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FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

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

#31

This is heartening news. We are finally approaching the moment where addictive social media is handled with the same seriousness with which big tobacco was treated.

It's funny to think that people might look back at how much time and attention people from 2010 to 2020 spent on their device and think how backwards we were.

Like how "dumb" past generations were for putting lead in gasoline.

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

#32
post #24

From the article: Amazon.com, Inc. [twitch], ByteDance Ltd., which operates the short video service TikTok, Discord Inc., Facebook, Inc., Reddit, Inc., Snap Inc., Twitter, Inc., WhatsApp Inc., and YouTube LLC. The FTC is seeking information specifically related to: how social media and video streaming services collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information; how they determine which ads…

>how social media and video streaming services collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information; Facebook can definitely figure out your race , and the race of who you've dated. I told this story here before but back in the early days of facebook, I had dated a Korean girl for a brief period of time and then the moment we broke up via facebook messenger, I start getting spammed with ads f…

This is not posturing. The FTC is independent of any given administration.

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

#33

This is heartening news. We are finally approaching the moment where addictive social media is handled with the same seriousness with which big tobacco was treated.

I wonder which is worst for health. I’d say tobacco, but social media probably causes more obesity than Coca Cola itself. Also causes people to procrastinate instead of engaging in intellectual activities, especially school or work, so the cost to society might be enormous. I wonder whether this is quantifiable, but it is definitely visible.

But if it slows careers, we also have to reckon it creates careers and side-jobs (« Instagram model », « journalist », ...).

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

#34
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 is an awful idea lol wut. That limits the free flow of information as well as ideation.

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

#35
post #18
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…

So I like social media, and get a lot of benefit from it. I like that it's free and supported by targeted ads, rather than a paid service.

Since we disagree, and I imagine there are many people with the same opinions as both you and me, why not make it opt-in, so you only encounter social media if you choose to make an account, and then still only see it if you go to it and/or install it intentionally? Wait, that's how it is now...

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

#36

This is heartening news. We are finally approaching the moment where addictive social media is handled with the same seriousness with which big tobacco was treated.

It's funny to think that people might look back at how much time and attention people from 2010 to 2020 spent on their device and think how backwards we were. Like how "dumb" past generations were for putting lead in gasoline.

Seems more likely to me that all the overreaction to social media will be what is viewed as silly and old-fashioned. History is absolutely full of very similar examples of people freaking out over how new mediums like novels or bicycles or radio or rock music or whatever are a waste of time and/or are destroying the children's minds.

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

#37
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 is also great for hiding and suppressing organization of social uprising. This would have totally suppressed all the BLM content this summer.

> This would have totally suppressed all the BLM content this summer.

How do you know that? Civil rights and protest movements in general have traditionally not relied on social media or even digital communication of any sort. Couldn't the mechanisms once employed to organize activists still work today? The answer is yes, they can. I know for a fact the Baptist church down the street from me participated in organizing many of the protests in my city this summer.

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

#39
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how social media and video streaming services collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information; Facebook can definitely figure out your race , and the race of who you've dated. I told this story here before but back in the early days of facebook, I had dated a Korean girl for a brief period of time and then the moment we broke up via facebook messenger, I start getting spammed with ads f…

This is not posturing. The FTC is independent of any given administration.

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