Will HN add the label too?
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-signs-legis...
> Legislation S4505/A5346, under the chapter amendment, requires social media platforms that offer addictive feeds, auto play or infinite scroll to post warning labels on their platforms.
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S4505
§ 1520. DEFINITIONS. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS ARTICLE, THE FOLLOWING
TERMS SHALL HAVE THE FOLLOWING MEANINGS:
1. "ADDICTIVE FEED" SHALL MEAN AS DEFINED IN SUBDIVISION ONE OF
SECTION FIFTEEN HUNDRED OF THIS CHAPTER.
2. "ADDICTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM" SHALL MEAN A WEBSITE, ONLINE
SERVICE, ONLINE APPLICATION, OR MOBILE APPLICATION THAT PRIMARILY SERVES
AS A MEDIUM FOR COVERED USERS TO INTERACT WITH MEDIA GENERATED BY OTHER
USERS AND WHICH OFFERS OR PROVIDES COVERED USERS AN ADDICTIVE FEED, PUSH
NOTIFICATIONS, AUTOPLAY, INFINITE SCROLL, AND/OR LIKE COUNTS AS A
SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE SERVICES PROVIDED BY SUCH WEBSITE, ONLINE
SERVICE, ONLINE APPLICATION, OR MOBILE APPLICATION. "ADDICTIVE SOCIAL
MEDIA PLATFORM" SHALL NOT INCLUDE ANY SUCH SERVICE OR APPLICATION WHICH
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL DETERMINES OFFERS THE FEATURES DESCRIBED HEREIN FOR
A VALID PURPOSE UNRELATED TO PROLONGING USE OF SUCH PLATFORM.
7. "LIKE COUNTS" SHALL MEAN THE QUANTIFICATION AND PUBLIC DISPLAY OF
POSITIVE VOTES, SUCH AS BUT NOT LIMITED TO THOSE EXPRESSED VIA A HEART
OR THUMBS-UP ICON, ATTACHED TO A PIECE OF MEDIA GENERATED BY A COVERED
USER.
HN doesn't have push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, or like counts.
"Addictive feed" is poorly defined.
---
Edit: The harmful nature of social media is something that HN has recognized for well over a decade. There is a feature "noprocrast" to help manage this if you do have this problem.
From 2010:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492902
7 Nov: Anti-procrastination features
Like email, social news sites can be dangerously addictive. So the latest version of Hacker News has a feature to let you limit your use of the site. There are three new fields in your profile, noprocrast, maxvisit, and minaway. (You can edit your profile by clicking on your username.) Noprocrast is turned off by default. If you turn it on by setting it to "yes," you'll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours. You can override noprocrast if you want, in which case your visit clock starts over at zero.I don't think HN has either of these.
It does have these
"Addictive feed" is used, but it's circularly defined.
"Algorithmic feed" doesn't appear in the text.
Those uses are:
Section two of this bill adds a new Article 45-A to General Business Law
to require addictive social media platforms which feature predatory
features such as algorithmic feeds, push notifications, autoplay, infi-
nite scroll, and/or like counts as a significant part of the provision
of their service to post warning labels for all users upon access to the
platform. The bill features a series of specific exemptions for certain
types of notifications that fall beyond the scope of the bill (i.e.
those explicitly requested by a user or which are deployed for civic
communication). More broadly, the bill also exempts any feature which is
determined by the Attorney General via regulation to be offered for a
valid purpose unrelated to prolonging use of the addictive social media
platform.
...
... Additionally, as this bill covers only social media
platforms that deploy addictive features such as algorithmic feeds, push
notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, and like counts, any platform
not wishing to display a warning label could simply limit their use of
these features.
"[S]uch as algorithmic feeds" in the description and justification remains undefined in the text of the bill itself.
> "Addictive feed" shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another:
> (a) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users;
> (b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device;
> (c) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
> (d) the user expressly and unambiguously requested that specific media, media by a specified author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to pursuant to paragraph (c) of this subdivision, be blocked, prioritized or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
> (e) the media are direct and private communications;
> (f) the media are recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user;
(> g) the media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a pre-existing sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or
> (h) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this article and any regulations promulgated pursuant to this article.
That does clear it up.
With that definition in mind, to answer the question "does HN need to have this label?" ...
... "unless any of the following conditions are met" ...
and it would appear that under (a) that the prioritization or selection of articles displayed is not associated with a user or a user's device, nor does it concern the user's previous interactions with media generated by others...
So my layman's read of this is that "No, Hacker News does not fall into the definition of an addictive feed."
> It does have these
If you consider "feeds" to be the home page, ask hn, etc. then afaik content is determined by user submission after spam/abuse filtering, and all users see the same content. Article position is largely determined by user votes, with some ageing. Again, everyone sees the same ordering (unless they choose to hid le articles).
Hard to see how this can be interpreted as "algorithmic".
It's an algorithmic feed.
"How are stories ranked?
"The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.
"Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action."
I don't know why you're trying to argue that this isn't an algorithmically driven social news feed website with an addictive homepage. It's exactly what the NY state law is targeting.
What "algorithmic feed" means in most discussion and publications is a feed that is personalized for the individual users based on their known or inferred interests and their past interactions.