Forcing social media apps to have a less addictive design is a much better way to protect young people's brains than a social media age limit is (and frankly adults need help here too).
Social media, even before the era of dark patterns and 'engagement' maximization was still extremely addictive. It just had a less pronounced effect in large part because fewer people were using it. For instance there was a time when Facebook was university only and invite only.
And this is all for people that are of the 'legal age' so to speak using it. For kids, who are going to be even more insecure, have more ongoing brain development, and such - I think the idea of creating a non-addictive or non-harmful social media is basically a nonstarter. The same is true of use by adults as well, but we generally are more accepting of adults' right to engage in self destructive behaviors.
it isn't about avoiding all harm as sociallity itself is harmful, it's about software not hijacking/exploiting our cognition especially in times when this would mess with our development
I am with you and wish you were right, but good luck forcing Meta to change the key dark design patterns of their products (correctly identified by the regulators as "highly personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll")
This is a step in the right direction, though. It will be a long journey.
When I was a kid there were fines for factories that polluted water. Most of the time they were not found out, and when they did they just paid the fine that it was cheaper than to solve the problem.
Regulations changed, factories that polluted water got closed until they fixed the problem. Most factory owners fear the regulation, they are extremely pro-active to avoid breaking the law because the consequences are not worth it. (This trend reversed a decade ago when punishments started to be less harsh and government became more pro-business using the euphemism for corrupt)
It is possible to reign in Meta. Parents should be angry enough to bring governments down for letting tech treat their children as products. When citizens are angry change happens and becomes unavoidable.
Forcing alcoholic drinks to have a less addictive product is a much better way to protect young people’s brains than an alcohol age limit is (and frankly adults need help there too).
Yes, that would help. Putting regulatory caps on the strength of alcoholic drinks would probably go a long way towards reducing harm across all of society.
Of course there will be bootleggers, but the benefits would probably outweigh any of the incidental drawbacks.
And I say this as someone who drinks. I would be fine with regulation like this and making a sacrifice of something small I enjoy if it meant greater good across society.
Where, exactly? I browsed through the account settings and didn't see anything obviously relevant. (Could be that whatever option you're talking about is available only to mobile users, whereas I only ever visit Instagram on a desktop.)
Online advertisements should be forbidden as a whole. The attention-stealing and engagement-maximising internet with all it horribly effects only exist, due to advertising. And we know that the world without online ads is perfectly possible and livable, since we all lived through 1996.
MEPs want to write rules that mean they get to fine rich US companies. Local advertising might be worse for you overall but you'd have to do more work to get less free money.
This is the same EU commission pushing chat control and VPN bans and passports to access the internet. Which people on HN hate.
Yet, when they couch authoritarian action under the premise of a popular moral panic, suddenly the reaction here is “tie us up and tell us what we’re allowed to see daddy.”
I really don’t get it. Do you not see how cheering on this social media moral panic and inflating the idea of a big tech “boogieman” leads to emboldening them to do the much worse authoritarian surveillance state thing? I guess this is the inherent contradiction of left-leaning internet spaces.
We want privacy and freedom personally but as self-styled members of the urban elite we unironically believe everyone else is dumber than us. So we don’t want other people to have freedom over what they do and read.
This is just boiling the frog slowly. The DSA will first get them to change the algorithm to "protect the kids" and years later it will get them to change the algorithm to push state propaganda and ban all hateful speech, which will be anyone who complains about the state and its rulers.
They're playing the long game. First with the carrot, then with the stick, but the end goal is state tyranny, and control over tech platforms is one of the means.
They saw what China managed to achieve with their internet censorship and ID control, and they want exactly that, but with a blue coat of paint sprinkled with yellow stars, and pushing child safety up front is a easy way for the public to be onboard with this capture.
This is welcome news but I have several friends, family members, or acquaintances that are addicted to social media and have to take psychiatric medication for it. The trouble is, and I'm not sure if the algorithm incentivizes it, but they don't take their pills. They don't even take multivitamins because of whatever idiotic misinformation they're being fed. It becomes a positive feedback loop and anything I and other people try to break it always fails and it feels like social media wants to keep it that way. This is much worse than they're telling us about.
> are addicted to social media and have to take psychiatric medication for it.
I’m sorry but this is just not real.
There’s not a single non-quack doctor who will recommend psychiatric medication for “social media addiction,” which is not a real thing and pretty much all of the recent academic literature proves as much.
