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The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

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Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#371

Post by dinfinity »

pmuw wrote: post #365

Its the combination of infinite scroll and algorithmic curation of audiovisual media, that is addictive. Its equivalent to a TV channel tailored just for your interests, and TV was considered very addictive in the past. I wrote an infinite-scroll implementation for my blog. Infinite scrolling through a static bank of content (even with some randomized elements) is not engaging. You eventually make it to the bottom an…

Brainstorming here, hear me out: after 2 pages or 3 minutes of infinite scrolling the only content that shows up is various forms of goatse. We could make a browser extension for this.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#372

Post by inigyou »

iamnothere wrote: post #117
Greenpants wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, it's the incessant stimuli you get through these apps. There's just no point where the screen stays quiet, stimulus free. Moving elements capture our attention naturally, especially when the entire screen keeps moving. The endless scroll element just makes sure that the stimulus keeps getting renewed the moment you're done with it. Instead, a scroll should give you a break before heading into the ne…

Hello, what right do you have to regulate the presentation of speech ? If you regulate this format because it’s now considered harmful, what stops El Presidente from moving to ban “zines” because the format is “harmful to young minds” and used by “antifa”? What stops CA from moving to ban forums because threaded formats are suddenly considered “too addicting”? Maybe we should ban VR or first person shooter video game…

btw zines are already illegal in the USA. 30 year sentence. https://culture.org/art-and-culture/thirty-years-for-a-box-o...

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#373

Post by inigyou »

iamnothere wrote: post #362
htek wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First they came for the infinite scroll, and I said nothing... That was a little hyperbolic. The government already can regulate "speech" to some extent in limited, targeted ways, as this is. For example: they can (and increasingly will) require ADA accessibility standards on web and mobile sites and apps-- even private sector-- that deal with the public.

Can they? Why haven’t they enforced this yet? It may be that this isn’t as settled as you think when speech concerns are present. The existence of alternative accessible formats, or sufficient assistive technology in the marketplace, may be just as compliant. It’s likely that these will be favored over mandating changes that affect design or presentation, given the Court’s prior decisions on balancing speech concerns…

Someone would have to sue the website to get the ADA enforced

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#374

Post by inigyou »

iamnothere wrote: post #136
coldbrewed wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do limit harmful speech, at presence it's limited to speech and will immediately cause harm (the whole "shouting fire" thing) and the demonstrable addiction properties can be reasonably shown as harmful. It's also telling that only corporations seem to be the ones demanding the right to infinite scroll; what's the scenario where an individual can only express themselves and their ideas through implementing…

“Shouting fire” was a bad decision denying the right to protest the draft, and it’s since been overturned. (Thankfully, as we may need that right soon!) The First Amendment is clear: there shall be no law abridging freedom of speech. Courts have bent around that in the past, in earlier eras, but they were wrong to do so. Their mistakes have mostly been corrected although there’s still a few left. The document that go…

There's the constitution (basically a piece of toilet paper with scribbles on it) and then there's the actual reality of how the country operates, and the actual reality is that speech is restricted in many ways.

I must also mention that courts are not Congress and states are not Congress. The first amendment does not say "there shall be no law" - that is your poor paraphrasing - it says "Congress shall make no law"

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#375

Post by inigyou »

coldbrewed wrote: post #226
iamnothere wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh is this law’s scope limited to only the world’s largest corporations, and not smaller competitors, new entrants, individual developers, or nonprofits? I didn’t realize that. Oh is the presentation of text and images not “speech” because it’s “addictive”? I didn’t realize that. Your strategy with billboards is more clever than I’ve usually seen from you lot; I’ll give you credit for that. A billboard is actually a…

Isn't it fascinating that the people making the most extensive use of infinite feeds and A/B testing for maximum user engagement are also the massive platforms with dominating network effects and captive audiences? It's like _specifically regulating large social media conglomerates with outsized impact, capacity for harm, and demonstrated propensity to maximize user addiction might provide an ideal balance of societa…

IIRC it's actually illegal to publish DDoS control software due to the CFAA

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#376

Post by inigyou »

iamnothere wrote: post #363
ndriscoll wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I think this significantly alters the point, but it's pretty common in the US to regulate or ban signage. e.g. billboards are illegal in my city and there are specific regulations about what kind of elements can be present on buildings to signal business names. I'm pretty certain illuminated signs beaming into people's homes would be illegal here. Actually I don't think light-up signs are allowed at all; I b…

Yes, my point is that things like illuminated signs or loudspeakers can actually physically affect neighbors, so speech concerns have to be balanced against other concerns. Often the speech still wins, but not always. We’re talking apples and oranges because a website is more like a book than an illuminated sign. You have to decide to view it, and it doesn’t shine through your window at night, disturbing the peaceful…

A website like mygeotechnicalblog.example.com is like a book that you have to seek out. But websites like Facebook and Twitter may be so ubiquitous that they are more akin to a street that you walk down for many purposes and shouldn't be bombarded by obnoxious advertisements on the way.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#377

Post by ndriscoll »

Worries about particulars like infinite scroll miss the point: fundamentally, the advertising business model is a market distorting one that companies use to provide goods and services below cost. It is paid advertising that should be banned. Doing so would eliminate the incentive to create addictive products in the first place since increased usage would no longer drive increased revenue.

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#378

Post by inigyou »

xigoi wrote: post #304
tmtvl wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that differ from 'when asked to load more items, simply take the entire list (which may have changed) and remove the items already shown on previous pages'?

The fact that, in general, you don’t know what was on the previous pages, if anything. The user may just randomly decide to open page 3 without having visited the previous two pages. Or they clicked “next” after having page 2 open on their computer for several days and meanwhile they used your website on a different device.

If implementing this idea, it wouldn't just be page 3 any more, it would be page numbered 3 excluding IDs 75833,6857362,2737,...

Reddit page links include both the number of the first item on the page (only cosmetic) and the last item on the previous page (which actually determines what is displayed).

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#379

Post by inigyou »

iamnothere wrote: post #359
grayhatter wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think rapid iteration causes legal terrorism. Do you have an example, or just vibes? I meant rapid as in rapid for the legislative context too. I don't mind slow (expected) speed, or laws that have a delay before they take effect. I do have a problem with how political points can and are won not by finding solutions, but exclusively by obstructing the process. I don't mind an imperfect solution that moves the…

Perhaps I should clarify, I am using “legal terrorism” as a term of art for legislative terror, such as that inflicted during the French Revolution or the reign of Oliver Cromwell, or Germany’s Enabling Act. Without strong checks, which slow down the process, legislative bodies can get caught up in a frenzy of passing laws in order to address “urgent” problems. Our problem is that a majority of legislators want to pa…

Another alternative to avoid legal terrorism is low penalties. If the law would rapidly shift to say infinite scroll is illegal, but the only penalty is being ordered to remove it (and then penalised more if you fail to do so after being notified) I don't think that's really that bad?

Re: The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes

#380

Post by inigyou »

iamnothere wrote: post #123
VladVladikoff wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the wrong fix to the problem. The correct fix is enforcing an infinite scroll limit (time), after which the app tells you to take a break (for some amount of time).

Whatever the right “fix” is, why is a US state involved in deciding how my app presents my speech to you? Under what authority? You know, I hate to give the oppo any decent ideas, but maybe there’s some allowable way to subsidize apps that use “healthy” patterns rather than attempting to “ban” things!

States get to regulate things that happen within the state. That's how it's always worked. They're like mini-countries.
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