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I think the angle of these laws as well as the parenting response here in the thread are both wildly off because they both take a completely individualistic app

I think the angle of these laws as well as the parenting response here in the thread are both wildly off because they both take a completely individualistic approach to something that's a systemic issue. The litigation culture of having individual people sue for damage doesn't go to the root cause and is a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. Delegating something that is effectively an environmental issue to the responsibility of individual parents is like blaming parents for not protecting their kids from drinking lead water. Technology and social media are ubiquitous, there's only an illusion of choice. It's digital infrastructure and the water we swim in. In fact the covid pandemic has shown that it is not even a choice as it turned into the primary means for kids to have a social life and education. What's necessary is clear rules that align the behavior of companies with social ends. If they can't square making money with keeping public discourse healthy or not making teens mentally ill they need to be culled, it's that simple. Clear, strong and unambiguous legislation, rather than private legal threats will not harm the kind of entrepreneurs that build tools that are in the interest of the public. It will give them a better shot, just like environmental laws for cars have aided electric car makers. For every billionaire incumbent there are thousands eager to build good products to take a slice of the pie. The anti-regulatory argument has very little merit.

remarkEon 4y ago
I agree with everything you’re saying up until this point: > What's necessary is clear rules that align the behavior of companies with social ends. If they can't square making money with keeping public discourse healthy or not making teens mentally ill they need to be culled, it's that simple. I don’t think it’s that simple, or simple in the way you may imagine. It’s impossible to come up with rules that even a plurality agree with. Just scroll the comment threads here when social media “censorship” comes up, which may not be directly what you’re talking about but is surely related in part if not in whole to the very real mental health issues you are describing. The auto regulation and leaded drinking water analogies, however, incidentally hint at what the real answer is. We banned those things. If social media is the lead in our water, we don’t need better filters (or whatever) we need to get rid of it.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I think what is needed is some kind of reactive and iterative restrictions. As well as analytics. Just like how companies measure addiction as a stat to optimise, this data should become public and used as a way to measure the effectiveness of new restrictions. An idea I had is to set some kind of guideline like “users should on average spend no more than 1 hour on the platform per day” and then if the average user starts going over that, the company gets penalised until they bring the number lower. This way you let the companies use whatever measure they find works best to keep addiction under control.
  - fxtentacle 4y ago
    That is a brilliant idea. We have nutritional labels on food. We need nutritional labels for websites/apps/services. And then maybe a small popup "You've reached your daily serving of social media use. You may continue, but know that you'll be in unhealthy territory." And then we treat "social media addiction" as an additional insurance cost factor, just like obesity. More than 2h of facebook per day => let's double your mental health premiums. That way, we (the society) can accurately measure and allocate the damage and resulting costs caused by social media companies.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  >Just scroll the comment threads here when social media “censorship” comes up, I mean some of the controversy here may be of the 'difficult to make someone understand something their income depends on them not understanding' variety.
deleted 4y ago
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throwaway1851 4y ago
> The litigation culture of having individual people sue for damage doesn't go to the root cause Doesn’t it? The root issue is an externality: social media companies profit from the user engagement that addiction provides, but do not bear the cost of the addiction. Creating a private right of action (preferably with asymmetric fee award exposure) both enables and incentivizes the charging of those costs to the companies. Admittedly, this “litigation culture” as you call it is inefficient. But I think it’s generally more effective than the alternative of having top-down regulatory intervention, where you have to contend with issues such as regulatory capture and the general ineptitude of government bureaucracies.

remarkEon 4y ago

I agree with everything you’re saying up until this point: > What's necessary is clear rules that align the behavior of companies with social ends. If they can't square making money with keeping public discourse healthy or not making teens mentally ill they need to be culled, it's that simple. I don’t think it’s that simple, or simple in the way you may imagine. It’s impossible to come up with rules that even a plurality agree with. Just scroll the comment threads here when social media “censorship” comes up, which may not be directly what you’re talking about but is surely related in part if not in whole to the very real mental health issues you are describing. The auto regulation and leaded drinking water analogies, however, incidentally hint at what the real answer is. We banned those things. If social media is the lead in our water, we don’t need better filters (or whatever) we need to get rid of it.

Gigachad 4y ago
I think what is needed is some kind of reactive and iterative restrictions. As well as analytics. Just like how companies measure addiction as a stat to optimise, this data should become public and used as a way to measure the effectiveness of new restrictions. An idea I had is to set some kind of guideline like “users should on average spend no more than 1 hour on the platform per day” and then if the average user starts going over that, the company gets penalised until they bring the number lower. This way you let the companies use whatever measure they find works best to keep addiction under control.
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  That is a brilliant idea. We have nutritional labels on food. We need nutritional labels for websites/apps/services. And then maybe a small popup "You've reached your daily serving of social media use. You may continue, but know that you'll be in unhealthy territory." And then we treat "social media addiction" as an additional insurance cost factor, just like obesity. More than 2h of facebook per day => let's double your mental health premiums. That way, we (the society) can accurately measure and allocate the damage and resulting costs caused by social media companies.
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
>Just scroll the comment threads here when social media “censorship” comes up, I mean some of the controversy here may be of the 'difficult to make someone understand something their income depends on them not understanding' variety.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

throwaway1851 4y ago

> The litigation culture of having individual people sue for damage doesn't go to the root cause Doesn’t it? The root issue is an externality: social media companies profit from the user engagement that addiction provides, but do not bear the cost of the addiction. Creating a private right of action (preferably with asymmetric fee award exposure) both enables and incentivizes the charging of those costs to the companies. Admittedly, this “litigation culture” as you call it is inefficient. But I think it’s generally more effective than the alternative of having top-down regulatory intervention, where you have to contend with issues such as regulatory capture and the general ineptitude of government bureaucracies.