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To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly? I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and mo

To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly? I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship.

asdff 5y ago
Treat addictive social media companies like addictive cigarette companies. Lets see some huge warning labels about how mentally harmful it is to continue scrolling on facebook right on the first result where its unavoidable to see. Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. It won't be a huge change but it will be a great starting point and will come with revenue that can fund potentially mental healthcare programs for people damaged by these companies.
- mcguire 5y ago
  I'm not sure this would have the effect you want. You tax Facebook but allow it to operate however it wants. Facebook is then incentivized to double down on its algorithms---like tobacco companies using chemical and biological techniques to make cigarettes more addictive---in order to regain the lost profits.
  - asdff 5y ago
    Then you can double down on the taxes you levy against them if they begin harming more people, no? The idea is the cost of doing bad business will eventually be too much to make it worth doing that sort of bad business. Same idea with carbon taxes where the costs scale to damage and incentivize shifting to good behavior rather than doubling down on bad behavior. And even with cigarette companies doubling down, far fewer people smoke today and die of lung cancer than 50 years ago, so this stuff works on the whole.
    - lazide 5y ago
      That definitely isn’t what happened with alcohol or tobacco! Instead you end up with a significant enough amount of money going to the government that the government now ends up protecting those industries to an extend - ensuring lower priced competition (e-cigs, moonshine) get stomped on and the market gets protected and not eliminated or reduced too much.
- sio8ohPi 5y ago
  I'm curious if you think HN needs to have such a warning banner.
  - triceratops 5y ago
    HN isn't particularly designed to be addictive. It doesn't notify you when someone responds to one of your posts. It doesn't send you any nagging emails (indeed, doesn't even require an email to sign up). It has the noprocrast setting to let you set limits on your own usage. It doesn't (afaik) try to optimize for engagement - dang tries to maintain civil discourse as much as possible.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Uhm a cigarette you cannot change the base ingredient of, it's tobacco. A cig by definition burns the carcinogen tobacco. A site you can specify certain requirements like no doom scrolling or requirements like PUBLISH YOUR ALGORITHMS. Why go full California with another banner? People will ignore it and you will have done nothing of substance.
  - VikingCoder 5y ago
    Sorry for being pedantic, but you can absolutely change the ingredients of a cigarette. There's a ton besides the tobacco. And you can breed different strains of tobacco to have more or less of some chemical.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      My point was a cig always causes cancer because it burns tobacco, so you need a banner to warn users. A social media behemoth does not need to use doom scrolling or private algorithms to be a social media site.
      - asdff 5y ago
        My nintendo DS from 15 years ago gave me an eye strain warning every time i started it up and it doesn't always cause eye strain, only misuse does and I know that thanks to the informative banner.
        jmcgough 5y ago
        I love that Nintendo is very aware of the potential negative effects of their products and games and tries to inform users / mitigate. Even when it comes to encouraging positive play between users - in the new Pokemon MOBA (games known for their toxicity) there's no text chat, only communication with a few emotes you can show. Some of their decisions make for arguably worse games for "hardcore" gamers (like the way they rank users in smash, or how they focus on more casual-style in-game tournaments or make matchmaking harder) but they sacrifice that in favor of a more positive general experience, especially important since children play their games.
- parineum 5y ago
  > sin taxes How about we don't let the state decide what I get to do with my body (and mind)?
  - dustinchilson 5y ago
    Isn't this the root of the problem? Neither you or the government/state decides what you get to do with your mind. An advertising company decides what to do with it and can manipulate it however it decides best benefits itself. Not you, not society, Facebook, what makes Facebook the most money.
  - mynameisash 5y ago
    That's not what a sin tax does. You are still free to smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, and were we to tax social media usage, you would still be free to use or not use that. But a sin tax ostensibly accounts for the economic externality*. We know that cigarettes impose a cost on society beyond the individual smoker. I'm all in favor of making people pay for things that we know cause damage to society more broadly. And I hardly think it's controversial that social media is in many aspects harmful to society. *Sin taxes are technically different than pigovian taxes, but I and I think most people tend to use the terms interchangeably.
    - parineum 5y ago
      > We know that cigarettes impose a cost on society beyond the individual smoker What's that cost? From what I've read, all economic costs smokers impose on society are more than made up for in their dying early, they actually cost less [1]. I guess everyone should smoke to save the state money! [1] https://pantagraph.com/news/fact-check-do-smokers-cost-society-more-money/article_70a37eed-004b-5ccc-bc8c-95ac16227d98.html https://pantagraph.com/news/fact-check-do-smokers-cost-socie...
  - oarabbus_ 5y ago
    You are are able to consume both tobacco and alcohol (let's not tangent into a drug legalization discussion). Tobacco and alcohol cause measurable societal harm and measurable costs to the state - are you implying it's unreasonable for states to tax these goods for those reasons? Generally speaking I'd rather reduce taxes but I fail to see what's wrong with e.g. an alcohol excise tax going towards rehabilitation and/or highway safety programs. "Sin tax" is just a colloquial name for an excise tax, which a state has every right to enact.
