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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

#421

Post by alastairr »

an0malous wrote: post #395
alastairr wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that - unrestricted - digital media maximises for time and attention. Given that incentive, addictive behaviours are not only inevitable, but an ideal outcome financially. It's easy to say that it's absurd, but what would you do?

Every business wants you to be addicted to their products, whether it’s social media, cigarettes, video games, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, supplements, fashion, electronics. Even seemingly innocuous things like reading the news or exercising are often addictions, people are running away from their fears and insecurities. It’s a systemic problem in western society, removing infinite scroll is such a ridiculous idea in…

> Every business wants you to be addicted to their products

It simply isn't true a) that businesses are all as unscrupulous as digital media platforms and b) that most products even have potential to be addictive.

It's certainly true that most companies would like you to be a loyal repeat customer, but that falls a long way short of addiction.

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

#423

Post by carljungslabtek »

ahnick wrote: post #369
xg15 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can just not use things you don't like. The entire point of talking about addiction (or even harmless things like FOMO, network effect, etc) is that this is not true.

This societal view that you are a powerless NPC slave to ones desires/addictions is highly toxic. It is not in fact binary for most people and people do have free will to make different choices. To absolve the individual of accountability is to undermine the very fabric of society. The way individuals typically overcome addiction is through reliance on close family & friends. Those family & friends can "take the phon…

I’m a Buddhist, so I really do see what you’re saying about personal responsibility and agency, but the other problem I see is that the companies at the forefront of these ultra-addictive industries (including mass social media) get busted eventually every single time for working overtime to hide what they knew about how damaging their products can be, and in fact to convince the public that their products do the opposite of what they actually do.

Does nicotine have some beneficial health effects? Yeah, it actually does. But do they outweigh the downsides (and societal costs)? Absolutely not.

I do believe strongly in individual freedom of choice, but only under a paradigm of informed consent, and companies like Meta have never allowed that to happen and they never will, because the truth getting out could destroy their bottom line.

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

#424

Post by iamnothere »

inigyou wrote: post #418
iamnothere wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well just throw it all out the window then, if we’re not going to pay attention to the constitution. First things first, let’s make a law to ban you. If you’re just going to pick and choose what rights you apply, then it’s not much of a governing document, is it? Is this just “Parliament is Sovereign” with extra fluff? Might makes right?

Might has always and will always make right and there's nothing you can do about it. That's why we aim to make rightful organizations mighty.

Too bad all the old “rightful” standbys have gone rogue, while rapidly losing their capacity to effect change.

It’s almost like we need a robust system of checks and balances, governed some kind of rigid framework to ensure that everyone plays by the rules. Or we could just continue to ignore that and see what happens.

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

#425

Post by slopinthebag »

bigmadshoe wrote: post #210
slopinthebag wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

What is the cost-benefit analysis that led you to that conclusion? I ask as someone who enjoys smoking but struggles to see any good argument for the return of tobacco advertising.

No cost-benefit analysis, I have a philosophical aversion to controlling speech.

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

#426

Post by tpdly »

iamnothere wrote: post #399
inigyou wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You’d need a Constitution that allows laws regarding speech. And probably a mechanism to prevent legislators from assigning excessive penalties. It’s not about whether the law meets some abstract notion of good or bad, it’s about whether it is even possible to enact under the framework that governs us. Under the Constitution as it stands, it wouldn’t be possible.

Not true. Speech and reach are obviously different.

It is entirely conceivable that Americans wake up to the absurd power and manipulation behind algorithmic feeds, and decide to intervene in the hypno-addictive horror-show.

Also, I've been thinking about how curation at the scale of the modern internet is much more analogous to speech than it ever was before. Whatever you want to say, just find someone else who's said it-- or just astroturf via 3rd party and beam it into the skinner boxes. In this frame, freedom of speech actually demands open access to indeces and content. Is it acceptable that network-effect-fueled cartels are the only ones that get to speak through algorithms?

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

#427

Post by moritzwarhier »

I know this is about addictive social media feeds as a whole, but I'd like to think a law is being passed to "endanger", no, better outright ban infinite scrolling.

Call it the "pagination law" and combine it with banning personalized feeds as a whole, apart from fully transparent choices made by the user (e.g. follows).

One can dream...

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

#428

Post by bigmadshoe »

slopinthebag wrote: post #425
bigmadshoe wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the cost-benefit analysis that led you to that conclusion? I ask as someone who enjoys smoking but struggles to see any good argument for the return of tobacco advertising.

No cost-benefit analysis, I have a philosophical aversion to controlling speech.

Interesting. I guess I don’t see corporations as people, and thus I don’t see this as a violation of free speech.

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

#429

Post by opan »

grapeorangesoda wrote: post #398

Guitar Hero is an infinite scroll of notes coming at you. Will that game be allowed in the dystopia?

The notes end when the song does, then you can start another song or stop playing. Do you ever run out of posts when scrolling?

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

#430

Post by halestock »

ethin wrote: post #396
halestock wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but you're just talking about a completely different law. How is that comparable to what's being proposed?

Because the point applies to the subject of this thread too, that's why. People think that all of this is super easy to just ban by fiat (law) but the problem is that the "simple" solutions oftentimes have harmful downstream effects that must be considered. For example, let's hypothetically say that we ban "addictive algorithms". What even counts as an "addictive algorithm"? Does my Mastodon home timeline count as an…

But we're not talking about banning addictive algorithms, we're talking about banning endless scrolling. You're trying to straw man by bringing in completely different examples.

Edit: rereading the article, they want to ban "psychologically exploitative features intended to maximize engagement that foreseeably lead to compulsive use." It seems like it's pretty straightforward to apply that logic to your hypotheticals.

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