Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 568 posts

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

#311

Post by Etheryte »

afarah1 wrote: post #307
Etheryte wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make the same argument about sugary beverages, that you can't legislate intelligence, yet every country that has imposed a considerable sugar tax has seen benefits across the board. This of course omits a lot of nuance, but the main takeaway remains the same. We all have that monkey brain inside us and sometimes we need guardrails to defend against it. It's the same reason we don't allow advertising alcohol…

>every country that has imposed a considerable sugar tax has seen benefits across the board Is there strong evidence for that? The first study that pops up if I search this suggests otherwise, that it could increase consumption of sugar-substitutes and overall caloric intake. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2025.05.019 >we need guardrails to defend against There is no "we". You say that I and others need it, and you…

This is honestly a very silly take. You could make the same counterargument about any tax of any kind, or really any law of any kind. Like it or not, we do need both taxes and laws to function as a society.

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

#312

Post by amarant »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #207
amarant wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like this narrative. I'm a person, and HN is the only social media I use.I tolerate this one because I find the addictiveness off-putting, but unlike other social media HN doesn't engage in that much. I'm not some sort of prodigy or anything, just a random schmuck. If I can do it, anyone can. People just really like blaming others for their own vices instead of owning up to having a vice. HN is a vice too. On…

You haven't chosen anything. That's the point - the illusion of choice and agency. If you can't stop cold at any time if/when you decide to, you don't have the agency to make a free choice.

I can though, that's the whole point. I chose to quit Facebook and Reddit. I chose to stop drinking alcohol. I chose to keep smoking weed. Some choices are better than others, from certain perspectives, that doesn't make them any less my choices!

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

#313

Post by turtlesdown11 »

lII1lIlI11ll wrote: post #177
DaanDL wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an unworldly remark. So, we should also not ban hard-drugs then?

> So, we should also not ban hard-drugs then? Is this a serious question? Have you been asleep since 70s and are not aware on how the War on Drugs has been going?

There is a gulf of difference between banning hard drugs and criminalizing their use

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

#314

Post by EinigeKreise »

SirMaster wrote: post #212
wackget wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way more complex than "no self control". Social media is addictive by design and is peddled at such scale that it is literally impossible to ignore. It's also backed by billions upon billions of dollars. Pitting the average person up against that, then blaming them for having "no self control" once they inevitably get sucked in is not a remotely fair conclusion.

People keep saying this and yet, I have never used any of these short form video services or really any social media outside of desktop websites like hackernews and reddit. Even on reddit I just subscribe to a few niche and mostly technical subreddits. It seems extremely easy to ignore it all.

Considering the median amount of time people spend on social media daily, it sure does not seem to be so easy for the average person (as was implied in the comment you replied to). I've got a pretty good self control when it comes to the common vices, but I can't see why that would generalise to everyone else.

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

#315

Post by bobek »

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…

It is not only recommender though. These guys [1] seem to be able to react pretty quickly and not to create addicts on the way ;(

[1] https://recombee.com

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

#316

Post by seydor »

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…

The best way for tiktok to respond to this , is to add some "cooling down" delay between videos. The EU commision will boast about this achievement, but effectively tiktok users will spend MORE time on their app.

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

#317

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#318

Post by BoxOfRain »

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.

One of my gripes with youtube at the moment is that they break my adblock filters to remove shorts more often than they break the filters stopping the actual ads.
Post reply on HN