- oarabbus_ 5y ago
  > Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. Very interesting idea, actually. There is evidence Social Media causes harm to some individuals' mental health (in a widespread manner causing some measurable societal harm), so a proposed tax on all social media companies with revenue going towards mental health programs seems worth exploring. Generally I'm not much in favor of implementing new taxes (would rather close existing loopholes) but if implemented reasonably and backed by scientific evidence this seems valid.
  - intended 5y ago
    It seems internal data shows that FB and Insta harm 14 years old more than other groups.
    - erosenbe0 5y ago
      That could apply to TV, video games, alcohol culture, porn or any number of things. It seems to be the near monopoly that is one of the major issues for FB. Lack of competition seems to lead to a house of horrors.
      - asdff 5y ago
        Yet with all those things we have laws and regulations and even restrictions for young people explicitly. FB is the wild west on the other hand and constantly lobbies to keep it that way in terms of how regulators see it.
      - intended 5y ago
        Yes, thats the buried lede. Those are all things which you need to be old or mature enough to use responsibly - they make demands of experience and impulse control you develop as adults. Meaning that blocking social media for kids and teens is likely on the anvil at some point.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    > There is evidence Social Media causes harm to some individuals' mental health (in a widespread manner causing some measurable societal harm) And they do so by exploiting human weaknesses using the same psychological techniques used by casinos and other forms of gambling.
- FFRefresh 5y ago
  Honestly asking: What is the specific harm involved here that is deserving to be taxed? How would we measure this harm in order to know how much to tax a given company? Should other causes of this harm be taxed/penalized as well? If not, why? For instance, if the harm in question is some people feel varying degrees of worse after using a given product, is there any limit we as a society should set on penalizing the cause of the harm? Should people or entities who say things that make people feel worse be fined/prosecuted by the law? If I feel worse (let's call this 'trauma' or 'anxiety' or 'depression' or 'literally shaking' or 'panic attack') after reading a book or reading a news site, should I have standing to sue the creators and medium which presents said content?
- ipaddr 5y ago
  I would like to see this on coke, pepsi, fast food and air travel
- blackoil 5y ago
  Warning labels won't be of much use, as an individual most will ignore them believing in there own prowess to discern truth. Taxing all social media or all media may have interesting implications as this again will reduce profit for all and give some revenue for governments without making any actual change. Also people making cooking/educational videos on Youtube may resent having to pay sin tax.
RIMR 5y ago
Freedom of speech also includes from being compelled to speak of things you don't want to, so forcing companies to make their recommendation and moderation systems publicly visible would be eve more of a free speech issue than expecting companies to moderate violent, hateful, or deliberately misleading content.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  Can you cite some case law that bears out this argument? While I agree that your point is true in the most general sense, we compel companies to make their internal information public fairly regularly via various mechanisms (admittedly, none of which are 100% analogous to the FB/social media situation).
- solveit 5y ago
  I absolutely disagree but I'm upvoting anyway because it's an argument I haven't seen before with regards to making algorithms public and god knows the discourse could use some variety. That being said. No. This is no more a free speech issue than forcing food manufacturers to make their ingredients public.
photochemsyn 5y ago
I think that's the right approach. Legally you could require every social media company that collects and sells data on its users to advertisers to allow the users to access their internal algorithmic interface (for their own account). Now, what controls are on the internal algorithmic dial? Apparently that's top secret, but a legal requirement to expose the interface to the users seems reasonable. Note that this might not affect what ads you get served (that seems more on the private business side, although banning prescription pharma ads makes sense), but it would affect what shows up in your feed, what content you get served, etc. You could write your own exclude lists, for example (i.e. if you never want to see content from MSNBC, FOX, or CNN, that would be your decision - not the algorithms, etc.)
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
If you get too big, you can't buy your competition (e.g. FB buying IG). Or if you get too big, you have to open your stuff up like email does. Or if you lie to congress, you get penalized. Or if you get too big, you have to make your algorithms publicly available.
- new_guy 5y ago
  Yeah but that's just an American-centric take, there's plenty of companies out there that don't give a flying f*ck about American laws and congress.
  - TheCoelacanth 5y ago
    If they operate in America, then they have to give a fuck about American laws. If they don't operate in America, then I don't give a fuck what they do.
- piggybox 5y ago
  What part of Gmail is open?
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    Email, not Gmail. I can email people from my provider even if they use other providers, including people who self host. And I can get email from them too.
  - thinkling 5y ago
    I think GP is referring to the fact that email overall is a system that is based on public standards and open to new entrants. You can start Hmail.com if you want, and plug into the existing email eco-system as a new competitor very easily. The social media ecosystems aren't like that. You can't be a chat provider and plug into FB Messenger; you can't plug into Twitter, etc. There is an open social media eco-system called the fediverse (for its federated nature), in which Mastodon is the best-known player. But it's gotten very limited traction, because of the network effect that keeps people on FB and Twitter. No such effect keeps people on Gmail.
