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EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

ec.europa.eu

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Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#61

Post by forgetfreeman »

zkmon wrote: post #49

While it is genuinely a huge concern, the legal measure are not going to address it. One has to consider the overall picture, not just a corner of it. The ship has sailed. There will be addictive designs, products, services etc. The very theme of a business is centered around keeping the customers addicted. It's just a matter of time, every business on this planet would, with the help of AI, make their products and s…

"The ship has sailed."

Then torpedo the damn thing and set fire to the shipyard that built it. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, about the predatory nature of Big Tech is inevitable or required for society to function. Suggesting we all just accept it is ridiculous, especially when we can trivially get rid of it with nothing more complicated than applying life-altering punitive damages to the C-suite, board, and majority shareholders.

Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#62

Post by radicalbyte »

pembrook wrote: post #33

This is the same EU commission pushing chat control and VPN bans and passports to access the internet. Which people on HN hate. Yet, when they couch authoritarian action under the premise of a popular moral panic, suddenly the reaction here is “tie us up and tell us what we’re allowed to see daddy.” I really don’t get it. Do you not see how cheering on this social media moral panic and inflating the idea of a big tec…

This is the EU Commission. Yesterday was the Christian nutjobs and right-wing ghouls in the European Parliament who undemocratically pushed through their crackhead Chat Control.

EU Commission = US Senate, EU Parliament = US Congress. Kinda.

Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#64

Post by [deleted] »

zkmon wrote: post #49

While it is genuinely a huge concern, the legal measure are not going to address it. One has to consider the overall picture, not just a corner of it. The ship has sailed. There will be addictive designs, products, services etc. The very theme of a business is centered around keeping the customers addicted. It's just a matter of time, every business on this planet would, with the help of AI, make their products and s…

[deleted]

Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#65

Post by jampekka »

pembrook wrote: post #33

This is the same EU commission pushing chat control and VPN bans and passports to access the internet. Which people on HN hate. Yet, when they couch authoritarian action under the premise of a popular moral panic, suddenly the reaction here is “tie us up and tell us what we’re allowed to see daddy.” I really don’t get it. Do you not see how cheering on this social media moral panic and inflating the idea of a big tec…

Many, including me, don't see e.g. personal privacy and freedom as the same case as regulating commercial activities. In fact, large business interests are well capable of authoritarian power themselves.

Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#66

Post by d4ng »

EPWN3D wrote: post #63

The addictive design is in service of ads. Instead of regulating software, tax ad revenue to disincentivize building a business model around user profiling and tracking.

Tax ad revenue. Increase advertising prices. Advertisers pay more to sell their wares. Consumers pay more to consume their wares.

Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#67

Post by Lalabadie »

pembrook wrote: post #33

This is the same EU commission pushing chat control and VPN bans and passports to access the internet. Which people on HN hate. Yet, when they couch authoritarian action under the premise of a popular moral panic, suddenly the reaction here is “tie us up and tell us what we’re allowed to see daddy.” I really don’t get it. Do you not see how cheering on this social media moral panic and inflating the idea of a big tec…

A functioning democratic leadership listens when told they've done good, and listens when told they messed up.

Arguing that they should receive no support or positive reactions because they also deserve blame is how the center and left break down their own power: Believing that disengagement from one another is a stronger moral obligation than working together and fixing shit with people who are willing to listen and work.

Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#68

Post by jameshart »

PxldLtd wrote: post #54
zkmon wrote: post #49

While it is genuinely a huge concern, the legal measure are not going to address it. One has to consider the overall picture, not just a corner of it. The ship has sailed. There will be addictive designs, products, services etc. The very theme of a business is centered around keeping the customers addicted. It's just a matter of time, every business on this planet would, with the help of AI, make their products and s…

I personally think the answer should be mandating user controls of said algorithms. If you have a large social media site that suggests results or provides a feed then you must allow users to configure said feed. The default should be simple, something like time-ordered of followed only with opt in for recommendations. Ideally I'd love to be able to swap algorithms for something open source but setting a standard the…

The entire advertising industry is predicated on the principle of preempting personal preferences with paid placements. (Sorry, didn’t start out that sentence expecting to alliterate it all but it just came out like that).

Literally every ad you see is a business deciding ‘instead of showing you what you came here to see, here’s something else, which I am showing you only to benefit my business.’

I’m not sure what limiting principle you can apply to limit the ability of businesses to show users other things the user might be interested in that wouldn’t also basically ban advertising too.

Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#69

Post by basisword »

somenameforme wrote: post #36
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #12

Forcing social media apps to have a less addictive design is a much better way to protect young people's brains than a social media age limit is (and frankly adults need help here too).

Social media, even before the era of dark patterns and 'engagement' maximization was still extremely addictive. It just had a less pronounced effect in large part because fewer people were using it. For instance there was a time when Facebook was university only and invite only. And this is all for people that are of the 'legal age' so to speak using it. For kids, who are going to be even more insecure, have more ong…

>> Social media, even before the era of dark patterns and 'engagement' maximization was still extremely addictive.

I disagree. When you only saw what you followed you ran out of 'content' regularly. For example, it was a common feature on Twitter clients to maintain your scroll position in your feed because keeping up to date with it and reading it in its entirety was the norm. Same goes for Facebook. Your friends only posted so much content. The 'addictive' aspect was you had to check regularly to see if there was new content. That is very very different from endless feeds full of content that is forced in front of you by the algorithm,

Re: EU Commission: addictive design Instagram and Facebook in breach of the DSA

#70

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

testing22321 wrote: post #24
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #12

Forcing social media apps to have a less addictive design is a much better way to protect young people's brains than a social media age limit is (and frankly adults need help here too).

Forcing alcoholic drinks to have a less addictive product is a much better way to protect young people’s brains than an alcohol age limit is (and frankly adults need help there too).

Good idea. There’s an objective measure of alcohol content. All you need to do to make this analogy work is to create one for social media. Best of luck with that.
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