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So the solution is "more speech?" I don't know how that will unhook minors from the feedback loop of recommendation algorithms and their plastic brains. It's li

So the solution is "more speech?" I don't know how that will unhook minors from the feedback loop of recommendation algorithms and their plastic brains. It's like saying 'we don't need to put laws in place to combat heroin use, those people could go enjoy a good book instead!'.

nostrademons 2y ago
Yes, the solution is more speech. Teach your kids critical thinking or they will be fodder for somebody else who has it. That happens regardless of who's in charge, government or private companies. If you can't think for yourself and synthesize lots of disparate information, somebody else will do the thinking for you.
- kelnos 2y ago
  Solution that require everyone to do a thing, and do it well, are doomed to fail. Yes, it would be great if parents would, universally, parent better, but getting all of them (or a large enough portion of them for it to make a difference) to do so is essentially impossible.
  - nostrademons 2y ago
    Government controls aren't a solution either though. The people with critical thinking skills, who can effectively tell others what to think, simply capture the government. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
- jrockway 2y ago
  I agree with this. Kids are already subject to an agenda; for example, never once in my K-12 education did I learn anything about sex. This was because it was politically controversial at the time (and maybe it still is now), so my school district just avoided the issue entirely. I remember my mom being so mad about the curriculum in general that she ran for the school board and won. (I believe it was more of a math and science type thing. She was upset with how many coloring assignments I had. Frankly, I completely agreed with her then and I do now.)
  - nostrademons 2y ago
    I was lucky enough to go to a charter school where my teachers encouraged me to read books like "People's History of the U.S" and "Lies My Teacher Told Me". They have an agenda too, but understanding that there's a whole world of disagreement out there and that I should seek out multiple information sources and triangulate between them has been a huge superpower since. It's pretty shocking to understand the history of public education and realize that it wasn't created to benefit the student, but to benefit the future employers of those students.
- wvenable 2y ago
  > Yes, the solution is more speech. I think we've reached the point now that there is more speech than any person can consume by a factor of a million. It now comes to down to picking what speech you want to hear. This is exactly what content algorithms are doing -> out of the millions of hours of speech produced in a day, it's giving you your 24 hours of it. Saying "teach your kids critical thinking" is a solution but it's not the solution. At some point, you have to discover content out of those millions or hours a day. It's impossible to do yourself -- it's always going to be curated. EDIT: To whomever downvoted this comment, you made my point. You should have replied instead.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  K so several of the most well-funded tech companies on the planet sink literally billions of dollars into psyops research to reinforce addictive behavior and average parents are expected to successfully compete against it with...a lecture.
- chongli 2y ago
  You're mistaken as to what this ruling is about. Ultimately, when it comes right down to it, the Third Circuit is saying this (directed at social media companies): "The speech is either wholly your speech or wholly someone else's. You can't have it both ways." Either they get to act as a common carrier (telephone companies are not liable for what you say on a phone call because it is wholly your own speech and they are merely carrying it) or they act as a publisher (liable for everything said on their platforms because they are exercising editorial control via algorithm). If this ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, then they will have to choose: * Either claim the safe harbour protections afforded to common carriers and lose the ability to curate algorithmically or * Claim the free speech protections of the First Amendment but be liable for all content as it is their own speech.
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    Algorithmic libel detectors don't exist. The second option isn't possible. The result will be the separation of search and recommendation engines from social media platforms. Since there's effectively one search company in each national protectionist bloc, the result will be the creation of several new monopolies that hold the power to decide what news is front-page, and what is buried or practically unavailable. In the English-speaking world that right would go to Alphabet.
    - chongli 2y ago
      The second option isn’t really meant for social media anyway. It’s meant for traditional publishers such as newspapers. If this goes through I don’t think it will be such a big boost for Google search as you suggest. For one thing, it has no effect on OpenAI and other LLM providers. That’s a real problem for Google, as I see a long term trend away from traditional search and towards LLMs for getting questions answered, especially among young people. Also note that YouTube is social media and features a curation algorithm to deliver personalized content feeds. As for social media, I think we’re better off without it! There’s countless stories in the news about all the damage it’s causing to society. I don’t think we’ll be able to roll all that back but I hope we’ll be able to make things better.
- bsder 2y ago
  We have seen that adults can't seem to unhook from these dopamine delivery systems and you're expecting that children can do so? Sorry. That's simply disingenuous. Yes, children and especially teenagers do lots of things even though their parents try to prevent them from doing so. Even if children and teenagers still get them, we don't throw up our hands and sell them tobacco and alcohol anyway.
aeternum 2y ago
Open-source the algorithm and have users choose. A marketplace is the best solution to most problems. It is pretty clear that china already forces a very different tiktok ranking algo for kids within the country vs outside the country. Forcing a single algo is pretty unamerican though and can easily be abused, let's instead open it up.
- kelnos 2y ago
  80% of users will leave things at the default setting, or "choose" whatever the first thing in the list is. They won't understand the options; they'll just want to see their news feed.
  - aeternum 2y ago
    I'm not so sure, the feed is quite important and users understand that. Look at how many people switched between X and Threads given their political view. People switched off Reddit or cancelled their FB account at times in the past also.
    - kfajdsl 2y ago
      I'm pretty sure going from X to Threads had very little to do with the feed algorithm for most people. It had everything to do with one platform being run by Musk and the other one not.
- mindslight 2y ago
  "Open-source the algorithm" would be at best openwashing. The way to create the type of choice you're thinking is to force the unbundling of client software from hosting services.

