I don't know that IRC had that level of addiction. People become insanely attached to 'servers' on Discord.

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sithadmin 20 hours ago

IRC and Newsgroups definitely had that level of addiction going on. Just smaller population size due by technical friction that kept the general population away.

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JuniperMesos 17 hours ago

I might count as terminally on Discord myself - what are your standards for "insanely attached" to a specific social environment, and how important do you think the specific software people use to talk with people in that environment is?

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subscribed 17 hours ago

One thing that Discord reliably does is to lock me off the account and force me to go through _all_, complete verification hops (starting form the sms to my phone).

Nothing changes between my sessions, IP from the same ISP, same device, same times, not even new servers, just a normal, human pattern of use on the decent, old account.

Just discord being discord.

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wolvoleo 11 hours ago

Yeah I've been having this a lot too. It asks me to verify then logs me in and then 20 minutes later I'm logged out again with a message I need to verify my email. So annoying.

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expedition32 23 hours ago

The notification spam on your phone is something that did not exist in the 2000s, no?

I remember that with the advent of smartphones suddenly all websites wanted to send status updates...

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JuniperMesos 17 hours ago

No, and I would've wanted it for the IRC channels I was in at the time, just as I typically want notifications (that I can enable/disable at will) for some chats I'm in on more modern realtime communication software.

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netsharc 2 days ago

Somehow WhatsApp implemented Snapchat-esque stories, and also channels that broadcast such stories (e.g. I can subscribe to updates from FC Barcelona), because hey, Zuck probably thought "who needs shame, we're going to copy functionaliy in order to destroy the competition".

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giancarlostoro 2 days ago

You mean my "away" autoresponse I set for MSN for an hour or wast it AIM? jokes aside, yeah they all copied it, look at YouTube too.

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johnneville 2 days ago

i agree that discord is social media but the absence of instagram's individually targeted algorithmic curation is an important distinction when it comes to being "drug"-like for me

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giancarlostoro 22 hours ago

This is a fair call out, though I agree and disagree to a point. Some people get really into specific communities, if banned they will spin up as many new accounts as they can get in just to be in again, its really weird to me, I just move on from communities I am no longer allowed in.

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mdavid626 2 days ago

Seems like pouring few millions to cover damages will be enough. I don’t expect big changes.

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themafia 2 days ago

On a single trial? No. This does open the door to more strenuous legislation of the core products though.

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mdavid626 22 hours ago

Are you sure? It seems like to me, they just pay these people to shut up. And that's it then.

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deaux 2 days ago

Why does Ars pretend that trials have any meaning in the US? Maybe if this lawsuit was taking place elsewhere, sure. Zuck will just follow in Bezos' footsteps, make a movie "Donald Jr", and that'll be it.

Of course I know why they pretend, because they too don't really care, and keeping up the facade is better for business.

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Seanambers 23 hours ago

everything is like that, reddit, X, fb, IG, tiktok.

user beware

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ares623 2 days ago

Jury selection for this should be interesting.

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Bombthecat 2 days ago

Doubt that very very much

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dietr1ch 2 days ago

I could doubt tobacco is a drug cause I don't need it and don't find it interesting, but if I look around beyond just myself it's hard to doubt.

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danielheath 2 days ago

You doubt that it's a drug?

Or you doubt that internal messages describing IG as a drug are relevant to a lawsuit over social media addiction?

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NoPicklez 2 days ago

I think they might doubt that it will doom Meta

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Bombthecat 2 days ago

Correct, Meta won the war, just like loot boxes will keep existing, while proven to be designed to make you addicted.

People are just way to optimistic instead of realistic.

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goku12 23 hours ago

> People are just way to optimistic instead of realistic.

Apathetic is a more appropriate description. This is as optimistic as hoping to not contract lung cancer without ever bothering to quit smoking.