If your doctor is suggesting medication for social media use, you either have much deeper underlying mental health issues, or you need to find a new doctor ASAP and report them for malpractice.
Nothing was ever said about the addictive design of mainstream TV - because then the rulers controlled the message being streamed into the brains of the population.
It is precisely on Facebook and Instagram where you find the only popular movements against the current order in Europe, and the citizen journalists who expose and scrutinize the powers. It's a giant political threat towards those in power.
So, how do we keep the good parts and get rid of the bad parts of the free flow of information on social media, where all citizens are invited to broadcast?
Is this really the way we’re wired after thousands of years of evolution? Even the word broadcast implies something very one way. Pre social media it was very normal to “broadcast” by discussing ideas with friends, family and neighbours, face to face in a civil manner. Good ideas gained traction gradually, bad ideas didn’t get traction because the extremists were too far apart. A nice natural protection against extremes.
And Meta have made their social media platforms anti-social. Once upon a time, Facebook was primarily a place to keep up with your friends. But now it's trying to divert you away from people you actually know and instead try to make you consume an endless feed of slop.
(A similar thing has happened to X-formerly-Twitter, tragically. Musk and Bier are systematically destroying the usefulness of the site as a social platform.)
I really wonder where this idea that the world was less polarized before social media is coming from. It's not even 100 years ago that we had some of the most extreme ideologies in history taking hold all over both Europe and the USA (fascism, socialism, and others). People literally went to war over these things. Another ~100 years before that, French people were cutting off the heads of their ruling class, and setting prisoners free.
If anything, social media has inspired far too much passivity in our societies. People feel relieved that they could vent their frustrations online, instead of taking to the streets and seriously threatening some of the power of those putting them down.
Also, a big part of why the elites of society dislike social media is the huge democratizing effect that it has had on information. Of course, not so much in the more authoritarian societies where our leaders were hoping for this effect, but in their own backyards. The biggest example of this by far is the information about the Gaza genocide - that is presented at best equivocally in the mainstream press (with some exceptions like The Guardian), but that was clearly visible on TikTok and other social media. This led to perhaps the single largest policy conflict between the vast majority of the population and the vast majority of government elites in the current day EU.
> Is this really the way we’re wired after thousands of years of evolution?
No, and we're certainly not wired to have TV or radio being broadcasted in our homes - or sitting still and silent on a bench for the most of our childhoods having to listen to some screeching fool having their weekly psychotic fit.
There will never in history be anything more extreme than the government broadcasts, urging young people to go and die in hopeless wars in the most painful and pointless ways we can think of. Whether that's a screeching priest in the pulpit, a psychotic school teacher, some demon at the radio microphone, or reptilians in the TV studio.
I agree with your points, but also think you're jumping over an elephant if you compare pre-broadcast days with today, while ignoring the decades of non-social broadcast we had before Facebook and Instagram and such.
Atomization is a fact, and the best road out of it might be to connect with other like minded people wherever they are, but it seems that the Internet hasn't lived up to this promise. Why? What have we done wrong?
I don't follow, the argument is against the addictive design of the feed algorithms, not the information being shared per se.
Nothing in this is geared towards curtailing platforms like social media to exist, it's trying to curtail the design of psychological manipulation for "engagement". Ragebait is the most common case, it makes people interact with content if it enrages them; another common case is to feed kids with slop content that makes them fixated on the platform, scrolling endlessly trying to get the elusive dopamine hit quite similar to the feeling of playing a slot machine.
I think framing this as the EU trying to censor platforms because people post content against the current order is a big cynical leap. I can't see how these platforms' current practices need to be defended, what is your reason for doing that? Maybe you have ulterior motives as well?
Tell me exactly what you mean by "ragebait". Shouldn't things that make people angry be reported on? Should they be swept under the rug? I'm kind of tired of hearing this word being used, without a good explanation.
Regarding kids, they shouldn't have uncontrolled access to the Internet, and that's a parenting problem. Just like a parent letting their kid drive their car or drink his whiskey.
> I can't see how these platforms' current practices need to be defended, what is your reason for doing that?
Some of their practices are good, some are bad. People addicted to TV have existed for decades. It's been a trope forever, the old lady spending her day glued to the TV. Hundreds of millions of people live like this even currently. And just like most people today are a little bit addicted to social media, everybody was a little bit addicted to TV. The evening news broadcast was a very important part of their day.
