3 ms·

They should just ban social media outright, regardless of age.

croon 9mo ago
We just need a distinct definition first. Moderated forums were kind of great in general. Early social media with chronological feeds of your friends were useful too. The nebulous algorithms pulling people into reinforcing rabbit holes of trash or simply optimizing for "engagement" (outrage) is the primary issue IMHO. If we can only ban the bad stuff, great, but it's rarely that easy.
- lossyalgo 9mo ago
  Exactly - ban addictive dark patterns in ALL software for ALL ages.
- surgical_fire 9mo ago
  Fair enough. Typically what I call Social Media is akin to things such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Anything that has a personalized "feed" generated by an algorithm. Old moderates forums had no personalized anything. Incidentally, as much as I despise Reddit, this would exclude Reddit from being banned. Last time I used it, it didn't really have a personalized feed (unless things changed ever since). I could subscribe to subreddits and see the activity on what I subscribed, but anyone with the same subscription list (fully controlled by the user) would see the same activity, so it was not a personalized feed per se.
Markoff 9mo ago
that's great idea until you will try to define what is social media - HN, Reddit, youtube, various PHPBB forums? so pretty much ban any human interaction online other than 101?
- surgical_fire 9mo ago
  Not that hard. Ban any social media that has a personalized algorithmically generated feed. Those things can be gamed for engagement and are poisonous both to the individual and to society. HN, Reddit, PHPBB forums would be excluded. There's no personalization outside the user control on those as far as I am aware. Last time I used Reddit, I could aee the activity on the boards I was subscribed to, but anyone with the same subscriptions would see the same activity. There's o dark pattern there. And just to be clear, I absolutely despise Reddit. I don't even like HN all that much to be frank. I would be the last person that would try to protect Reddit. I am just being coherent with my thoughts on the matter.

croon 9mo ago

We just need a distinct definition first. Moderated forums were kind of great in general. Early social media with chronological feeds of your friends were useful too. The nebulous algorithms pulling people into reinforcing rabbit holes of trash or simply optimizing for "engagement" (outrage) is the primary issue IMHO. If we can only ban the bad stuff, great, but it's rarely that easy.

lossyalgo 9mo ago
Exactly - ban addictive dark patterns in ALL software for ALL ages.
surgical_fire 9mo ago
Fair enough. Typically what I call Social Media is akin to things such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Anything that has a personalized "feed" generated by an algorithm. Old moderates forums had no personalized anything. Incidentally, as much as I despise Reddit, this would exclude Reddit from being banned. Last time I used it, it didn't really have a personalized feed (unless things changed ever since). I could subscribe to subreddits and see the activity on what I subscribed, but anyone with the same subscription list (fully controlled by the user) would see the same activity, so it was not a personalized feed per se.

Markoff 9mo ago

that's great idea until you will try to define what is social media - HN, Reddit, youtube, various PHPBB forums? so pretty much ban any human interaction online other than 101?

surgical_fire 9mo ago
Not that hard. Ban any social media that has a personalized algorithmically generated feed. Those things can be gamed for engagement and are poisonous both to the individual and to society. HN, Reddit, PHPBB forums would be excluded. There's no personalization outside the user control on those as far as I am aware. Last time I used Reddit, I could aee the activity on the boards I was subscribed to, but anyone with the same subscriptions would see the same activity. There's o dark pattern there. And just to be clear, I absolutely despise Reddit. I don't even like HN all that much to be frank. I would be the last person that would try to protect Reddit. I am just being coherent with my thoughts on the matter.