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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

#61

Post by batrat »

glimshe wrote: post #17

Maybe I don't get addicted easily, but after 30 minutes of forcing myself to watch tiktok, I just uninstalled it. Friends told me I didn't give it enough time to learn my tastes but... How could it, given that literally 100% of the videos in my interest areas were trash?

I did the same... even faster. I installed it, suggested me some local crap. I wanted ltt, mkbhd, etc. searched those 2, added them, after that first 2 videos were the same crap. uninstall. even youtube is better. It's so much content on youtube that It's impossible to watch it all in a lifetime even at 5x speed. And 10x better content.

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

#62

Post by mrkickling »

criddell wrote: post #43
lozenge wrote: post #5

I don't understand the legal side, but after gaining and kicking a Tiktok addiction during and after COVID, I believe it. I was there 4-8 hours a day and tried to scroll videos while washing dishes (and during nearly any other activity).

Is it worse than walking around 8 hours a day listening to music? Having headphones on while washing dishes and walking the dog? I think it is, but it's hard for me to articulate without getting into teleological judgments.

Similar, but at least headphones uses fewer of your senses

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

#64

Post by Retr0id »

walt_grata wrote: post #53
Retr0id wrote: post #51

The press release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... > At this stage, the Commission considers that TikTok needs to change the basic design of its service. For instance, by disabling key addictive features such as ‘infinite scroll' over time, implementing effective ‘screen time breaks', including during the night, and adapting its recommender system. Most of these seem concretely doable,…

Worse enough it isn't addictive. The goal is non-addictive, whatever changes to whatever part are necessary to hit that goal.

"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.

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

#67

Post by frantathefranta »

glimshe wrote: post #17

Maybe I don't get addicted easily, but after 30 minutes of forcing myself to watch tiktok, I just uninstalled it. Friends told me I didn't give it enough time to learn my tastes but... How could it, given that literally 100% of the videos in my interest areas were trash?

I'm in the same boat. I have a TikTok account so my wife and friends can send me videos (mostly cute dogs). It's funny when people probe why I don't use TikTok and they think it must be because I'm against the Chinese/Larry Ellison influence or other common reason. No, I just don't like the format.

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

#68

Post by Aurornis »

delichon wrote: post #59

I use X almost entirely from the desktop where I have an extension installed that lets me whitelist my follows, and see nothing else. I recently browsed the same feed on mobile ... and it was entirely different! I think I spent a half hour and saw zero content from my follows, just one ticktok style video after another. For those who find these services without value, I now understand. But I feel revolted rather than…

> I recently browsed the same feed on mobile ... and it was entirely different! I think I spent a half hour and saw zero content from my follows

At the top of the mobile app there’s a “For You” tab and a “Following” tab. You must have been on the “For You” tab.

Switch to the “Following” tab.

If you start scrolling the “For You” tab and do it for half an hour straight, you’re basically signaling that this the content you wanted to see and will continue getting more of it.

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

#69

Post by hutattedonmyarm »

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #60
llbbdd wrote: post #47

Idk how to feel about this specifically but I kind of hope they come for Duolingo next. They are up to some similar mind hacking shit to keep people from leaving. There's the downright abusive streak management tactics that have become a major part of their brand and PR, and the lesson plans seem designed to plateau to prevent you from actually getting proficient enough in a language to ever unsub. They reset your cl…

Funnily all of Duolingo's retention mechanisms (formemost streaks and leagues) have the exact opposite effect on me. I am only moderately encouraged by success and extremely discouraged by failure. That means keeping the streak up is stress for me and failing a streak leads to a big negative impact on my motivation for the failure and a positive reinforcement of not doing it because then the stress goes away and that…

This is precisely why I stopped using it

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

#70

Post by concats »

TikTok has a lot of issues, such as privacy, dubious content, 'brainrot', etc. I don't want to seem like I'm necessarily defending TikTok specifically here.

But this really just stinks of Regulatory Capture to me. Their main argument is that the consumers like to use the app too much?

Why? Because it's smarter and not as enshittified as the competitors?

I'm sure if youtube, facebook, reddit, etc reduced the number of ads, and started showing more relevant content that people actually cared about, they too would start being "more addictive". Do we really want to punish that?

What's the end goal here?

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