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The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

politico.eu

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Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#591

Post by mattlutze »

Frannky wrote: post #488

It's interesting how there may be an implicit assumption that imposing more rules on tech will lead to positive outcomes. From my perspective, technology is like reality itself: very difficult to control, with countless ways to achieve the desired result while circumventing the rules. And what's the actual result? Just look at the market capitalization of European companies compared to US companies... Or maybe it jus…

The regulatory frameworks in the EU are intentionally not designed like the US, to maximize company profits over e.g. human rights and health.

It is thoroughly documented that social media and the modern web are designed to be addictive, by psychologists who specialize in this. We regulate access to other addictive things, because addictive things break humans' normal control systems.

> "the farther you get from the influence of bureaucrats, the happier life becomes"

only when things are "normal" and if you're a default power-holder in a community. For everyone else, really no.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#592

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#593

Post by bigfudge »

nkmnz wrote: post #479
gpm wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we have a right to a business model. Either you figure one out for your particular site (selling access to the website, donations, etc) or you don't and stop and either is ok.

Tell this your local sports club that needs a new set of shirts.

Nobody is talking about banning ads on sports shirts.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#594

Post by littlecranky67 »

onion2k wrote: post #589
littlecranky67 wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It wouldn't, we in Germany have clear laws when you have to mark something in media as "advertisment" - it is whenever you received a "reward" in order to talk about something, you have to mark it. A reward is already when you receive a product for free, or get reimbursed for travel cost etc. It is clearly definable. Yes, we will never reach 100% success rate, but 95% is already a big step.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#595

Post by bigfudge »

presentation wrote: post #387
MBCook wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing wrong with macro payments either. Five dollars a month to subscribe or whatever. If people get the value out of it, you can get them to pay it.

Half of the people on this site think that subscriptions are evil too, though.

Normally that’s for software and it’s borne of irritation with enshittification and rent extraction from software that was previously free from that. SAAS is a risk if you invest time and energy in developing expertise in it. Lots of us have been burned many times in this way, and for me it’s one of the primary reasons I prefer open source software, beyond any purist gnu type arguments or anticapitlist sentiment.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#596

Post by mattlutze »

shevy-java wrote: post #556

Personally I don't like infinite scrolling - but the EU also needs to stop wasting time and energy on trying to micro-manage everything. We already had that disaster where pop-ups fly out "do you want to accept those cookies". That is just a usability nightmare. People are forced into extensions, just to stop wasting their time here. Also, while I dislike infinite scrolling, why should the EU regulate the design of a…

"People are forced into extensions, just to stop wasting their time here."

Except, what actually has happened is that the annoying pop-ups became ubiquitous, and then relatively standardized, so that now an extension like Consent-o-Matic (because the browser companies don't want to upset their advertisers) can automate away your actual choices.

If you want to allow websites to track you, tell the extension to make those choices. If you don't, then tell the extension that. It does a great job almost instantly clearing the popups, and you have more control over your digital identity.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#598

Post by xigoi »

dahart wrote: post #478
stingraycharles wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising. Regular booking.com is fine. Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not. Regular Google Maps to register your restaurant is fine. Paying Google Maps to promote your restaurant is not. It’s not that hard to implement. Advertising is pretty well defined.

Promotion of anything at all is advertising, with or without compensation. The word advertising is pretty well defined, and the dictionary definitions don’t usually mention compensation, e.g. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advertise . An example I’m sure you would consider advertising - consider Google advertising Google Fiber in Google search results, or Facebook advertising business services on Facebook…

Alright, if you want to be pedantic abuot the definition, then ban compensated advertising.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#599

Post by bojan »

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…

For Discord the regulation is just an excuse to gather as much personal information as possible: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/oh-good-discords-...

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#600

Post by mattlutze »

mcny wrote: post #6
peterisza wrote: post #2

They should move to kill the cookie popup

You don't have to have a cookie popup if you don't do stupid stuff. Don't use anything other than strictly necessary cookies and you are good to go. Disclaimer: I anal and this is not legal advice.

You only start to need the popups if you specifically put cookies on a visitor's browser to build a personal profile of them.

This can be for e.g. sales acquisition or marketing engagement, but also includes cookies to simplify login, so not everything is "stupid stuff." A cookie that stores "was here, skip the splash page" may already fall afowl, if you put any session metadata in it.

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