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

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

#411

Post by cameldrv »

Aurornis wrote: post #84
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.

> 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…

It would be a lot better if the user just had more control over the recommendation algorithm, either to replace it with an alternative or tune it. For example, I never want to watch YouTube shorts. Every time I see them, I click "show less often" since it is the only way I can express this preference, and still YouTube shows me them.

Obviously YouTube knows that even among people who do this, they still get good engagement out of YouTube shorts, so they keep showing them, but these users have explicitly asked YouTube to not show them.

It would be like a recovering alcoholic whose landlord comes by every week and leaves free samples of booze, because they get paid by the booze company, even though the alcoholic has asked them to stop.

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

#412

Post by tolerance »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #400
tolerance wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Withholding the fact that cable television doesn't appear to be the typical distribution method anymore, how do broadcasters select/schedule their programming?

What's your point? It seems like you're pedantically focusing on a single word without regard for the actual meaning of the broader statement. No one is proposing to regulate things done in the traditional manner of cable tv, nor other uniform and impartial approaches.

@conception (root): "If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present"

@Aurornis: "Hacker News is a site that presents data by algorithm. Under your definition, Hacker News goes away, too."

@Aurornis (cont'd): "When every site with “an algorithm” is liable for content posted, nobody is going to allow you to post something. It’s back to only reading content produced and curated by companies for us. Total own-goal for the individual internet user."

@Aurornis (cont'd): "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."

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

Me: "But still an algorithm".

@tencentshill: "Yes it's still an algorithm. Cable TV programming is another example."

Me: "...how do broadcasters select/schedule their programming?"

***

If the "broader statement" that you're referring to is @conception's, then I agree with @Auronis that this would have negative effects on how websites like Hacker News operate. Failing to distinguish personalized recommendation systems from depersonalized ones and proposing regulation that affects them the same is an impartial approach.

The speculated consequence is that platforms (e.g., Hacker News) will not want to assume liability for the content that users share. [0] If this were to happen only a few platforms would exist, at least on the clear/open web. The general online experience would become something like a pastiche of 60s cable television with three or four providers authorized to broadcast media.

With the direction that democracy is trending across the world that would mean state-run or state-approved media. Or all online communities will have to organize and operate like more traditional institutions like this biking community in London is doing: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401988/.

[0]: Some parts of this community already suspect that moderation conveniently buries controversial or subversive submissions. See this one from today! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48110927

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

#413

Post by ad_hockey »

raffael_de wrote: post #323
antonyt wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to your point, but at some point other people ruining themselves degrades your experience as well. I don't gamble and in theory don't care if others do. But prediction markets are affecting sports and possibly governance as well in obviously negative ways. For this specific issue - the more functionally illiterate, zero-attention-span humans we create, the worse all of our lives will become.

there have always been losers, junkies and assholes. i'd rather have some of them but an entire society of adults brainwashed into wearing mental diapers.

(Assuming you meant "than" rather than "but")

You could argue the opposite, it's social media that's creating a society of adults wearing mental diapers. This article is excellent: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-...

And this is worth a skim: https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/internet-baby-boomers-m...

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

#414

Post by tzs »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #174

Imagine if Big Tobacco had something like Section 230

I'm trying and completely failing to even begin since I cannot find any way to think of what something analogous to Section 230 would even be in the context of tobacco.

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

#415

Post by phainopepla2 »

joshlemer wrote: post #271
moooo99 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument falls apart for countries with socialized healthcare. As long as all people are paying for your dumb decisions, it is reasonable to expect the government to reduce the frequency of dumb decisions by adequate means.

I notice that these sorts of justifications for increased paternalism as a consequence of socialized services come up in public discourse all the time but never seems to be mentioned by advocates when proposing these socialized systems. It should be mentioned up front as a significant cost as part of the package, it comes with strings attached like the government telling you how to live your life. Interesting that pe…

I support socialized medicine and I completely agree with you, we should be honest about the fact that it requires some level of regulatory coercion to work well.

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

#416

Post by nemothekid »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #394
charcircuit wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference is that HN uses time to segregate cohorts and TikTok uses interests to segregate cohorts. If enough people within these cohorts upvote / give watch time then the content is shown to more cohorts.

I understand the basic principle. Clearly that's one of the inputs. What I'm questioning is your implied assertion that there's nothing else to it. I don't for a second believe that tiktok (or facebook or any of the others) employs a primitive algorithm that impartially orders results based on a simple and straightforward metric without consideration for their own interests.

>I don't for a second believe that tiktok (or facebook or any of the others) employs a primitive algorithm

Is your contention that whatever future law have some mechanism to decide the complexity of the algorithm? How would you design a law such that the reddit ranking algorithm is primitive, but tiktok's algorithim is "advanced".

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

#417

Post by nemothekid »

xigoi wrote: post #211
Analemma_ wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever browsed by New and seen the firehose of shit which doesn’t make it to the front page? HN sorted by new is effectively useless and you might as well shut the site down at that point. “Chronological only” might work for something like Twitter where you’re choosing to follow specific individuals to see their posts, it can’t work for curation sites like HN/Reddit.

That could be solved by allowing users to filter by score or number of comments.

I think you are just reflexively trying to argue your point without even thinking about it.

30 million tiktoks are posted by day. What do you mean your are going to allow "users to filter". This "regulation" will be trivially defeated by TikTok-Videos LLC uploading videos and TikTok-DataScience, providing the most popular filtering algo.

At the end of the day, many children will simply default to using the best algorithm, and all this regulation helps no one.

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

#418

Post by raffael_de »

ad_hockey wrote: post #413
raffael_de wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there have always been losers, junkies and assholes. i'd rather have some of them but an entire society of adults brainwashed into wearing mental diapers.

(Assuming you meant "than" rather than "but") You could argue the opposite, it's social media that's creating a society of adults wearing mental diapers. This article is excellent: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-... And this is worth a skim: https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/internet-baby-boomers-m...

are you a native speaker? i'd have made a bet that but works here just as well as than. anyway ... social media doesn't _make_ anybody wear mental diapers. maybe offers or sells but only government can make you wear them.

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

#419

Post by freejazz »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #357
freejazz wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the argument was that Hackernews would no longer exist, and I asked why and your response was that it would be like the NY Times, but the NY Times website does exist so I don't understand what point you are trying to make then.

Got it. If the page doesn't fulfill the original purpose that people wanted to go to it, it ceases being interesting. The fact that the page merely exists is meaningless, much like a blank website.

Well, you pointed to the NYTimes which, again, has not changed, so what is your point? Maybe the NYTimes is not a good example? I don't know, you brought it up. Are you saying the NYTimes is not an interesting website? It seems to also have the news and discussion of the news, so what exactly am I missing?

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

#420

Post by ad_hockey »

raffael_de wrote: post #418
ad_hockey wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Assuming you meant "than" rather than "but") You could argue the opposite, it's social media that's creating a society of adults wearing mental diapers. This article is excellent: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-... And this is worth a skim: https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/internet-baby-boomers-m...

are you a native speaker? i'd have made a bet that but works here just as well as than. anyway ... social media doesn't _make_ anybody wear mental diapers. maybe offers or sells but only government can make you wear them.

As you have it there, "but" would mean the latter is an unfortunate consequence or side-effect of the former, and you're getting both. Whereas "than" would mean you're getting the former and not the latter.
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