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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

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern-day cigarette is such a perfect metaphor for social media. A cabal of unfathomably wealthy companies spreading their harmful products across the world; making them as addictive as possible while actively burying the research which proves how harmful they are. I truly hope one day we'll look back on social media and smartphone use the same way we regard smoking.

I think the smoking comparison works best when applied to the engagement mechanics rather than "social media" as a whole

Why? Smoking was always pitched as a social activity.

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

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depression is real, I'm experiencing it right now reading these comments. You know what, why don't you go buy a carton of cigarettes and some heroin, and go use that for a few months. Since it's the same thing as looking at a news feed you shouldn't have to worry about addiction because you've already done that and not gotten addicted to it, so you should be fine, right?

> Depression is real, I'm experiencing it right now reading these comments. No, you aren't. You are trivializing what Depression actually is by making flippant comments like that. You're also letting everyone know that you are utterly ignorant to what Depression actually is. Do better.

You're mad at me for being flippant about depression while you're being flippant about social media, pot calling the kettle black. I'm not the one that started flattening every bad habit or unhealthy technology into "basically cigarettes and heroin".

If everything addictive is treated as morally and medically equivalent to hard opioid abuse or crippling nicotine addiction, then the language we use to talk about actual addiction stops meaning anything. There are people whose entire lives, bodies, families, and futures have been destroyed by heroin. Cigarettes killed my grandfather, I had to sit there and watch him die as a machine sucked black liquid out of his lungs.

Comparing that reality to doomscrolling on your couch cheapens the severity of one problem while oversimplifying the other. Internet overuse can certainly damage mental health. But pretending that checking TikTok is the same category of damage as opioid dependency is not awareness, it's insanity, and it's actively dangerous. It's also mostly happening because lawyers figured out this might be a way to sucker people into going around Section 230.

If people stop breathing the fumes of the vibes of this idea and start to process how any of this would actually work, they will eventually discover that they are proposing an internet police state where police with guns tell people what they can and can't do on internet forums. If you don't think that will slippery slope into something you don't want, please read more history. Government is fundamentally a dangerous monopoly on force and it needs to be treated with deep caution. People that want government regulated social media (remind me, who is the current US president?) so they can "own the Zuck" are playing an incredibly dangerous game, and I really hope they come to their senses soon, because the irreparable damage this idea will create will far outlive Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg.

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

#253
post #118

I heard someone on a podcast call social media algorithms "the modern-day cigarette" and that really resonated with me. These companies know their product is addictive and bad for users, but they keep pushing it anyways. Like cigarettes, it's bad for everyone, not just kids. I made an algorithm blocker for Safari because of that and it's actually crazy how much more pleasant social media is if you don't have recommen…

Like the tobacco industry, they have confidential memos about how to target children whilst simultaneously claiming they would never, ever target children.

And then pushed hard for legislation to make it someone else’s problem (like when the tobacco industry astroturfed for laws to make it illegal to sell under-18 cigarettes, after their own research showed it wouldn’t make much of a difference on youth smoking rates and would also improve their image as a “rebellious” thing to do). Sound familiar with Meta’s big push to have your OS declare how old you are?

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most on brand solution for a kneejerk reactionary American would be to satirize the EU for its consumer protections.

Pretty sure candy colored EU paradise even today is discussing on breaking encryption and privacy for its citizens. I'm posting from the EU.

-In the EU it is a political discussion.

-In the USA, the government buys the data legally from the parties who are allowed to collect it and there are no political discussions.

One of these is obviously better than the other.

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

#255

I do not buy this "holy knight war" by the EU at all. It also makes no real sense to me. Nothing against US mega-corporations paying fins, mind you, but I equally do not trust the EU bureaucrats either. There has to be a limit to both what politicians can do, what corporations can do and what bureaucrats can do, while retaining a democratic base system at all times. If you go against addictive design, then why not ag…

Weird analogy when ads aren't addictive in the same way. Look at people around and about and they're all like mindless zombies flicking through Tiktok, not looking at ads. IMO this doesn't go far enough.

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

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear a false comparison to something that's actually physically/chemically addictive really resonated with you (a.k.a. affirmed your already existing beliefs in this moral panic). If we step back and look at this rationally though, can anybody point me to any peer reviewed studies (the actual studies, not clickbait articles written based off the studies) showing that social media is anywhere near as physicall…

One of the issues with social media is it's difficult to quantify the harm caused, and that holds true for any form of mental or emotional harm. One form that definitely can be quantified are the social media moderators who have to sit all day reviewing explicit and illegal content. I also think you need to review what you consider the barrier to entry for harm. If you imply that there needs to be chemical or physica…

Yes raising the barriers to what we consider harm is a good thing. Also, nobody is talking about harassment, that's already illegal.

In modern developed economies we don't have a problem with the barriers to harm being too low. We've got the opposite problem, where we've become deathly afraid of trivial imagined harm, resulting in us basically never doing anything and regulating new things out of existence (just look at the housing issue in cities in pretty much every developed country for example).

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

#258
post #118

I heard someone on a podcast call social media algorithms "the modern-day cigarette" and that really resonated with me. These companies know their product is addictive and bad for users, but they keep pushing it anyways. Like cigarettes, it's bad for everyone, not just kids. I made an algorithm blocker for Safari because of that and it's actually crazy how much more pleasant social media is if you don't have recommen…

Agreed. Imagine if you had to open a pack of cigarettes every time you wanted to check the weather… then blamed people for being addicted to nicotine.

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

#260
post #118

I heard someone on a podcast call social media algorithms "the modern-day cigarette" and that really resonated with me. These companies know their product is addictive and bad for users, but they keep pushing it anyways. Like cigarettes, it's bad for everyone, not just kids. I made an algorithm blocker for Safari because of that and it's actually crazy how much more pleasant social media is if you don't have recommen…

I mean, I'd argue it's worse. Cigarettes don't run your communication networks, and aren't a functional necessity for businesses to advertise their services. On that note, not that I think regulation is the entire solution in the first place (see ATProto for an example of something independent of government that gives me hope for the Internet), but I feel that where a lot of the "protect kids" Internet bills fail is…

> aren't a functional necessity for businesses to advertise their services.

Cigarettes don't collect and sell data.

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