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Everything around us is designed to manipulate our mood and behavior. * The Oreo's packing looks so inciting but the food offers nearly 0 nutritional value. *

Everything around us is designed to manipulate our mood and behavior. * The Oreo's packing looks so inciting but the food offers nearly 0 nutritional value. * The ad for that new game looks so cool but my time would but better spent on almost anything else. * That car is so fast but it would be cheaper and better for the environment to drive a Prius. I would rather have the freedom to choose poorly than have the Government trying to micro-manage all the choices in my life.

Steltek 5y ago
You've listed things that are already regulated, in some cases heavily, by the government. And yes, specific things in those industries have been outright banned by the government. You can't buy Coke with cocaine in it. Ads can't straight up lie to you. You can't buy a car without seatbelts or headlights. If your commercial business is to promote certain content over others, regulating that function is worth a debate, especially if it causes such a disproportionate harm to society. Is algorithmic curation with intent to cause addictive behavior actually protected speech? Or in other words, is the government allowed to regulate the time, place, and manner of that curation (not affecting the content)? The US has the broadest protections for speech and if FB fails that test, it's unlikely to hold up anywhere else in the world. The purist would argue that corporations are allowed to do whatever they want and if society runs like lemmings off a cliff, they had it coming. A more moderate view could be that individuals should be guaranteed free speech but not corporations.
- megaman821 5y ago
  Ok, lets go to the scorecard then. How would you say the governments regulations for the topics of obesity, misleading ads, climate change, car safety? Its a mixed bag. Regulation is necessary but hard. It should be a last resort not the first thing that gets tried. I don't think we are there with Facebook. Maybe some minor regulations, but most people on HN are saying to blow the whole thing up.
  - Steltek 5y ago
    Sheesh, you could have just said "gun control" for crap regulation ;). It's actually a very similar problem to FB, in American eyes. The majority wants regulation of some kind but few can agree on specifics. The only laws that do get passed are totally ineffectual so people are soured on the very concept of gun regulation. There's a cacophony of opinions on here right now. Even the Biden admin's simple encouragement to "fix anti-vax conspiracies yourselves", which is neither regulation nor blowing things up, is being taken out behind the woodshed for being too harsh on free speech, as it carries a vague implied "or else".
micromacrofoot 5y ago
* You know Oreos don't have nutritional value because the government regulated a clear label that shows it * You know that ad you're seeing is an ad because it's regulated by the government; the ad itself often must contain disclosures * The government heavily regulates fuel economy and car safety (though the effects of lobbying often slows it down) You've picked some terrible examples. In this case Facebook is making recommendations through a completely opaque algorithm. The output of these algorithms have been shown to radicalize people in numerous different studies. Recently it's come to light that Facebook has done its own studies, which show things like a proclivity for instagram to recommend content to teenage girls that promotes eating disorders. They've allegedly sat on this data and have done nothing to improve safety. Instagram today has admitted this problem and apologized due to public scrutiny. One suggestion that the whistleblower mentioned today is transparency and oversight into why content is being recommended to you. This dovetails rather well into existing government regulation, and seems completely reasonable.

Steltek 5y ago

You've listed things that are already regulated, in some cases heavily, by the government. And yes, specific things in those industries have been outright banned by the government. You can't buy Coke with cocaine in it. Ads can't straight up lie to you. You can't buy a car without seatbelts or headlights. If your commercial business is to promote certain content over others, regulating that function is worth a debate, especially if it causes such a disproportionate harm to society. Is algorithmic curation with intent to cause addictive behavior actually protected speech? Or in other words, is the government allowed to regulate the time, place, and manner of that curation (not affecting the content)? The US has the broadest protections for speech and if FB fails that test, it's unlikely to hold up anywhere else in the world. The purist would argue that corporations are allowed to do whatever they want and if society runs like lemmings off a cliff, they had it coming. A more moderate view could be that individuals should be guaranteed free speech but not corporations.

megaman821 5y ago
Ok, lets go to the scorecard then. How would you say the governments regulations for the topics of obesity, misleading ads, climate change, car safety? Its a mixed bag. Regulation is necessary but hard. It should be a last resort not the first thing that gets tried. I don't think we are there with Facebook. Maybe some minor regulations, but most people on HN are saying to blow the whole thing up.
- Steltek 5y ago
  Sheesh, you could have just said "gun control" for crap regulation ;). It's actually a very similar problem to FB, in American eyes. The majority wants regulation of some kind but few can agree on specifics. The only laws that do get passed are totally ineffectual so people are soured on the very concept of gun regulation. There's a cacophony of opinions on here right now. Even the Biden admin's simple encouragement to "fix anti-vax conspiracies yourselves", which is neither regulation nor blowing things up, is being taken out behind the woodshed for being too harsh on free speech, as it carries a vague implied "or else".

micromacrofoot 5y ago

* You know Oreos don't have nutritional value because the government regulated a clear label that shows it * You know that ad you're seeing is an ad because it's regulated by the government; the ad itself often must contain disclosures * The government heavily regulates fuel economy and car safety (though the effects of lobbying often slows it down) You've picked some terrible examples. In this case Facebook is making recommendations through a completely opaque algorithm. The output of these algorithms have been shown to radicalize people in numerous different studies. Recently it's come to light that Facebook has done its own studies, which show things like a proclivity for instagram to recommend content to teenage girls that promotes eating disorders. They've allegedly sat on this data and have done nothing to improve safety. Instagram today has admitted this problem and apologized due to public scrutiny. One suggestion that the whistleblower mentioned today is transparency and oversight into why content is being recommended to you. This dovetails rather well into existing government regulation, and seems completely reasonable.