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Was there ever any serious discussion about regulating addictive social media by banning auto play? That would definetly be an escalation if governments start

Was there ever any serious discussion about regulating addictive social media by banning auto play? That would definetly be an escalation if governments start regulating social media product features, and TikTok definetly wouldn’t be the first!

makeitdouble 4y ago
That’s an interesting point. Up until now I feel we didn’t reach anything near that because in the generic case autoplay can be disabled (might be by default ?) in browsers, as it’s an overall obnoxious feature. The case left are specific apps, and for Netflix or other traditional video streaming platforms, proving it’s against the user’s interests would be super tough (even proving it has addictive effects wouldn’t be enough, as the user could be willingly requesting these addictive effects) Social media could be a separate case, as culturally we put it in a different bucket, but then limitations would probably only apply to specific demographics (basically kids younger than 13 or 18 ?) and clear those older on liberty of choice grounds. I think the viewer would need to be directly losing money or being in physical harm to see any kind of regulation on these features.
acje 4y ago
Forced breaks from the intermittent reinforcement loop of online casinos has been used with some success in reducing addictive behavior. This seems analogous to having breaks in auto play.
- acje 4y ago
  https://www.norsk-tipping.no/kundeservice/spillevett/obligatorisk-spillepause/hva-er-obligatorisk-spillepause https://www.norsk-tipping.no/kundeservice/spillevett/obligat... One such implementation. (Link in Norwegian)
hulitu 4y ago
> Was there ever any serious discussion about regulating addictive social media by banning auto play? There were some "attempts" in browsers like firefox but they are poorly implemented and do not work in 90% of the cases.
- johnny22 4y ago
  disabling by default is hardly banning.
swayvil 4y ago
If we regulated that then we'd have to regulate marketing, advertising, propaganda. And nobody wants that./s

makeitdouble 4y ago

That’s an interesting point. Up until now I feel we didn’t reach anything near that because in the generic case autoplay can be disabled (might be by default ?) in browsers, as it’s an overall obnoxious feature. The case left are specific apps, and for Netflix or other traditional video streaming platforms, proving it’s against the user’s interests would be super tough (even proving it has addictive effects wouldn’t be enough, as the user could be willingly requesting these addictive effects) Social media could be a separate case, as culturally we put it in a different bucket, but then limitations would probably only apply to specific demographics (basically kids younger than 13 or 18 ?) and clear those older on liberty of choice grounds. I think the viewer would need to be directly losing money or being in physical harm to see any kind of regulation on these features.

acje 4y ago

Forced breaks from the intermittent reinforcement loop of online casinos has been used with some success in reducing addictive behavior. This seems analogous to having breaks in auto play.

acje 4y ago
https://www.norsk-tipping.no/kundeservice/spillevett/obligatorisk-spillepause/hva-er-obligatorisk-spillepause https://www.norsk-tipping.no/kundeservice/spillevett/obligat... One such implementation. (Link in Norwegian)

hulitu 4y ago

> Was there ever any serious discussion about regulating addictive social media by banning auto play? There were some "attempts" in browsers like firefox but they are poorly implemented and do not work in 90% of the cases.

johnny22 4y ago
disabling by default is hardly banning.

swayvil 4y ago

If we regulated that then we'd have to regulate marketing, advertising, propaganda. And nobody wants that./s