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TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe

• RobotToaster 9mo ago
  > On Friday, the regulators released a preliminary decision that TikTok’s infinite scroll, auto-play features and recommendation algorithm amount to an “addictive design” that violated European Union laws for online safety. How is that any different to Facebook?
  • Mordisquitos 9mo ago
    Maybe it isn't any different to Facebook, I don't know. Why would if matter if Facebook isn't any different from TikTok in the context of this news?
    • paulryanrogers 9mo ago
      Maybe because FB are getting away with the same thing?
      • fifilura 9mo ago
        I doubt they would if this becomes illegal. EU laws are slow, sometimes stupid, but consistent.
        • sithadmin 9mo ago
          Are they consistent? As a North American, I find it difficult to take EU/European countries’ stances on addiction seriously when they seem to be decades behind on reducing the prevalence of smoking and drinking, which almost certainly cause more practical harm than TikTok ever could.
          • pil0u 9mo ago
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
          • ulbu 9mo ago
            what is more damaging, a hammer, a sword, or poison? i hope i don’t have to go out of my way to explain the analogy.
            • 7tflutter7 9mo ago
              So social media is pure 'poison' with 0 positive impact but other addictive media like video games are tools with noble utility? The World Health Organization has reached the exact opposite conclusion. The ICD-11 doesn't include 'social media addiction.' It doesn’t exist clinically. What they did include is 'Gaming Disorder', classifying your 'sword' alongside substance abuse and gambling. My point is governments could just as easily justify video game crack-downs with this same logic. Is that something we should be cheering on? Really?
              • fifilura 9mo ago
                It is not about that. There is surely lots of hypocrisy in particular around alcohol. In most parts of the world TBH. The discussion is whether companies are treated equally with regards to a particular law.
                • 7tflutter7 9mo ago
                  Ya that's my point. The particular law in question - 'Online platforms that are creating any negative effects on mental wellbeing, like addiction' This is Fortnite, Minecraft, Netflix, Online Shopping, Dating Apps etc.
          • KaiserPro 9mo ago
            > seem to be decades behind on reducing the prevalence of smoking and drinking, the EU isn't a federal government. the UK, when it was in the EU did a full smoking inside ban, and tightened it after leaving. It however had a massive problem with binge drinking and sorta didn't do much to stop that, apart from make it more expensive. the netherlands has a smoking ban, but it was brought in later (I think). they had a different drinking culture so didn't have the same issues as the UK for drink. That kind of issue is usually left to member states. Packaging however is more the EU's purview
        • xienze 9mo ago
          The problem I have with the way the EU doles out these punishments is that they like to spring them on tech companies after years and years of radio silence and then suddenly it’s “hey TikTok, we just determined you’ve been breaking the law for years, pay us a couple billion please.” Like, where were they years ago saying “hey TikTok, we think your design is addictive and probably illegal, you need to change or face penalties.” If TikTok continues to operate in the same manner despite a warning, sure, throw the book at them. Otherwise it just seems like the EU waits for years and years until a company is a big enough player and then retroactively decides they’ve been breaking the law for years. Doesn’t help the impression that they’re running a non-EU tech company shakedown campaign.
          • troupo 9mo ago
            > Otherwise it just seems like the EU waits for years and years until a company is a big enough player and then retroactively decides they’ve been breaking the law for years. Lol. It's never like this. These companies are given plenty of warnings and deadlines. After years and years of ignoring them these companies get slapped with a fine and start playing the victim. BTW at this point DSA has been in effect for three years
          • nickslaughter02 9mo ago
            You answered it yourself. They can't extract billions if the company is still small.
          • KaiserPro 9mo ago
            Its never really like this. Tiktok spend a lot of money talking to EU regulators. They know shits coming down the track because these directives have to be put into law by eu members. that takes time. > Doesn’t help the impression that they’re running a non-EU tech company shakedown campaign. But thats not the point, companies shouldn't be doing stuff they know is harmful. Thats literally the point of regulation.
          • AnssiH 9mo ago
            > Like, where were they years ago saying “hey TikTok, we think your design is addictive and probably illegal, you need to change or face penalties.” That is basically what happened today. No penalties have been issued at this point. Also Commission had sent various requests for information to TikTok in 2023 before they opened these proceedings in early 2024 (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_926 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...) - this didn't come out of the blue.
      • hnbad 9mo ago
        Let me rephrase your question: "But if it's illegal for TikTok to do this, shouldn't Meta also be sued over it?" The answer is "Yes".
    • hagbard_c 9mo ago
      It matters because everyone - people, companies, countries - is supposed to be equal in front of the law. Selective application of the law shows this not to be the case and shows that there are other factors in play which decide whether someone - a person, a company, a country - gets to violate some law without legal consequences while someone else is prosecuted for the same violation. If you now think "they have to start somewhere in prosecuting these violations" you're partly correct but also partly mistaken. Sure they have to start somewhere but they could - and if they are really serious about their claims should - have started prosecuting all those other companies which did this way before TikTok or even its predecessor Musically was a thing. Algorithm-driven endless scroll designs to keep user's eyes glued to the screen have been a thing from very early on in nearly all 'social' app-site-things and the warning signs about addictive behaviour in users have been out for many years without the law being thrown at the proprietors of those entities. As to why this has not happened I'll leave for the reader to decide. There are plenty of other examples to be found in this regard ranging from the apprehension of the Telegram CEO to the sudden fervour in going after X-formerly-known-as-Twitter which seem to point at politics being at play in deciding whether a company gets to violate laws without being prosecuted or not. So what's the solution you ask? As far as I can see it is to keep these companies from violating user's rights by keeping them in line regardless of who owns or runs the company and regardless of whether those owners or proprietors are cooperative on other fronts. Assuming that these laws were written to stem the negative influence these app-things have on their users they should have gone after many other companies much earlier. Had they done so it might even have led to TikTok realising that their scheme would not work in the EU. They might not have launched here or they might have detuned their algorithmic user trap, they might have done many things to negate the negative effects of their product. They might just have decided to skip the whole EU market altogether like many other companies have done and do. I'd have thought 'good riddance', what you?
