EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #62

conception wrote: post #19

This is pretty easy to solve. If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present. If the user decides you don’t, ala social media 1.0.

So the user opens the app - what is the first video you show them? How does 'the user decide' from the millions upon millions of videos there are? If the user can search like in Youtube then how do you rank the results? That's also an algorithm. It isn't pretty easy to solve at all.

Post by AlecSchueler » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:55 PM UTC

tencentshill wrote: post #114

Aurornis wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present Hacker News is a site that presents data by algorithm. Under your definition, Hacker News goes away, too. A more accurate framing would be that they’re going after personalized recommendation algorithms. It’s not obvious that offering a recommendation algorithm would mean that the site is no lo…

The algorithm is not personalized. It's the same for every user. No issue there.

Post by AlecSchueler » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #341

alkonaut wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one _ever_ even considers "algorithms" in the CS sense here (such as "sorting"), and even bringing that notion up would be deliberately dumbing down the discussion (yet it keeps happening in this thread over-and-over-again because people are for some reason very "well ackshually sorting is an algorithm"). "Algorithm" in this context is very clear what it is. It is not what the word means in Computer Science or in…

I think we need a different word, so that Computer Science grads stop getting wrapped around this axle. We're obviously not talking about Quicksort when we're talking about social media algorithms and other recommendation/discovery algorithms. Heck if I know what that word would be.

Post by throwaway902984 » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:58 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #339

Aurornis wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have this view to try to increase diversity of media consumption and break people out of echo chambers. Making sites liable for all user-posted content would do the reverse of this. Every platform that lets people submit content would have to stop doing that, because it’s an impossible liability to manage. You’d have to host your own site. You wouldn’t be able to share anything about it on a social media site bec…

Newspaper "Letters to the Editor" manage to do this. Users "submit" things to the newspaper, the editor curates and decides what to keep and what not to, and then the newspaper publishes the user generated content. Just like social media: Users submit things to the site, TheAlgorithm curates and decides what to keep and what not to, and then the site publishes the user generated content. If web sites and social media…

Post by danlugo92 » Tue, May 12, 2026, 6:04 PM UTC

nadermx wrote: post #378

Why is it always people pushing government to replace parenting? My mother use to take away my computer if I didn't abide by her rules.