9 ms·

EU to crack down on TikTok, Instagram's 'addictive design' targeting kids

516 points by thm 5mo ago

sylware 5mo ago
Yeah yeah, virtue signaling, and most of EU online services are now gated by the use of one of the whatng cartel web engines (IRL, google blink), namely EU web sites are broken favoring web apps. They have to restore interop with noscript/basic html web engines (past/present/and future). Then, they have to be carefull with their file formats, for instance you never give "carte blanche" to such a disgusting format like PDF, you are very careful at defining a, as simple a possible, subset of it (with some internal software for validation).
- nanapipirara 5mo ago
  Yeah yeah, whataboutism. I'm very happy they're taking a stance. I've seen too many messed up kids and there's no doubt the addictive design plays a big role in the problem.
  - soco 5mo ago
    I must notice that every time, but really every time, EU moves a pinky finger against tech industry, a sizeable chunk of comments here will be like the one above. I wonder, is it about a general sentiment against EU? Or a general sentiment against restricting technology? Or a general sentiment against humans? Or what?
    - eowln 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - palata 5mo ago
        > The sentiment that having to present our ID to use tiktok gives us the heebie-jeebies, and for good reason. So push for privacy-preserving age verification, such that you don't need to leak your ID to anyone but TikTok can still prevent kids from accessing it?
        eowln 5mo ago
        >privacy-preserving age verification No such thing.
        palata 5mo ago
        That's my problem with the debate: people like you seem very proud to be uninformed. It exists as much as end-to-end encryption exists. It's cryptography, it's not up to debate. But people who have no clue are very vocal about their belief that it does not exist.
        eowln 5mo ago
        There are no active implementations that do not suffer from severe issues.
        soco 5mo ago
        There are two ongoing implementations: one weaker in the EU boooo and one good in Switzerland. None having severe issues. Questions?
        eowln 5mo ago
        I have none, I already am aware of the functioning of the systems that have been deployed, hence my statements of fact.
        palata 5mo ago
        You obviously have no idea, and this really looks like a new account made for trolling (negative karma).
        NewsaHackO 5mo ago
        I also am not aware of any, do you have any examples?
    - ToucanLoucan 5mo ago
      Boiling kid's (and adult's) brains probably makes them a decent chunk of money, either directly via salary or indirectly via stocks. Ensuring kids remain healthy makes no money. An unfortunately large slice of the tech sector doesn't give the tiniest shit about the health of our broader society or any group in it if it means their lines stop going up, or even go up slightly less fast.
    - watwut 5mo ago
      Imo, both. The more right wing people started to have aggressively anti-EU stance once Vance openly stood on the side of Orban and against EU and democracies in general. And some people see tech companies as worship worthy and trying to restrict them is kind of a blasphemy.
      - modo_mario 5mo ago
        The Vance thing is far too recent and inconsequential across europe? The sentiment precedes all that and mostly stems from the EU being in some ways originally lib left dominated and still being seen as facilitating non-eu migration Regular right wing people (aka not one of the many parties potentially receiving donations) don't tend to love giant webtech companies. Especially since they feel like they're often used as a tool against them and aren't a local thing that draws nationalists either. A focus on privacy also isn't a very left-right defined thing tho i have noticed that the most far reaching expressions of it come a bit more from the further ends of that spectrum. (you'll see some very left leaning people at fosdems privacy focused/related stands for example)
        dgellow 5mo ago
        > don't tend to love giant webtech companie That’s a bit outdated since musk bought twitter
    - palata 5mo ago
      I think it's easier and safer to complain about everything than to actually have a nuanced and informed stance. Look at age verification: it's very easy and very safe to say "nobody sane would think that it is a good idea to force people to show their ID to every website they want to access, it will obviously leak the IDs, that is very bad!". While it is not wrong, it is manipulative: that is not the only way to implement age verification. In fact, there is technology that exists that would allow age verification in a privacy-preserving manner: some service that already have access to your ID can give you a token that proves your age, and you can then use this token to access a website. The service cannot know where you use the token, the website cannot know your ID, and they cannot collude. So the constructive debate around age verification is this: assuming we implement it properly (i.e. in a privacy-preserving manner), is that something that we want or not? Does it solve a problem, or at least does it help? But we cannot ever elevate the debate to that level, because nobody can't be arsed to get informed about it.
