Earlier quoted context omitted.
so you draw the line at smell-o-vision?
I draw the line at physical compulsion, but everyone is different.
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Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
131–140 of 323 posts
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
It took decades to clearly define gambling enough to regulate it as we do now. Note that pinball was banned in major cities for decades because it was too similar to gambling devices. And even with those definitions things weren't very clear. I used to work for financial traders here in Chicago. Every year there would be an unofficial snow futures market. It was a fancy way for all the traders and clerks to gamble on…
It's actually somewhat easy... If you are creating financial exposure to an event with no underlying risk to it, and the point is exposure itself, you are gambling. In your snow example, those guys were gambling on snow for fun. The formal weather derivative - most weather derivatives have parties (usually players in the energy market, sometimes agriculture) who have real underlying risk and aren't entering those con…
Having "underlying risk" to something just means you invested in it before. So for you it's not a gambling as long as you... have gambled before in the other direction?
Buy bunch of call options? Gambling. Buy a bunch of put options for stock I already hold, somehow honorable investing.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#133I'm delighted to see this headline because I've been comparing Facebook to cigarettes for more than a decade. The parallels are striking. Both industries knew their products were poisonous and intentionally hid that knowledge while intentionally engineering them to be as addictive as possible, and ended up marketing them directly to children.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would include everything from my Spotify recommending new music that I like to my Netflix showing me similar shows. I'm a responsible adult. I want those things. I make use of them. They make my life better when I'm trying to listen to some music while I work on something or when I have exactly 2 hours of TV watching time in a week and don't want to waste it finding a new show. I do not want regulations coming a…
> > “Do you use personal / behavioral data / usage to shape the user experience and recommendations, creating a reinforcing loop?” > This would include everything from my Spotify recommending new music that I like to my Netflix showing me similar shows. Spotify recommending music and Netflix recommending shows that are similar to what? To previously recommended music/shows. This is exactly the problem. > I'm a respon…
> This is exactly the problem.
What problem, exactly?
Helping me find new music to enjoy?
I’m beginning to think some people have forgotten what we’re supposed to be angry about and now we’re just angry at all things tech.
Spotify recommending new music to me or continuing to play music suggestions when my playlist runs out is in no way harmful. It improves my life. I lose nothing to it. I gain new exposure to music.
It’s fine. Let people enjoy things.
> This is a clear indicator that these things are addictive and are in fact gambling.
I assure you I am neither addicted nor am I gambling when I listen to new music on Spotify.
What are we even doing here? Is this some puritanical push against all things that people might enjoy?
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my humble opinion: anyone optimizing for "engagement" is trying to make a product inherently addictive. Having a great product is not, but designing your product intentionally so people spend more time with it, than they wanted - intentionally not just let them write that one message, but distract them into other stuff - would qualify.
How would you prove this? What if the product was not intentionally designed to be engaging but ends up being more engaging than TikTok?
Check for the targets of the dev teams. What gets them promotion. Right now they openly optimize for 'engagement".
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Do you use personal / behavioral data / usage to shape the user experience and recommendations, creating a reinforcing loop?” Roughly that.
What product does not listen to how users use the product to design the first or later version of a product?
A hammer doesn’t have a sensor to know how you are doing while you're hammering away, and it doesn't make the strike smoother to keep you hammering longer if you start seeming tired. Almost no products ever monitor you
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#137This seems really messy. We regulate gambling because it's a specific thing, but how do you differentiate a non-addictive platform vs an addictive platform? (aside from this specific company... I mean in general). How do you "test" whether or not they're inherently addictive? At least in this specific instance, they can look at the blast radius and make a determination. But this feels legally unsatisfying in the gene…
In my humble opinion: anyone optimizing for "engagement" is trying to make a product inherently addictive. Having a great product is not, but designing your product intentionally so people spend more time with it, than they wanted - intentionally not just let them write that one message, but distract them into other stuff - would qualify.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would include everything from my Spotify recommending new music that I like to my Netflix showing me similar shows. I'm a responsible adult. I want those things. I make use of them. They make my life better when I'm trying to listen to some music while I work on something or when I have exactly 2 hours of TV watching time in a week and don't want to waste it finding a new show. I do not want regulations coming a…
There's a big difference between a completely optional "recommendations" area and a loop. If the recommended stuff happens automatically without you having to look for it, then it's a loop.
Yep - some emotional core of my being (not rational) hates ML recommendations.
I'm a happy paid user of Spotify and just ignore the recommendations (I'm not looking at a screen), and I use YouTube heavily with a browser plugin that hides recommendations (which kills the end of video loop). I get recommendations from people, and use the products for curation, bookmarking and subscriptions. They're good.
Whereas Instagram and TikTok are vacuous and useless to me - I can't make myself use them. I think my brain knows what's wrong with them, and makes a kind of disgust reaction very quickly.
I agree, there's a very low level, emotional difference between them. I'm not sure I could encode it in law, but it is different.
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Do you use personal / behavioral data / usage to shape the user experience and recommendations, creating a reinforcing loop?” Roughly that.
This would include everything from my Spotify recommending new music that I like to my Netflix showing me similar shows. I'm a responsible adult. I want those things. I make use of them. They make my life better when I'm trying to listen to some music while I work on something or when I have exactly 2 hours of TV watching time in a week and don't want to waste it finding a new show. I do not want regulations coming a…
Ok then at the very least allow for a toggle to turn those algorithmic “recommendations” on and off
Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I cut my leg off with a chainsaw, am I addicted to the chainsaw? I think what matters is the intent of the design. E.g. if they design the product to make you need more of it (while it has an actively detrimental effect)
> If I cut my leg off with a chainsaw, am I addicted to the chainsaw? If you repeatedly willingly do so despite the harm, then yes.
But you still did it. If I sunbathe every day without sun cream, whom do we regulate? Assuming people have no ability to choose.