    • iepathos 9mo ago
      Apparent hypocrisy and injustice in government policy is an ugly thing in the world that should be pointed out and eliminated through public awareness and scrutiny.
      • pjc50 9mo ago
        Facebook are also under investigation, it just hasn't concluded yet. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912263
  • black_puppydog 9mo ago
    it may not be. but it's common to fight a legal battle against one perpetrator first, then see for the rest. gotta start somewhere, why not start at what's arguably the most toxic and obvious case, even if (or exactly because) it's been around for less long.
  • embedding-shape 9mo ago
    Seems to be the same as Facebook, and a bunch of others, so hopefully they're all looking into ways of stop breaking the law, if their lawyers have flagged this preliminary decision to them yet.
  • clydethefrog 9mo ago
    The European Commission bases its investigation on the rules laid down in the Digital Services Act (DSA). This European legislation, introduced in 2022, imposes strict requirements on companies offering digital services in Europe. In addition to TikTok, the social media company Meta, Facebook's parent company, is also under the investigation. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_2664 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_... Quoting: >The Commission is concerned that the systems of both Facebook and Instagram, including their algorithms, may stimulate behavioural addictions in children, as well as create so-called 'rabbit-hole effects'. In addition, the Commission is also concerned about age-assurance and verification methods put in place by Meta. And before someone mentions the other? X - the everything app formally known as Twitter - is also under the Commission's scrutiny. It was fined approximately 120 million euro at the end of last year.
    • input_sh 9mo ago
      To explain it in a little bit better: Digital Services Act designates websites as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) based on the number of monthly active users within the EU (>45 million, roughly 10% of all EU citizens). Once the website is designated as such, you're looked at with more scrutiny, have to comply to higher standards, and the exact remediation steps are decided on a case-by-case basis. All of the cases are chugging along, but not all of them are on the same stage. If your website is not popular enough to be designated as VLOP, this law basically doesn't exist. It's not like GDPR in a sense that it defines some things everyone has to follow, regardless of your audience size.
    • RobotToaster 9mo ago
      Thanks. Let's hope they don't chicken out.
  • Aerbil313 9mo ago
    It's not any different. Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Reddit, all are in the same boat. Explicitly designed, tested and benchmarked to hack human reward circuits most effectively to maximize ad revenue.
  • StilesCrisis 9mo ago
    Not to mention Instagram. It is almost indistinguishable from TikTok now.
• erzhan89 9mo ago
  https://archive.is/V1NPt https://archive.is/V1NPt
• lozenge 9mo ago
  I don't understand the legal side, but after gaining and kicking a Tiktok addiction during and after COVID, I believe it. I was there 4-8 hours a day and tried to scroll videos while washing dishes (and during nearly any other activity).
  • nolroz 9mo ago
    How'd you kick it?
    • bilsbie 9mo ago
      For me it’s kicking itself lately. The content has gotten way less interesting over the past few months. Maybe it just has to run its course.
      • pjc50 9mo ago
        Are you in the US? Lots of people have reported that the forced sale "ruined" their algorithm.
        • bilsbie 9mo ago
          That’s definitely part of it for sure. But beyond that, the most compelling content was probably the best all time videos which I’ve exhausted. Plus half the videos now seem to cut off before they answer whatever question they posed. Very frustrating.
    • jumpman500 9mo ago
      I wasn’t able to stomach the idea of Larry Ellison being able to silently nudge my political views so I just deleted the app. Without the allure of China being able to influence my opinion I lost interest.
    • c-fe 9mo ago
      uninstall the app. Works really well to me. The conscious effort of reinstalling it is enough to prevent me from doing it. Whereas using the awfully implemented screentime guards, I just find myself clicking on "Allow for 15 minutes" before I even understand what I do.
• aurareturn 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  • andybak 9mo ago
    "Dumb" and "insane" are thoughtless and shallow positions to take. It's fine to disagree with the EU's stance (I probably do. I'm not sure yet) but it's not a good look to dismiss it without some recognition that a reasonable person might think this is a worthwhile position to take given the known harms of social media.
  • phoe-krk 9mo ago
    How is that insane? Maybe "every free consumer tech product is designed to be addictive" is the problem, as the cost of using the app is paid in other, much less explicit and even much less researched ways.
• mothballed 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  • _visgean 9mo ago
    Or maybe the americans will pay for the VPN to get normal non-addictive version of tiktok.
• glimshe 9mo ago
  Maybe I don't get addicted easily, but after 30 minutes of forcing myself to watch tiktok, I just uninstalled it. Friends told me I didn't give it enough time to learn my tastes but... How could it, given that literally 100% of the videos in my interest areas were trash?
  • thechao 9mo ago
    It's a constant stream of makeup & dogs. I just stick to Michael Penn on YT.
  • batrat 9mo ago
    I did the same... even faster. I installed it, suggested me some local crap. I wanted ltt, mkbhd, etc. searched those 2, added them, after that first 2 videos were the same crap. uninstall. even youtube is better. It's so much content on youtube that It's impossible to watch it all in a lifetime even at 5x speed. And 10x better content.
  • frantathefranta 9mo ago
    I'm in the same boat. I have a TikTok account so my wife and friends can send me videos (mostly cute dogs). It's funny when people probe why I don't use TikTok and they think it must be because I'm against the Chinese/Larry Ellison influence or other common reason. No, I just don't like the format.
  • KaiserPro 9mo ago
    The algorithm is pretty simple, it'll show you a selection of videos that are from the n most popular genres of videos, then depending on your dwell time, it'll A/B test categories that are related, or sub categories. That bit isn't that difficult or new. the special sauce is the editorialising and content categorisation. being able to accurately categorise videos into genres, subjects and sub subjects (ie makeup video, 25 year olds, woman, straight, new york, eyeglitter) and then creating a graph of what persona likes what. The second secret sauce is people going through and finding stuff and promoting it. TikTok (used to) editorialise/pay highly for content.
  • halapro 9mo ago
• globular-toast 9mo ago
  Good. I feel like since cracking down on smoking in the 90s we've become really complacent to the dangers of addiction. Just like with smoking you'll get people inside the industry defending it too (like in this very comment section).
