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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

#621

Post by bjackman »

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 thing is, I doubt anyone at TikTok ever says "this design choice is good because it's addictive". Almost certainly, their leadership gives them metrics to target, like watch time, and they just hypyothesise and experiment on changes with those metrics in mind. Almost certainly the design of TikTok is almost entirely emergent. Just like the scientific method is "revealing" truth I think TikTok is just "revealing" the design that maximises its target metrics.

So what we have is a machine designed to optimise for something adjacent to addictiveness, and then some rules saying "you can't design for addictiveness"...

What happens when an underspecified vibe rule clashes with a billion dollar optimisation machine? Surely the machine wins every time? The machine is already defeating every ruleset that it's ever come up against.

Feels like the only way regulation could achieve anything is if it said "you can't build a billion dollar optimisation machine at all".

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#622

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #529
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…

I’ll probably be crucified for this but I think the free w/advertising model is not fundamentally evil, and gives poor people access to lots of shit that they otherwise wouldn’t have, keeps the rest of us from death by 1,000 monthly subscriptions.

> death by 1,000 monthly subscriptions

Is another area needing new legislation. Changes to copyright, interoperability requirements and such, we can change more than one parameter

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#623

Post by mqus »

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…

But what if I rent a space on your website that I can fill however I want? And then, coincidentally, I praise my products on that rented space. How is that different from... other hosting offers?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#624

Post by Paradigma11 »

terminalshort wrote: post #493
NeutralCrane wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, they have diametrically opposite incentives. They want you to pay the subscription without using their resources. Like a fitness studio.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#625

Post by danpalmer »

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…

This is the EU digital strategy for legislation: vague but reasonable, so that you have to comply with the spirit of the law not the letter of it.

They haven't nailed it every time, but on the whole it's a good approach. It's hard on companies, but rightly so.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#626

Post by mqus »

mrob wrote: post #222
thesmtsolver2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't need to ban advertising, you just need to ban paying for advertising. That doesn't harm free speech. When there's no money to be made the problem will sort itself out.

Ok, then I don't pay you for advertising. On an entirely unrelated note, could I buy a spot on your website(e.g. at the top) to put a piece of my own website on it? You have a news website, right? And I also have some news to share.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#628

Post by Saline9515 »

simongray wrote: post #496
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 wh…

There is a recency bias here. The Sp500 has outperformed the Stoxx600 every year for the last 5 years, except 2022.

Cumulative returns are around 100% for the american index, vs 60% for the EU one.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#629

Post by Ylpertnodi »

shevy-java wrote: post #556

Personally I don't like infinite scrolling - but the EU also needs to stop wasting time and energy on trying to micro-manage everything. We already had that disaster where pop-ups fly out "do you want to accept those cookies". That is just a usability nightmare. People are forced into extensions, just to stop wasting their time here. Also, while I dislike infinite scrolling, why should the EU regulate the design of a…

>Those micro-regulations will not get rid of US dominance in the software sector.

Probably not. But the dominance will be regulated.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#630

Post by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe »

jameson wrote: post #490
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.

As a person working at social media I support this as well. I'm a hypocrite. I admit, but the pay is too good to find alternative. Terms like "DAU" or "engagement" is common in our field and the primary objective is how to make users spend more time on our platform. We don't take safety or mental health seriously internally but only externally for PR reasons. CEOs won't change that because the more time user spends o…

> the pay is too good to find alternative.

You don't sound psychopathic so I'm genuinely curious what you do with your money to keep your conscious clean.

Bevause I think your salary is practically blood money at this point.

Blood of the additional instagram girls with anorexia.

The additional children with severe myopia.

The additional people murdered by persons radicalized by media that had to polarize news to survive the loss in readership or by the false advertising of quality control on hate speech.

The list goes on and on.

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