      - soco 5mo ago
        But ironically exactly the people in the better place to influence that half-arsed implementation are those who comment here - instead of influencing said implementation. Somehow what we do ourselves at work is always good and nice and perfect (while what others do is brain-dead and pointless). Now okay you could say an engineer is too small to change politics, but how about 100 engineers? Thousands? If the whole practice would say loud "whoa this doesn't fly" I bet the decision makers would listen. But no, most of the techies will say "okay whatever let's do it" then (maybe) come online to complain.
        palata 5mo ago
        The thing, I believe, is that engineers are just people. They also have strong, uninformed opinions. It's not like every engineer is an expert in cryptography, right? For instance, there is a large consensus against ChatControl, agreeing on the fact that it's impossible to let the good guys decrypt arbitrary data without opening it to the bad guys. As a result, I don't think it's still a debate: the EU won't ask to weaken the encryption. Now an alternative to that is stuff like scanning the messages on the device (which technically does not break the encryption) and report them when it makes sense. There is a problem with that, too: in order to detect "illegal" content, someone has to decide what is illegal. And because it evolves, probably it's a list that can be updated remotely. And whoever controls that list has some surveillance power we may not want to give anyone (I know I don't). It seems to me that this second issue took more time to get traction, but now engineers generally understand it. So if a politician asks, they can say "you can technically do that, but you are building a dangerous surveillance apparatus". It doesn't mean that the politicians won't want it, but at least they should understand the technical stance on it. So for ChatControl, engineers seem to understand the problem, and the consequence of that is that ChatControl hasn't passed. At least not yet, and now I think those in favour have to convince enough people that building those surveillance tools is a good idea. For age verification it's a lot different, IMO. There is a website dedicated to it: https://ageverification.dev/ https://ageverification.dev/, explaining how they want it to be privacy preserving, which is technically possible. But still, there doesn't seem to be a large consensus about this (see the comments on HN). Many, many engineers keep saying "it is not technically possible", which is wrong. Maybe it is not desirable, which is a different debate. But it is technically possible. What does that mean? Well for age verification, from what I see the "engineers community" is not credible at all. I can't get anything from it "as a community" other than "people yell many things, many of them being factually wrong". Many will say "not only it's not technically possible, but ON TOP OF THAT it is not desirable", but why would I listen to their second point when I can verify that the first one is already wrong? It's always the same problem: not every opinion is worth the same. The opinion of an expert is worth more in their domain of expertise. So you can't just run a poll on HN and go with its result, right? In the case of age verification, for instance, it seems like the EU has been talking to actual experts, because https://ageverification.dev/ https://ageverification.dev/ seems pretty good. I feel like many engineers yell against it because they don't like the idea of age verification, not because it's technically bad. Which is a fair stance to have. But the honest way to defend it is by actually talking about why they think privacy-preserving age verification is a bad thing. Claiming that it is not technically possible is either uninformed (and therefore not credible) or manipulative, IMHO.
  - sylware 5mo ago
    It feels like they use such topic such as this one as a decoy to dodge to deal with the core and real EU online services interop issue. EU online service must interop with web sites and not be _ONLY_ web apps which are hard dependent on the massive and ultra complex web engines of the whatng cartel (this word fits their behavior). The EU online services which cannot be provided via a web site (noscript/basic HTML), which are very few to none, should use well defined, as simple as possible, stable in time, open and published protocols/file formats. That can be 'subset' of broadly available protocols/file formats. The benchmark is writing real-life code to handle such protocols/file formats should be reasonable for a very small team of devs or a solo average dev. I wonder where all the money to deal with web apps is actually going, you know where web sites were carefully broken...
- Mashimo 5mo ago
  Is ending endless scrolling really virtue signaling? Don't you think it will have a measurable effect?
  - sylware 5mo ago
    It feels like some distraction to avoid to deal with the much more important (stategically) issue which is the interop of EU online services with 'small tech'. BTW, with noscript/basic HTML, no infinite scroll anyway. One Rock Two Birds. Ironically.
