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New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

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121–130 of 248 posts

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#121
post #26

This is textbook regulatory capture. Want to host your own website? Be sure to hire a specialized lawyer to audit and sign off on the user interface choices you made (and be sure to retain them indefinitely as your dependencies and the law evolve).

Based on the discussion about plastic earlier this week we should just tax websites that auto play videos.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#122

This seems silly of course, but you can't have companies such as Google and Facebook claim they are a carrier while they promote and curate content, even if they are only curating via AI (which turns out at to be really smart at connecting people to extreme content). It's like the phone company putting up an ad to suggest your child call a pedophile and then saying we're not responsible for the call, we're just the p…

> you can't have companies such as Google and Facebook claim they are a carrier while they promote and curate content

Do you have any examples of google or facebook claiming to be a "carrier"?

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#123
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, irritation isn't a valid reason. Addiction, on the other hand, is valid. Endless scrolling is designed to help keep people glued to their phones, continuously triggering a dopamine response that makes them keep scrolling, liking, and following. The purpose of it is to keep you hooked.

So where do we draw the line here? Ive implemented infinite scrolling on various forms of list-views over the years for dashboards here and there. Do we categorize and label what would or would not be 'intentionally addictive' content and then ban that specifically?

It looks like this bill is targeted towards social media apps, which would be an OK line, at least IMO.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#125
post #11
post #9

Things like requiring accept and decline checkboxes to be the same font seem somewhat reasonable, even if I disagree with it, but banning autoplay videos and endless scrolling is insane. There are legitimate uses for autoplay videos (ex. Netflix playing next episode, YouTube playing next song when you are listening to music) which I personally use all the time and appreciate, and endless scrolling is great when you d…

While I agree that it's hard to support legislation that's likely to have a lot of unintended consequences, it's also important to realize what's driving folks to introduce a bill like this. It's also worth pointing out that (in particular with Netflix) your example is its own counter-argument. You can't turn off autoplay, and that's the opposite of letting me make choices for myself. There's also plenty of other exa…

This is it. You want autoplay? Make it opt in. Problem solved. Make more features opt in. I'm not sorry that this makes things harder for companies to make money.

When they keep failing at self regulating shit behaviors that consumers don't want, this is what happens.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#126
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the choice is to just leave Netflix when you are done an episode. Maybe it's just me but I've never felt like the autoplay makes me much more likely to keep watching, it is just convenient so I don't have to go through all of the menus again. If we ban autoplay on Netflix, we should also ban cable I suppose (not a big loss, really), since cable will autoplay indefinitely.

I find autoplay on Netflix highly inconvenient. Disable it and you can continue to watch the next episode with just one button press. There is no need for navigating around. Also super useful when you happen to fall asleep in front of the TV so that it doesn't keep pumping all the way through the night. Autoplay on Netflix is IMHO a dark pattern to feed on attention and FOMO.

I find autoplay on Netflix highly convenient. Enable it and you can choose not to watch the next episode with just one button press.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the choice is to just leave Netflix when you are done an episode. Maybe it's just me but I've never felt like the autoplay makes me much more likely to keep watching, it is just convenient so I don't have to go through all of the menus again. If we ban autoplay on Netflix, we should also ban cable I suppose (not a big loss, really), since cable will autoplay indefinitely.

And we'll have to ban Radio. We'll also need to ban most major highways, as they keep going and going and going. And don't forget to ban unlimited refills at McDonalds, I'm sure those get people into trouble too. How does the fast food industry get such a big free pass on all the trouble it's caused?

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...

Here you go chief.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#128
post #95

I'm the dev that built Netflix's autoplay of the next episode. We built it first on the web player because it is easy to A/B test new features there. We called it "post-play" at the time. When I worked there the product team at Netflix had two KPIs all new features were tested against: hours watched and retention. We would come up with all sorts of ideas to try out, and release them to small user populations of about…

> When I worked there the product team at Netflix had two KPIs all new features were tested against: hours watched and retention. So, I totally understand retention: that one makes sense to me, as that's revenue for Netflix; if I'm more likely to renew my account, then Netflix makes more money. But... I honestly don't understand why Netflix is optimizing for hours watched, and in fact I had assumed it would be the op…

Hours watched is a leading indicator of retention. The more people watch, the more likely they are to remain a customer.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#129
post #9

Things like requiring accept and decline checkboxes to be the same font seem somewhat reasonable, even if I disagree with it, but banning autoplay videos and endless scrolling is insane. There are legitimate uses for autoplay videos (ex. Netflix playing next episode, YouTube playing next song when you are listening to music) which I personally use all the time and appreciate, and endless scrolling is great when you d…

The text of the bill specifically allows this:

"REFILL.—The use of a process that automatically loads and displays additional content, other than music or video content that the user has prompted to play"

https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2019-07/So... (pp. 3-4)

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems intentional.

It always is when it comes to regulation. If you find a regulation that seems to benefit the consumer more than the incumbent firms you don't understand that market well enough.

GDPR?
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