• WhereIsTheTruth 9mo ago
  Funny how Europe's "concern" for digital health only kicks in when a non US platform starts winning
  • xienze 9mo ago
    You’re getting downvoted but seriously, it took them this long to figure this out? I also suspect they won’t outright ban TikTok, but instead levy a multi-billion dollar fine and let it continue operating.
    • robin_reala 9mo ago
      The fines are typically accompanied with a requirment to change the illegal behaviour.
  • hyperpape 9mo ago
    European regulators and courts have placed a lot of scrutiny on big US tech companies, with frequent fines for privacy violations and potential anti-competitive behavior. Also as noted upthread, they're investigating Meta and Twitter on this specific issue.
• andrewinardeer 9mo ago
  Infinite scroll is banned on this phone. Using NextDNS.
• vachina 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  • spicyusername 9mo ago
    Unfortunately, based on the consumption habits of many, many people, yes.
  • meltyness 9mo ago
    You can try and squeeze a free speech absolutism story out of it, but the reality is that this has been a story since Microsoft got into cable news. At that point it was a game of "I'm not slandering you" to chip away at every other valuation, that could have easily have just been called antitrust because they didn't build it. That was 1996-2005 and went completely unchecked. This is similar but the stack was even cheaper, and closer to more people's faces. Even if governments take no recourse, I don't see an issue with government using it's position to put a food pyramid in citizen's faces to say like, "this can be harmful." The church probably would have if this were long ago, except, instead of fire and brimstone, some sort of epic story of social isolation, permanent dissatisfaction, and self-imposed constraints, alien abduction, transformation into a pig by a wizard? There's probably a lot of visceral fears that would be worthy analogs to the harms of the feed. I don't think that this narrative has been explored enough, honestly. Corps keep building crap like this, even amazon has (had?) an influencer feed. People who are in play/leisure should probably practice tolerating more choices than "express mild, momentary dissatisfaction and receive an instantaneous reward"... that's probably not a life everyone should be trained to live
  • deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  • wackget 9mo ago
    Do you consume heroin? If not, why not? Unregulated social media is digital heroin. And allowing it to be run by billionaires with thinly-veiled agendas is like cutting the heroin with rat poison.
• ajsnigrutin 9mo ago
  Might be a generational thing, but I never understood the "shorts" (in any format on any social network). I can watch a 9 hour video on GTA games without problems (not in one sitting, but in parts), but 3 'shorts' in a row with not enough info and explanation to be interesting makes me close any of the 'shorts' apps (tiktok, youtube shorts, instagram....). (eg, the 9 hour video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faxpr_3EBDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faxpr_3EBDk )
  • SlightlyLeftPad 9mo ago
    You likely weren’t wired into it while your brain was developing. There’s clear scientific evidence that these shorts trigger addiction-like behavior[1]. The detrimental effects on a kid’s brain development can be inferred[2]. A reasonable argument could made that it’s not so different from things like nicotine, alcohol or other drugs when it comes to child brain development. I believe these companies know this and willfully push it on kids anyway. Edit: And I think it’s really telling that China has some of the strictest state-led anti-addiction and youth protection policies globally[3]. [1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921004134 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192... [2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192500031X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192... [3] https://cjil.uchicago.edu/print-archive/kids-no-phones-dinner-table-analyzing-peoples-republic-chinas-proposed-minor-mode?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://cjil.uchicago.edu/print-archive/kids-no-phones-dinne...
    • seydor 9mo ago
      actually the study does not show a trigger by shorts, instead they hypothesize the addiction exists based on previous studies done on internet/video game addictions.
  • concats 9mo ago
    I think one of the things that short form videos do really well is that they punish creators who pad their videos with unnecessary filler content. On TikTok for example (Not necessarily a fan of the app but it's a good example) no videos start with all that empty jabbering you often see on YouTube ("Welcome to my channel...", "Today we will...", "Please Like and Subscribe...", "This video is sponsored by...", etc), because if they tried any of that crap the viewers would just swipe the content away. So, instead they always get straight to the point. That part is really refreshing. Of course, there are other issues instead.
• jamesblonde 9mo ago
  I gave a talk at PyData Berlin on how to build your own TikTok recommendation algorithm. The TikTok personalized recommendation engine is the world's most valuable AI. It's TikTok's differentiation. It updates recommendations within 1 second of you clicking - at human perceivable latency. If your AI recommender has poor feature freshness, it will be perceived as slow, not intelligent - no matter how good the recommendations are. TikTok's recommender is partly built on European Technology (Apache Flink for real-time feature computation), along with Kafka, and distributed model training infrastructure. The Monolith paper is misleading that the 'online training' is key. It is not. It is that your clicks are made available as features for predicitons in less than 1 second. You need a per-event stream processing architecture for this (like Flink - Feldera would be my modern choice as an incremental streaming engine). * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skZ1HcF7AsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skZ1HcF7AsM * Monolith paper - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663
  • computerthings 9mo ago
    [dead]
  • deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  • dmix 9mo ago
    I noticed Youtube shorts also seems to update the feed based on how long the last video you watched. If you're scrolling quickly then stop to watch a dog video long enough the next one is likely to be another dog video.
    • pandemic_region 9mo ago
      I've been insta-skipping tennis video's for months now. Still getting Federer on a daily basis.
    • randysalami 9mo ago
      I’ve noticed the same thing and this creates such a negative user experience. Every short is a reaction test and if I fail, I get slop. Makes the whole experience very jarring (for better or for worse).
• llbbdd 9mo ago
  Idk how to feel about this specifically but I kind of hope they come for Duolingo next. They are up to some similar mind hacking shit to keep people from leaving. There's the downright abusive streak management tactics that have become a major part of their brand and PR, and the lesson plans seem designed to plateau to prevent you from actually getting proficient enough in a language to ever unsub. They reset your cleared lessons and require you to redo them if they add new vocab to them, as well as randomly clearing them in the name of making you practice them again. I don't know what the solution is but I've known multiple people now who've gotten frustrated and blamed themselves for not being able to advance their skills with a language, but Duolingo's business model, like Tinder's, is completely opposed with the goals of their users. If Duolingo R&D discovered a magical new method of making you fluent in a language overnight, they would not sell it to you. Tinder R&D might have discovered the actual honest-to-God formula for True Love years ago and burned it because they can make more if you swipe forever.
