Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 979 posts

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#581

Post by TFYS »

kbelder wrote: post #204
TFYS wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> allow natural selection to take its course while improving treatment of symptoms. I have a feeling natural selection will take its course at the level of nations, with nations that do protect their weak surviving and the ones that let profit extractors exploit and abuse theirs dying off.

Darwinism exists at the level of nations, but I think you may have the outcome exactly backwards.

I don't think so, because it's not only the truly weak that get exploited and abused in an "every man for himself" system. It'll also destroy the lives of many who could become strong in an environment that protects them when they're weak.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#582

Post by arter45 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #476
HWR_14 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geofenced ads are not the same as targeted ads.

Okay what if I am in Florida and Facebook sees that all of my posts are in Spanish, should it not be allowed to target me with Spanish speaking ads?

If the ads content depends on a social media company seeing your posts and analyzing them, it’s probably fair to say it’s targeted advertising.

Browsers typically send Accept-Language headers so you could easily return ads in languages matching that header, without having to analyze your posts.

It’s like switching on to a Spanish TV channel and getting Spanish speaking ads. It’s not targeted because you are signalling you probably understand Spanish.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#583

Post by Terr_ »

rsolva wrote: post #569
Funes- wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"well what specific laws would I write to combat addictive design?" Hear me out: banning advertising on the Internet. It's the only way. It's the primordial domino tile. You knock that one over, every other tile follows suit. It's the mother of chain reactions. There would be no social media, no Internet as we know it. Imagine having TikTok, YouTube or X trying to survive on subscriptions alone in their current iter…

Ban personalized advertising!

Putting on my cynic-hat:

1. Reform occurs, now ad-networks serve ads based on the content it appears near, rather than analyzing the viewer.

2. Ad-network says "You know, I'd pay more if you had a version of this content that drew people who were X, Y, Z..."

3. The sites start duplicating their content into hundreds of inconsequentially-different sub-versions, profiling visitors to guide them to "what fits your interests", but it's actually a secret signal to the ad-networks.

4. Ad-network, super-coincidentally, releases tools that can "help" sites do it.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#584

Post by gsk22 »

jameson wrote: post #490
poncho_romero wrote: post #25

I hope this goes through. Trillion dollar companies are waging a war on our attention, using everything at their disposal to make these apps addictive. It isn't a fair fight and the existence of infinite feeds is bad both for people and democracy. Regulating consumer products that cause harm to millions is nothing new.

As a person working at social media I support this as well. I'm a hypocrite. I admit, but the pay is too good to find alternative. Terms like "DAU" or "engagement" is common in our field and the primary objective is how to make users spend more time on our platform. We don't take safety or mental health seriously internally but only externally for PR reasons. CEOs won't change that because the more time user spends o…

This is so sad to read. Knowing that the people actively making every aspect of life more monetized and addictive are acutely aware of the harm they create, yet are motivated by such base selfishness that they can ignore all that for the paycheck.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#585

Post by littlecranky67 »

bruce511 wrote: post #439
Funes- wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"well what specific laws would I write to combat addictive design?" Hear me out: banning advertising on the Internet. It's the only way. It's the primordial domino tile. You knock that one over, every other tile follows suit. It's the mother of chain reactions. There would be no social media, no Internet as we know it. Imagine having TikTok, YouTube or X trying to survive on subscriptions alone in their current iter…

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

In a lot of countries in the EU, advertising for tobaco products, prescription medication, lawyer/docts are prohibited. That ban has been working quite well for decades.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#586

Post by breezykoi »

rurban wrote: post #562

They must rule against chess also then. It's clearly addictive design, harming the minds of innocent kids. Absurd

Chess is healthy you get to go outside and meet people to play with, engage in your local club. Some online platforms make the thing addictive.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#587

Post by arter45 »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #163
danny_codes wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except people aren’t addicted to haircuts and presumably don’t spend 8 hours a day staring at their hair in the mirror.

I should be able to stare at my phone 8 hours a day without government interference if I want to. No one is holding me at gunpoint. It's my phone and it doesn't hurt anyone else.

While removing infinite scrolling would somehow prevent that?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#588

Post by hyperman1 »

jjcm wrote: post #64

Here's the actual statement from the European Comission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... It's important to note they aren't creating laws against infinite scrolling , but are ruling against addictive design and pointing to infinite scrolling as an example of it. The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes". They point to certain feat…

Isn't this the standard EU way? First, they publish a statement, declaring what they want to see. 'Deal with addictive design', in this case. We've had 'Deal with the zillion different connectors on cell phones' in the past. It is now up to the industry to do this, in whatever way they see fit. If this happens, no law will be written. However, if the industry doesn't deal with it adequately, Laws will Follow, and the industry will not like them.

European companies know this pattern, and tend to get the hint. US companies tend to try and maximize what they can get while claiming there is no law against it, then go very pikachu-faced when the consequences hit them.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#589

Post by onion2k »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #585
bruce511 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

In a lot of countries in the EU, advertising for tobaco products, prescription medication, lawyer/docts are prohibited. That ban has been working quite well for decades.

This is true, but it's worth adding that there are no blog posts about those things either, or articles, discussions, etc except in very limited niche places dedicated to talking about them.

If there was a ban on 'internet advertising of anything' then it would basically kill all discussion of any products on the internet.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#590

Post by alpaca128 »

brabel wrote: post #551
bruce511 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. That's a definition, sure. I feel like it leaves loopholes (under this definition spam isn't advertising, and I guess affiliation programs are?) If I pay someone to print flyers is that advertising? If I pay squarespace for my site, is that advertising? What if I need a Google maps subscription to place pins? Is placing a pin then advertising? Even…

What are you trying to say, that it's impossible to define anything legally without edge cases?? That's bullocks. > If I pay someone to print flyers is that advertising? What the hell, we're talking about internet... you can't put printed flyers on the internet. > If I pay squarespace for my site, is that advertising? No. It's your site, not a third-party site promoting your site! > What if I need a Google maps subsc…

>> And all existing videos with sponsorship need yo be removed?

> Yes, or re-uploaded without the sponsor segment

I hope not. For one that would hit retroactively, but also it would cause a huge loss of valuable content from platforms like YouTube as countless videos with sponsor segments are actually interesting and simply too much to reupload, if the uploader is even active still.

Post reply on HN