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

nytimes.com

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

#551

Post by Thiez »

prewett wrote: post #428
Jensson wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its not necessarily "capitalism". Think about how Myspace was, or early Facebook, that was capitalism but didn't have the same issues. No thats exactly capitalism, capitalism ensures processes gets more and more efficient over time, as you say previous versions were less efficient at inducing addictive behaviors but capitalism ensured we progressed towards more and more addictive apps and patterns. Capitalism doesn…

You're not describing capitalism, you're describing managerialism with a manager-evaluation function of profit. Managers do not need to be evaluated by EPS, but when you are a public company with diffuse shareholders (who are the actual "capitalists", and who include any of use with a 401k or pension), that's an easy one for people to agree on. Also, when your society gives up on the restraints of (in our case) Judea…

The VOC and EIC would like a word. While under these so-called 'Judeo-Christian values' Europe was wildly antisemitic, colonised most of the known world, and subjugated, genocided, and enslaved indigenous populations. The UK even wrote a slave bible. Slavery in the US also happened while these 'values' were held in high regard.

If your personal religious beliefs help you be a good person then that's great for you, keep believing. But historically it doesn't appear that more religious societies are more moral societies.

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

#552

Post by Thiez »

IanCal wrote: post #426
yibg wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does a desirable product or experience end and addictive begin though? Pretty much all products or services sold are designed to be desirable. Some things are physically addictive (nicotine, opioids etc), so those are a bit more clear. But when we're talking about psychologically addictive, where do we draw the line between what's ok and what's not? If my restaurant's food is so good people are "addicted" to it…

You really must be able to understand the difference between liking a thing and being addicted to a thing ? If not it’s probably worth just starting with basic definitions of addiction.

The DSM-5 acknowledges only gambling as a diagnosable behavioral addiction. Being addicted to a thing means substance addiction, not TikTok or games or internet.

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

#553

Post by Havoc »

Barrin92 wrote: post #394
Havoc wrote: post #372

The trick bit is that addiction and showing people what they want to see are near indistinguishable. It's optimizing for same thing basically and don't think it'll be possible to legislate a clear distinction

There's a big difference between healthy wants and addiction. The latter involves compulsion and craving. The clearest sign anyone is addicted to something is that they use something precisely when even they don't want to . I'd even say it's orthogonal to the content and what someone wants to see. You can design an app full of crap that's addictive purely because of its reward mechanisms, and on the other hand you ca…

>There's a big difference between healthy wants and addiction.

In psychology certainly, but the algo side not so much. You're measuring the same metrics - doomscrolling user paused an extra 5 seconds on the cat video...let's show him more cats.

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

#555

Post by Thiez »

walt_grata wrote: post #230
Retr0id wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"non-addictive" isn't a well-defined thing. It's like telling McDonalds that their food must be "healthy". There's a lot of regulation affecting the food that McDonalds serves (and that's probably a good thing), but it's all based on measurable things.

We could measure it for cocaine and cigarettes couldn't we.

Yes, which is why substance addictions are in the DSM-5 and internet/gaming/social media addictions are not.

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

#556

Post by cactusplant7374 »

permo-w wrote: post #462
cactusplant7374 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought was secret information. How long as it been publicly known?

The secret is how it chooses videos to recommend, not the tech stack it uses and how fast it is

I would assume it's time spent on video and they start to build a profile of which users like what kind of content. X liked video 934934 so Y probably also likes that kind of video. Group people in buckets.

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

#557

Post by permo-w »

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #556
permo-w wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The secret is how it chooses videos to recommend, not the tech stack it uses and how fast it is

I would assume it's time spent on video and they start to build a profile of which users like what kind of content. X liked video 934934 so Y probably also likes that kind of video. Group people in buckets.

I'm sure this is part of it, but I suspect it goes deeper than that. I'd guess they probably have some kind automated categorisation algorithm that can extract features from the videos

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

#558

Post by [deleted] »

owenversteeg wrote: post #535
permo-w wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to point out the obvious here, but who is going to perceive their recommended feed as slow or unfresh if it doesn't learn from exactly the last video you clicked on within 1 second? The bar simply is not that high. The special sauce of TikTok is how it chooses the videos, not the speed it does it at. I'm sure the speed helps to give it that "spookily intelligent" feeling, but that's a cherry on the recommen…

I partly agree and disagree. Speed completely changes the game in a few ways. The first is identifying interests. Imagine every possible interest in a tree structure. Let's say you're into kumiko. There are so many levels of the tree to traverse to find kumiko; perhaps Skilled crafts -> Woodworking -> Japanese -> Construction without use of fasteners -> Panels and decorative elements -> Kumiko. The more iterations yo…

[deleted]

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

#559

Post by halapro »

Natfan wrote: post #540
halapro wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same, but because I realized it could become addicting. Too bad Instagram f'ed me by copying TikTok. Now I'm addicted to Reels and I can't uninstall Instagram because my friends message me on it.

consider beeper.com?

Wow I didn't know this existed, thank you! Not perfect but definitely one fewer excuse to install Instagram.

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

#560

Post by IanCal »

Thiez wrote: post #552
IanCal wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really must be able to understand the difference between liking a thing and being addicted to a thing ? If not it’s probably worth just starting with basic definitions of addiction.

The DSM-5 acknowledges only gambling as a diagnosable behavioral addiction. Being addicted to a thing means substance addiction, not TikTok or games or internet.

The dsm-5 is not the only way we use words, but even there it clearly can define between liking gambling and being addicted right?
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