azinman2 5y ago
> I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship. Ok let’s say that’s now the case. The FB source is now open. What changed? Any negative consequences are still occurring, and if anything, we just have had actors better visibility into what to exploit.
zabatuvajdka 5y ago
In my opinion if social media is important to society the way it seems there should be a government funded social network for users and businesses. In the USA like NPR and PBS. The problem is companies selling peoples data and optimizing the algorithms on probability. Instead what if everyone paid some taxes to have a social network which helps people interact and businesses promote themselves, you can get rid of the ads AND the algorithms. Let users customize settings which dictate the algorithm.
- onemoresoop 5y ago
  You better be sure the incumbents would fight tooth and nail make this look like a very unattractive idea and lobby heavily to make sure it will never happen.
intended 5y ago
The testimony was about what you expect. It looks like the recco algorithms will be carved out from the neutral platform protections they enjoy.
woeirua 5y ago
No recommendation algorithms for certain classes of websites. News feeds must be sorted in chronological order only. Users may selectively filter their feeds if they choose. No infinite scrolling.
christkv 5y ago
How about an age limit. You have to be 18 or above.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  People seem to dislike this suggestion, but while I believe it is unrealistic to check for age on the internet, this idea has some merit. Platforms that harbor minors and adults together will have to have different rules than platforms just for adults. But you also cannot make everything fit for kids. Government would actually try to do just that since ensuring safety here is their mandate. So a solution must be found. Normally minors should be supervised, but that is not trivial and you don't want constant surveillance.
alistairSH 5y ago
What do you want to be done exactly? Public algorithms, or at least some 3rd party review. Ban infinite-scroll on social media platforms. Require feeds to be configurable (users can set to "newest first" or "top picks" or whatever else). I'm sure I could come up with more, that's just off the top of my head.
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  These seem like awkward things to encode into law in a durable way. Laws are long-term blunt instruments, banning something like infinite scroll will have all kinds of unintended consequences.
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    That's true - these things might be better implemented as regulations out of the Executive branch - but that would still require legislation authorizing somebody to implement the regulations.
    - kyleee 5y ago
      Interesting that the US governance model is devolving to "decrees from the king" thanks to exec orders
      - swiley 5y ago
        We'll see how much longer the states accept that for.
        idiotsecant 5y ago
        State governments are much more interested in participating in the cable news culture wars to pump up next election numbers then they are in actually governing. I doubt it.
      - telotortium 5y ago
at-fates-hands 5y ago
>> To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly? Honestly, social media issues are for the most part a parenting issue. If you don't have access to your kids phone, or know what platforms they are on and who they are talking to and what they're sharing, I'm not sure legislating social media is going to do much of anything. New platforms will pop up, more private networks will be started and suddenly, everything becomes to fragmented to really oversee. I would create laws that have teeth and address issues like bullying, doxxing, SWATING and other ways people weaponize social media against other people. You start to put some teeth into laws where people are facing serious consequences for bullying and pushing people to suicide, then you might see some changes.
- mLuby 5y ago
  > You start to put some teeth into laws where people are facing serious consequences for bullying and pushing people to suicide Counterpoint: kids aren't all neurologically and socially developed enough to understand life-altering consequences for certain actions, and that's not their fault. Legal codes and law enforcement are too crude in most child-related cases, unless you're okay with incarcerating misbehaving children. It's on adults to make sure things kids can reach are reasonably safe for—as well as from—them.
  - MertsA 5y ago
    Counterpoint to your counterpoint: Almost all kids are neurologically and socially developed enough to understand they'll be picking up cigarette butts and cleaning graffiti on the weekend if they start bullying someone. It's quite common for American schools to enact "zero tolerance" policies for any physical altercation that, barring criminal charges, is the same punishment regardless of severity and irrespective of who the aggressor was. The policy is literally to give the victim the same punishment in the name of "fairness". Now there's no reason not to escalate and it incentivizes the victim to not report it. Even with the same punishment it's still skewed towards the bully as odds are, they're probably not going to care as much about a couple days of suspension and most bullies aren't going to be in any serious risk of expulsion. School administrators don't care about bullying and teens being driven to suicide, they care more about liability than fairness. Taking the King Solomon approach in public schools is abhorrent and injust. Kids do dumb things, but it makes it so much worse when incompetence and callous disregard create perverse incentives.
munificent 5y ago
Simply disallowing corporations to reach the scale of Facebook/ConAgra/Amazon/WalMart would solve many many problems. These companies do awful things because: 1. They have few viable alternatives so ethical consumers end up choosing them when they might not otherwise. 2. They have enough money that it is profitable to do bad things and pay for the damage control. 3. They have enough power to defeat regulation and government oversight. 4. They are so large and monolithic that they can hide their internal workings more easily. 5. The org chart is so deep that those in power are psychologically removed from much of the consequences of their overpowered actions.
