So Hacker News should lose section 230 protection?
Because the content served here isn't served in chronological order. The front page takes votes into account and displays hotter posts higher in the feed.
Because the content served here isn't served in chronological order. The front page takes votes into account and displays hotter posts higher in the feed.
This will still impact HN because of stuff like the flame war downranker they use here. However, that doesn't automatically mean HN loses Section 230 protection. HN could respond by simplifying its ranking algorithm to maintain 230 protections.
The key word there is "page". I have no problem with news.ycombinator.com/active, but that is a page that a user must proactively seek out. It's not the default or even possible to make it the default. Every time a user visits it, it is because they decided to visit it. The page is also the same for everyone who visits it.
That's a given on HackerNews, as there's only one frontpage. On Reddit that would be, users subscribed to the same subreddits would always see the same things on their frontpages. Same as users on YouTube subscribed to the same channels, users on Facebook who liked the same pages, and so on.
The real problem starts when the algorithm takes into account implicit user actions. E.g., two users are subscribed to the same channels, and both click on the same video. User A watches the whole video, user B leaves halfway through. If the algorithm takes that into account, now user A will see different suggestions than user B.
That's what gets the ball rolling into hyper specialized endless feeds which tend to push you into extremes, as small signals will end up being amplified without the user ever taking an explicit action other than clicking or not suggestions in the feed.
As long as every signal the algorithm takes into account is either a global state (user votes, total watch time, etc), or something the user explicitly and proactively has stated is their preference, I think that would be enough to curb most of the problems with algorithmic feeds.
Users could still manually configure feeds that provide hyper personalized, hyper specific, and hyper addictive content. But I bet the vast majority of users would never go beyond picking 1 specific sport, 2 personal hobbies and 3 genres of music they're interested in and calling it a day. Really, most would probably never even go that far. That's the reason platforms all converged on using those implicit signals, after all: they work much better than the user's explicit signals (if your ultimate goal is maximizing user retention/addiction, and you don't care at all about the collateral damage resulting from that).
Same with friends, even if you have the exact same friends, if you message friend A more than friend B, and this otherwise identical account does the opposite, than the recommendation engine will give you different friend-related suggestions.
Then there's geolocation data, connection type/speeds, OS and browser type, account name (which, if they are real names such as on Facebook, can be used to infer age, race, etc), and many others, which can also be taken into account for further tailoring suggestions.
You can say that, oh, but some automated system that sent the exact same signals on all these fronts would end up with the same recommendations, which I guess is probably true, but it's definitely not reasonable. No two (human) users would ever be able to achieve such state for any extended period of time.
That's why we are arguing that only explicit individual actions should be allowed into these systems. You can maybe argue what would count as an explicit action. You mention adding friends, I don't think that should count as an explicit action for changing your content feed, but I can see that being debated.
Maybe the ultimate solution could be legislation requiring that any action that influences recommendation engines to be explicitly labeled as such (similar to how advertising needs to be labeled), and maybe require at least a confirmation prompt, instead of working with a single click. Then platforms would be incentivized to ask as little as possible, as otherwise confirming every single action would become a bit vexing.
And? These are still user's choices. They choose how long to view videos or scroll past them.
Either way. Do you have any points other than that you think any and every action, no matter how small, is explicit, and therefore it's ok that for it to be fed into the recommendation engine? Cause that's an ok position to have, even if one I disagree with. But if that's all, I think that's as long as this conversation needs to go. But if there's any nuance I'm failing to get, or you have comments on other points I raised such as labeling of recommendation altering actions, I'm happy to hear it.
Some people take the stance that even using view counts as part of ranking should result in a company listing section 230 protections, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46027529
You proposed an interesting framing around reproducibility of content ranking, as in two users who have the exact same watch history, liked posts, group memberships, etc. should have the same content served to them. But in subsequent responses it sounds like reproducibility isn't enough, certain actions shouldn't be used for recommendation even if it is entirely reproducible. My reading is that in your model, there are "small" actions that user take that shouldn't be used for recommendations, and presumably there are also "big" actions that are okay to use for recommendation. If that's the case, then what user actions would you permit to be used for recommendations and which ones would not be permitted to use? What are the delineation between "small" and "big" actions?
Labeling is another idea but Meta does, in fact, disclaim which user actions are used for content recommendations: https://transparency.meta.com/features/ranking-and-content/
Basically, I still don't have a clear picture of what does and doesn't qualify as "algorithmically served" content in your model.
That's why I proposed that maybe the solution is:
1. only explicit actions are considered. A click, a tap, an interaction, but not just viewing, hovering, or scrolling past. That's an objective distinction that we already have legal framework for. You always have to explicitly mark the "I accept the terms and conditions" box, for example. It can't be the default, and you can't have a system where just by entering the website it is considered that you accepted the terms.
2. explicitly labeling and confirming of what is an suggestion algorithm altering action and what isn't. And I mean, in band, visible labeling right there in the UI, not a separate page like that Meta link. Click the "Subscribe" button, you get a confirmation popup "Subscribing will make it so that this content appears in your feed. Confirm/Cancel". Any personalized input into the suggestion algorithm should be labelled as such. So companies can use any inputs they see fit, but the user must explicitly give them these inputs, and the platforms will be incentivized to keep this number as low as possible, as, in the limit, having to confirm every single interaction would be annoying and drive users away. Imagine if every time you clicked on a video, YouTube prompted you to confirm that viewing that video would alter future suggestions.