So yes, I think the reason why the people in power are more interested in throttling social media than traditional media - even though they both share the same addiction problem - is because the people in power have much less control over it than they did with traditional media.
As for ulterior motives, this is Hacker News, so I fully expect you to believe that I'm secretly a Russian spy, Iranian drone operator, AI bot, Mark Zuckerberg, neo-nazi, scientologist, jew, Elon Musk and bio-lab operator.
> Nothing was ever said about the addictive design of mainstream TV - because then the rulers controlled the message being streamed into the brains of the population.
More outlandish conspiracy theories on hackernews...
You are in fact wrong - see the myriad of rules advertising, especially what can be advertised on children's TV.
What messages are not being allowed to be 'streamed into the brains of the population' exactly? Are you suggesting, for example, that claims made by the US president should not be shown on TV? Are you suggesting that these are not then analysed and scrutinised by people on TV?
Speaking from the UK, the state controls the media.
There are rules that a few select channels like BBC have to be prominently placed (I.e. Channel 1-4 reserved for them) which means any rival News service is disadvantaged.
And presently they are passing new laws to force Youtube and similar to change algorithm's to also make certain UK content providers prominent.
UK Media know what they can and cannot talk about- for example Judicial Corruption.
I'd say: the fediverse. Everyone can "broadcast" and discuss freely without having a central power that can censor or subtly manipulate the broader discussion.
Edit: for some reason, the URL has been changed. The page I tried to post is here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...
Alas, it all must have gotten scrapped for a llama workflow.
Website is worse than 15 years ago (code AND contents).
And this is all for people that are of the 'legal age' so to speak using it. For kids, who are going to be even more insecure, have more ongoing brain development, and such - I think the idea of creating a non-addictive or non-harmful social media is basically a nonstarter. The same is true of use by adults as well, but we generally are more accepting of adults' right to engage in self destructive behaviors.
This is a step in the right direction, though. It will be a long journey.
When I was a kid there were fines for factories that polluted water. Most of the time they were not found out, and when they did they just paid the fine that it was cheaper than to solve the problem.
Regulations changed, factories that polluted water got closed until they fixed the problem. Most factory owners fear the regulation, they are extremely pro-active to avoid breaking the law because the consequences are not worth it. (This trend reversed a decade ago when punishments started to be less harsh and government became more pro-business using the euphemism for corrupt)
It is possible to reign in Meta. Parents should be angry enough to bring governments down for letting tech treat their children as products. When citizens are angry change happens and becomes unavoidable.
Of course there will be bootleggers, but the benefits would probably outweigh any of the incidental drawbacks.
And I say this as someone who drinks. I would be fine with regulation like this and making a sacrifice of something small I enjoy if it meant greater good across society.
NA beer now exists. Beer and wine places can’t sell liquor. Alcohol sales aren’t 24/7 in many places.
Not sure if it's also in FB on account of me not having an account there.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382310867_Methods_o...
Yet, when they couch authoritarian action under the premise of a popular moral panic, suddenly the reaction here is “tie us up and tell us what we’re allowed to see daddy.”
I really don’t get it. Do you not see how cheering on this social media moral panic and inflating the idea of a big tech “boogieman” leads to emboldening them to do the much worse authoritarian surveillance state thing? I guess this is the inherent contradiction of left-leaning internet spaces.
We want privacy and freedom personally but as self-styled members of the urban elite we unironically believe everyone else is dumber than us. So we don’t want other people to have freedom over what they do and read.
They're playing the long game. First with the carrot, then with the stick, but the end goal is state tyranny, and control over tech platforms is one of the means.
They saw what China managed to achieve with their internet censorship and ID control, and they want exactly that, but with a blue coat of paint sprinkled with yellow stars, and pushing child safety up front is a easy way for the public to be onboard with this capture.
I’m sorry but this is just not real.
There’s not a single non-quack doctor who will recommend psychiatric medication for “social media addiction,” which is not a real thing and pretty much all of the recent academic literature proves as much.
If your doctor is suggesting medication for social media use, you either have much deeper underlying mental health issues, or you need to find a new doctor ASAP and report them for malpractice.
And compulsive behaviour is definitely something that medication can help with.
It is precisely on Facebook and Instagram where you find the only popular movements against the current order in Europe, and the citizen journalists who expose and scrutinize the powers. It's a giant political threat towards those in power.
So, how do we keep the good parts and get rid of the bad parts of the free flow of information on social media, where all citizens are invited to broadcast?
Is this really the way we’re wired after thousands of years of evolution? Even the word broadcast implies something very one way. Pre social media it was very normal to “broadcast” by discussing ideas with friends, family and neighbours, face to face in a civil manner. Good ideas gained traction gradually, bad ideas didn’t get traction because the extremists were too far apart. A nice natural protection against extremes.
(A similar thing has happened to X-formerly-Twitter, tragically. Musk and Bier are systematically destroying the usefulness of the site as a social platform.)
If anything, social media has inspired far too much passivity in our societies. People feel relieved that they could vent their frustrations online, instead of taking to the streets and seriously threatening some of the power of those putting them down.
Also, a big part of why the elites of society dislike social media is the huge democratizing effect that it has had on information. Of course, not so much in the more authoritarian societies where our leaders were hoping for this effect, but in their own backyards. The biggest example of this by far is the information about the Gaza genocide - that is presented at best equivocally in the mainstream press (with some exceptions like The Guardian), but that was clearly visible on TikTok and other social media. This led to perhaps the single largest policy conflict between the vast majority of the population and the vast majority of government elites in the current day EU.
No, and we're certainly not wired to have TV or radio being broadcasted in our homes - or sitting still and silent on a bench for the most of our childhoods having to listen to some screeching fool having their weekly psychotic fit.
There will never in history be anything more extreme than the government broadcasts, urging young people to go and die in hopeless wars in the most painful and pointless ways we can think of. Whether that's a screeching priest in the pulpit, a psychotic school teacher, some demon at the radio microphone, or reptilians in the TV studio.
I agree with your points, but also think you're jumping over an elephant if you compare pre-broadcast days with today, while ignoring the decades of non-social broadcast we had before Facebook and Instagram and such.
Atomization is a fact, and the best road out of it might be to connect with other like minded people wherever they are, but it seems that the Internet hasn't lived up to this promise. Why? What have we done wrong?
Nothing in this is geared towards curtailing platforms like social media to exist, it's trying to curtail the design of psychological manipulation for "engagement". Ragebait is the most common case, it makes people interact with content if it enrages them; another common case is to feed kids with slop content that makes them fixated on the platform, scrolling endlessly trying to get the elusive dopamine hit quite similar to the feeling of playing a slot machine.
I think framing this as the EU trying to censor platforms because people post content against the current order is a big cynical leap. I can't see how these platforms' current practices need to be defended, what is your reason for doing that? Maybe you have ulterior motives as well?
Tell me exactly what you mean by "ragebait". Shouldn't things that make people angry be reported on? Should they be swept under the rug? I'm kind of tired of hearing this word being used, without a good explanation.
Regarding kids, they shouldn't have uncontrolled access to the Internet, and that's a parenting problem. Just like a parent letting their kid drive their car or drink his whiskey.
> I can't see how these platforms' current practices need to be defended, what is your reason for doing that?
Some of their practices are good, some are bad. People addicted to TV have existed for decades. It's been a trope forever, the old lady spending her day glued to the TV. Hundreds of millions of people live like this even currently. And just like most people today are a little bit addicted to social media, everybody was a little bit addicted to TV. The evening news broadcast was a very important part of their day.
So yes, I think the reason why the people in power are more interested in throttling social media than traditional media - even though they both share the same addiction problem - is because the people in power have much less control over it than they did with traditional media.
As for ulterior motives, this is Hacker News, so I fully expect you to believe that I'm secretly a Russian spy, Iranian drone operator, AI bot, Mark Zuckerberg, neo-nazi, scientologist, jew, Elon Musk and bio-lab operator.
More outlandish conspiracy theories on hackernews...
You are in fact wrong - see the myriad of rules advertising, especially what can be advertised on children's TV.
What messages are not being allowed to be 'streamed into the brains of the population' exactly? Are you suggesting, for example, that claims made by the US president should not be shown on TV? Are you suggesting that these are not then analysed and scrutinised by people on TV?
There are rules that a few select channels like BBC have to be prominently placed (I.e. Channel 1-4 reserved for them) which means any rival News service is disadvantaged.
And presently they are passing new laws to force Youtube and similar to change algorithm's to also make certain UK content providers prominent.
UK Media know what they can and cannot talk about- for example Judicial Corruption.