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EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

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Re: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

#21

This is pretty easy to solve. If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present. If the user decides you don’t, ala social media 1.0.

And when does the user decide? Must a platform do nothing to stimmy spam, or even illegal content to qualify as impartial?

I suppose the answer could be that only platforms that do indeed allow spam or worse are impartial, but that is a tricky position to be in.

Re: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

#22
I don’t think this is only a kids issue.

A lot of adults need this too. The addictive apps are very well designed, while most blockers are either too easy to ignore or too annoying to keep using.

I built a small iOS blocker because I had the same problem. Making it strict enough to actually work without making people hate it is the main challenge.

Re: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

#24

At what point should the responsibility fall on the parent to protect their children from harm? Don’t get me wrong, if I had my way TikTok wouldn’t exist for anyone, adults included. It’s just so strange to me that so many parents hand their 7 year olds unrestricted access to TikTok and expect someone else to keep their kid safe.

It's not so easy, they need phones and social media to communicate with their friends. They also need to fit in and find an identity. The algorithms basically all engagement engines have is harmful for humanity as a whole. They are marketed as recommendation engines but it's 100% about engagement and that is why the content you see is mostly creating dopamine from it being fun or rage for it being provocative. It's built to serve one purpose, to keep people using the platform as much as possible. Not because the platform is good, but because it serves content that maximizes engagement.

I read a post about someone saying his wife worked for a snack company. They used MRI scans to see how much salt (or sugar) they should have in the snacks to maximize the response in the brain. Sounds disturbing right.

Well engagement engines are the same thing. It's artificial intelligence optimized to get people to react and stay addicted. Basically AI doing harm. It's not what is best for the individual in terms of health. It's what generates most money to the owner of the platform.

It should not be allowed to build a business around something that exploits humans brains. Basically biohacking our brains for profit.

Re: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

#25

This is pretty easy to solve. If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present. If the user decides you don’t, ala social media 1.0.

This is one of those things that don’t translate to legal reality very well, as then you have to define “what is an algorithm”.

Is adding advertisements an algorithm?

Is including likes an algorithm?

Is automatically starting the next video after a previous one has finished an algorithm?

Is infinite scroll an algorithm?

Etc

Re: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

#26
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah yeah, whataboutism. I'm very happy they're taking a stance. I've seen too many messed up kids and there's no doubt the addictive design plays a big role in the problem.

I must notice that every time, but really every time, EU moves a pinky finger against tech industry, a sizeable chunk of comments here will be like the one above. I wonder, is it about a general sentiment against EU? Or a general sentiment against restricting technology? Or a general sentiment against humans? Or what?

Imo, both. The more right wing people started to have aggressively anti-EU stance once Vance openly stood on the side of Orban and against EU and democracies in general.

And some people see tech companies as worship worthy and trying to restrict them is kind of a blasphemy.

Re: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

#27

At what point should the responsibility fall on the parent to protect their children from harm? Don’t get me wrong, if I had my way TikTok wouldn’t exist for anyone, adults included. It’s just so strange to me that so many parents hand their 7 year olds unrestricted access to TikTok and expect someone else to keep their kid safe.

I am from Eastern Europe and I’ve been living for many years in Western Europe. Where I come from, kids get their first phones when they start school at 6 (there’s a pre-school year) simply because every other kid has one. I keep coming back in my mind to two examples from my birth country: a friend’s kid carrying an 8 inch smartphone in his hand everywhere because the phone was as big as half his thigh and would have to carry a bag for it. The second one was on a visit at the zoo, I was on a bench and a family with two young children with them, in a cart. And both children, couldn’t have been older than 4 or 5, were scrolling TikTok, that was showing them children content!

In contrast, in Western Europe, my son is now in the sixth grade, more than half his class doesn’t have phones, phones are absolutely forbidden on school grounds and at school activities, and they are now doing a class trip where they were told that there’s a pay phone at the hotel, in case they want to call the parents - our son promptly informed us that he’ll rather buy a pack of Pokémon cards than call us and 3 days is not so much anyway.

And it is not only at school, he travels for tournaments with his team every other week and mobile phones are absolutely forbidden on the team bus. Children read, play games (including chess on a magnetic board), sing and change stories for hours at a time

Re: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

#28

This is pretty easy to solve. If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present. If the user decides you don’t, ala social media 1.0.

This is one of those things that don’t translate to legal reality very well, as then you have to define “what is an algorithm”. Is adding advertisements an algorithm? Is including likes an algorithm? Is automatically starting the next video after a previous one has finished an algorithm? Is infinite scroll an algorithm? Etc

Everything other than sorting the list of entities by a standard measurement unit (time, length, mass, temperature, amount) needs to be covered by this law.

The moment you add other entities to the list (e.g. ads inbetween posts), then it's also subject to the same restrictions.

Re: EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

#30

This is pretty easy to solve. If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present. If the user decides you don’t, ala social media 1.0.

And when does the user decide? Must a platform do nothing to stimmy spam, or even illegal content to qualify as impartial? I suppose the answer could be that only platforms that do indeed allow spam or worse are impartial, but that is a tricky position to be in.

The mechanism would be that if the user has chosen to follow an account then posts from that account falls under common carrier. If the platform choses to show you other posts then it's under their responsibility.
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