LuckyBuddy 5mo ago
[dead]
FinnKuhn 5mo ago
I think especially restricting endless scrolling is a good thing overall to reduce the addictiveness of social media and its harmful effects. HN having pages instead of a feed or endless list is one of the things I really like about it.
- nanapipirara 5mo ago
  For sure. The other thing I really love about HN is that titles are all supposed to be boring and to the point. The guidelines[1] for titles are excellent and I wish more of the web and honestly legacy media too would behave that way. Things that are of no interest to me are not trying to waste my time and attention. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - dinfinity 5mo ago
    It's probably not something that can be enforced legally, but the concept of DeArrow (user-provided titles and thumbnails for Youtube) should be the norm. Perhaps there can be an EU maintained browser extension that allows netizens to provide alternate, honest titles and thumbnails for all kinds of content. Probably still incredibly hard to implement throughout apps etc., but a man can dream.
- ekjhgkejhgk 5mo ago
  > I think especially restricting endless scrolling The actual point is that they are designed to be addictive. "endless scrolling" is just an implementation detail. If you "ban endless scrolling", they'll still be using every other trick to make it addictive.
bschwarz 5mo ago
Imagine the pressure on Instagram and Tiktok to serve better content if they were forced to pick out, say, 100 short videos per person per day. And not just for kids, adults need a break from this addiction machine as well.
thiago_fm 5mo ago
Why should only kids be protected from addiction? I have a hard time understanding this. We have plenty of adults with terrible social media addiction that is destroying their lives, and nothing being done about it.
- Mashimo 5mo ago
  [dead]
- gib444 5mo ago
  Makes it an easier sell politically. If you position it as dangerous to kids in particular, your opposition then looks like they're encouraging child harm.
  - palata 5mo ago
    Well and if you tell adults that they need to be regulated, they get pissed very, very quickly.
- indymike 5mo ago
  This is the best question of all. Why are we allowing this?
- mrintegrity 5mo ago
  My girlfriend's mother is visiting, 60 years old and constantly looking at instagram. I was sharing my data plan so she could use her phone outside the house but started lying that my plan had run out. Gives "parental controls" a whole new meaning!
yipbub 5mo ago
Thanks, I'm an adult and I need it too
- mrosenbjerg 5mo ago
  Had the exact same thought
- butlike 5mo ago
  FWIW, social media use is mediated by ∆FosB expression, so the less you use social media, the less you want to use social media. Timeline of ~3 months.
garrettjoecox 5mo ago
At what point should the responsibility fall on the parent to protect their children from harm? Don’t get me wrong, if I had my way TikTok wouldn’t exist for anyone, adults included. It’s just so strange to me that so many parents hand their 7 year olds unrestricted access to TikTok and expect someone else to keep their kid safe.
- Mashimo 5mo ago
  > the responsibility of a parent to protect their children from harm I agree with you, but only in theory. Because that's where we are now and it does not seem to work that well. Maybe through more education? But then again I think reducing addictive tactics like endless scrolling could be part of a 2 prong attack. With alcohol we have education on what happens, but we also have laws that regulate it.
- perarneng 5mo ago
  It's not so easy, they need phones and social media to communicate with their friends. They also need to fit in and find an identity. The algorithms basically all engagement engines have is harmful for humanity as a whole. They are marketed as recommendation engines but it's 100% about engagement and that is why the content you see is mostly creating dopamine from it being fun or rage for it being provocative. It's built to serve one purpose, to keep people using the platform as much as possible. Not because the platform is good, but because it serves content that maximizes engagement. I read a post about someone saying his wife worked for a snack company. They used MRI scans to see how much salt (or sugar) they should have in the snacks to maximize the response in the brain. Sounds disturbing right. Well engagement engines are the same thing. It's artificial intelligence optimized to get people to react and stay addicted. Basically AI doing harm. It's not what is best for the individual in terms of health. It's what generates most money to the owner of the platform. It should not be allowed to build a business around something that exploits humans brains. Basically biohacking our brains for profit.