  • thaumasiotes 9mo ago
    > and the lesson plans seem designed to plateau to prevent you from actually getting proficient enough in a language to ever unsub They don't need to design for that. If you want to become proficient in the language, you'll have to use the language for something. Whatever lessons Duolingo provides, they won't get you to become proficient in a language.
  • SoftTalker 9mo ago
    This is pretty much everything in business these days. Medicine too. Nobody is interested in solving your problems for a price. They are interested in selling you a never-ending service or subscription that you pay for over and over.
    • direwolf20 9mo ago
      Do you have a cure for cancer?
  • BadBadJellyBean 9mo ago
    Funnily all of Duolingo's retention mechanisms (formemost streaks and leagues) have the exact opposite effect on me. I am only moderately encouraged by success and extremely discouraged by failure. That means keeping the streak up is stress for me and failing a streak leads to a big negative impact on my motivation for the failure and a positive reinforcement of not doing it because then the stress goes away and that is nice. They literally train my brain not to use their app.
• Retr0id 9mo ago
  The press release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_312 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... > At this stage, the Commission considers that TikTok needs to change the basic design of its service. For instance, by disabling key addictive features such as ‘infinite scroll' over time, implementing effective ‘screen time breaks', including during the night, and adapting its recommender system. Most of these seem concretely doable, and maybe effective. But the core of the addictiveness comes from the "recommender system", and what are they supposed to do there? Start recommending worse content? How much worse do the recommendations have to be before the EC is satisfied?
  • walt_grata 9mo ago
    Worse enough it isn't addictive. The goal is non-addictive, whatever changes to whatever part are necessary to hit that goal.
    • Retr0id 9mo ago
      "non-addictive" isn't a well-defined thing. It's like telling McDonalds that their food must be "healthy". There's a lot of regulation affecting the food that McDonalds serves (and that's probably a good thing), but it's all based on measurable things.
      • walt_grata 9mo ago
        We could measure it for cocaine and cigarettes couldn't we.
        • Thiez 9mo ago
          Yes, which is why substance addictions are in the DSM-5 and internet/gaming/social media addictions are not.
  • concats 9mo ago
    > Most of these seem concretely doable, and maybe effective. But the core of the addictiveness comes from the "recommender system", and what are they supposed to do there? Start recommending worse content? How much worse do the recommendations have to be before the EC is satisfied? I agree with you, this is rather odd. And sort of missing the problem. All apps are about attention. The percentage of the time spent using the app when it shows you your good content (Whatever it is that you're interested in) determines how addictive it is. And the percentage of time it's showing you bad content (Ads, 'screen time breaks', manual scroll time, more ads, loading screens, sponsor ads, filler content (youtube for instance is full of this), etc) counteracts the addictive properties because nobody likes it. What's the end goal here? Right now TikTok is winning the attention economy race against the other apps because it's more focused on the user's preferred content. Is that what we want to reduce? To show more uninteresting other stuff on the screen? Like blank 'wait 5 minute' statics? Or just more ads? I get that we don't want a generation of socially inept phone addicts, but this won't solve anything I fear. People will still want the good content, forcing the most customer friendly (it feels wrong to say that about TikTok) app to become more enshittified is a bewildering solution.
• graemep 9mo ago
  No, one branch of the EU (not European) government has said it is likely (there has been no ruling) that its illegal. Its a good thing, but its not what the title says it is
• christkv 9mo ago
  So will they also go after youtube?
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
• delichon 9mo ago
  I use X almost entirely from the desktop where I have an extension installed that lets me whitelist my follows, and see nothing else. I recently browsed the same feed on mobile ... and it was entirely different! I think I spent a half hour and saw zero content from my follows, just one ticktok style video after another. For those who find these services without value, I now understand. But I feel revolted rather than addicted. Will I now experience a mysterious compulsion to view the naked feed?
  • Aurornis 9mo ago
    > I recently browsed the same feed on mobile ... and it was entirely different! I think I spent a half hour and saw zero content from my follows At the top of the mobile app there’s a “For You” tab and a “Following” tab. You must have been on the “For You” tab. Switch to the “Following” tab. If you start scrolling the “For You” tab and do it for half an hour straight, you’re basically signaling that this the content you wanted to see and will continue getting more of it.
• SlightlyLeftPad 9mo ago
  I hope they go after Whatnot, Youtube shorts, and LinkedIn as well. LinkedIn has become such a pit of force-fed self-help vitriol it’s completely lost its purpose.
• semiquaver 9mo ago
  Just curious for anyone who pays more attention to this than me: is the company being sanctioned by the EU for this behavior the one that US law forced an ownership change of or does that company only operate in the US?
• juancn 9mo ago
  Isn't this exactly the same with Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, etc.? What makes TikTok different?
  • brightbeige 9mo ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912263
• concats 9mo ago
  TikTok has a lot of issues, such as privacy, dubious content, 'brainrot', etc. I don't want to seem like I'm necessarily defending TikTok specifically here. But this really just stinks of Regulatory Capture to me. Their main argument is that the consumers like to use the app too much? Why? Because it's smarter and not as enshittified as the competitors? I'm sure if youtube, facebook, reddit, etc reduced the number of ads, and started showing more relevant content that people actually cared about, they too would start being "more addictive". Do we really want to punish that? What's the end goal here?
  • seydor 9mo ago
    Regulatory capture that benefits whom? This is typical "EU populism" signaling
• eggy 9mo ago
  I'm skeptical about banning design patterns just because people might overuse them. Growing up, I had to go to the theater to see movies, but that didn't make cliffhangers and sequels any less compelling. Now we binge entire Netflix series and that's fine, but short-form video needs government intervention? The real question is: where do we draw the line between protecting people from manipulative design and respecting their ability to make their own choices? If we're worried about addictive patterns, those exist everywhere—streaming platforms, social feeds, gaming, even email notifications. My concern isn't whether TikTok's format is uniquely dangerous. It's whether we trust adults to manage their own media consumption, or if we need regulatory guardrails for every compelling app. I'd rather see us focus on media literacy and transparency than constantly asking governments to protect us from ourselves. You can't legislate intelligence...
