4 ms·

> auto play or infinite scroll I don't think HN has either of these.

by CSMastermind 9mo ago

tekla 9mo ago
> algorithmic feeds It does have these
- skilled 9mo ago
  Well, no. Upvoting a certain story doesn’t change the homepage to match it to similar stories.
- shagie 9mo ago
  https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S4505 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S4505 "Addictive feed" is used, but it's circularly defined. "Algorithmic feed" doesn't appear in the text.
  - tzs 9mo ago
    It appears in section 1 of the PDF of the bill where it is explaining the legislative intent.
    - shagie 9mo ago
      The summary and justification sections help set the intent of the bill, but they don't define the law itself. Those uses are: Section two of this bill adds a new Article 45-A to General Business Law to require addictive social media platforms which feature predatory features such as algorithmic feeds, push notifications, autoplay, infi- nite scroll, and/or like counts as a significant part of the provision of their service to post warning labels for all users upon access to the platform. The bill features a series of specific exemptions for certain types of notifications that fall beyond the scope of the bill (i.e. those explicitly requested by a user or which are deployed for civic communication). More broadly, the bill also exempts any feature which is determined by the Attorney General via regulation to be offered for a valid purpose unrelated to prolonging use of the addictive social media platform. ... ... Additionally, as this bill covers only social media platforms that deploy addictive features such as algorithmic feeds, push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, and like counts, any platform not wishing to display a warning label could simply limit their use of these features. The text of the law, however, does not define "algorithmic feed" (sorting by date post could be considered "an algorithm" by some). "[S]uch as algorithmic feeds" in the description and justification remains undefined in the text of the bill itself.
  - tzs 9mo ago
    I don't see how "Addictive feed" is circularly defined. The definition given is [1]: > "Addictive feed" shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another: > (a) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users; > (b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device; > (c) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision; > (d) the user expressly and unambiguously requested that specific media, media by a specified author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to pursuant to paragraph (c) of this subdivision, be blocked, prioritized or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision; > (e) the media are direct and private communications; > (f) the media are recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user; (> g) the media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a pre-existing sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or > (h) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this article and any regulations promulgated pursuant to this article. [1] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/1500 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/1500
    - shagie 9mo ago
      Ahh... thank you. That's a different part of the already established legislation and wasn't part of this one (which is why I couldn't find it at first glance - I was looking at 1520 and this is 1500). It was referencing it and saying it was itself. That does clear it up. With that definition in mind, to answer the question "does HN need to have this label?" ... ... "unless any of the following conditions are met" ... and it would appear that under (a) that the prioritization or selection of articles displayed is not associated with a user or a user's device, nor does it concern the user's previous interactions with media generated by others... So my layman's read of this is that "No, Hacker News does not fall into the definition of an addictive feed."
- andyjohnson0 9mo ago
  > > algorithmic feeds > It does have these If you consider "feeds" to be the home page, ask hn, etc. then afaik content is determined by user submission after spam/abuse filtering, and all users see the same content. Article position is largely determined by user votes, with some ageing. Again, everyone sees the same ordering (unless they choose to hid le articles). Hard to see how this can be interpreted as "algorithmic".
  - petcat 9mo ago
    It's hard to see it as anything but algorithmic considering that an algorithm is deciding what you see. It doesn't matter if everyone is also seeing the same thing.
    - andyjohnson0 9mo ago
      The algorithm that is deciding what you see is simply <things submitted by other humans> + <voting on those things by other humans>. There's no per-user content customisation and profiling to drive engagement. And hn has an optional "no procrastination" feature that is provided to mitigate excessive engagement.
      - petcat 9mo ago
        We don't know what the algorithm is. But it's clearly more sophisticated than just vote counts. It's an algorithmic feed.
        andyjohnson0 9mo ago
        From the FAQ [1]: "How are stories ranked? "The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way. "Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
thegrim000 9mo ago
I'd personally consider it infinite scroll as you can scroll through as many pages of stories as you want. There's only the slight friction of having to click the 'next page' button every now and then. In an app like Instagram or whatever, you'd also have the friction of swiping your thumb on the screen to see more. They seem pretty identical to me.