nostrademons 2y ago

Yes, the solution is more speech. Teach your kids critical thinking or they will be fodder for somebody else who has it. That happens regardless of who's in charge, government or private companies. If you can't think for yourself and synthesize lots of disparate information, somebody else will do the thinking for you.

kelnos 2y ago
Solution that require everyone to do a thing, and do it well, are doomed to fail. Yes, it would be great if parents would, universally, parent better, but getting all of them (or a large enough portion of them for it to make a difference) to do so is essentially impossible.
- nostrademons 2y ago
  Government controls aren't a solution either though. The people with critical thinking skills, who can effectively tell others what to think, simply capture the government. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
jrockway 2y ago
I agree with this. Kids are already subject to an agenda; for example, never once in my K-12 education did I learn anything about sex. This was because it was politically controversial at the time (and maybe it still is now), so my school district just avoided the issue entirely. I remember my mom being so mad about the curriculum in general that she ran for the school board and won. (I believe it was more of a math and science type thing. She was upset with how many coloring assignments I had. Frankly, I completely agreed with her then and I do now.)
- nostrademons 2y ago
  I was lucky enough to go to a charter school where my teachers encouraged me to read books like "People's History of the U.S" and "Lies My Teacher Told Me". They have an agenda too, but understanding that there's a whole world of disagreement out there and that I should seek out multiple information sources and triangulate between them has been a huge superpower since. It's pretty shocking to understand the history of public education and realize that it wasn't created to benefit the student, but to benefit the future employers of those students.
wvenable 2y ago
> Yes, the solution is more speech. I think we've reached the point now that there is more speech than any person can consume by a factor of a million. It now comes to down to picking what speech you want to hear. This is exactly what content algorithms are doing -> out of the millions of hours of speech produced in a day, it's giving you your 24 hours of it. Saying "teach your kids critical thinking" is a solution but it's not the solution. At some point, you have to discover content out of those millions or hours a day. It's impossible to do yourself -- it's always going to be curated. EDIT: To whomever downvoted this comment, you made my point. You should have replied instead.
forgetfreeman 2y ago
K so several of the most well-funded tech companies on the planet sink literally billions of dollars into psyops research to reinforce addictive behavior and average parents are expected to successfully compete against it with...a lecture.
chongli 2y ago
You're mistaken as to what this ruling is about. Ultimately, when it comes right down to it, the Third Circuit is saying this (directed at social media companies): "The speech is either wholly your speech or wholly someone else's. You can't have it both ways." Either they get to act as a common carrier (telephone companies are not liable for what you say on a phone call because it is wholly your own speech and they are merely carrying it) or they act as a publisher (liable for everything said on their platforms because they are exercising editorial control via algorithm). If this ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, then they will have to choose: * Either claim the safe harbour protections afforded to common carriers and lose the ability to curate algorithmically or * Claim the free speech protections of the First Amendment but be liable for all content as it is their own speech.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  Algorithmic libel detectors don't exist. The second option isn't possible. The result will be the separation of search and recommendation engines from social media platforms. Since there's effectively one search company in each national protectionist bloc, the result will be the creation of several new monopolies that hold the power to decide what news is front-page, and what is buried or practically unavailable. In the English-speaking world that right would go to Alphabet.
  - chongli 2y ago
    The second option isn’t really meant for social media anyway. It’s meant for traditional publishers such as newspapers. If this goes through I don’t think it will be such a big boost for Google search as you suggest. For one thing, it has no effect on OpenAI and other LLM providers. That’s a real problem for Google, as I see a long term trend away from traditional search and towards LLMs for getting questions answered, especially among young people. Also note that YouTube is social media and features a curation algorithm to deliver personalized content feeds. As for social media, I think we’re better off without it! There’s countless stories in the news about all the damage it’s causing to society. I don’t think we’ll be able to roll all that back but I hope we’ll be able to make things better.
bsder 2y ago
We have seen that adults can't seem to unhook from these dopamine delivery systems and you're expecting that children can do so? Sorry. That's simply disingenuous. Yes, children and especially teenagers do lots of things even though their parents try to prevent them from doing so. Even if children and teenagers still get them, we don't throw up our hands and sell them tobacco and alcohol anyway.

aeternum 2y ago

Open-source the algorithm and have users choose. A marketplace is the best solution to most problems. It is pretty clear that china already forces a very different tiktok ranking algo for kids within the country vs outside the country. Forcing a single algo is pretty unamerican though and can easily be abused, let's instead open it up.

kelnos 2y ago
80% of users will leave things at the default setting, or "choose" whatever the first thing in the list is. They won't understand the options; they'll just want to see their news feed.
- aeternum 2y ago
  I'm not so sure, the feed is quite important and users understand that. Look at how many people switched between X and Threads given their political view. People switched off Reddit or cancelled their FB account at times in the past also.
  - kfajdsl 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure going from X to Threads had very little to do with the feed algorithm for most people. It had everything to do with one platform being run by Musk and the other one not.
mindslight 2y ago
"Open-source the algorithm" would be at best openwashing. The way to create the type of choice you're thinking is to force the unbundling of client software from hosting services.