- eightysixfour 5y ago
  So for a digital platform you are suggesting that after X users they allow no more sign-ups until someone churns out?
  - munificent 5y ago
    I don't think number of users is the metric that really matters. I care a lot more about market cap because money is what gives corporations greater leverage to do bad stuff.
    - eightysixfour 5y ago
      What about companies with large market caps that are losing money?
handrous 5y ago
Make spying on people illegal, even when a computer does it to billions of people rather than one creep doing it to one person. If you have to collect info about people to provide a product or service, make it strictly illegal to transfer or sell that info or anything derived from it. Don't like it, get into another business. No one's making you collect people's info. Yes, this should apply to e.g. credit card companies, not just big tech. This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. Do something to make platforms responsible when their "algorithms" promote something. Not just hosting it, but when they promote it. Don't like it? Don't curate, then, or have a human do it so you're sure nothing you're deliberately promoting is shitty enough to land you on the wrong end of a lawsuit. "But how will tech companies show every visitor a totally different home page of content they're promoting (but in no way responsible for), and how will Youtube find a way to recommend Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan videos next to every damn thing? How will tech companies make every part of their 'experience' algorithmically-selected, personalized recommendations of content they farmed from randos?" They won't, they won't, and... they won't. You're welcome. Make data leaks so cripplingly expensive that no company would dare hoard personal data it didn't absolutely need to get by. Force the quasi-official credit reporting agencies not to be so shitty. In particular, "freezes" should be free and should be the default, alerts for activity should be free, and access to one's own info should be on demand at any time, not once per year per agency. Or just outlaw the bastards completely, IDGAF. I dunno, lots of things we could do to make the current personal data free-for-all less hellish.
- smolder 5y ago
  > This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. It sounds like you're suggesting GDPR style regulation. They're still figuring out how to enforce that but generally I support it. Too much money is against it to get anything passed in the US, though. Another problem is that the US government seems to like when the tech sector gobbles up data on people. It gives them new powers for social control.
vpfaulkner 5y ago
A lot of these issues seem difficult to regulate but one that seems more realistic is usage by minors. What if social media platforms required all minors to have their account associated with a parent account? The parent could monitor activity, institute time limits, etc.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
  Minors don't use FB much anyway. It's more tik-tok now. And of course no minor would use an app monitored by her parents, she will immediately switch to another app.
  - vpfaulkner 5y ago
    Sorry, should have clarified: I was suggesting that if the government decides to regulate it should apply to all social media platforms, not just FB. Updated the original comment.
    - Talanes 5y ago
      Unless you're also requiring IDs for age verification, then that just means that the kids will lie.
burlesona 5y ago
I would ban algorithmic targeted media -- ie no personalized feed based on an "engagement" algorithm, for social media just see a chronological feed of posts from the people you follow. This is the most addictive and radicalizing part of social media - and the most lucrative. Much like the nicotine in Big Tobacco's case.
- asiachick 5y ago
  Could I write my own algo for personal use? Could I hire someone else to write that algo? Could I share it with others? Could I start a company to sell it? If it gets to popular will you try to ban it too?
mullingitover 5y ago
> I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship. I think that removing CDA Sec 230 protections for algorithmically-curated feeds is the answer. It's one thing to have a basic FIFO feed, it's another to hide or reveal content based on your own internal engagement/revenue targets. At the point where you're crafting bespoke engagement-maximizing feeds, you're creating a gestalt creative work that has a life of its own and that is no longer merely a passthrough for the works of users of the platform. In other words, consider Facebook's curated feeds as Facebook's speech, not only the speech of their users, so Facebook faces liability for that speech.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  Your proposal would make HN-style comment ranking illegal. Do you really want to live in the world you propose?
  - mullingitover 5y ago
    I considered the widely-used 'hot' algorithm and I don't think that really qualifies as a 'creative work' on the part of the site. The 'top from last hour/day/month/year' and 'hot' algorithms are really elementary sorting methods that are in the same league as FIFO.
    - quotemstr 5y ago
      Who gets to decide what algorithms are simple enough to be legal? You? Why? All a ranking algorithm is doing is making suggestions that certain content be read before other content. That's protected speech.
      - mullingitover 5y ago
        > Who gets to decide what algorithms are simple enough to be legal? You? Why? I'm not talking about the legality, I'm talking about the liability. If one user posts defamatory/libelous speech and Facebook decides to blast it to 1 billion users because their secret sauce algorithm found that it really cranks the revenue dial, Facebook should share some culpability in that defamation lawsuit. A basic 'hot' algorithm that's not designed by squadrons of PhDs running machine learning on user behavior analysis isn't really the same thing, culpability-wise, imho.