> auto play or infinite scroll I don't think HN has either of these.

tekla 9mo ago

> algorithmic feeds It does have these

skilled 9mo ago
Well, no. Upvoting a certain story doesn’t change the homepage to match it to similar stories.
shagie 9mo ago
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S4505 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S4505 "Addictive feed" is used, but it's circularly defined. "Algorithmic feed" doesn't appear in the text.
- tzs 9mo ago
  It appears in section 1 of the PDF of the bill where it is explaining the legislative intent.
  - shagie 9mo ago
    The summary and justification sections help set the intent of the bill, but they don't define the law itself. Those uses are: Section two of this bill adds a new Article 45-A to General Business Law to require addictive social media platforms which feature predatory features such as algorithmic feeds, push notifications, autoplay, infi- nite scroll, and/or like counts as a significant part of the provision of their service to post warning labels for all users upon access to the platform. The bill features a series of specific exemptions for certain types of notifications that fall beyond the scope of the bill (i.e. those explicitly requested by a user or which are deployed for civic communication). More broadly, the bill also exempts any feature which is determined by the Attorney General via regulation to be offered for a valid purpose unrelated to prolonging use of the addictive social media platform. ... ... Additionally, as this bill covers only social media platforms that deploy addictive features such as algorithmic feeds, push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, and like counts, any platform not wishing to display a warning label could simply limit their use of these features. The text of the law, however, does not define "algorithmic feed" (sorting by date post could be considered "an algorithm" by some). "[S]uch as algorithmic feeds" in the description and justification remains undefined in the text of the bill itself.
- tzs 9mo ago
  I don't see how "Addictive feed" is circularly defined. The definition given is [1]: > "Addictive feed" shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another: > (a) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users; > (b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device; > (c) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision; > (d) the user expressly and unambiguously requested that specific media, media by a specified author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to pursuant to paragraph (c) of this subdivision, be blocked, prioritized or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision; > (e) the media are direct and private communications; > (f) the media are recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user; (> g) the media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a pre-existing sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or > (h) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this article and any regulations promulgated pursuant to this article. [1] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/1500 https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/1500
  - shagie 9mo ago
    Ahh... thank you. That's a different part of the already established legislation and wasn't part of this one (which is why I couldn't find it at first glance - I was looking at 1520 and this is 1500). It was referencing it and saying it was itself. That does clear it up. With that definition in mind, to answer the question "does HN need to have this label?" ... ... "unless any of the following conditions are met" ... and it would appear that under (a) that the prioritization or selection of articles displayed is not associated with a user or a user's device, nor does it concern the user's previous interactions with media generated by others... So my layman's read of this is that "No, Hacker News does not fall into the definition of an addictive feed."
andyjohnson0 9mo ago
> > algorithmic feeds > It does have these If you consider "feeds" to be the home page, ask hn, etc. then afaik content is determined by user submission after spam/abuse filtering, and all users see the same content. Article position is largely determined by user votes, with some ageing. Again, everyone sees the same ordering (unless they choose to hid le articles). Hard to see how this can be interpreted as "algorithmic".
- petcat 9mo ago
  It's hard to see it as anything but algorithmic considering that an algorithm is deciding what you see. It doesn't matter if everyone is also seeing the same thing.
  - andyjohnson0 9mo ago
    The algorithm that is deciding what you see is simply <things submitted by other humans> + <voting on those things by other humans>. There's no per-user content customisation and profiling to drive engagement. And hn has an optional "no procrastination" feature that is provided to mitigate excessive engagement.
    - petcat 9mo ago
      We don't know what the algorithm is. But it's clearly more sophisticated than just vote counts. It's an algorithmic feed.
      - andyjohnson0 9mo ago
        From the FAQ [1]: "How are stories ranked? "The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way. "Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

thegrim000 9mo ago

I'd personally consider it infinite scroll as you can scroll through as many pages of stories as you want. There's only the slight friction of having to click the 'next page' button every now and then. In an app like Instagram or whatever, you'd also have the friction of swiping your thumb on the screen to see more. They seem pretty identical to me.