I saw Mark Cuban advocating for any platform which shows content to children to be required to publish their algorithm. IMO it is the most logical approach to the entire discussion.
So they also have to give up all their user data?
Meaning if I record my own inputs, I should be able to recreate the suggestions I see using the published software. This doesn't mean the inputs of other users are exposed to me, but it does imply that "the algorithm" can only use data that is either publicly exposed or is my own inputs.
All that would be very hard/impossible to recreate in order to test the algorithm.
That seems pretty restricting given that even the most basic recommendation would try to cluster users based on interests and use that to recommend stuff (eg. Amazon's "customers who viewed this item also bought..." from decades ago).
To make things worse, for 99% of people things might look normal but for 1% it may show a large skew. The net can have memorized this.
Obviously, this becomes an arms race. The usual strategy is to add random checks, friction to contribution and severe-enough punishments for offenders (lifetime RL bans, etc.)
Expert opinions welcome - I'm a tourist.
In whatever form it takes such that a regulator can scrutinise it. If that seems arduous or impacts the social media business model, too bad. Nothing of value will have been lost. I am not typically a person who favours over regulation, even my views on AI are likely too liberal for HN, but on the matter of social media impacting children, I'm all in for regulation.
Enough researchers, at enough institutions with sufficiently diverse motives, that if multiple of them identify a problem and agree about it, Joe can make a reasonably confident assessment that there's probably something there.
They will make less ad money and engagement will go down because we won't be training children to become 5 second scrollers, but this doesn't seem like an issue to me.
How would new content discovery happen in your proposed world?
Content discovery was word of mouth or a separate page dedicated to popular stuff.
There is no sarcasm; does anyone genuinely only browse sites like hackernews by viewing the 'new' page? That is what the comment is advocating, that the only view should be the new page, with submissions listed by post date only.
If discovery is by a separate page dedicated to popular stuff, how is that any better? Whatever 'algorithm' is used to create that page would have the same problems that people are complaining about; why would putting it on a different page change anything? That is sort of how things are currently; you can view a feed by 'latest first' or by the 'algorithm'. You can choose either one, but most people prefer the algorithm version because it curates.
People WANT curation. You can argue with the particular type of curation, but I think the concept itself is pretty universally desired.
Look at Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, I believe there is a desire for a less algorithmic approach on those sites, hence all the uproar about the algorithms and shadow banning. Reverse chronological ordering from people you follow was the standard before, and a feature before revenue mattered as much. You curated your own feed by following people, not by a black box
> Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks.
Hacknews is one virtual community. The whole point of visiting the site is to aggregate content and read and make comments about that content.
Reddit and slashdot are also both social media sites.
An ad hominem attack doesn't seem necessary to prove your point (speaking as someone who actually is old enough to remember).
There are definitely people in the tech field who have only (or mostly) experienced algorithmic based feeds.
Also a part of HN's "algorithm" is literally the mods manually adjusting things, and you can't publish that.
> How would new content discovery happen in your proposed world?
Seconding other posts—entirely fine, like it did before that kind of garbage.
If there's a need to provably ensure kids are not being influenced by algorithm, I think my solution works. Making social media less engaging for children is something I'm fine with. Adults can have whatever experience they want.
If you publish your algorithm, you are giving interested parties the instruction manual on how to game it; spammers and propagandists can use that algorithm to make sure their content gets to the top.
Letting people see into it could make it easier for people to learn how to game the system but it could also make the system harder to game in the first place.
The engagement ranking done to keep you hooked is probably not that interesting.
X/Twitter does now publish their algorithm, and it hasn't made it any less of a shithole.