- kioleanu 5mo ago
  I am from Eastern Europe and I’ve been living for many years in Western Europe. Where I come from, kids get their first phones when they start school at 6 (there’s a pre-school year) simply because every other kid has one. I keep coming back in my mind to two examples from my birth country: a friend’s kid carrying an 8 inch smartphone in his hand everywhere because the phone was as big as half his thigh and would have to carry a bag for it. The second one was on a visit at the zoo, I was on a bench and a family with two young children with them, in a cart. And both children, couldn’t have been older than 4 or 5, were scrolling TikTok, that was showing them children content! In contrast, in Western Europe, my son is now in the sixth grade, more than half his class doesn’t have phones, phones are absolutely forbidden on school grounds and at school activities, and they are now doing a class trip where they were told that there’s a pay phone at the hotel, in case they want to call the parents - our son promptly informed us that he’ll rather buy a pack of Pokémon cards than call us and 3 days is not so much anyway. And it is not only at school, he travels for tournaments with his team every other week and mobile phones are absolutely forbidden on the team bus. Children read, play games (including chess on a magnetic board), sing and change stories for hours at a time
conception 5mo ago
This is pretty easy to solve. If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present. If the user decides you don’t, ala social media 1.0.
- an0malous 5mo ago
  It’s so elegant that there’s zero chance the EU will do it since this is all performative for them
- shiandow 5mo ago
  And when does the user decide? Must a platform do nothing to stimmy spam, or even illegal content to qualify as impartial? I suppose the answer could be that only platforms that do indeed allow spam or worse are impartial, but that is a tricky position to be in.
  - leogiertz 5mo ago
    The mechanism would be that if the user has chosen to follow an account then posts from that account falls under common carrier. If the platform choses to show you other posts then it's under their responsibility.
- stingraycharles 5mo ago
  This is one of those things that don’t translate to legal reality very well, as then you have to define “what is an algorithm”. Is adding advertisements an algorithm? Is including likes an algorithm? Is automatically starting the next video after a previous one has finished an algorithm? Is infinite scroll an algorithm? Etc
  - randunel 5mo ago
    Everything other than sorting the list of entities by a standard measurement unit (time, length, mass, temperature, amount) needs to be covered by this law. The moment you add other entities to the list (e.g. ads inbetween posts), then it's also subject to the same restrictions.
anzerarkin 5mo ago
I don’t think this is only a kids issue. A lot of adults need this too. The addictive apps are very well designed, while most blockers are either too easy to ignore or too annoying to keep using. I built a small iOS blocker because I had the same problem. Making it strict enough to actually work without making people hate it is the main challenge.
- kgwxd 5mo ago
  As an adult, who despises all those apps, I don't want to grant government the power to make that decision for me.
  - criddell 5mo ago
    An an adult, do you also believe seat belt laws are a bad thing?
    - nekusar 5mo ago
      Yes, I do. Its just another way that cops can pull you over for bullshit charges and revenue enhancement. I remember in my state, it was initially only a citation that couldnt be pulled over on. Then they flipped that and started pulling over for it. Why? Pure fucking money grab. Me not wearing a seatbelt means I risk getting splattered. Not you, or anyone else.
      - chinathrow 5mo ago
        Is this satire?
        nekusar 5mo ago
        Is school busses without seatbelts satire? Are motorcycles without seatbelts or harnesses satire? All im saying is that an adult should be able to choose to wear a seatbelt or not in their own vehicle. And also, shouldnt get fined for choosing to not wear one. BTW, i wear one when i drive or am a passenger. And if im driving, i ask everyone to wear one.
Pesthuf 5mo ago
Tell me: why are these algorithms suddenly okay when the victim turns 18? They are bad for everyone and if you’re willing to regulate them, make them illegal to be used on anyone.
- Mashimo 5mo ago
  Just from this article it's not clear if the methods like endless scrolling or "watch next video" are going to be regulated based on user age or not. It just says the platform who use such methods, often target kids.
- palata 5mo ago
  Same as for the cigarette: it's a lot easier to regulate stuff for kids, because we as a society tend to agree that they need to be protected. Much harder to do with adults, because it is much less of a consensus.
