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TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

nytimes.com

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Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#161

Post by Frieren »

dmix wrote: post #89
mtoner23 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short form video has been a total break from previous media and social media consumption patterns. Personally I would support a ban on algorithmic endless short form video. It's purely toxic and bad for humanity

People are way too comfortable banning things these days. This is where the term 'nanny state' comes from. A subset of the population doesn't have self control? Ban it everyone. Even if it's a wildly popular form of entertainment with millions of creators sharing their lives, who cares we know better.

> People are way too comfortable banning things these days. This is where the term 'nanny state' comes from. A subset of the population doesn't have self control? Ban it everyone. Even if it's a wildly popular form of entertainment with millions of creators sharing their lives, who cares we know better.

Europe wants to ban algorithmic recommendation. You attack a straw-man: banning all the content from creators. If you have any valid argument you should bring them to the discussion instead of creating imaginary enemies.

Banning harmful design patterns is a must to protect citizens even if it ruffles the feathers of those profiting from their addiction.

Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#163

Post by wasmainiac »

eggy wrote: post #71

I'm skeptical about banning design patterns just because people might overuse them. Growing up, I had to go to the theater to see movies, but that didn't make cliffhangers and sequels any less compelling. Now we binge entire Netflix series and that's fine, but short-form video needs government intervention? The real question is: where do we draw the line between protecting people from manipulative design and respecti…

> didn't make cliffhangers and sequels any less compelling

Apples to oranges.

I can’t make meth in my basement as a precursor to some other drug then complain that my target product had a shitty design.

Real life experience shows that TikTok is harmfully addictive and therefore it must be controlled to prevent negative social outcomes. It’s not rocket science, we have to be pragmatic based on real life experience, not theory.

Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#164

Post by islandfox100 »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #148

What other instances of "we did our job as little too well" are there? I can think of tabacco and other drugs, but that's not really the same. Monopolistic behavior doesn't really fit either. Maybe Kleenex marketing doing so well their name became interchangeable with the word "tissue"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperpalatable_food , One could argue about the plastic usage of the Coca-Cola company, etc

Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#165

Post by saithir »

stronglikedan wrote: post #138
wackget wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not acknowledging the fact that the companies producing these addictive apps are very much doing it intentionally. They are specifically making it as engaging as possible because that's how they make money . And they have billions of dollars to sink into making their products as irresistable as possible. The average person has zero chance against all-pervasive, ultra-manipulative, highly-engineered systems li…

I hate this age of zero personal accountability. It's so easy to just not doomscroll, but I should be allowed if I want to.

It's also super easy not to use hard drugs, yet that's not a reason to stop restricting them.

If something's harmful it should be controlled.

Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#166

Post by krapp »

zbentley wrote: post #111
bdcravens wrote: post #82

So what's next, Hacker News is illegal because the point system encourages retention?

This kind of absolutism is unhelpful. At every point on the spectrum between "a good app that people choose to spend time on because it's valuable to them" and "heroin marketed to preteens in schools" there is no clear line or delineation between addictive abuse and autonomy. But we still don't let liquor stores sell to kids. We still criminalize a lot of drug use. And while there are tons of different opinions about…

The point of the absolutism is that the line will be drawn not where society broadly agrees it should, but where governments find it most useful, and that line will always move in the direction of increasing censorship and propaganda. If Hacker News becomes enough of a threat to the regime it will be classified as "social media" and all of a sudden it will be illegal to moderate without a court order or some nonsense. This is a fundamentally different argument than with liquor, or cigarettes, because those don't intersect with fundamental human rights. Social media intersects with free speech. I know people here don't want to admit that, but it's true.

It used to be understood within hacker culture that government influence over speech is never good. For some reason when it comes to social media we're suddenly willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Even banning algorithmic feeds is a problem. Do those feeds push harmful and extremist content? Yes. But they push everything else as well. Making it more difficult to find related content of any kind is a kind of censorship.

Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#167

Post by pandemic_region »

dmix wrote: post #85
jamesblonde wrote: post #45

I gave a talk at PyData Berlin on how to build your own TikTok recommendation algorithm. The TikTok personalized recommendation engine is the world's most valuable AI. It's TikTok's differentiation. It updates recommendations within 1 second of you clicking - at human perceivable latency. If your AI recommender has poor feature freshness, it will be perceived as slow, not intelligent - no matter how good the recommen…

I noticed Youtube shorts also seems to update the feed based on how long the last video you watched. If you're scrolling quickly then stop to watch a dog video long enough the next one is likely to be another dog video.

I've been insta-skipping tennis video's for months now. Still getting Federer on a daily basis.

Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#168

Post by derektank »

eggy wrote: post #71

I'm skeptical about banning design patterns just because people might overuse them. Growing up, I had to go to the theater to see movies, but that didn't make cliffhangers and sequels any less compelling. Now we binge entire Netflix series and that's fine, but short-form video needs government intervention? The real question is: where do we draw the line between protecting people from manipulative design and respecti…

My preferred solution would be to subsidize tools that allow people to better identify and resist compulsive behaviors. Apps like Opal and Freedom that allow you to monitor your free time and block apps or websites you have a troubled relationship with would probably see more use if everybody was given a voucher to buy a subscription. Funding more basic research into behavioral addictions like gambling, etc (ideally research that couldn’t be used by casinos and sports gambling apps on the other side). Helping fund the clinical trials for next Zepbound and Ozempic.

Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#169

Post by davidmurdoch »

islandfox100 wrote: post #164
davidmurdoch wrote: post #148

What other instances of "we did our job as little too well" are there? I can think of tabacco and other drugs, but that's not really the same. Monopolistic behavior doesn't really fit either. Maybe Kleenex marketing doing so well their name became interchangeable with the word "tissue"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperpalatable_food , One could argue about the plastic usage of the Coca-Cola company, etc

Good call. Maybe the US needs a food score system on the label like they have in some European countries. Obviously that system has it's flaws though

Re: TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

#170

Post by trcf23 »

wackget wrote: post #132
eggy wrote: post #71

I'm skeptical about banning design patterns just because people might overuse them. Growing up, I had to go to the theater to see movies, but that didn't make cliffhangers and sequels any less compelling. Now we binge entire Netflix series and that's fine, but short-form video needs government intervention? The real question is: where do we draw the line between protecting people from manipulative design and respecti…

You are not acknowledging the fact that the companies producing these addictive apps are very much doing it intentionally. They are specifically making it as engaging as possible because that's how they make money . And they have billions of dollars to sink into making their products as irresistable as possible. The average person has zero chance against all-pervasive, ultra-manipulative, highly-engineered systems li…

And it’s also mostly targeting children/teenagers. As a parent you can add limitations on cinema, binging series. You can’t on TikTok.

I’m quite glad that there is a form of control preventing a company from a different part of the world that don’t really care about the mental health or wellbeing of my kids to creep into their life like that…

As a parent, it’s not a fair fight and I should not have to delegate that to another private company

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