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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

There really seems to be no reason whatsoever these protections shouldn't be extended to people over 18. You don't have to check ages that way and the feature has to be there regardless. Also the "after midnight" rule is silly — not bad, just silly. Otherwise good law. A law to "protect the kids" that's actually good? Unheard of.

I wonder how sites will handle content discovery that doesn't run afoul of the law. Like completely seriously Discover Weekly on Spotify sounds like it will have to be age gated since Spotify is technically a social network.

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For adults, a better solution is to give users more active controls over the feed and its addictive elements. For example, the ability to remove kinds of content (“not interested”), put hard limits on minutes per day (Screen Time), hide Like counts, reduce notifications etc. Lots of other ideas have been proposed for putting users in control of their feeds and limiting dark patterns that promote addiction. If we’re regulating, I’d like more regulation requiring social media platforms to implement these.

> There really seems to be no reason whatsoever these protections shouldn't be extended to people over 18.

The reason is that we let adults choose what to consume.

If you go down the path of banning social media feeds because they might be addictive, prepare for the floodgates of banning alcohol, porn, cigarettes, and more. Some people who don't consume any of those things will gleefully cheer this idea on, but I assure you there are people out there who would gladly ride this wave to start banning things you actually like, too.

Does anyone else find it weird to see so many comments on sites like Hacker News that are in favor of governments regulating what adults can consume? Years ago sites like HN and Slashdot were universally in agreement about internet freedoms, but now it's common to see people inviting government control of the internet for adults. I don't get it.

> now it's common to see people inviting government control of the internet for adults. I don't get it.

Sockpuppets and useful idiots in equal measure.

> The reason is that we let adults choose what to consume

when you are an addict you dont have much of a choice

I think in the past, social media was seen as a subset of tech, we were naturally allies, and gave them a lot of good faith.

More recently people have come around to the idea that these are basically ad companies except much more intrusive and creepy.

Facebook is really quite bad, not in a “oh wow, annoying site full of idiots” way, but in a “incredibly powerful tool for grabbing people’s attention run by a company so negligent that they let it be used to promote ethnic cleansing.”

It also seems pretty addictive and, I haven’t really looked into it, but it sure seems like kids are getting worse and worse at focusing. I’m not sure if it should be banned entirely, but we could hit it with sin taxes.

> The reason is that we let adults choose what to consume.

Do we let adults choose to consume hard drugs?

Do we let adults choose whether they want to wear seatbelts?

No, because adults are stupid too.

> If you go down the path of banning social media feeds because they might be addictive, prepare for the floodgates of banning alcohol, porn, cigarettes, and more.

This does not align with what is happening in reality. Banning addictive things is nothing new. We've banned hard drugs for ages. It did not result in an unstoppable wave of bans.

> Does anyone else find it weird to see so many comments on sites like Hacker News that are in favor of governments regulating what adults can consume? Years ago sites like HN and Slashdot were universally in agreement about internet freedoms, but now it's common to see people inviting government control of the internet for adults. I don't get it.

At least to me internet freedoms are largely about maintaining the freedoms we've already set in the offline world. Spying on people's activity in their home is illegal. Spying on people's activity on their home systems (e.g. their tablet or PC) should be illegal, too. It's about maintaining the rights we already know. It's not about creating new rights, which allow for anything and everything.

Yes and that's what I want. A law that allows adults to choose whether to allow algorithmic feeds or turn them off. Companies should be legally required to give you that off switch.

This is how we do all laws, good lord. Banned for under-18s without parental consent, a choice for adults. Why you chose to read the take you did from my comment is beyond me.

Yeah I wish I could use any major website without having algorithmic feeds trying to adict me to everything. Trying to productively use the internet while having an executive function disorder is just frustrating, I've ended up just blocking most sites. Specifically, I would love to keep track of friends on Instagram without the site trying to addict me to it.

Bro just stop using the feeds. You're an adult. Kids on the other hand should just be banned from social media. I don't want adult spaces to be molded around children.

Girl, a law that mandates you be able to turn off the feeds in favor of chronological is stopping using the feeds.

Also lol at "you're an adult" like that's how addiction works. Just get more willpower bro. There's a reason you have the option to ban yourself from casinos and the option to do so is mandated by law.

"ban this thing for everyone because some people have issues with it" is a non starter

Personal problems do not get social solutions

"a law that mandates you be able to turn off the feeds in favor of chronological"

That doesn't sound like a ban, that sounds like consumer choice.

Nah man, I don't mind the fun police checking my ice cream licence to make sure I haven't gone over my sugar allowance for the month. It's important that we all get punished so fatty doesn't gorge himself to death.

I don't want a ban good lord. How did you even take that from "companies should be legally required to let each individual turn off algorithmic feeds?"

Gambling, alcohol abuse, drug addiction all get social solutions. This law is perfectly consistent how we deal with all other forms of addiction.

It is not that simple.. Adults can also get addicted the same way and their crash radius is also larger. Unless we have a good way to either hold the platforms or the posters accountable, we are developing into a meme-driven society.

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