  - abyssin 5mo ago
    I genuinely wonder if there would be any end user against banning these algorithms. I’d love rss style content providers back. Just let me freely subscribe to accounts.
  - ZetsuBouKyo 5mo ago
    The ban is meant to protect kids, but secondhand smoke is almost everywhere.
  - bcjdjsndon 5mo ago
    > Much harder to do with adults, because it is much less of a consensus. It's because humans are motivated primarily by fear, not logic. The exact same moral panic was made about fuckin printed books. This is all hysteria, just like the TV is evil phase everyone went through. Proof of this is that nobody can even agree what social media is, let alone point to what's actually harmful about it
    - palata 5mo ago
hnthrowaway0315 5mo ago
But they are so profitable, and we need them to track people around and create a police state efficiently. Ah let's keep them but just fine them as well for the show.
- boringg 5mo ago
  What else will fund the AI boom but computationally expensive video AI?
evanjrowley 5mo ago
The most on-brand solution for the EU would be to require mobile phone users to upload brain scans in real-time so the state can check for neural activity associated with addiction.
- buellerbueller 5mo ago
  The most on brand solution for a kneejerk reactionary American would be to satirize the EU for its consumer protections.
  - irusensei 5mo ago
    Pretty sure candy colored EU paradise even today is discussing on breaking encryption and privacy for its citizens. I'm posting from the EU.
    - buellerbueller 5mo ago
      -In the EU it is a political discussion. -In the USA, the government buys the data legally from the parties who are allowed to collect it and there are no political discussions. One of these is obviously better than the other.
      - irusensei 5mo ago
        > "In the EU, there is a a political discussion about outlawing privacy." > "In the US, the government is using illegal methods to violate rights granted by the constitution." Agreed one is obviously better than the other. The EU treats privacy as a privilege granted by the government while the US treats it as a fundamental right. I'm not a fan of the US gov but I also don't agree with the candy colored view of the EU as an institution that does no wrong and when it does its a "well intended but misguided".
        buellerbueller 5mo ago
        >Agreed one is obviously better than the other. The EU treats privacy as a privilege granted by the government while the US treats it as a fundamental right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy https://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html https://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/righto... There is no express constitutional right to generalized "privacy" in the USA and even if there were, the constitution only binds the government, which is allowed to buy data on American citizens collected by 3rd parties.
nalekberov 5mo ago
Why, it’s always okay to harm adults? Like adults spending their hours scrolling through infinite feed is somehow beneficial to the society?
tolerance 5mo ago
Either what defines an "adult" is going to be raised exponentially or what defines a "kid" is going to be lowered to determine who is allowed access to information in transit and who needs to be "safeguarded" from it.
lp4v4n 5mo ago
I don't agree with this. Addictive, unless we're talking about a chemical substance or something like that, is a subjective thing. At some point, books, movies, comics, etc, etc might have been considered addictive. Social networks in general should be banned for underage people, that's the thing. And the social network itself should be liable for verifying the age its users, like a nightclub is liable for people who enter it. No bullshit operating system age verification, that's, trust me, totally intended to protect kids and not to spy on you.
- bootsmann 5mo ago
  The reason why it is done this way is that “social media” is much harder to delineate and also not what is generally considered harmful.
- simion314 5mo ago
  >At some point, books, movies, comics, etc, etc might have been considered addictive The difference compared to a book is that a book is not personalized for each individual reader, so the example is not a good one IMHO.
- jampekka 5mo ago
  Addiction at least is quite straightforward to differentiate from otherwise engaging things by whether it causes significant harmful effects. E.g. per Wikipedia "Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces an immediate psychological reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences." Addictive would be then something that (for a substantial portion of population) has a tendency to cause addiction.