asdff 5y ago

Treat addictive social media companies like addictive cigarette companies. Lets see some huge warning labels about how mentally harmful it is to continue scrolling on facebook right on the first result where its unavoidable to see. Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. It won't be a huge change but it will be a great starting point and will come with revenue that can fund potentially mental healthcare programs for people damaged by these companies.

mcguire 5y ago
I'm not sure this would have the effect you want. You tax Facebook but allow it to operate however it wants. Facebook is then incentivized to double down on its algorithms---like tobacco companies using chemical and biological techniques to make cigarettes more addictive---in order to regain the lost profits.
- asdff 5y ago
  Then you can double down on the taxes you levy against them if they begin harming more people, no? The idea is the cost of doing bad business will eventually be too much to make it worth doing that sort of bad business. Same idea with carbon taxes where the costs scale to damage and incentivize shifting to good behavior rather than doubling down on bad behavior. And even with cigarette companies doubling down, far fewer people smoke today and die of lung cancer than 50 years ago, so this stuff works on the whole.
  - lazide 5y ago
    That definitely isn’t what happened with alcohol or tobacco! Instead you end up with a significant enough amount of money going to the government that the government now ends up protecting those industries to an extend - ensuring lower priced competition (e-cigs, moonshine) get stomped on and the market gets protected and not eliminated or reduced too much.
sio8ohPi 5y ago
I'm curious if you think HN needs to have such a warning banner.
- triceratops 5y ago
  HN isn't particularly designed to be addictive. It doesn't notify you when someone responds to one of your posts. It doesn't send you any nagging emails (indeed, doesn't even require an email to sign up). It has the noprocrast setting to let you set limits on your own usage. It doesn't (afaik) try to optimize for engagement - dang tries to maintain civil discourse as much as possible.
hunterb123 5y ago
Uhm a cigarette you cannot change the base ingredient of, it's tobacco. A cig by definition burns the carcinogen tobacco. A site you can specify certain requirements like no doom scrolling or requirements like PUBLISH YOUR ALGORITHMS. Why go full California with another banner? People will ignore it and you will have done nothing of substance.
- VikingCoder 5y ago
  Sorry for being pedantic, but you can absolutely change the ingredients of a cigarette. There's a ton besides the tobacco. And you can breed different strains of tobacco to have more or less of some chemical.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    My point was a cig always causes cancer because it burns tobacco, so you need a banner to warn users. A social media behemoth does not need to use doom scrolling or private algorithms to be a social media site.
    - asdff 5y ago
      My nintendo DS from 15 years ago gave me an eye strain warning every time i started it up and it doesn't always cause eye strain, only misuse does and I know that thanks to the informative banner.
      - jmcgough 5y ago
        I love that Nintendo is very aware of the potential negative effects of their products and games and tries to inform users / mitigate. Even when it comes to encouraging positive play between users - in the new Pokemon MOBA (games known for their toxicity) there's no text chat, only communication with a few emotes you can show. Some of their decisions make for arguably worse games for "hardcore" gamers (like the way they rank users in smash, or how they focus on more casual-style in-game tournaments or make matchmaking harder) but they sacrifice that in favor of a more positive general experience, especially important since children play their games.
parineum 5y ago
> sin taxes How about we don't let the state decide what I get to do with my body (and mind)?
- dustinchilson 5y ago
  Isn't this the root of the problem? Neither you or the government/state decides what you get to do with your mind. An advertising company decides what to do with it and can manipulate it however it decides best benefits itself. Not you, not society, Facebook, what makes Facebook the most money.
- mynameisash 5y ago
  That's not what a sin tax does. You are still free to smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, and were we to tax social media usage, you would still be free to use or not use that. But a sin tax ostensibly accounts for the economic externality*. We know that cigarettes impose a cost on society beyond the individual smoker. I'm all in favor of making people pay for things that we know cause damage to society more broadly. And I hardly think it's controversial that social media is in many aspects harmful to society. *Sin taxes are technically different than pigovian taxes, but I and I think most people tend to use the terms interchangeably.
  - parineum 5y ago
    > We know that cigarettes impose a cost on society beyond the individual smoker What's that cost? From what I've read, all economic costs smokers impose on society are more than made up for in their dying early, they actually cost less [1]. I guess everyone should smoke to save the state money! [1] https://pantagraph.com/news/fact-check-do-smokers-cost-society-more-money/article_70a37eed-004b-5ccc-bc8c-95ac16227d98.html https://pantagraph.com/news/fact-check-do-smokers-cost-socie...
- oarabbus_ 5y ago
  You are are able to consume both tobacco and alcohol (let's not tangent into a drug legalization discussion). Tobacco and alcohol cause measurable societal harm and measurable costs to the state - are you implying it's unreasonable for states to tax these goods for those reasons? Generally speaking I'd rather reduce taxes but I fail to see what's wrong with e.g. an alcohol excise tax going towards rehabilitation and/or highway safety programs. "Sin tax" is just a colloquial name for an excise tax, which a state has every right to enact.
oarabbus_ 5y ago
> Lets tax the hell out of social media companies to generate local revenue just like sin taxes. Very interesting idea, actually. There is evidence Social Media causes harm to some individuals' mental health (in a widespread manner causing some measurable societal harm), so a proposed tax on all social media companies with revenue going towards mental health programs seems worth exploring. Generally I'm not much in favor of implementing new taxes (would rather close existing loopholes) but if implemented reasonably and backed by scientific evidence this seems valid.
- intended 5y ago
  It seems internal data shows that FB and Insta harm 14 years old more than other groups.
  - erosenbe0 5y ago
    That could apply to TV, video games, alcohol culture, porn or any number of things. It seems to be the near monopoly that is one of the major issues for FB. Lack of competition seems to lead to a house of horrors.
    - asdff 5y ago
      Yet with all those things we have laws and regulations and even restrictions for young people explicitly. FB is the wild west on the other hand and constantly lobbies to keep it that way in terms of how regulators see it.
    - intended 5y ago
      Yes, thats the buried lede. Those are all things which you need to be old or mature enough to use responsibly - they make demands of experience and impulse control you develop as adults. Meaning that blocking social media for kids and teens is likely on the anvil at some point.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  > There is evidence Social Media causes harm to some individuals' mental health (in a widespread manner causing some measurable societal harm) And they do so by exploiting human weaknesses using the same psychological techniques used by casinos and other forms of gambling.
FFRefresh 5y ago
Honestly asking: What is the specific harm involved here that is deserving to be taxed? How would we measure this harm in order to know how much to tax a given company? Should other causes of this harm be taxed/penalized as well? If not, why? For instance, if the harm in question is some people feel varying degrees of worse after using a given product, is there any limit we as a society should set on penalizing the cause of the harm? Should people or entities who say things that make people feel worse be fined/prosecuted by the law? If I feel worse (let's call this 'trauma' or 'anxiety' or 'depression' or 'literally shaking' or 'panic attack') after reading a book or reading a news site, should I have standing to sue the creators and medium which presents said content?
ipaddr 5y ago
I would like to see this on coke, pepsi, fast food and air travel
blackoil 5y ago
Warning labels won't be of much use, as an individual most will ignore them believing in there own prowess to discern truth. Taxing all social media or all media may have interesting implications as this again will reduce profit for all and give some revenue for governments without making any actual change. Also people making cooking/educational videos on Youtube may resent having to pay sin tax.