  • grayhatter 9mo ago
    > I'm skeptical about banning design patterns just because people might overuse them. I used to be opposed, now I'm not. I strongly believe human specialization is the important niche humans have adapted, and that should be encouraged. Another equally significant part of human nature is, trust and gullibility. People will abuse these aspects of human nature to give themselves an unfair advantage. If you believe lying is bad, and laws should exist to punish those who do to gain an advantage. Or if you believe that selling an endless, and addictive substance should restricted. You already agree. There's are two bars in your town, and shady forms of alcohol abound. One bar is run by someone who will always cut someone off after they've had too many. And goes to extreme lengths to ensure that the only alcohol they sell is etoh. Another one is run by someone who doesn't appear to give a fuck, and is constantly suggesting that you should have another, some people have even gone blind. I think a just society, would allow people to specialize in their domain, without needing to also be a phd in the effects of alcohol poisoning, and which alcohols are safe to consume, and how much. > Growing up, I had to go to the theater to see movies, but that didn't make cliffhangers and sequels any less compelling. Now we binge entire Netflix series and that's fine, but short-form video needs government intervention? Yes, the dopamine feedback loop of short form endless scrolling has a significantly different effect on the brain's reward system. I guess in line with how everyone shouldn't need to be a phd, you also need people to be able to believe the conclusions of experts as well. > The real question is: where do we draw the line between protecting people from manipulative design and respecting their ability to make their own choices? It's not as linear of a distinction. We don't have to draw the line of where we stop today. It's perfectly fine to iterate and reevaluate. Endless scroll large data source algorithm's are, without a doubt, addictive. Where's the line on cigarettes or now vapes? Surely they should be available, endlessly to children, because where do you draw the line? (It's mental health, cigarettes and alcohol are bad for physical health, but no one (rhetorical speaking) gives a shit about mental health) > If we're worried about addictive patterns, those exist everywhere—streaming platforms, social feeds, gaming, I'd love to ban micro transactions and loot boxes (gambling games) for children. > even email notifications. reductive ad absurdism, or perhaps you meant to make a whataboutism argument? > My concern isn't whether TikTok's format is uniquely dangerous. Camels and Lucky Strike are both illegal for children to buy. > It's whether we trust adults to manage their own media consumption, or if we need regulatory guardrails for every compelling app. We clearly do. Companies are taking advantage of the natural dopamine system of the brain for their advantage, at the expense of the people using their applications. Mental health deserves the same prioritzation and protection as physical health. I actually agree with you, banning some activity that doesn't harm others, only a risk to yourself, among reasonably educated adults is insanely stupid. But that's not what's happening. > I'd rather see us focus on media literacy and transparency than constantly asking governments to protect us from ourselves. I'd rather see companies that use an unfair disparity of power, control, knowledge and data, be punished when they use it to gain an advantage over their consumers. I think dark patterns should be illegal and come with apocalyptic fines. I think tuning your algorithm's recommendation so that you can sell more ads, or one that recommends divisive content because it drives engagement, (again, because ads) should be heavily taxed, or fined so that the government has the funding to provide an equally effective source of information or transparency. > You can't legislate intelligence... You equally can't demand that everyone know exactly why every flavor of snake oil is dangerous, and you should punish those who try to pretend it's safe. Especially when there's an executive in some part of the building trying to figure out how to get more children using it. The distinction requiring intervention isn't because these companies exist. The intervention is required because the company has hired someone who's job is to convince children to use something they know is addictive.
• pier25 9mo ago
  I only tried it once and like 30 mins passed in the blink of an eye. Never again.
• heyheyhouhou 9mo ago
  They should do the same with Instagram and Youtube shorts... but wait, they are not chinese, they are allowed to mine us...
  • direwolf20 9mo ago
    They are
• Aurornis 9mo ago
  The headline overstates what actually happened. Ironic that they’re using clickbait headlines on an article about a service using tricks to get people to engage with something. They haven’t concluded anything yet. It’s early in the process and they’re opening the process of having TikTok engage and respond. The article starts with a headline the makes it sound like the conclusion was already made, then the more you read the more it becomes clear that this is the early part of an investigation, not an actual decision. > Now European Union regulators say those same features that made TikTok so successful are likely illegal. > No timeline was given on when authorities will make a final decision in the case.
  • tantalor 9mo ago
    Which headline are you referring to? The headline on the article is, > Europe Accuses TikTok of ‘Addictive Design’ and Pushes for Change What's overstated about that?
    • jstummbillig 9mo ago
      They might be referring to the headline of the hn post which I would agree is a pretty severe misrepresentation.
      • Izkata 9mo ago
        Based on the URL, the HN title is probably the original and it was changed. For reference in case it also gets changed here, it's currently: "TikTok's 'Addictive Design' Found to Be Illegal in Europe"
    • hahn-kev 9mo ago
      The headline I see on HN is "TikTok's 'Addictive Design' Found to Be llegal in Europe"
• ddmma 9mo ago
  They will pay upfront or put some geopolitical pressure https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24g8v6qr1mo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24g8v6qr1mo
• shafyy 9mo ago
  Direct link to EU Commission's statement: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_312 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...
• bdcravens 9mo ago
  So what's next, Hacker News is illegal because the point system encourages retention?
  • zbentley 9mo ago
    This kind of absolutism is unhelpful. At every point on the spectrum between "a good app that people choose to spend time on because it's valuable to them" and "heroin marketed to preteens in schools" there is no clear line or delineation between addictive abuse and autonomy. But we still don't let liquor stores sell to kids. We still criminalize a lot of drug use. And while there are tons of different opinions about whether specific instances of those restrictions are appropriate, pretty much everyone agrees that there are qualitative differences between predatory behavior-influencing and bad choices. It's a question about where to move lines that society already broadly agreed to put in place, not about whether to have lines at all a la "well you might as well just make bad choices illegal then". We already do that, and it succeeds at mitigating harm in many (not all) cases.
