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New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

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Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#221

Post by la_barba »

nemonemo wrote: post #216
la_barba wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't seem to be familiar with this. They had a hearing in the Senate, which featured testimony of experts in this field. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-how-youre-being-manipulated-1835...

Do you think this is an important enough issue for a Senate hearing or a bill? I honestly do not.

Well,.. the government is taking drug addiction seriously, so on principle I don't see why tech addiction should be a-priori excluded from discussion. I'm sure good people on both sides can disagree as to the measures that need to be taken..

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#222

Post by aitchnyu »

While we are at it, ads need to be marked in contrast colors and show business details of the ad buyer and if its an app, what kind of contract you are entering. My Android nags me "Enable anti-malware" and I don't know if it came from the OEM or from some originally minimal app that sold itself to a unscrupulous buyer. Elders's Androids (in India) have undismissable notifications many times taller than 2000s IE toolbars nagging them to install intrusive system tools.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#223

Post by georgeecollins »

root_axis wrote: post #122
georgeecollins wrote: post #54

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"?

Certainly

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-...

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#224

Post by squidi »

Rooster61 wrote: post #191
rsweeney21 wrote: post #75

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…

You wouldn't happen to know the guy/gal that implemented the automatic preview when hovering over a selection, would you? Curious as to how they felt about it, and how much that really affected retention (it bugs the everloving shit out of me, I try to use my old smart tv with an outdated version as it lacks this "feature").

I mute my TV when navigating through Netflix because of auto previews. I bet that doesn’t show up in their analytics!

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#225

Post by veidr »

squidi wrote: post #224
Rooster61 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't happen to know the guy/gal that implemented the automatic preview when hovering over a selection, would you? Curious as to how they felt about it, and how much that really affected retention (it bugs the everloving shit out of me, I try to use my old smart tv with an outdated version as it lacks this "feature").

I mute my TV when navigating through Netflix because of auto previews. I bet that doesn’t show up in their analytics!

I do that too! And so does every person that I personally know well enough to have seen them navigate Netflix (which admittedly is only like 5).

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#226

Post by sizzle »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #192
rsweeney21 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left Netflix mostly because of this. I've always believed that too much TV was bad for you and I didn't like thinking about how to get people to spend more time on the couch. It doesn't feel great.

Did being responsible for a feature so important to the growth of Netflix result in a reward or promotion outside of your expected compensation? And as a father with 3 young children, you don't know how much I appreciate what you built. Not having to click next between episodes of "word party" for my toddlers is sanity saving. Also to the people without kids who will be judging this comment, you may not realize that…

Are you condoning replacing children's autonomy and sidestepping parenting responsibilities with incessant dopamine depleting screentime/fostering electronic addiction at such an impressionable young age?

Why not read a book and play with some cool science toys and limit screentime?

I'm not a father but removing my children's autonomy with tech screentime and encouraging tech/media addiction worries me deeply...

Thoughts?

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#227

Post by sizzle »

superkuh wrote: post #100
missingcolours wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of sounds to me like "you can stop smoking by not buying anymore cigarettes". True, but glosses over the addictive aspects which led to cigarettes being regulated as they are. And this isn't an accidental property of these apps, they're intentionally engineered features to drive "engagement"/addiction.

The difference is that actually addictive things, rather than just rewarding stimuli, produce increases in incentive salience regardless of actual reward outcome. In cigarettes this is mediated through nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on cells with inputs to dopaminergic systems that predict reward. There's a vast distance between directly effecting the substrate of thinking chemically and reactions to rewarding sti…

And what would that difference be when you are just describing different methods for affecting dopaminergic reward pathways?

If you scan the brain with an fMRI, the reward pathway lights up and suggest over time you will have reinforced that pleasurable activity and have created a strong affinity towards repeated activations, further strengthening those pathways.

Have there been any studies to show withdrawals from inhibiting consuming pleasurable visual media?

I mean if you were watching a series on Netflix that really resonates with you and you make a strong connection with the characters and feel as if you are a part of the scenes taking place (game of thrones etc), with characters faces activating your fusiform gyrus and dramatic scenes activating your amygdala making you emotional etc, how is autoplay facilitating the pleasurable dopamine response from imagining/anticipating/looking forward to how great the next episode will be, not as compelling of an issue as consuming exogenous substances that activate similar dopamine release?

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#228

Post by krageon »

superkuh wrote: post #100
missingcolours wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of sounds to me like "you can stop smoking by not buying anymore cigarettes". True, but glosses over the addictive aspects which led to cigarettes being regulated as they are. And this isn't an accidental property of these apps, they're intentionally engineered features to drive "engagement"/addiction.

The difference is that actually addictive things, rather than just rewarding stimuli, produce increases in incentive salience regardless of actual reward outcome. In cigarettes this is mediated through nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on cells with inputs to dopaminergic systems that predict reward. There's a vast distance between directly effecting the substrate of thinking chemically and reactions to rewarding sti…

Are you implying here that watching TV is not addictive? If this is the case, what do you think about videogames and why?

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#229

Post by krageon »

dredmorbius wrote: post #133
torgoguys wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is textbook regulatory capture. I do not think it means what you think it means. (Or maybe I don't! :-)

The suggestion is that only large established firms can navigate the regulatory requirements. I don't buy that.

Because it is nonsense. A lawyer isn't some sort of rocket or satellite, fundamentally they are accessible to anyone who is even remotely in the middle class.

Re: New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling

#230

Post by vinni2 »

wolco wrote: post #215
asark wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unstoppable play-while-browsing plus the price hikes has me poised to drop it as soon as I finish two shows I'm near the end of. Probably in the next month. Either problem alone wouldn't get me over the "bother to cancel" speedbump, but I dread opening Netflix unless I'm browsing straight to something I already know is on there, these days. If it were still super cheap, whatever, but I can get a couple cheap services…

You could just turn it off in the settings.

How? I don’t see any option in the Apple TV
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