RIMR 5y ago

Freedom of speech also includes from being compelled to speak of things you don't want to, so forcing companies to make their recommendation and moderation systems publicly visible would be eve more of a free speech issue than expecting companies to moderate violent, hateful, or deliberately misleading content.

alistairSH 5y ago
Can you cite some case law that bears out this argument? While I agree that your point is true in the most general sense, we compel companies to make their internal information public fairly regularly via various mechanisms (admittedly, none of which are 100% analogous to the FB/social media situation).
solveit 5y ago
I absolutely disagree but I'm upvoting anyway because it's an argument I haven't seen before with regards to making algorithms public and god knows the discourse could use some variety. That being said. No. This is no more a free speech issue than forcing food manufacturers to make their ingredients public.

photochemsyn 5y ago

I think that's the right approach. Legally you could require every social media company that collects and sells data on its users to advertisers to allow the users to access their internal algorithmic interface (for their own account). Now, what controls are on the internal algorithmic dial? Apparently that's top secret, but a legal requirement to expose the interface to the users seems reasonable. Note that this might not affect what ads you get served (that seems more on the private business side, although banning prescription pharma ads makes sense), but it would affect what shows up in your feed, what content you get served, etc. You could write your own exclude lists, for example (i.e. if you never want to see content from MSNBC, FOX, or CNN, that would be your decision - not the algorithms, etc.)

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

If you get too big, you can't buy your competition (e.g. FB buying IG). Or if you get too big, you have to open your stuff up like email does. Or if you lie to congress, you get penalized. Or if you get too big, you have to make your algorithms publicly available.

new_guy 5y ago
Yeah but that's just an American-centric take, there's plenty of companies out there that don't give a flying f*ck about American laws and congress.
- TheCoelacanth 5y ago
  If they operate in America, then they have to give a fuck about American laws. If they don't operate in America, then I don't give a fuck what they do.
piggybox 5y ago
What part of Gmail is open?
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  Email, not Gmail. I can email people from my provider even if they use other providers, including people who self host. And I can get email from them too.
- thinkling 5y ago
  I think GP is referring to the fact that email overall is a system that is based on public standards and open to new entrants. You can start Hmail.com if you want, and plug into the existing email eco-system as a new competitor very easily. The social media ecosystems aren't like that. You can't be a chat provider and plug into FB Messenger; you can't plug into Twitter, etc. There is an open social media eco-system called the fediverse (for its federated nature), in which Mastodon is the best-known player. But it's gotten very limited traction, because of the network effect that keeps people on FB and Twitter. No such effect keeps people on Gmail.