    • krapp 9mo ago
      The point of the absolutism is that the line will be drawn not where society broadly agrees it should, but where governments find it most useful, and that line will always move in the direction of increasing censorship and propaganda. If Hacker News becomes enough of a threat to the regime it will be classified as "social media" and all of a sudden it will be illegal to moderate without a court order or some nonsense. This is a fundamentally different argument than with liquor, or cigarettes, because those don't intersect with fundamental human rights. Social media intersects with free speech. I know people here don't want to admit that, but it's true. It used to be understood within hacker culture that government influence over speech is never good. For some reason when it comes to social media we're suddenly willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Even banning algorithmic feeds is a problem. Do those feeds push harmful and extremist content? Yes. But they push everything else as well. Making it more difficult to find related content of any kind is a kind of censorship.
      • 9mo ago
• amadeuspagel 9mo ago
  Banning infinite scroll comes close to banning good design. If removing pointless interruptions is illegal, we might as well throw every designer in prison. And why stop there? Why not force TikTok to add other pointless barriers, like making the user solve a puzzle before watching another video? What about other uninterrupted experiences, like watching TV? I find twitter more addictive then TikTok. Should it be forced to make me click "next" before seeing another tweet? Banning recommendation engines is also incredible. Is it really the EU's case that they're all illegal, from the youtube recommendation engine to amazon's "people who bought this also bought" to twitter's "who to follow"? Is TikTok's just too good?
  • Juliate 9mo ago
    > Banning infinite scroll comes close to banning good design. If infinite scroll is good design. > we might as well throw every designer in prison No, we might as well convict every manager/boss that assign those goals to the designers. Designers don't dream these patterns out of thin air, they have incentives to.
  • sensanaty 9mo ago
    I agree that endless scrolling can be a good UX paradigm, but really only in certain situations, like if I'm looking at my bank account it sure is nice to just keep scrolling to find a payment from 3 months ago rather than having to click a "next" button every 10 transactions. But when it comes to these algorithmic feeds I think the endless scrolling becomes a dark pattern since it encourages that "one more swipe" headspace that gets people stuck scrolling for literal hours at a time. The platforms engineered their apps this way because they have a monetary incentive to get people sucked in, they even hire psychologists to target people as effectively as possible and I think it's pretty undeniable they've engineered quite an impressive dopamine harvesting engine in the worst way possible. I do agree that banning recommendation algos is quite dumb, especially since they seem to be specifically singling out TikTok rather than all the apps with similar feeds, and I believe the problems are on a societal level and not necessarily something that can be smoothed over by laws banning predictive algorithms. Realistically if people had time and freedom for their hobbies and loved ones rather than wasting away at jobs that suck all motivation out of you, we'd have a lot less people addicted to this type of content. Though I suspect there have to be some rules here regardless because even though we're working with incomprehensibly complicated hardware in our noggins the brain is also lazy, and in modern times it's proven quite easy to trap a brain with flashy lights and loud noises that would've been unimaginable a few decades ago. Really it's just these business models encouraging such antisocial behaviour from the psychotic C-suite in charge that needs to die a violent death, but how we get there is a question I'm not sure I have the answer to.
• uriahlight 9mo ago
  Europeans really need to get their heads out of their butts. Their solution to every problem is nanny state regulation.
  • thinkingtoilet 9mo ago
    What's your solution to the current problem? Because the free market ain't working.
  • Ylpertnodi 9mo ago
    > Europeans really need to.... Which country, or countries are you talking about? Are you including the UK? Unlike the States, with one language, we have many.
  • coredev_ 9mo ago
    Nah man, I'm glad for you that you live in country X where you do Y instead, but at the same time as an European I'm pretty satisfied regulating big shitty companies
• tgtweak 9mo ago
  The simple fact the back button while on the main screen doesn't exit the app is something that honestly should be illegal and is not permitted in the app stores.
• jcynix 9mo ago
  Here's a reading and listening tip for handling social media addiction: Frank Possemato: How to Live an Analog Life in a Digital World: A Workbook for Living Soulfully in an Age of Overload How to live an analog life in a digital world | Frank Possemato | TEDxBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEMffdUgWCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEMffdUgWCk He does not say stop everything, but instead offers realistic tips to reduce one's dependency, e.g. he suggests to take breakes and training to stay offline for certain intervals (e.g. half an hour, or an hour)
• bondarchuk 9mo ago
  This is generational warfare. Imagine if we said boomers cannot watch TV anymore...
• crazygringo 9mo ago
  > On Friday, the regulators released a preliminary decision that TikTok’s infinite scroll, auto-play features and recommendation algorithm amount to an “addictive design” that violated European Union laws for online safety. How is this any different from Reddit? From Instagram? Why single out TikTok? Applying laws unevenly is a form of discrimination.
  • direwolf20 9mo ago
    because reddit isn't popular enough to fall under the law, and they are separately investigating Instagram.
• davidmurdoch 9mo ago
  What other instances of "we did our job as little too well" are there? I can think of tabacco and other drugs, but that's not really the same. Monopolistic behavior doesn't really fit either. Maybe Kleenex marketing doing so well their name became interchangeable with the word "tissue"?
  • islandfox100 9mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperpalatable_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperpalatable_food , One could argue about the plastic usage of the Coca-Cola company, etc
    • davidmurdoch 9mo ago
      Good call. Maybe the US needs a food score system on the label like they have in some European countries. Obviously that system has it's flaws though
      • sensanaty 9mo ago
        The EU (Maybe it's only Dutch, not 100% sure) food score system is completely idiotic since it applies to products within the same food category only, but it's not really explicitly spelled out anywhere that that's the case and as far as I know there's not even a reliable way of knowing what product falls into what category (e.g. is a freezer pizza in the same category as potato chips/snacks, or is it a baked good?), or even how they came to the score at all. So a bag of chips, a 4 cheese pizza and a head of lettuce can all have an "A" grade, with nothing to indicate what that actually means. I'm amazed at how many people, even now after a decade of this system being in place, get confused about why a bag of chips is apparently an A. It's very misleading IMO and not very useful for conveying info, that's what the ingredient list is for tbh.
