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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

#491

Post by terminalshort »

phire wrote: post #380
fooker wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What counts as an advertisement? What about a testimonial? If you try to regulate this, everything will be an ad in disguise. In my opinion, that's the direction we are heading towards with AI anyway. I'm surprised we haven't seen an instance of 'pay to increase bias towards my product in training' yet.

I think you can get most of the benefit by just banning targeted advertising. Require that every user must be shown the exact same ads (probabilistically). Don't allow any kind of interest or demographic based targeting for paid content. Advertisers would still be able to place Ads on pages they know there target audience goes, but wouldn't be able to make those same Ads follow that target audience around the interne…

How will they know where their target audience goes if there is no tracking?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#492

Post by pyrale »

Frannky wrote: post #488

It's interesting how there may be an implicit assumption that imposing more rules on tech will lead to positive outcomes. From my perspective, technology is like reality itself: very difficult to control, with countless ways to achieve the desired result while circumventing the rules. And what's the actual result? Just look at the market capitalization of European companies compared to US companies... Or maybe it jus…

> Just look at the market capitalization of European companies compared to US companies...

Counterexample: just look at the state of EU tech companies compared to Chinese tech companies.

I’m not saying China is an attractive example, but chalking up Europe’s tech issues to a regulation problem fails to address europe’s digital woes.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#493

Post by terminalshort »

NeutralCrane wrote: post #447
fooker wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What counts as an advertisement? What about a testimonial? If you try to regulate this, everything will be an ad in disguise. In my opinion, that's the direction we are heading towards with AI anyway. I'm surprised we haven't seen an instance of 'pay to increase bias towards my product in training' yet.

Paying someone for promoting your product or message. I don’t think it’s all that complicated. Talking about your own product on the internet is fine. Paying to promote your message wouldn’t be. TikTok and Reddit and Instagram aren’t trying to keep people endlessly scrolling because they are free-speech fanatics. It entirely comes down to “more time in app = more revenue”. Take away that monetization method and you t…

Subscription based services have exactly the same incentive to increase engagement.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#494

Post by phire »

dahart wrote: post #486
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay what if I am in Florida and Facebook sees that all of my posts are in Spanish, should it not be allowed to target me with Spanish speaking ads?

Correct. The proposal is to not be able to use your posts to determine which ads to show. But showing you ads in Spanish because you’re in southern Florida or Puerto Rico would be acceptable.

Such a law will probably allow targeting based on the browser's language (browsers already send a "Accept-Language" field, doxing you with every single http request), or whatever language you have configured a website/app interface to be shown in.

But not guess a language based on the content of posts.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#495

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

dahart wrote: post #486
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay what if I am in Florida and Facebook sees that all of my posts are in Spanish, should it not be allowed to target me with Spanish speaking ads?

Correct. The proposal is to not be able to use your posts to determine which ads to show. But showing you ads in Spanish because you’re in southern Florida or Puerto Rico would be acceptable.

But I don’t speak Spanish and I’m in Florida…

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#496

Post by simongray »

Frannky wrote: post #488

It's interesting how there may be an implicit assumption that imposing more rules on tech will lead to positive outcomes. From my perspective, technology is like reality itself: very difficult to control, with countless ways to achieve the desired result while circumventing the rules. And what's the actual result? Just look at the market capitalization of European companies compared to US companies... Or maybe it jus…

> And what's the actual result? Just look at the market capitalization of European companies compared to US companies..

Europe is actually doing quite well at the moment. The European stock markets have over-performed quite decently vs. the US ever since Trump became president, despite the various curveballs thrown at Europe in recent years. Market capitalisation in the US is held up primarily by the Magnificent 7 who are great outliers in the American stock market.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#497

Post by jeandejean »

Frannky wrote: post #488

It's interesting how there may be an implicit assumption that imposing more rules on tech will lead to positive outcomes. From my perspective, technology is like reality itself: very difficult to control, with countless ways to achieve the desired result while circumventing the rules. And what's the actual result? Just look at the market capitalization of European companies compared to US companies... Or maybe it jus…

Aren't you happy that when you buy food, it doesn't contain cocaine? Regulations are totally necessary and addictive online social media is a well documented plague in our youths especially.

This very US lobbyists narrative that Europe regulate while missing out on the economy is used and abused anytime something look like contrary to US interests in MAGA land.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#498

Post by jeandejean »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #359

I’m mixed on this. I do at times waste a lot of time doom scrolling, and would like regulation to prevent me from doing so. But also some times you just want to doomscroll to escape your day to day life. Do we want this decision to be made by the govt? I guess we don’t let people have hard drugs even if sometimes they just need to escape their painful life. And maybe this could fall under that logic. But we do let pe…

That sounds reasonable

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#499

Post by terminalshort »

Jensson wrote: post #392
nxm wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Free speech” and yet people are arrested for mean memes

Thats UK after they left EU.

The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a conviction on the charge of blasphemy for calling Mohammed a pedophile: https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/e-s-v-a...

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#500

Post by wasmainiac »

bruce511 wrote: post #469
stingraycharles wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising. Regular booking.com is fine. Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not. Regular Google Maps to register your restaurant is fine. Paying Google Maps to promote your restaurant is not. It’s not that hard to implement. Advertising is pretty well defined.

>> Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. That's a definition, sure. I feel like it leaves loopholes (under this definition spam isn't advertising, and I guess affiliation programs are?) If I pay someone to print flyers is that advertising? If I pay squarespace for my site, is that advertising? What if I need a Google maps subscription to place pins? Is placing a pin then advertising? Even…

Being a little pedantic here no?

80/20 rule, it’s defined well enough to encompass 80% of advertisements. Anything beyond that is tolerated or illegal spam.

And if the situation arises that ads are being used unjustly the legal definition will eventually shift.

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