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Tech giants know honesty can cost billions. Do we trust them with the truth?

From ABC Australia · () English

Summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Opinion Documents & data In the courts
  • Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle litigation by U.S. states alleging that it knew its products harmed young people and failed to do enough to address the risks.
  • Internal research and documents, including a 2019 presentation on teen girls’ body image, have fueled claims that Meta avoided evidence that could expose it to greater responsibility.
  • The article argues that mandatory disclosure may be needed as social media faces tighter scrutiny and AI companies release increasingly influential technologies.

Meta has put a price on the consequences of its past actions. In August, the social media and artificial intelligence company agreed to pay up to US$18 billion to settle litigation brought by U.S. state attorneys over claims that it knew its products were harming young people and did not do enough to stop it.

At the center of Meta’s legal troubles over teen mental health is a single slide from a 2019 internal presentation. It said: “We make body images worse for one in three teen girls.” Meta later said its internal data was inaccurate. The slide first emerged through the 2021 Facebook Files and became a catalyst for criticism that company employees knew its products could cause harm but failed to respond adequately.

Another internal research project was halted in 2020 after preliminary findings indicated that people surveyed who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness and social comparison. Meta said the research ended because its methodology was flawed. Lawyers for schools suing Meta and other technology companies offered another explanation: that the company wanted to avoid incriminating evidence. Mark Zuckerberg made a similar point in a 2021 email released during a lawsuit this year, saying: “The media is more likely to use any research or recommendations produced to say we’re not doing everything we can, implying for craven purposes, rather than that we’re taking these issues more seriously than anyone.”

We make body images worse for one in three teen girls.

· Meta internal presentationThe 2019 slide became a central piece of evidence in criticism of Meta’s handling of teen mental health risks.

Even legal discovery reveals only part of the picture. The article says it is impossible to know exactly what research Meta is conducting now. The company may have expanded its work to make its products safer, but companies also have strong incentives not to investigate too deeply if research creates an obligation to fix problems.

That concern now extends to artificial intelligence. The 20th anniversary of Facebook’s News Feed marked two decades of algorithmic feeds, while ChatGPT’s launch less than four years ago helped trigger the generative AI boom. The article argues that AI remains at an early stage and companies remain unusually unguarded, making disclosure requirements preferable to trusting them to restrain their own worst impulses.

The media is more likely to use any research or recommendations produced to say we’re not doing everything we can, implying for craven purposes, rather than that we’re taking these issues more seriously than anyone.

· Mark ZuckerbergZuckerberg wrote this in a 2021 email released during litigation over Meta’s products.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Australia. Summarized and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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