azinman2 5y ago

> I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship. Ok let’s say that’s now the case. The FB source is now open. What changed? Any negative consequences are still occurring, and if anything, we just have had actors better visibility into what to exploit.

zabatuvajdka 5y ago

In my opinion if social media is important to society the way it seems there should be a government funded social network for users and businesses. In the USA like NPR and PBS. The problem is companies selling peoples data and optimizing the algorithms on probability. Instead what if everyone paid some taxes to have a social network which helps people interact and businesses promote themselves, you can get rid of the ads AND the algorithms. Let users customize settings which dictate the algorithm.

onemoresoop 5y ago
You better be sure the incumbents would fight tooth and nail make this look like a very unattractive idea and lobby heavily to make sure it will never happen.

intended 5y ago

The testimony was about what you expect. It looks like the recco algorithms will be carved out from the neutral platform protections they enjoy.

woeirua 5y ago

No recommendation algorithms for certain classes of websites. News feeds must be sorted in chronological order only. Users may selectively filter their feeds if they choose. No infinite scrolling.

christkv 5y ago

How about an age limit. You have to be 18 or above.

raxxorrax 5y ago
People seem to dislike this suggestion, but while I believe it is unrealistic to check for age on the internet, this idea has some merit. Platforms that harbor minors and adults together will have to have different rules than platforms just for adults. But you also cannot make everything fit for kids. Government would actually try to do just that since ensuring safety here is their mandate. So a solution must be found. Normally minors should be supervised, but that is not trivial and you don't want constant surveillance.

alistairSH 5y ago

What do you want to be done exactly? Public algorithms, or at least some 3rd party review. Ban infinite-scroll on social media platforms. Require feeds to be configurable (users can set to "newest first" or "top picks" or whatever else). I'm sure I could come up with more, that's just off the top of my head.

idiotsecant 5y ago
These seem like awkward things to encode into law in a durable way. Laws are long-term blunt instruments, banning something like infinite scroll will have all kinds of unintended consequences.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  That's true - these things might be better implemented as regulations out of the Executive branch - but that would still require legislation authorizing somebody to implement the regulations.
  - kyleee 5y ago
    Interesting that the US governance model is devolving to "decrees from the king" thanks to exec orders
    - swiley 5y ago
      We'll see how much longer the states accept that for.
      - idiotsecant 5y ago
        State governments are much more interested in participating in the cable news culture wars to pump up next election numbers then they are in actually governing. I doubt it.
    - telotortium 5y ago

at-fates-hands 5y ago

>> To clarify, can you specify exactly what law you would like made? What do you want to be done exactly? Honestly, social media issues are for the most part a parenting issue. If you don't have access to your kids phone, or know what platforms they are on and who they are talking to and what they're sharing, I'm not sure legislating social media is going to do much of anything. New platforms will pop up, more private networks will be started and suddenly, everything becomes to fragmented to really oversee. I would create laws that have teeth and address issues like bullying, doxxing, SWATING and other ways people weaponize social media against other people. You start to put some teeth into laws where people are facing serious consequences for bullying and pushing people to suicide, then you might see some changes.

mLuby 5y ago
> You start to put some teeth into laws where people are facing serious consequences for bullying and pushing people to suicide Counterpoint: kids aren't all neurologically and socially developed enough to understand life-altering consequences for certain actions, and that's not their fault. Legal codes and law enforcement are too crude in most child-related cases, unless you're okay with incarcerating misbehaving children. It's on adults to make sure things kids can reach are reasonably safe for—as well as from—them.
- MertsA 5y ago
  Counterpoint to your counterpoint: Almost all kids are neurologically and socially developed enough to understand they'll be picking up cigarette butts and cleaning graffiti on the weekend if they start bullying someone. It's quite common for American schools to enact "zero tolerance" policies for any physical altercation that, barring criminal charges, is the same punishment regardless of severity and irrespective of who the aggressor was. The policy is literally to give the victim the same punishment in the name of "fairness". Now there's no reason not to escalate and it incentivizes the victim to not report it. Even with the same punishment it's still skewed towards the bully as odds are, they're probably not going to care as much about a couple days of suspension and most bullies aren't going to be in any serious risk of expulsion. School administrators don't care about bullying and teens being driven to suicide, they care more about liability than fairness. Taking the King Solomon approach in public schools is abhorrent and injust. Kids do dumb things, but it makes it so much worse when incompetence and callous disregard create perverse incentives.

munificent 5y ago

Simply disallowing corporations to reach the scale of Facebook/ConAgra/Amazon/WalMart would solve many many problems. These companies do awful things because: 1. They have few viable alternatives so ethical consumers end up choosing them when they might not otherwise. 2. They have enough money that it is profitable to do bad things and pay for the damage control. 3. They have enough power to defeat regulation and government oversight. 4. They are so large and monolithic that they can hide their internal workings more easily. 5. The org chart is so deep that those in power are psychologically removed from much of the consequences of their overpowered actions.

