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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

#711
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation took away your freedom when it took asbestos out of your house right? Please be serious.

Viewing this thread, and the back and forth of it, I need to say something. Advertising sucks in this thread too. By that I mean, people are not speaking plainly, and it is almost ingrained into our societies now. We "sell" our position in a discussion, a debate. For example, regulation does curtail freedom. Completely. However, lack of regulation can harm people. Significantly. Thus, regulation does not give people…

>Thus, regulation does not give people more freedom, it can however reduce harm.

If there were no regulation against someone picking you up off the street and chaining you up in their basement, they would be more free in this scenario and you would be less free. You might be able to say regulation can curtail freedom and at the same time increase freedom.

>An illegal alien is just that, and using that term confers no judgement, for it is simply fact.

Well, it also has a connotation just like the other words. "Illegal" and "alien" both evoke meaning that goes beyond the specific condition, and that phrase was generally the predecessor of "criminals" in this example. Those who use different terms are also incentivized to convince others that their chosen word is the one that is most "simply fact" and not "touchy feely" language.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#712

Swiping is addictive, but touching a button for the next page is not. One is arbitrarily banned by unelected bureaucrats. The other is fine. We blame social companies for failing to raise our children the way we think they should.

Infinitief scrolling is only mentioned in the title. The actual legislation focuses on addictive patterns of which infinite scroll is just one. The exact formulation will of course matter a lot, but it will not simply be banning infinite scroll, as that would be trivial to circumvent.

Fair point, but such regulatory ambiguity in the U.S. would likely be unconstitutionally vague:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagueness_doctrine#Unconstitut...

The article reads as if the EC chose one or a few apps that they didn't like, and then wrote a regulation based on that app's key features.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#713
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…

I remember the GDPRpocalypse which had a lot of Americans up in arms because of the wildly different approach to lawmaking that the EU has. Everyone on the US side was screaming for a checklist they could implement, and assumed they would get maximum penalties if they didn't cross every t and dot every i. But it just doesn't work like that, EU laws are generally not very procedural , they are a lot more about intent…

GDPR is in the process of being unwound by the EU as it has been an unmitigated disaster.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#714

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…

Tiktok will never have any competitors after this law comes into force. They will have the resources the implement the require changes, and the customer base will remain with them. Anyone starting a new service will have a tough time building something that jumps through all the hoops required by the EU, on top of the usual problems with network effects.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ads are speech. No, they are not. People have been brainwashed and legal systems have been paid and bought for to consider them as such, just like corporations have been whitewashed to be treated as "persons". In any case, we regulate all other kinds of speech as well: explicit content, libel, classified information, cigarette ads, and so on.

Let's start there. Corporations being persons is a legal fiction to allow them to consolidate capital. Giving that fictional person human rights is abhorrent to humans. It is a crime against humans. It degrades us.

No, it just ensures that humans acting through such legal fiction have the same rights as humans acting directly.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#716
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we come to such a low cultural point that ads are seen as some kind of basic human right? Fuck ads. What's absurd is tolerating them and the damage they do to media, consumers, kids, lesser and/or more honest businesses, culture, products, and so on all the way to the Windows and macOS system UIs.

I work in ads... :-/

I mean, someone got paid for driving trucks dumping toxic waste in the river. I would support policies that ensure you don't lose access to healthcare or suffer in deep poverty from losing a job, but I'm not sympathetic to perpetuating such waste and harm on the basis of "it creates jobs".

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#717
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, continue that "etc"... Its been 30 years and no one has been able to continue that "etc".

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)...

I agree that there will always be people who believe the Internet peaked in 1996.

But I also agree it's when <1% of people where online, and it's never going back to that.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's start there. Corporations being persons is a legal fiction to allow them to consolidate capital. Giving that fictional person human rights is abhorrent to humans. It is a crime against humans. It degrades us.

No, it just ensures that humans acting through such legal fiction have the same rights as humans acting directly.

While granting them protections against legal liability for the things that they do in the name of such an entity.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oooooof. Can I recommend you spend some time developing some empathy? The world is complicated. People's lives are complicated (and often meditated by their phones). People's emotional and social wellbeing is complicated, and simply ghosting all your social groups on a random Tuesday is likely to cause significant problems.

> People's emotional and social wellbeing is complicated, and simply ghosting all your social groups on a random Tuesday is likely to cause significant problems. You are in a great place in your life, if your most significant problem is caused by not liking a stupid meme and a breakfast photo your friends posted on a random Tuesday...

> You are in a great place in your life, if your most significant problem is caused by not liking a stupid meme and a breakfast photo your friends posted on a random Tuesday...

Or you’re in a terrible place in your life, and the small endorphin release from liking stupid memes and breakfast photos is how you try and escape from terrible things that haunt you day-to-day.

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