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Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

economist.com

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Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#31

Post by wormy745 »

ngriffiths wrote: post #9

Sure, making instagram as addictive as possible seems bad but I disagree with the framing a bit. Dark patterns get users to do things they don't want, that's why they get super annoyed at the design or the process or the outcome. Addictive apps are a different thing to me. I don't think it's that compelling to say "obviously no one wants to be on Instagram and they're getting manipulated into it." ...yeah they do! Th…

Do you think Instagram/Facebook is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a sheep with fangs?

By that I mean- is the product addiction, with a shroud of media, or is it media which just happens to be addictive.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#32

Post by general1465 »

cortesoft wrote: post #12

While I agree with the premise, I do wonder how you can write a law that would stop the behavior we want to stop without hurting beneficial features or allowing the law to be too easily bypassed. How do you describe in a legal way the difference between a useful feature people want and an addictive feature they don’t want?

Very simple - force companies into data interoperability. That will allow users to move to competition without any data loss. I.e. nobody actually cares that GitHub is constantly down because you can move your repos to a different git provider or to your own server.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#33

Post by tardedmeme »

pembrook wrote: post #27

I'm no defender of engagement algorithms and social media (including upvote based algos and this site too)....but this is a ridiculous argument. Social media is not making you behave in ways you don't want. On the contrary, it's giving you EXACTLY what you want. People want to doomscroll social media instead of engage reality, because the real world requires action, effort and social risk...doomscrolling is pure pass…

What is addiction? Can you explain to us how you think about addiction?

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#34

Post by akersten »

cortesoft wrote: post #12

While I agree with the premise, I do wonder how you can write a law that would stop the behavior we want to stop without hurting beneficial features or allowing the law to be too easily bypassed. How do you describe in a legal way the difference between a useful feature people want and an addictive feature they don’t want?

> How do you describe in a legal way the difference between a useful feature people want and an addictive feature they don’t want?

For laws like this it always boils down to "I'll know it when I see it" which is such a shockingly poor way to write legislation that I'm flabbergasted it doesn't immediately fail any amount of rudimentary scrutiny. Not to mention the latitude it grants for selective enforcement. It's basically Washington asking (through the Economist) for a leash on platforms that host their critics that they can yank at any time the population gets too rowdy, with the convenient justification that the algorithm is too good and our attention spans are in danger or whatever.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#36

Post by thinkingtoilet »

dd8601fn wrote: post #22
ngriffiths wrote: post #9

Sure, making instagram as addictive as possible seems bad but I disagree with the framing a bit. Dark patterns get users to do things they don't want, that's why they get super annoyed at the design or the process or the outcome. Addictive apps are a different thing to me. I don't think it's that compelling to say "obviously no one wants to be on Instagram and they're getting manipulated into it." ...yeah they do! Th…

This reminds me of the TikTok ban that lasted all of twelve seconds. I’ve been using the internet for longer than I care to admit, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like 300 million junkies all lost their drug supplier at the same time.

That's literally what it was. These technologies are addicting. Is it as bad or the same as heroin? No. However, they are designed to be addicting.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#37

Post by JohnMakin »

There are still supposedly serious people who should know better than insist "dark patterns" are not real and a mechanism to attack tech companies. I don't know how anyone these days can honestly reach that conclusion. Some of these sites use similar strategies as the old tobacco companies used to, all of this stuff is known already to marketers.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#38

Post by cmoski »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #36
dd8601fn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the TikTok ban that lasted all of twelve seconds. I’ve been using the internet for longer than I care to admit, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like 300 million junkies all lost their drug supplier at the same time.

That's literally what it was. These technologies are addicting. Is it as bad or the same as heroin? No. However, they are designed to be addicting.

Not as good as heroin either.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#39

Post by shimman »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #36
dd8601fn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the TikTok ban that lasted all of twelve seconds. I’ve been using the internet for longer than I care to admit, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like 300 million junkies all lost their drug supplier at the same time.

That's literally what it was. These technologies are addicting. Is it as bad or the same as heroin? No. However, they are designed to be addicting.

Well seeing how we are all granted with one single life, maybe we should be more upset at things that take away our valuable time and replace it with things that make us angry? Who's to say that these things aren't worse than heroin? Lots of people would argue otherwise, I'm becoming one of them myself. Heroin only impacts one individual, social media impacts every connected person on the planet.

Mass misery is still misery.

Re: Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to

#40

Post by micromacrofoot »

wormy745 wrote: post #31
ngriffiths wrote: post #9

Sure, making instagram as addictive as possible seems bad but I disagree with the framing a bit. Dark patterns get users to do things they don't want, that's why they get super annoyed at the design or the process or the outcome. Addictive apps are a different thing to me. I don't think it's that compelling to say "obviously no one wants to be on Instagram and they're getting manipulated into it." ...yeah they do! Th…

Do you think Instagram/Facebook is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a sheep with fangs? By that I mean- is the product addiction, with a shroud of media, or is it media which just happens to be addictive.

they know what they're doing, they've tried to bury the evidence but their own internal studies have shown addiction and harmful psychological effects in children

facebook in the past has done tests of emotional manipulation on their users without informing them

they're rotten from the head down

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