The European Social Stack

Post by ftmootnomoat » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

kingofmen wrote: post #33

ftmootnomoat wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Indeed they do. And as a result they have rather more of it than European busybodies. :)

Post by throwaway13337 » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

stephen_cagle wrote: post #25

throwaway13337 wrote: post #10

Engagement metrics fed into recommendations algorithms are the paperclip maximizers that feed humanity's collective poison. Europe should do the one thing it knows how to do: regulate. For once, it is the answer. Do it only there. The rest of the dominos will fall. Making a european branded humanity poisoner is not the answer. Specifically, regulating against silent signals like watch time and comment count. Upvotes/…

Do you mean regulating "watch time and comment count" at the presentation (to the client) or the server (business/analytics) level? If the later, how would you even enforce that?

Post by wbl » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:45 PM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #15

ben_w wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. Best thing for dating apps is probably for them to cease to exist. Humanity managed dating fine before these things were created, even managed it in cities where we live in isolating apartments and only know our neighbours by the music leaking through the walls. Pubs, clubs, general social events where you can find people whose actual interests you share, these all do fine. Even lonely hearts columns in newspape…

>Humanity managed dating fine before these things were created Except back then we had stuff like religion, church, village, common communities etc to bind people. >even managed it in cities where we live in isolating apartments and only know our neighbours by the music leaking through the walls. Statistics show urbanites to be lonelier than ever, so that take disagrees with you. >Pubs, clubs, general social events w…

Post by sneak » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

throwaway13337 wrote: post #43

stephen_cagle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean regulating "watch time and comment count" at the presentation (to the client) or the server (business/analytics) level? If the later, how would you even enforce that?

Like all good regulation, it would only kick in after a company has a large reach. So as to not snuff out startups and cause regulatory capture problems that are already so common. Telling big companies to be transparent about their suggestion algorithms would not be hard. I think governments already do this? wasn't that a tiktok thing in the US? Anyway, it's well within government's reach. Telling companies to only…

Post by hiAndrewQuinn » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #37

jstummbillig wrote: post #19

Here is an idea for a EU product: Build something that is great, and make it so good, that everyone, including US citizens, will want to use it. Your ethics can still be great, but don't make me feel like your product won't be. If you have to market "Europe" or privacy it probably won't be.

Is there room for European companies to be the “Hermes of the Internet?” The American web is ad-optimized slop for the masses. Can the europeans provide higher quality experiences for more discerning buyers? I’m thinking about Tik Tok. When it was Chinese, my feed was stuff I actually wanted to watch. A lot of it was Chinese propaganda, but it was stuff that was pleasant, like people cooking in Chinese villages. Now…