eightysixfour 5y ago
So for a digital platform you are suggesting that after X users they allow no more sign-ups until someone churns out?
- munificent 5y ago
  I don't think number of users is the metric that really matters. I care a lot more about market cap because money is what gives corporations greater leverage to do bad stuff.
  - eightysixfour 5y ago
    What about companies with large market caps that are losing money?

handrous 5y ago

Make spying on people illegal, even when a computer does it to billions of people rather than one creep doing it to one person. If you have to collect info about people to provide a product or service, make it strictly illegal to transfer or sell that info or anything derived from it. Don't like it, get into another business. No one's making you collect people's info. Yes, this should apply to e.g. credit card companies, not just big tech. This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. Do something to make platforms responsible when their "algorithms" promote something. Not just hosting it, but when they promote it. Don't like it? Don't curate, then, or have a human do it so you're sure nothing you're deliberately promoting is shitty enough to land you on the wrong end of a lawsuit. "But how will tech companies show every visitor a totally different home page of content they're promoting (but in no way responsible for), and how will Youtube find a way to recommend Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan videos next to every damn thing? How will tech companies make every part of their 'experience' algorithmically-selected, personalized recommendations of content they farmed from randos?" They won't, they won't, and... they won't. You're welcome. Make data leaks so cripplingly expensive that no company would dare hoard personal data it didn't absolutely need to get by. Force the quasi-official credit reporting agencies not to be so shitty. In particular, "freezes" should be free and should be the default, alerts for activity should be free, and access to one's own info should be on demand at any time, not once per year per agency. Or just outlaw the bastards completely, IDGAF. I dunno, lots of things we could do to make the current personal data free-for-all less hellish.

smolder 5y ago
> This'd need some fine points hammered out (don't laws always?) but it's not that crazy. It sounds like you're suggesting GDPR style regulation. They're still figuring out how to enforce that but generally I support it. Too much money is against it to get anything passed in the US, though. Another problem is that the US government seems to like when the tech sector gobbles up data on people. It gives them new powers for social control.

vpfaulkner 5y ago

A lot of these issues seem difficult to regulate but one that seems more realistic is usage by minors. What if social media platforms required all minors to have their account associated with a parent account? The parent could monitor activity, institute time limits, etc.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
Minors don't use FB much anyway. It's more tik-tok now. And of course no minor would use an app monitored by her parents, she will immediately switch to another app.
- vpfaulkner 5y ago
  Sorry, should have clarified: I was suggesting that if the government decides to regulate it should apply to all social media platforms, not just FB. Updated the original comment.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    Unless you're also requiring IDs for age verification, then that just means that the kids will lie.

burlesona 5y ago

I would ban algorithmic targeted media -- ie no personalized feed based on an "engagement" algorithm, for social media just see a chronological feed of posts from the people you follow. This is the most addictive and radicalizing part of social media - and the most lucrative. Much like the nicotine in Big Tobacco's case.

asiachick 5y ago
Could I write my own algo for personal use? Could I hire someone else to write that algo? Could I share it with others? Could I start a company to sell it? If it gets to popular will you try to ban it too?

mullingitover 5y ago

> I would rather take the stance of feed algorithms and moderation logs be PUBLICLY available. Transparency instead of censorship. I think that removing CDA Sec 230 protections for algorithmically-curated feeds is the answer. It's one thing to have a basic FIFO feed, it's another to hide or reveal content based on your own internal engagement/revenue targets. At the point where you're crafting bespoke engagement-maximizing feeds, you're creating a gestalt creative work that has a life of its own and that is no longer merely a passthrough for the works of users of the platform. In other words, consider Facebook's curated feeds as Facebook's speech, not only the speech of their users, so Facebook faces liability for that speech.

quotemstr 5y ago
Your proposal would make HN-style comment ranking illegal. Do you really want to live in the world you propose?
- mullingitover 5y ago
  I considered the widely-used 'hot' algorithm and I don't think that really qualifies as a 'creative work' on the part of the site. The 'top from last hour/day/month/year' and 'hot' algorithms are really elementary sorting methods that are in the same league as FIFO.
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    Who gets to decide what algorithms are simple enough to be legal? You? Why? All a ranking algorithm is doing is making suggestions that certain content be read before other content. That's protected speech.
    - mullingitover 5y ago
      > Who gets to decide what algorithms are simple enough to be legal? You? Why? I'm not talking about the legality, I'm talking about the liability. If one user posts defamatory/libelous speech and Facebook decides to blast it to 1 billion users because their secret sauce algorithm found that it really cranks the revenue dial, Facebook should share some culpability in that defamation lawsuit. A basic 'hot' algorithm that's not designed by squadrons of PhDs running machine learning on user behavior analysis isn't really the same thing, culpability-wise, imho.