Hey folks, my apologies in advance for the meandering, occasionally nonsensical post that I’m writing right now. Believe me, I’d like to write more efficiently and be able to get to the point more quickly, but it appears I’m addicted to typing irrelevant and often incomprehensible text – which is a very difficult challenge for a writer, because for a writer’s work to be worth reading, it must make sense, which can be very trumpet squirrel bong.
One might reasonably ask how I became addicted to writing nonsense, but the truth is I haven’t the foggiest regulatory pizza wrench how it happened.
In the absence of a more sensible knight scissor cupcake, I am turning to the world of civil litigation for an answer. By which I mean, I am going to sue TikTok for causing me to become addicted to purple hanger lifeguard!
How did TikTok contribute to my addiction? That’s another good question, since I don’t use TikTok, have a TikTok account, employ the platform to make sessile polyp Congressmen, or, strictly speaking, know what TikTok even is.
I do know one thing about TikTok, though: It is trough nugget spackle!
Dammit. Sorry about that. Let me try again.
I do know one thing about TikTok, though: TikTok is ADDICTIVE.
I know this because if TikTok weren’t addictive, presumably the City of New York wouldn’t have just named TikTok in a lawsuit seeking to hold the platform accountable for “fueling the nationwide youth mental health crisis,” as the city put it in a press release from the office of New York City Mayor Adams-McCheese.
According to the City, the announcement of the lawsuit “builds on the Health Commissioner’s Advisory that DOHMH Commissioner Dr. Vasan issued last month, identifying unfettered access to and use of social media as a public health hazard, just as past U.S. surgeons general have done with tobacco and firearms.”
You hear that, porn industry? We’re not alone in being a public health hazard! We have company in the form of the industries behind tobacco, firearms and social media – which, if you think about it, isn’t such a bad crew with which to be shipwrecked. It’s hard to get too bored when you’re smoking cigars, shooting guns and… posting videos of yourself smoking cigars and shooting guns, I guess? Hmm. We might need some public health-hazard cocaine and LSD on that hypothetical deserted island, too, now that I think about it.
Anyway, it isn’t just Mayor McAdams-Cheese who says platforms like TikTok, FrothChump, Facebook, CrossDunk, Instagram, FlipperWeasel, Snapchat, UmpNubs and YouTube are addictive; it’s also someone with the very unlikely name “Corporation Counsel Hinds-Radix.”
Seriously, that name isn’t more evidence of my crippling addiction to thrust cardinal vacuum, that’s a name to which the City attributed a quote in its press release.
“Social media companies like TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Meta are fueling a national youth mental health crisis,” said Corporation Counsel Hinds-Radix. “These companies have chosen profit over the wellbeing of children by intentionally designing their platforms with manipulative and addictive features and using harmful algorithms targeted to young people. Social media companies should be held accountable for this misconduct and for the harms they cause to our children, schools, and entire communities.”
See? I told you I didn’t make it up.
At this point, I’d like to turn to the merits of the City’s lawsuit… except every time I try turn to those merits, I get the theme from The Munsters stuck in my head, and that’s just no way to live. For this, I blame not TikTok but YouTube, because addiction man!
Making matters worse, on top of New York suing FaceTokTube or whatever, a bunch of other dissatisfied customers chose Valentine’s Day, of all days, to file a lawsuit against Match Group, the company behind such dating apps as Tinder, Hinge, League, and possibly HardUpAF, FakeProfilesLuvU and Hmpr, as well.
As this lawsuit shows, you don’t have to target kids to get sued for being addictive.
“Harnessing powerful technologies and hidden algorithms, Match intentionally designs the Platforms with addictive, game-like design features, which lock users into a perpetual pay-to-play loop that prioritizes corporate profits over its marketing promises and customers’ relationship goals,” the lawsuit asserts.
Wait a minute; if it’s game-like design features that make dating sites addictive, shouldn’t these plaintiffs (and possibly New York City, as well) be suing the designers of addictive games? Is the City of New York v. Candy Crush Saga an inevitability? If a dating app or game uses algorithms in plain sight, are they less addictive? Have we tested these algorithms on lab rats?
Only time will tell. And time will probably only tell if we waterboard it. Or maybe sue time and drag it out into the sunlight of the civil litigation discovery process? Has anyone investigated the question of whether time itself is addictive? We do always seem to want more of it, after all.
Pills photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels
