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Comment by gitaarik | Hacker News Reader

Of course people think of solving this problem again by constraining the consumer, instead of the producer.

What we should do is make rules for social media platforms to disallow them to develop algorithms that make people addicted. You might think how do you define that, but the companies have already made a whole science out of it so it's not that abstract anymore. It would sure be an elaborate task and will surely result in a cat and mouse game, but at least the issue would be taken seriously and people will understand better that engaging with these platforms that try to push the edges is playing with fire.

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> You might think how do you define that, but the companies have already made a whole science out of it so it's not that abstract anymore

Hardly. Addictiveness does not exist in binary. There are many people who obsessively check their email or refresh news websites. There is no doubt that social media companies choose the algorithms that maximize engagement and so most probably they also maximize addiction, but _any_ algorithm will cause addiction to some extent. What's the limit? How do we even measure this?

Something that is maybe a little more interesting is banning the practice of recommending "negative content" because it produces more engagement than "positive content". How this is defined is also somewhat squishy, but we can at least try to define it -- content that is likely to provoke negative emotions, like anger, fear, aggression, etc.

I think there's a much clearer through-line to argue that recommending negative content on social media produces a substantial negative externality, and that moves this into the category of things like environmental regulations.

I agree with you that a pos/neg divide is clearer and more straight forward to construct.

Reading your comment also evoked in me imaginations of political repression. Anger and fear are really important emotions signifying "this situation is not meeting my needs". Social Media can abuse these for profit probably precicely because they play this important role. In this light, a ban on recommending negative content seems really dangerous. Any content that expresses dissatisfaction with the political status quo is likely to contain some 'negative' (I suggest the term 'challenging') emotions.

So while 'addictiveness' is, like you say, really difficuly to measure - I prefer we try.

I’m fine with the deciding body being an independent, literate group (easier said than done) who observe allegedly addictive platforms and make judgements based on the spirit of the law. We don’t need to reduce this to some kind of automated decidability machine.

Absolutely this. It’s not about banning content - to a certain extend parents are responsible for what their kid has access to. In many cases proper education allows kids to self regulate and consume “adult” content appropriately with no harm. Unfortunately that’s not possible everywhere as many countries lack the resources and/or mentality to achieve this.

Regardless, dangerous content and services (just like dangerous substances) should be hard to make and very visibly marked, leaving no doubt about what it is and how it works. I love the EU’s notion of “algorithmic transparency” [0]. I would go a step further for systems attempting to increase engagement by exploiting behavioural sensitivities to be marked and even opt-in (think cigarette packaging).

[0] https://algorithmic-transparency.ec.europa.eu/index_en

The internet makes this really hard to enforce.

To sell drugs, cigarettes, alcohol etc, you need somebody to do the selling, and that person needs to be located wherever your customers are. If you break that place's laws, well, they probably have police who can put you in jail.

Social media is different, you can run a social media website targeted at Americans without ever stepping foot in the US, having a server in the US, having a business entity in the US etc. It's just some random Russian website, following Russian but not American laws, that some Americans like to visit. Sure, the US can try playing the cat-and-mouse game with you and force ISPs to block your site and all VPNs, proxies and TOR nodes that might presumably give customers access to it, but that's still a game one needs to play, and playing it isn't without consequences for the privacy and freedom of others, consequences most democratic governments aren't willing to bear.

Even if the government wins and somehow manages to block you completely, or put enough obstacles in your path that doing further business doesn't make sense, you still don't lose. You don't go to jail or face legal action, you just quit and focus on other countries instead.

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