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The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

politico.eu

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Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#181

Post by idiotsecant »

sincerely wrote: post #149
jjcm wrote: post #64

Here's the actual statement from the European Comission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... It's important to note they aren't creating laws against infinite scrolling , but are ruling against addictive design and pointing to infinite scrolling as an example of it. The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes". They point to certain feat…

>The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes" This is not such an unusual thing in law, as much as us stem-brained people want legal systems to work like code. The most famous example is determining art vs pornography - "I know it when I see it" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it )

Which is of course the only way it makes sense to write laws, since code can't model infinite reality.

Not, at least, until our machine overlords arrive.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#182

Post by c7b »

lukan wrote: post #145
Yiin wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to scroll my logs w/o pagination

But they ain't infinite (I assume). Maybe long, but finite. That is a big difference as it still gives meaning to the scrollbar. Infinite scroll is endlessly adding new content so you simply cannot scroll to the bottom.

Technically, infinite scroll is of course finite, too. Unless it adds newly created content, but if you count that as infinite then logs can be infinite too.

That's exactly why you don't write legislation to ban infinite scroll but 'addictive' design. Then it's ultimately up to the courts to decide, and they have the necessary leeway to judge that journalctl -f isn't addictive but TikTok is, even if they both use a version of infinite scroll.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#183

Post by idiotsecant »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #179
randomNumber7 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is complex and beautiful and trying to regulate every possible outcome beforehand just makes it boring and depressing.

What it does is allow for selective enforcement, making it possible to go after any company at will. When rules are vague enough you can pretty much always find a rule someone is 'breaking' depending on how you argue it. It's why countries don't just have a single law that says "don't be evil".

No, that's what case law is for. Modelling the zillion little details. One party claims something breaks a law another claims it doesn't, and then we decide which is true. The only alternative is an infinitely detailed law.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#184

Post by econ »

Early on in the internet age it somewhat bothered me that every page on the www either acts like it is the first thing one reads on a topic or assumes great knowledge of the subject. With nothing in between.

Wondering about a technical solution I couldn't find anything besides fold out explanations and links to explain jargon. Neither would really bridge the gap.

One obvious theory was to keep track of what the user knows and hide things they don't need or unhide things they do. This is of course was not acceptable from a privacy perspective.

Today however you could forge a curriculum for countless topics and [artificially] promote a great diversity of entry level videos. If the user is into something they can be made to watch more entry level videos until they are ready for slightly more advanced things. You can reward creators for filling gaps between novice and expert level regardless of view count.

Almost like Khan academy but much slower, more playful and less linear.

Imagine programming videos that assume the reader knows everything about each and every tool involved. The algorithm could seek out the missing parts and feed them directly into your addiction or put bounties on the scope.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#185

Post by saidinesh5 »

andybak wrote: post #162
randomNumber7 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is complex and beautiful and trying to regulate every possible outcome beforehand just makes it boring and depressing.

But how do you stop the boring and depressing - and abusive and manipulative parts? I'm not saying legislation is a good solution but you seem to be making a poetic plea that benefits the abusers.

>I'm not saying legislation is a good solution but you seem to be making a poetic plea that benefits the abusers.

Only if you believe everyone else has no agency of their own. I think most people outgrow these things once they have something more interesting in their lives. Or once they're just bored.

Back when this thing was new, everyone was posting pictures of every food item they try, every place they've been to etc.. that seems to slowly change to now where there are a lot more passive consumers compared to a few polished producers.

If you're calling people delivering the content "abusers", what would you call people creating the content for the same machine?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#186

Post by Izkata »

dheera wrote: post #124
rpdillon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked at multiple companies and talked to multiple legal teams about this, they tend to be very conservative. So the guidance I've gotten is that if we store any information at all on the person's computer, even to know whether they've visited the site before, we still need a cookie banner. Basically, the law created enough fear among the lawyers that software developers are being advised to include the cooki…

If I see a cookie banner I often bounce. You'd have much better retention rates if you don't cover up the content the viewer is trying to view. How would you like it if I shoved a banner in your face the moment you walked into a store and forced you to punch a hole in it in order to view items on the shelves?

There is a push for something like that: https://www.adweek.com/commerce/cooler-screens-rolls-out-to-...

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#187

Post by [deleted] »

poncho_romero wrote: post #25

I hope this goes through. Trillion dollar companies are waging a war on our attention, using everything at their disposal to make these apps addictive. It isn't a fair fight and the existence of infinite feeds is bad both for people and democracy. Regulating consumer products that cause harm to millions is nothing new.

[deleted]

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#189

Post by randomNumber7 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #165
randomNumber7 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already annoying to buy drugs just because some % of people get too addicted. Now you also want to forbid doomscrolling?

Yes. To be clear, the implication of this comment is that you would like to deregulate addictive drugs...?

If ~20% of users get an addiction problem I think its not that clear it should be forbidden for everyone.

If basically everyone who takes it for a while gets addicted and dies of course it should be forbidden.

So I would argue that cigaretts should not be allowed but we could discuss cocaine.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#190

Post by Funes- »

thesmtsolver2 wrote: post #177
Funes- wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"well what specific laws would I write to combat addictive design?" Hear me out: banning advertising on the Internet. It's the only way. It's the primordial domino tile. You knock that one over, every other tile follows suit. It's the mother of chain reactions. There would be no social media, no Internet as we know it. Imagine having TikTok, YouTube or X trying to survive on subscriptions alone in their current iter…

How will you ban that without infringing on free speech. That is a thing in the US and a lot of countries outside the EU.

"Commercial speech" being protected by free speech laws anywhere is abhorrent. The advertising industry, in and of itself, seems abhorrent to me. It's one of the worst things humans have come up with, ever.
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