Regarding the rules surrounding fake information, I wonder why the be EU hasn't taken a similar stance against Fox News equivalencies?
Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
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Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#72A good start. However let's go further, simply ban personal tracking and personalized algorithmic feeds. This would combat the echo chamber effect and social media can become a broad community experience, like TV and newspapers. It would also cripple tech advertising revenues, thus redressing the balance with traditional media.
I think it's fair to use personal data collected on the same site. Without it, most sites would be rendered useless.
Indeed - that would be a legitimate use of cookies etc. In fact, if that were enforced, we can get rid of the annoying cookie warnings.
Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#73A good start. However let's go further, simply ban personal tracking and personalized algorithmic feeds. This would combat the echo chamber effect and social media can become a broad community experience, like TV and newspapers. It would also cripple tech advertising revenues, thus redressing the balance with traditional media.
I don't think people should be forced into the public square by law. If you want to live in an echo chamber, you should be able to. We don't forcibly close convents. If I want to choose the "Smart Feed™, although I can choose not to, that should be my choice to make. I don't know TikTok, but people seem to like its choices.
I think the distinction is that generally it should be a conscious choice to be in the echo chamber - and not the easy unknowing default choice (if you even have a choice) for smart feeds.
Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#74A good start. However let's go further, simply ban personal tracking and personalized algorithmic feeds. This would combat the echo chamber effect and social media can become a broad community experience, like TV and newspapers. It would also cripple tech advertising revenues, thus redressing the balance with traditional media.
How does a ban on personalized algorithmic feeds work if each user is subscribed to a different set of others?
"news from friends" might be ok if it is presented without algorithmic curation - i.e. strictly on time order or similar.
Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve seen the difference between what YouTube presents to me when I’m logged in v.s. when I’m on a clean computer it can’t associate with me, and I do value the personalisation — when not logged in it shows me a hundred duds for every one thing I care about, and logged in it’s about 50:50. How much of this improvement is a mysterious machine learning algorithm and how much is it just looking for new things from my su…
> I’m not sure, and that’s important: being trapped in a torrent of self-reinforcing falsehoods is something I fell for in my teenage-goth-New-Age phase, which Carl Sagen condemned in The Demon-Haunted World. Genuinely curious here: how can you tell you've escaped one set of self-reinforcing falsehoods while being sure you haven't fallen into another, different set?
You can’t be certain of not falling into a different set of false beliefs, but you can look for inconsistencies in your beliefs and be less and less wrong.
Spotting inconsistencies in my beliefs is what pushed me out of New Age mode, and ironically what pushed me into it in the first place (from Catholicism).
Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
The requirement of "subscribe is as easy as unsubscribe" is a metric which you could argue about in court, but would be very hard to game. i.e. if signup is "email and credit card number" then you're going to be hard pressed to explain why a similar option to cancel does not exist and isn't accessible in as many clicks, with equivalent screen real-estate usage.
> i.e. if signup is "email and credit card number" then you're going to be hard pressed to explain why a similar option to cancel does not exist So you argue that to cancel a subscription, you should have to provide your credit card number again. If a check on the credit card fails for some obscure reason, you cannot cancel your subscription. This is what "subscribe is as easy as unsubscribe" also means.
I mean, that is precisely the court’s job to interpret the law. Your take is just a deliberately twisted one, it wouldn’t stand a chance in a court setting the same way as a willful offense can’t be defined that precisely, yet there is generally no problem with it.
Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#77I am curious how would they "explain" AI algorithms where it is impossible to explain how / why the decision has been made.
Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#78> “Dark patterns” — confusing or deceptive user interfaces designed to steer users into making certain choices — will be prohibited. The EU says that, as a rule, cancelling subscriptions should be as easy as signing up for them. This is an excellent addition.
Sounds extremely subjective. How do you measure it and where do you draw the line? All marketing is somewhat coercive.
How do you get economic and business growth (things which are good for people - jobs and employment) without marketing and advertising?
Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#79> “Dark patterns” — confusing or deceptive user interfaces designed to steer users into making certain choices — will be prohibited. The EU says that, as a rule, cancelling subscriptions should be as easy as signing up for them. This is an excellent addition.
Sounds extremely subjective. How do you measure it and where do you draw the line? All marketing is somewhat coercive. How do you get economic and business growth (things which are good for people - jobs and employment) without marketing and advertising?
It's objective its just very widespread. Amazon is probably the greatest offender, but most of the platforms and BigTech is just dark patterns all the way down.
Re: Google, Meta, others will have to explain algorithms under new EU legislation
#80Regarding the rules surrounding fake information, I wonder why the be EU hasn't taken a similar stance against Fox News equivalencies?
Because we wouldn't have any media whatsoever to consume.