3 ms·

Why do we have to regulate? It seems an alternate yet much more difficult path would be that we could grow a societal backbone and make certain destructive prac

by dcow 5y ago

Why do we have to regulate? It seems an alternate yet much more difficult path would be that we could grow a societal backbone and make certain destructive practices illegal instead of trying to figure out a central list of allowed practices and licenses and policies and permits and bureaucracy etc. For example, it’s pretty clear that internet scale data markets and user attention platforms harm the individual. Why is step one always to reach for a regulatory solution instead of a slightly more radical “outlaw such machines and then figure things out from there” approach? A naive example might be a law stating: “It is illegal to profit from the sale of advertisements to your own users.” In the same vein, why cant we outlaw DRM because it’s bad for users and tell movie studios we care more about users health and well being than we do about your “piracy” problem?

simonh 5y ago
Outlaw what specifically though? You're falling into the same trap OP is calling out, that your extremely vague hand wavey proposed laws would only ban "the bad guys".
- dcow 5y ago
  I list two examples (as does Doctorow) of things that are pretty clearly bad for users: 1. attention marketplaces, 2: DRM. I am falling for no such trap I really don’t understand your angle there. My suggested solution to 1 is rather than try to regulate Facebook, which I agree is hand wavey, just ban the business model altogether because it demonstrably breeds machines and software that harm users. The “good guy” user attention businesses are collateral, yes, but this is a move to protect us not our ad marketplaces and the hypothesis is that the incentives just aren't aligned for there to exist a “good guy” ad platform. (If one exists please show me so I can understand the extent of any collateral harm I might be advocating.) I like this solution because it’s principled and specifically not hand wavey. The collateral seems worth it IMO. Same with DRM.
  - simonh 5y ago
    what's an attention marketplace? facebook, twitter, reddit, ok, all gone. But then advertising is attention and a marketplace, so does that mean banning all online or app based advertising? Amazon has attention and it's a marketplace, so does Etsy.
    - dcow 5y ago
      No you don’t ban by name like that. A start might be to say: it is illegal both run a content platform and also to profit from the sale of targeted ads on your platform. Or simply but more radically: you cannot use user data collected in the operation of a software platform in order to target advertisements to your users. The goal would be to ban the bad incentives by eliminating the ability to profit. Yes that kills the profit. That’s the point. I don't think anybody is at war with e.g. a news site that runs an integrated ad on their headline or landing page or even a search engine that inserts its own contextual ads. We’re talking about dismantling the user content advertising platforms where the incentive becomes maximizing the time users spend on the platform.
      - simonh 5y ago
        I'm not suggesting by name, I just had no idea which platforms you think your law would target. Banning using user data to target adds is a lot more specific and actionable. That would hurt facebook and Twitter's revenue quite badly, but it would do nothing at all to stop the toxic effects of facebook particularly. My main problem with facebook isn't targeted adds, yes I'm against their toxic attitude to privacy but it's not their most toxic behaviour. The main problem for me is the way they turn peoples feeds into firehoses of radicalising, enraging, adrenaline juicing hostility.
        dcow 5y ago
        I guess the hypothesis is that they engage in that behavior exactly because their business depends on driving up engagement so they’ll go as far as to, as you say, show people content that pisses them off so they’ll spend an extra hour as a keyboard warrior and hopefully see an ad in there. I don’t think those incentives exist for e.g a paid phonebook.
dasil003 5y ago
I'm not following your argument, what do you see as the difference between regulation and outlawing something?
- dcow 5y ago
  The argument against regulation people often reach for is that it actually benefits incumbents and stifles innovation because it involves permits and checks and licenses etc generally just roadblocks to doing something in a domain. And that if you open the door to it in one spot then you can definitely expect it to crop up everywhere. I generally agree with this take and understand why people are not excited about working in, using products in, living with, heavily regulated industries. What I’m saying is that form of regulating FB seems silly to me too and I think we could avoid the “fear of central government control raining on our disruptive tech utopia” problem and the “any regulation here would be a hand wavey slippery slope” problem by simply taking a more aggressive principled stance as a society and declaring bad things illegal instead of trying to compromise and regulate “tech” into submission. Punish the bad behavior seems like such a simple solution.

by dcow 5y ago

simonh 5y ago

Outlaw what specifically though? You're falling into the same trap OP is calling out, that your extremely vague hand wavey proposed laws would only ban "the bad guys".

dcow 5y ago
I list two examples (as does Doctorow) of things that are pretty clearly bad for users: 1. attention marketplaces, 2: DRM. I am falling for no such trap I really don’t understand your angle there. My suggested solution to 1 is rather than try to regulate Facebook, which I agree is hand wavey, just ban the business model altogether because it demonstrably breeds machines and software that harm users. The “good guy” user attention businesses are collateral, yes, but this is a move to protect us not our ad marketplaces and the hypothesis is that the incentives just aren't aligned for there to exist a “good guy” ad platform. (If one exists please show me so I can understand the extent of any collateral harm I might be advocating.) I like this solution because it’s principled and specifically not hand wavey. The collateral seems worth it IMO. Same with DRM.
- simonh 5y ago
  what's an attention marketplace? facebook, twitter, reddit, ok, all gone. But then advertising is attention and a marketplace, so does that mean banning all online or app based advertising? Amazon has attention and it's a marketplace, so does Etsy.
  - dcow 5y ago
    No you don’t ban by name like that. A start might be to say: it is illegal both run a content platform and also to profit from the sale of targeted ads on your platform. Or simply but more radically: you cannot use user data collected in the operation of a software platform in order to target advertisements to your users. The goal would be to ban the bad incentives by eliminating the ability to profit. Yes that kills the profit. That’s the point. I don't think anybody is at war with e.g. a news site that runs an integrated ad on their headline or landing page or even a search engine that inserts its own contextual ads. We’re talking about dismantling the user content advertising platforms where the incentive becomes maximizing the time users spend on the platform.
    - simonh 5y ago
      I'm not suggesting by name, I just had no idea which platforms you think your law would target. Banning using user data to target adds is a lot more specific and actionable. That would hurt facebook and Twitter's revenue quite badly, but it would do nothing at all to stop the toxic effects of facebook particularly. My main problem with facebook isn't targeted adds, yes I'm against their toxic attitude to privacy but it's not their most toxic behaviour. The main problem for me is the way they turn peoples feeds into firehoses of radicalising, enraging, adrenaline juicing hostility.
      - dcow 5y ago
        I guess the hypothesis is that they engage in that behavior exactly because their business depends on driving up engagement so they’ll go as far as to, as you say, show people content that pisses them off so they’ll spend an extra hour as a keyboard warrior and hopefully see an ad in there. I don’t think those incentives exist for e.g a paid phonebook.

dasil003 5y ago

I'm not following your argument, what do you see as the difference between regulation and outlawing something?

dcow 5y ago
The argument against regulation people often reach for is that it actually benefits incumbents and stifles innovation because it involves permits and checks and licenses etc generally just roadblocks to doing something in a domain. And that if you open the door to it in one spot then you can definitely expect it to crop up everywhere. I generally agree with this take and understand why people are not excited about working in, using products in, living with, heavily regulated industries. What I’m saying is that form of regulating FB seems silly to me too and I think we could avoid the “fear of central government control raining on our disruptive tech utopia” problem and the “any regulation here would be a hand wavey slippery slope” problem by simply taking a more aggressive principled stance as a society and declaring bad things illegal instead of trying to compromise and regulate “tech” into submission. Punish the bad behavior seems like such a simple solution.