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FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#11

Post by vineyardmike »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #5
kaiju0 wrote: post #3

Something big is brewing. I think there is going to be a big push to reign in social media. I've thought long about this and can only think of one way to regulate them. I would propose that people are allowed x degrees of separation. As a regular user I can only go n+2 connections. After that the content is not seen no matter how popular. It will kill virility but should reign in stupidity being broadcast. To increas…

If that was a legal rule for the internet it would make it illegal for most people to communicate with each other. I don't think this idea is well thought through. That would actually be the government regulating speech and arguably freedom of assembly.

Its not regulating the speech, its regulating the audience.

You have the right to speak, not the right to be heard.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#12

Post by g_p »

kaiju0 wrote: post #3

Something big is brewing. I think there is going to be a big push to reign in social media. I've thought long about this and can only think of one way to regulate them. I would propose that people are allowed x degrees of separation. As a regular user I can only go n+2 connections. After that the content is not seen no matter how popular. It will kill virility but should reign in stupidity being broadcast. To increas…

This seems interesting - clearly the friction in sharing everything with everyone is far lower online than before. Before, you had to consume finite resources (time, energy, postage stamps, etc.) to tell someone else about something. This gave a natural rate limit.

As a thought experiment, what if the degrees of separation were less rigidly enforced, but people's "power of voice" decays the further it goes from those who directly follow them, resulting in a similar result? Then for every user, there's a probability they'll see or not see a given post (significantly reducing as the degree of separation increases). Clearly this isn't ideal and there's compounding factors (if you have 3 friends share it, should that probability be additive?)

Share rate limits in WhatsApp led to people imploring others to copy paste fake news to share it to others, so clearly this isn't as simple as limiting normal shares.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#14

Post by processing »

kaiju0 wrote: post #3

Something big is brewing. I think there is going to be a big push to reign in social media. I've thought long about this and can only think of one way to regulate them. I would propose that people are allowed x degrees of separation. As a regular user I can only go n+2 connections. After that the content is not seen no matter how popular. It will kill virility but should reign in stupidity being broadcast. To increas…

So all content that is not in the "stupidity" classifier (who decides that?) also loses its chance to be surfaced? I think this needs to be thought through some more.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#15

Post by stale2002 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #11
CyberDildonics wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was a legal rule for the internet it would make it illegal for most people to communicate with each other. I don't think this idea is well thought through. That would actually be the government regulating speech and arguably freedom of assembly.

Its not regulating the speech, its regulating the audience. You have the right to speak, not the right to be heard.

Thats basically the same thing. For example, if the government made newspapers illegal, that would technically be "limiting the audience", but it would still be unconstitutional.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#16

Post by nvrspyx »

tape_measure wrote: post #4

Facebook, WhatsApp, Snap, Twitter, YouTube, ByteDance, Twitch, Reddit, and Discord.

It might be useful to put TikTok in parentheses for ByteDance, since that's their flagship product and most people (myself included) do/did not know that ByteDance is the company behind TikTok.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#17

Post by SkyPuncher »

kaiju0 wrote: post #3

Something big is brewing. I think there is going to be a big push to reign in social media. I've thought long about this and can only think of one way to regulate them. I would propose that people are allowed x degrees of separation. As a regular user I can only go n+2 connections. After that the content is not seen no matter how popular. It will kill virility but should reign in stupidity being broadcast. To increas…

> As a regular user I can only go n+2 connections.

How do you define this? Seems impossible to define and easy to circumvent.

----

By your own definition, I wouldn't be able to see or respond to your content since we're likely separated by more than two degrees.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#18

Post by kodah »

kaiju0 wrote: post #3

Something big is brewing. I think there is going to be a big push to reign in social media. I've thought long about this and can only think of one way to regulate them. I would propose that people are allowed x degrees of separation. As a regular user I can only go n+2 connections. After that the content is not seen no matter how popular. It will kill virility but should reign in stupidity being broadcast. To increas…

Personally I'd like to go back to an age before social media. It seems social media has had limited substantive success for anyone and has really created more problems than it's worth.

Historically I've avoided expressing my views on abolishment but now people are trying to develop fear-mongering strategies around decentralization, so here I am back at abolition. I'd love to find a happy medium but I don't think it's possible. Social media companies, search companies, national news (who is dependent on social media for income), politicians (who are dependent on social media for likes and shares), and law enforcement working in coordination to do an arbitrarily good thing (disrupt the flow of misinformation) was both eye opening and terrifying. These tools can be used for good but they're also the keystone tools of autocracy and are used largely for reasons that require interpretation and narrative following.

My point is that we don't need these kind of problems. We have space exploration ahead of us, major advancements in technology are still needed, and we need a continuum of people who are willing to work together despite whatever differences they may have ideologically and otherwise. I don't think limiting scope or killing virility will achieve these ends.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#20

Post by [deleted] »

nvrspyx wrote: post #16
tape_measure wrote: post #4

Facebook, WhatsApp, Snap, Twitter, YouTube, ByteDance, Twitch, Reddit, and Discord.

It might be useful to put TikTok in parentheses for ByteDance, since that's their flagship product and most people (myself included) do/did not know that ByteDance is the company behind TikTok.

[deleted]
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