I'm ok with global state being fed into the algorithm by default. Total watch time/votes/comments/whatever. My main problem is with hyper personalized, targeted, self reinforcing feeds.
> Imagine if every time you clicked on a video, YouTube prompted you to confirm that viewing that video would alter future suggestions.
In practice, I suspect this will make nearly every online interactions - posting a comment, viewing a video, liking a post, etc - accompanied by a confirmation prompt telling the user that this action will affect their recommendations, and pretty quickly users just hit confirm instinctively.
E.g. when viewing a youtube video, users often have to watch 3-5 seconds of an ad, then click "skip ad", before proceeding. Adding a 2nd button "I acknowledge that this will affect my recommendations" is actually a pretty low barrier compared to the interactions already required of the user.
The end result: a web that's roughly got the same recommendation systems, just with the extra enshitification of the now-mandated confirmation prompts.
Granted, some people will certainly have a higher tolerance for this kind of enshittification. If companies find that the amount of money they can extract from highly targeting a given amount of users is greater than the amount of money they can make from more numerous but less targeted users, then they could choose to go down that path. That's a function of how tolerant the average user is of the confirmation prompts, and how much more money they can make from a targeted user.
We can't control that last variable, but we ultimately could control that first one. If we find that a simple confirmation prompt is not annoying enough for as many people as we'd like, we could make the confirmation prompts more annoying. Maybe make every confirmation prompt have to be shown for at least 5 seconds. Or require a cooldown between multiple confirmations. Or add captcha like challenges. And so on.
In the limit, I think you'd agree that if you had to wait 24 hours before confirming, that would probably be enough to dissuade almost everyone from going through with it, to the point most platforms would try to not have any personalization at all. (I wouldn't be happy with this end result either)
I think even a single, instant confirmation prompt would be enough to cause a sizeable difference. Maybe not enough. Maybe you're right, and it would make barely any difference at all. Then I'd be totally in favor of these more annoying requirements. But as a first step, I'd be happy with a small requirement like this, and progressively making requirements stringier if it proves not enough.
It absolutely does mean that seeing as how everybody wants to see the flipped car on the side of the road. The local news reports on the car flipped on the side of the road and not the boring city council meeting for a reason.
There's a huge difference between something people want to see and something people can't ignore. There is some intersection between those categories, but they are by no means one and the same. And news reports, headlines, thumbnails et al. optimize for the latter, not the former.
Watching the content that is being served to you is a passive decision. It's totally different from clicking a button that says you want to see specific content in the future. You show me something that enrages me, I might watch it, but I'll never click a button saying "show me more stuff that enrages me". It's the platform taking advantage of human psychology and that is a huge part of what I want to stop.
>it remains unclear how you're constructing a set of criteria that does Hacker News, and plenty of other sites but not Meta.
I already said "This will still impact HN because of stuff like the flame war downranker...". I don't know this and your reply to my other comment seem to be implying that I think HN is perfect and untouchable. My proposal would force HN to make a choice on whether to change or lose 230 protections. I'm fine with that.
Again, something like counting the number of views in a video is, in your framing, not an active choice on the part of user. So simply counting views and and floating popular content to the top of a page sounds like it'd trigger loss section 230 protections.
Are you sure? The algorithm isn't public, but putting a tiny fraction of "nearly ready for the frontpage" posts on the front page for randomly selected users would be a good way to get more votes on them without subjecting everyone to /new
If a web site makes a good faith effort to moderate things away that could get them in trouble, then they shouldn't get in trouble. And if they have a policy of not moderating or curating, then they should be treated like a dumb pipe, like an ISP. They shouldn't be able to have their cake (exercise editorial control) and eat it too (enjoy liability protection over what they publish).
If you're doing editorial decisions, you should be treated like a syndicator. Yep, that means vetting the ads you show, paid propaganda that you accept to publish, and generally having legal and financial liability for the outcomes.
User-supplied content needs moderation too, but with them you have to apply different standards. Prefiltering what someone else can post on your platform makes you a censor. You have to do some to prevent your system from becoming a Nazi bar or an abuse demo reel, but beyond that the users themselves should be allowed to say what they want to see and in what order of preference. Section 230 needs to protect the latter.
The thing I would have liked to see long time ago is for the platforms / syndicators to have obligation to notify their users who have been subjected to any kind of influence operations. Whether that's political pestering, black propaganda or even out-and-out "classic" advertising campaign, should make no difference.
If you're using someone else to do it, they should have a say in what is published under their name, and some responsibility for it.
E.g. it only applies to companies with revenue <$10m. Or services with <10,000 active users. This allows blogs and small forums to continue as is, but once you’re making meaningful money or have a meaningful user base you become responsible for what you’re publishing.
If Hacker News filled their front page with hate speech and self-harm tutorials there would be public outcry. But Facebook can serve that to people on their timeline and no one bats an eye, because Facebook can algorithmically serve that content only to people who engage with it.
Yup. Accountable.
Heck, even 4chan wouldn't qualify, because despite considerably looser content rules they still actually do perform moderation.