  • seydor 9mo ago
    Condoms or contraceptives (if they correlate with the drop of fertility
• ApolloFortyNine 9mo ago
  I do think it's addictive, but also the very idea of media in general is to keep you around. Television channels try to display content their viewers enjoy, but they can only target broadly. The web allows sites to have way more personal recommendations, but banning it is essentially banning sites because people enjoy it too much. I think short form content especially is basically brain rot, but I also don't know how you ban something simply because it's too good at providing content people enjoy. The result would just be a worse experience across the board, is that a win? I guess a forced 5s video saying take a break after 20 minutes of doom scrolling wouldn't be the end of the world, but truely making it illegal doesn't make sense.
  • Ylpertnodi 9mo ago
    Reddit once told me to take a break (i was on the sick for a foot injury). So I did. I now check in once a week, for one hour, max. Ahhh, creatures of habit, that we are.
    • arethuza 9mo ago
      On YouTube I seem to mostly get ads for gambling apps that emphasise the controls and safety measures they have. I've never gambled let along used a gambling app.
      • direwolf20 9mo ago
        Of course they emphasize those. Apparently if you actually sign up, they're all fake.
  • asadotzler 9mo ago
    >I do think it's addictive, but also the very idea of media in general is to keep you around. I do think it's addictive, but also the very idea of casinos/bars/opium dens in general is to keep you around.
• ajaimk 9mo ago
  Can Europe stop messing with TikTok & Apple and start fixing the mental health issues caused by Teams?
  • seydor 9mo ago
    are you sure you want them to fix it?
• genericacct 9mo ago
  Kind of funny coming from people who levy taxes on tobacco products all the time
• franze 9mo ago
  Nothing will happen. It is the EU. We bark and then roll over.
• bluedino 9mo ago
  Probably, but it's hard to take them seriously after the EU cookie debacle.
• BaardFigur 9mo ago
  Which country? Europe is a continent, with many different countries and many different laws.
• shevy-java 9mo ago
  So, I think many will reach the conclusion that TikTok's design is addictive. No problem here. But, when I go to Youtube - owned by Google - and use those shorts (video shorts), I kind of "swipe down". Even on my desktop computer. This is also addictive until I eventually stop. Why isn't Google also fined? Where does the fine approach stop? I am all for punishing corporations exploiting humans, so that is all fine by me. But I don't quite understand the rationale. It is not addictive like a drug, right? The behaviour solely origins via visual feedback. That's different to e. g. taking LSD. It's a bit strange to me. When is something addictive? Where is the boundary? One could also say this is simply good design that gets people's attention. Ads are also like that. Why are ads not made illegal? I would be in favour of that. So why aren't ads made illegal? They can contain addictive elements. They manipulate the viewer. They try to sell an image. Why is that not forbidden?
  • JimmyBuckets 9mo ago
    You prosecute one case at a time. A judgement against TikTok (arguably the largest example) will make similar judgements against others easier. Also, LSD isn't addictive in any sense of the word.
  • senbrow 9mo ago
    We don't need to know the exact boundaries of what's acceptable to recognize obviously harmful behavior and make efforts to stop it on a societal level. This is the classic "perfect is the enemy of the good" type scenario. Let's make imperfect progress if that is what we're currently capable of.
• xutopia 9mo ago
  We are essentially saying that our kids should be allowed to smoke cigarettes and not doing anything about it.
  • deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  • seydor 9mo ago
    If cigarettes didnt have health effects it would be great (they may even be good for their brains who knows)
• xrd 9mo ago
  I used to feel, despite knowing how much harm the US has caused around the world, that I was lucky to be born American. Shamefully, I knew that deep down it was better to be born in the US than in a slum in Rio or Calcutta. Now, I question that, because I know that American companies will never step in and regulate themselves, nor other "foreign run" companies like TikTok (I know it is really murky right now). I know Trump, who owns his own social media company, and Elon Musk, who has invaded the government and owns his own propaganda machine, will never be on the right side of history. My kids are forcibly addicted to their phones and these companies are racing to a bottom I don't think exists. I watch them consume in horror and helplessness. Spare me your thoughts, childless commentators. You have no idea what kids these days are facing. You have no idea how hard I have fought. It is so horrible. And, the only parents who winning are Amish, Waldorf or home school kids. Every single friend in my kids life is even worse off than mine, so it is pushers everywhere. 13 year old brains were never designed to survive this kind of assault.
• pestosandwich 9mo ago
  The ultimate flex as a product designer would be to put "Designed product UX so addictive that it was banned in Europe" on my resume.
• alangibson 9mo ago
  Give a kid a phone with TikTok on it and observe them for a while. It's genuinely upsetting. They'll spend hours with their heads down just silently looking at the thing. All desire to do anything else just vanishes. Then they freak out when you try to take it away from them. The only obvious difference between them and someone on fent is the verticality of their posture.
  • 7tflutter7 9mo ago
    Using this logic the government should regulate Minecraft too.
    • sensanaty 9mo ago
      Minecraft at least engages their brains and can genuinely be used as a good tool for creative outlet. I have 3 kid nephews, and I'd much rather have them building random stuff in Minecraft for half the day than letting them anywhere near youtube shorts for even 10 minutes. I actually witness this fairly regularly. The eldest has a phone (but only allowed to use it for an hour on weekends). He immediately becomes snappy, moody and basically is just a cunt of a kid as soon as he gets sucked into the brainless shit that youtube pushes on him, whereas he has never acted that way when it came to any video game. Sure he'll complain a bit about wanting to play more, but whether that's a video game or playing football with his friends he'd be complaining anyways, and I'm sure every single child in the history of humanity has complained about not being able to play for longer. Ripping the reels away though? It genuinely feels a lot more insidious to me the effect they have on his mental wellbeing, it turns him into an actual thoughtless zombie for a while as soon as he lays his eyes on them. And this is coming from the Uncle that was obsessed with video games when I was his age (and I still am!), I'm very happy I didn't have anything like tiktok when I was growing up and was forced to dig holes in the dirt and throw marbles at my friends instead to get my entertainment.
    • alangibson 8mo ago
      No. Feed-based apps are uniquely bad.
• benbojangles 9mo ago
  Am I the only one who does not know what tiktok is or does?
