Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

401–410 of 503 posts

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

#401
post #23

Tell me: why are these algorithms suddenly okay when the victim turns 18? They are bad for everyone and if you’re willing to regulate them, make them illegal to be used on anyone.

Because I'm an adult, rather than a sheep for you to control, and I much prefer being shown things in my interest (via recommendation alg) rather than things in the general populations interest. In fact, I wish I could upload my own recommendation model to all the social media, to curate it better, and put some black holes near topics I want to avoid, with the option to fuzz it a bit for exploration.

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

#402
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also an algorithm. An unsophisticated one, but an algorithm nonetheless. You can (and should) argue that such a simple algorithm doesn’t “count”, but fundamentally the exact wording of the grandparent post never works, legislatively. Lawyers will lawyer.

Can everyone just please stop saying "well ackshually sorting is done with an algorithm" and just assume at least not-idiotic-intent here? No no one will ban "algorithms" or suggests anything of that kind. Yes it's a terrible name. Yes it will be hard to formulate what's allowed and what isn't. But a very simple litmus test is: what are the inputs to the algorithm? users coarse geographic location? Fine AI detected l…

Your litmus test isn't correct and your assumption of personalisation isn't correct either. All of the criteria that you see as fine are controlled under the relevant legislation and are considered personalisation, requiring transparency etc.

Furthermore, bills have been brought to EU parliaments that have erroneously attempted to ban all forms of ranking, which would include even the most basic information retrieval algorithms. So it isn't obvious at all what is meant by 'algorithm'.

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

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Goes away, or is liable for the content promoted to the frontpage under the OP's take? Same thing. There is no Hacker News if Y Combinator becomes liable for user submitted content. It’s an obvious backdoor play to make sites go away. If a site becomes liable for content posted, you cannot allow users to post content without having the site review and take responsibility for every comment and every post. The people…

> It’s back to only reading content produced and curated by companies for us I didn’t know only companies can have websites.

It's a matter of resources, not corporate status per se. For better or for worse, the current status quo largely democratizes content promotion. You and I can post these two comments here and put our ideas and names in front of a bunch of strangers for $0.

In a world where the risk-adjusted cost of allowing third-party comments on your platform shoots up, someone has to pay that cost. A personal blog hosted on your server might struggle to find any significant reach without a real advertising budget, because distributing speech/content that promotes your platform would no longer be ~free.

I don't necessarily believe that the major social media platforms would fully evaporate, but I'd expect some or all of these changes across the ecosystem:

* Massively scaled up LLM-based moderation/censorship.

* Replacement of direct user content posting with an LLM-based interface (to chat with an LLM about what you want it to write on your behalf).

* Payment-gated public posting, e.g. monthly or per-post fees to cover liability/insurance and/or LLM inference costs. Possibly higher fees for direct authorship vs LLM pair posting.

* Massive rise in adoption of decentralized architectures, either via current mainstream platforms if legally tolerated or via anonymous dark web platforms otherwise. Maybe Tor becomes as normalized as VPNs, or maybe the Western legal environment shifts hard against general-purpose computing.

I understand where this sentiment is coming from, but I think it's taking a lot of the current status quo for granted. What you guys are proposing isn't necessarily a targeted change that would simply make bad guys stop doing bad things. It's more likely a massive structural change that would dramatically alter the social and economic fabric of the internet as we know it, and not in a way that most of us would like.

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

#404

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.

Even easier solution: mandate that all harmful content be distributed with the evil bit set in all IP packets. Security: solved.

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

#406
post #58

I don't agree with this. Addictive, unless we're talking about a chemical substance or something like that, is a subjective thing. At some point, books, movies, comics, etc, etc might have been considered addictive. Social networks in general should be banned for underage people, that's the thing. And the social network itself should be liable for verifying the age its users, like a nightclub is liable for people who…

[deleted]

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

#407
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Addictive, unless we're talking about a chemical substance or something like that, is a subjective thing. What makes you say that? It's well known that the addictive patterns in these apps trigger dopamine the same way drugs do. In a sense, dopamine is the "chemical substance" central to the addiction. Heroine and algorithms are just different ways to get it. https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2021/10/addictive…

Everything you do “triggers dopamine”. Reading HN triggers dopamine. Eating breakfast triggers dopamine. Dopamine is also important for movement and many other things. This is a lame reduction of brain chemistry that has been used to push agendas. Dopamine is not equivalent do addiction.

> Dopamine is not equivalent do addiction.

What about porn, sex, and gambling addiction, which are all un-boosted dopamine addictions?

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

#408

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.

We can call them crypto. Won't make any less sense than the current usages, and it's a really good indicator to stop listening.

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

#409
Hopefully there's a way to opt out of the inevitably worse experience for those of us who like scrolling through TikTok.

The web was already getting bad with ads and popups, but the EU's sloppy legislation loopholes somehow encouraged all websites to show cookie popups (and never remember my selection), so the experience is even worse.

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

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-In the EU it is a political discussion. -In the USA, the government buys the data legally from the parties who are allowed to collect it and there are no political discussions. One of these is obviously better than the other.

> "In the EU, there is a a political discussion about outlawing privacy." > "In the US, the government is using illegal methods to violate rights granted by the constitution." Agreed one is obviously better than the other. The EU treats privacy as a privilege granted by the government while the US treats it as a fundamental right. I'm not a fan of the US gov but I also don't agree with the candy colored view of the E…

>Agreed one is obviously better than the other. The EU treats privacy as a privilege granted by the government while the US treats it as a fundamental right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy

https://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/righto...

There is no express constitutional right to generalized "privacy" in the USA and even if there were, the constitution only binds the government, which is allowed to buy data on American citizens collected by 3rd parties.

Post reply on HN