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Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

yle.fi

181–190 of 593 posts

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on how the platform’s have changed. However, I don’t think Reddit is an exception. Popular is often filled with content that is driven by the feelings of fear and hate. Not something I’d like to continually expose kids or teens to.

What I find particularly bad about Reddit is the platform is specifically designed to amplify group think and silence competing opinions. All it takes is five more downvotes than upvotes and a comment will lose visibility. It can turn subreddits into little bubbles where like-minded people upvote each other and almost never have to see dissenting opinions. That may not be a big deal on a gardening subreddit, but it c…

Hot take: a voting system (and generally any move toward ranking content rather than displaying it chronologically) will inevitably rot any social media platform. Just a question of time.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#182
post #98

Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…

Reddit is actually the worst of the bunch.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find particularly bad about Reddit is the platform is specifically designed to amplify group think and silence competing opinions. All it takes is five more downvotes than upvotes and a comment will lose visibility. It can turn subreddits into little bubbles where like-minded people upvote each other and almost never have to see dissenting opinions. That may not be a big deal on a gardening subreddit, but it c…

> All it takes is five more downvotes than upvotes and a comment will lose visibility. That is true here too. And Twitter is the least transparent, with people regularly reporting that posts critical of musk or trump have reduced reach compared to their other posts.

Yes, but HN still has a strong culture of considering both sides, excellent moderation, and some measures to help nudge people in the right direction. For example, right now I can only upvote your comment. I am not given an option to downvote it. That's a good thing!

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on how the platform’s have changed. However, I don’t think Reddit is an exception. Popular is often filled with content that is driven by the feelings of fear and hate. Not something I’d like to continually expose kids or teens to.

What I find particularly bad about Reddit is the platform is specifically designed to amplify group think and silence competing opinions. All it takes is five more downvotes than upvotes and a comment will lose visibility. It can turn subreddits into little bubbles where like-minded people upvote each other and almost never have to see dissenting opinions. That may not be a big deal on a gardening subreddit, but it c…

Reddit mod cabal is destroying the site, has been for years. Not sure what the deal is, especially after IPO.

The worst part is the conspiracy theories are increasingly being confirmed in the Epstein releases which is mind blowing, eg. https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/mlt7v/a_big_congrat... into https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29884486 and https://thepostmillennial.com/former-reddit-ceo-says-she-kne...

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is plenty addictive in my experience, and I've heard the same from other people ranging from high school teachers to tradespeople.

Hackernews is also addictive. Fortnine is addictive. World of Warcraft is addictive. NFL is addictive. Addiction does not strike to me as a unique trait of the social media. The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.

> Hackernews is also addictive.

False. It is good, no more addictive than a spoon.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#187
post #115
post #95

Noble goal but it ends up being a defacto internet license. All ages need to show id to use sites and services.

There is an alternative: prohibit smart phones for youth. They can possess simple phones.

prohibit all proprietary software

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#188
post #6

I'm fine with this, as long as they DO NOT require any form of ID or 'age' verification. Instead this should be attacked from the profit side, by banning any form of advertising which might target children. If there's no profit to be made in servicing said demographic and a law requesting at least end user 'agreement' that they are an adult, this should be sufficient.

> If there's no profit to be made in servicing said demographic and a law requesting at least end user 'agreement' that they are an adult, this should be sufficient. Is it still advertising if an "influencer" takes money on the down low to sip a Pepsi not too obviously in the middle of a video? Is it still advertising if an attractive and young person provides news that happens to be colored in a way that supports th…

There's no profit for the platform. As of now, both the "influencer" and platform are aligned in that they want children to consume more slop. If the platform doesn't have any incentive anymore, maybe most of those "influencers" will fall away, if the algorithm starts deprioritising content geared toward children. As you say, policing the "influencers" is difficult, but at least it is quite easy and simple to target the platform. Better than nothing.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#190
post #98

Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…

Myspace and early Facebook were already a downgrade to classic chatrooms. I met with so many interesting people on chat in the early 2000s and have met with many offline as well. Multiple times I've travelled 6+ hours to participate in chat meetups with 20-50 others from the same chatroom. Those were different times: Over 4 years, I've never received a d*ckpic or was target of stalking, harassment, abuse or scam. Peo…

> Myspace and early Facebook were already a downgrade to classic chatrooms.

They were not a downgrade, they just worked the other way. With classic chatrooms (or a random vBulletin forums, if you wish) you would meet somebody online, then you would become friends over time and then you meet them in real life. I did that too.

With early Facebook, you would meet somebody at a party, have fun together, and decide to become friends on Facebook, not much different from exchanging phone numbers, but somehow better.

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