• BoredPositron 9mo ago
  Nothing will happen.
• subroutine 9mo ago
  It's such an odd request to make something less enjoyable. If the EU wants a time limit on app use they should just impose it themselves.
  • seydor 9mo ago
    I think you dont consider that this is politics and why it s conducted through press releases
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
• metalman 9mo ago
  doom scrolling is not so much an addiction as it is a disease * , as heroin has fully functioning addicts who live very normal office work lives over a complete career. doom scrolling renders the patient unable to fully partisipate in society or do meaningfull work or interact in ways that promote there self interest. I get emails daily from people looking for work, which are clearly written by someone/thing, other than the person, and when I insist on turning a call into there job interview, they freeze up, and hang up after any request for detail. Waste products and they never even got the chance to get ripped out of there minds and have a wild good time first. * juvinile dimentia
• dirtyoldmick 9mo ago
  Europe is so stupid.
• comboy 9mo ago
  I'm too late but I'm surprised HN crowd treats tiktok as some weaponized addiction machine. Youtube used to have a working recommendation system and it was usable too. Is it really bad to give me woodworking and learning chinese videos if that's what I'm interested in at the moment? If somebody is not interested in anything specific and just want to zone out, is it really different if he scrolls through tiktok or watches the same thing put into longer videos on TV or some other site? I see zero rational argument being made here. Should we ban bikes if they are the most efficient transportation mode in given area because people get addicted to them?
  • tock 9mo ago
    > tiktok as some weaponized addiction machine It is. > Is it really bad to give me woodworking and learning chinese videos if that's what I'm interested in at the moment? Youtube shorts is pretty similar to tiktok imo. > is it really different if he scrolls through tiktok or watches the same thing put into longer videos on TV or some other site? Yes because TV is just stuff shown to everyone. You aren't getting personalised content. > Should we ban bikes if they are the most efficient transportation mode in given area because people get addicted to them? Do people get addicted to bikes? People do get addicted to drugs. Maybe we should ban drugs? Oh wait we do.
    • comboy 9mo ago
      People do get addicted to bikes. Not even questionable. But of course that's not a charitable interpretation, and on that - yes I don't think personalized content is comparable to heroin. What is so evil about personalized content? I'm sincerely trying to understand. Your whole argument here is based on the premise that TV is OK because it's not personalized.
      • pinnochio 9mo ago
        Are you a sophist, or have you made any actual attempt to understand the concerns here?
        • 9mo ago
• seydor 9mo ago
  Again, the most problematic in this is how vague and handwavy the regulation is. > The Commission's investigation preliminarily indicates that TikTok did not adequately assess how these addictive features could harm the physical and mental wellbeing of its users, including minors and vulnerable adults. > For example, by constantly ‘rewarding' users with new content, certain design features of TikTok fuel the urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain of users into ‘autopilot mode'. Scientific research shows that this may lead to compulsive behaviour and reduce users' self-control. > Additionally, in its assessment, TikTok disregarded important indicators of compulsive use of the app, such as the time that minors spend on TikTok at night, the frequency with which users open the app, and other potential indicators. This is comically unscientific language. It's entirely subjective what is adequate when framed like that. This is another law aimed at suing megacorps to extract fines, although i m not sure how they hope to get those fines from China.
  • pinnochio 9mo ago
    You're quoting the NYT article. If you're going to criticize the Commission's language for being "vague and handwavy", you should quote the original source.
    • seydor 9mo ago
      No, that is actually the EU's press release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_312 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...
• coliveira 9mo ago
  In the US it is now legal because it was completely taken over by the hydra.
• tock 9mo ago
  I think algorithmic content recommendations must be banned from social media. Its too powerful wrt influencing the masses. People should go back to just seeing content from their friends.
• johnhamlin 9mo ago
  Imagine having a government that demands a company like TikTok stop abusing its users instead of checks notes forcing its sale to your cronies so you can silence your critics. Must be nice.
• heraldgeezer 9mo ago
  ok sooo, youtube in general I can watch 8h streams. I watch it insane. what about that
• Havoc 9mo ago
  The trick bit is that addiction and showing people what they want to see are near indistinguishable. It's optimizing for same thing basically and don't think it'll be possible to legislate a clear distinction
  • Barrin92 9mo ago
    There's a big difference between healthy wants and addiction. The latter involves compulsion and craving. The clearest sign anyone is addicted to something is that they use something precisely when even they don't want to. I'd even say it's orthogonal to the content and what someone wants to see. You can design an app full of crap that's addictive purely because of its reward mechanisms, and on the other hand you can design something that discourages addiction while having high quality content, it's not optimizing for the same thing. People get addicted to mechanisms, not to content, the same way you can enjoy a nice scotch but the addict goes for the five dollar handle of vodka. The latter doesn't want the vodka, he wants the alcohol. Addiction in many ways erodes genuine higher-order wants and only leaves stimulation. I'd not be surprised if people who watch 8 hours of TikTok a day don't even care what they watch any more.
    • Havoc 9mo ago
      >There's a big difference between healthy wants and addiction. In psychology certainly, but the algo side not so much. You're measuring the same metrics - doomscrolling user paused an extra 5 seconds on the cat video...let's show him more cats.
• ineedaj0b 9mo ago
  Had they invented Ice Cream in the 2020s, lawmakers of Europe would find it illegal for it's addictive properties. They'd also decree a universal milk fat percentage, perhaps even a law calling dairy farming slavery. Anything but be competitive
• vondur 9mo ago
  Who runs their European operations? Is it the Chinese and not Oracle?
• vee-kay 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  • vee-kay 9mo ago
    This ban happened in 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679286
  • vee-kay 9mo ago
    LOL, Tiktok & PUBG addicts are downvoting me.
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
• forgetfreeman 9mo ago
  Casually waiting for a legislative body to muster the courage of their convictions and just ban social media outright.
• tsoukase 9mo ago
  Banning highly addictive digital platforms are like banning addictive drugs (at least for minors). But it's also an unique opportunity to educate the youth/people to avoid them.
• bibimsz 9mo ago
  Europeans, what's it like to have a nagging mom for a government?