EFF to Governor Newsom: Veto California's AB 1709 • Hacker News Board

Re: EFF to Governor Newsom: Veto California's AB 1709

#161

Post by marky1991 » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 8:33 PM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #160

marky1991 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that's not an answer to my question. To be honest, I'm starting to feel like you're not really talking to me, you're just responding to me. If you're asking for evidence of people changing their minds, I've done that, though I will admit I haven't done it in the past page of comments on hackernews. Normally it's not a wholesale change of opinion, but a shift in nuance or a changing of details. But even if…

Respectfully, I'll believe it when I see it. Most of my interactions in age gating discussions on HN have pushed me toward indignation, rather than nuance. It's arguing against someone's hypothetical dystopian nightmare. I'm tired of the game. If they want to affect change, they can do it financially as I am. Looking forward to seeing this same treatment on the privacy folks and how they respond.

So why are you commenting here?

Re: EFF to Governor Newsom: Veto California's AB 1709

#162

Post by ethbr1 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 11:33 AM UTC

saghm wrote: post #158

ethbr1 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Functioning democracy seems pretty important, and a healthy shared reality and news is a key component of that. Social media, as currently implemented, directly harms that.

I have basically the same reaction to this framing: if I had to list the five largest threats to our functioning democracy in the US right now, social media use by teenagers would not make the list.

What are your five largest threats to functioning democracy in the US right now?

Because I question any list that doesn't include a substantial chunk of voters being ignorant on concerns of critical importance to the country.

And if that's a problem now, as a result of a couple decades of low-brow, high-emotion 80s and 90s conservative talk radio and tv, then what do you think better-engineered algorithmic slop is doing to the next voting cohort's brains?

Democracies succeed or fail on the average voter's ability to somewhat understand matters.

Re: EFF to Governor Newsom: Veto California's AB 1709

#163

Post by eszed » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 3:27 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #123

eszed wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. All I want is allow/deny permissions on particular channels. For my little guy I'd set up a blanket Deny rule, with a few channels allowed; for older kids parents might want to go the other way. All of the "parent better" messages are useless (not to mention out of touch) when technical tools to do so are not made avaliable to us. And, of course, those tools are not given because YouTube wants to drop kids into…

It’s useless as a blanket statement, but not if you go in specifics. With enough public pressure targeted specifically at YouTube it’s completely possible they would add more controls, and is more reasonable than a complete ban of social platforms

I understand what you mean, but I do not, at this point, think "public pressure" is sufficient. I once did, but that was before ad companies (and they're all ad companies, at their root) unlocked the full potential (if they even have) of data-mining and algorithmic targeting. They know us better than we know ourselves, and make too much money hijacking our dopamine systems to respond to anything we say we want. Legislation is the only thing that will reign them in.

I'm not saying that social media can't be good, or shouldn't exist, or shouldn't be able to make money. Early-YouTube and early-Facebook and early-Twitter (and their fallen predecessors) were good communicative platforms. I used them, and by-and-large thought they made my life, and society at large, better.

It's the data-mining and algorithmic targeting / feeds that need to be regulated.