Verdict Against Meta
Mar. 27th, 2026 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenElizabeth Nolan Brown has written about a jury’s verdict against Meta, and I share her concern about what this may do to the open Internet. It may be that Big Tech firms are not always as ethical as they should be; I still don’t think that it should be a crime or a tort to provide a platform on which some people spend too much time.
In Victorian England, for example, scolds condemned the publication and reading of cheap novels, as a waste of time, and a source of bad ideas; nor do I claim that these complaints were entirely groundless. However, it is also likely that some of the laboring men and servant girls who read such disapproved literature got harmless pleasure from it, and also expanded their vocabulary, mental horizons, and reading skills. One may say much the same of social media today; some people spend too much time on it, to the neglect of what they should be doing, but others are little harmed, and find their lives expanded by the friendships which they make online, or the chance to learn what a variety of people have to say.
The article to which I have supplied a link was published several days ago; I did not get around to posting this piece until now, because I have job duties, and do not spend too much time posting on Dreamwidth, or even looking at what my friends and their network of connections have to say and to show.
In Victorian England, for example, scolds condemned the publication and reading of cheap novels, as a waste of time, and a source of bad ideas; nor do I claim that these complaints were entirely groundless. However, it is also likely that some of the laboring men and servant girls who read such disapproved literature got harmless pleasure from it, and also expanded their vocabulary, mental horizons, and reading skills. One may say much the same of social media today; some people spend too much time on it, to the neglect of what they should be doing, but others are little harmed, and find their lives expanded by the friendships which they make online, or the chance to learn what a variety of people have to say.
The article to which I have supplied a link was published several days ago; I did not get around to posting this piece until now, because I have job duties, and do not spend too much time posting on Dreamwidth, or even looking at what my friends and their network of connections have to say and to show.
