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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

#641

Post by betteryet »

This stuff is important and can only happen at this level through legislation.

If you don't do it this way to apply for everyone, then any good actor products will be crushed by profitmaxxing competitors. Or any good actor executives and workers will be pushed out by profitmaxxing shareholders.

Legislators need to be careful to keep requirements tight and manageable, but it's better to limit negative externalities than outright ban something. Banning infinite scroll or any particular pattern is nonsense, but restricting addictive design (e.g. TikTok) and algorithm weaponization (e.g. TikTok) is very sensible.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#642

Post by dgellow »

geysersam wrote: post #612

I feel we can't make laws against the subject of moral panic every generation. People have felt the same way about the activities of youths since forever. But ultimately it often turns out fine. Change can bring new problems, but it also brings positives that are hard to understand and even formulate, that's culture. Trying to be the arbiter of that is foolish. Is ticktock addictive because of it's design, or is it a…

> Is ticktock addictive because of it's design

We have clear answers here. Yes it’s by design

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#643

Post by skeptic_ai »

gchamonlive wrote: post #225
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…

Infrastructure costs money. There's no way around it. I'm all up for banning ads. But there should be another viable business model to replace it.

Why not make Gov level. So any tax you pay goes to a company to maintain a social media etc.

But in reality is going to crap too as how you select the “right” company? If the company is owned by Gov then it will probably be worst than now.

Then it will be back to communism

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#644

Post by xg15 »

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…

Yes, but if we're talking about incentives and "primordial domino tiles" then compensated advertising is what createa the incentives for the whole attention economy and addictive design in the first place.

Feel free to keep doing "pro-bono" advertising, but shareholders definitely wouldn't.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#645

Post by tcfhgj »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #448
gpm wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they have. Off the top of my head examples include: Grants in the form of tax dollars (e.g. arxiv). To benefit the authors reputation (e.g. numerous scientists, developers, etc personal sites. zacklabe.com as a useful example). As a hobby (I think aiarena.net falls into this category). To collect data for research purposes (e.g. the original chatgpt release, and early recaptcha)...

What could possible go wrong with the government funding media? It’s not like they would take away funding for media that they don’t agree with.

Works quite well in germany

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#646

Post by xg15 »

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…

I think ad networks and tracking companies have a pretty good idea about what advertising is.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#648

Post by pnt12 »

betteryet wrote: post #641

This stuff is important and can only happen at this level through legislation. If you don't do it this way to apply for everyone, then any good actor products will be crushed by profitmaxxing competitors. Or any good actor executives and workers will be pushed out by profitmaxxing shareholders. Legislators need to be careful to keep requirements tight and manageable, but it's better to limit negative externalities th…

> then any good actor products will be crushed by profitmaxxing competitors

This is what I always say, and defended by many economists: The free market needs legislation and enforcement! Especially public companies, which are especially adamant to maximize shareholder profits at any cost.

Fee market only reacts in a positive way by default in matters that are clear to customers, eg pricing. But when the user isn't the customer, and the defects are not immediately sensed, winners will never do the good thing on their accord.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#649

Post by roysting »

stingraycharles wrote: post #460
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…

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.

You will just see the shift of the methods used in government corruption to circumvent such rules, e.g., your wife gets a wildly lucrative “book deal” right after you do something, and then when time has passed, you also get a “book deal” or are hired to speak at exorbitant fees or get hired in some BS position or are made a member of a board, or your children are hired as executives or even made board members.

The problem with the direct approach, i.e., “ban advertising”, is that it is hung up on a specific term, not the underlying dynamic/system. It’s fighting a symptom, not the disease/cause.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#650

Post by ThunderSizzle »

SecretDreams wrote: post #411
allan_s wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats too vague and drastic, every "show HN" is an ads, for notoriety at least. I would prefer we draw the line at "content pushed by a third party against payment must be displaid only with regard to where it is displaid and must not use information about to whom it is displaid" . I.e displaying an ads about Sentry on a ads technica page, find . Displaying an ads about hiking equipment on ars techbica because i made…

Nah, advertisement in general. Just make the internet a paid sub. We don't need influencers or snake oil ads. And without ads and influencers, there is no reason for meta to try to keep people infinitely stuck to their phones. They can get their cut just from a paid sub.

Every website would then become a snake oil salesman for buying their subscription.

It'd be like streaming today. Fragmented, expensive, and useless. And no one would like it.

Beyond that, websites would still need people to be addicted to justify the sub.

And furthermore, "sponsorships" will still occur behind the sub wall.

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