- bogwog 5mo ago
  > Addictive, unless we're talking about a chemical substance or something like that, is a subjective thing. What makes you say that? It's well known that the addictive patterns in these apps trigger dopamine the same way drugs do. In a sense, dopamine is the "chemical substance" central to the addiction. Heroine and algorithms are just different ways to get it. https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2021/10/addictive-potential-of-social-media-explained.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2021/10/addictive-pot...
seydor 5mo ago
they are going to put kids on a drip basis. addiction is still there, just limited amount per session. Intermittent rewards is actually the perfect schedule for an advertising company, you don't want people to be making unmonetizable page views.
epolanski 5mo ago
Never understood the kids focus, looks to me like 50+ are by far the most addicted. Which makes it also a matter of also parents and grandparents setting bad examples.
thedetailsguy 5mo ago
Isn’t it more of “emotional” design than “addictive” design?
nirui 5mo ago
You know, yeah, you can crack down "addictive design", but then what? If you don't provide better alternative, the "kids" (and please, stop using "kids" as excuse because everybody can see through it now) will just stick on these platforms because, believe or not, these platforms are much MUCH safer than the alternatives. How about, let's see the real problem here: 24% of EU children at poverty risk or social exclusion (2024), see https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20250528-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d.... That's not just a statistic about children, it's also about their parents. Do you know that if you go outside, then there's this huge risk of having to PAY for stuff you don't actually need to live? Like transportation to go to place that don't bring you wealth, like drink that you drink even you're not that thirsty, like movie tickets just so it will not be too awkward after all the dialogue options are exhausted? Does these politicians just somehow forgot all of these costs money, in this economy that they helped to create? And that is not to mention the REAL risk, such as drugs the bad ones, rude or crazy drivers, unpleasant adults who's only life purpose is to earn enough money to keep them going a little bit longer, just to name a few. ..... ORRRR, you can just stay in your conformable home, sit on your soft and warm sofa/couch, and swipe your life away on TikTok or Instagram for free, safely. You see the problem here? I'm really sick and tired of these politicians putting up this act pretending to "love children", when in the reality what they do is putting up easy patches to hide the real problem, which is poverty and inequality, that's the real problem.
caaqil 5mo ago
In the modern world: any tech proposition that starts with protection of children as a goal can be dismissed out of hand, since it's emotional manipulation masquerading as tech policy. When I hear "protect kids", all I see is a sleazy politician bowing to their respective Security State apparatus.
jrflo 5mo ago
I heard someone on a podcast call social media algorithms "the modern-day cigarette" and that really resonated with me. These companies know their product is addictive and bad for users, but they keep pushing it anyways. Like cigarettes, it's bad for everyone, not just kids. I made an algorithm blocker for Safari because of that and it's actually crazy how much more pleasant social media is if you don't have recommendation algorithms at all. I think the EU and other jurisdictions should really look beyond just limiting this stuff to kids, but I understand why it's starting there...
- p2detar 5mo ago
  Look up images in Google with `eu cigarettes boxes`. Banning is a thin wedge, but I think we need something like these warning labels for social media.
- mrits 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - toasty228 5mo ago
    People stuck in 1940 and not able to imagine new words for new things should not be allowed to discuss these topics online.
    - rvnx 5mo ago
      the correct modern word is censorship DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN there has to be a bug in Europe on some news websites... at least we can use VPNs, for now protecting the children is always a good pretext but the real goal with this addiction law is to have one extra leverage on the platforms
    - mrits 5mo ago
      "should not be allowed to discuss these topics online." At least you are consistent
  - tgv 5mo ago
shevy-java 5mo ago
I do not buy this "holy knight war" by the EU at all. It also makes no real sense to me. Nothing against US mega-corporations paying fins, mind you, but I equally do not trust the EU bureaucrats either. There has to be a limit to both what politicians can do, what corporations can do and what bureaucrats can do, while retaining a democratic base system at all times. If you go against addictive design, then why not against ALL ads? I don't want to see any ads. Ublock origin made me change my mind here - I literally see no reason as to why I would ever want to burden my brain cells with irrelevant content. This is a bit different to website layout though. I equally fail to see why the EU should meta-regulate what is permissive in regards to design and what is not. Why would I have to accept any random EU bureaucrat here? If a user interface sucks, I'd rather expect ublock origin to kill it off. This could also be community maintained. No need for the EU to waste taxpayers money. After the EU wants to sniff for age data and then also declared its holy war against VPNs, I do not trust anything coming from Brussels. Even less so with Ms. Leyen in charge - can't the anti-corruption offices in Germany get rid of such lobbyists?
- qweiopqweiop 5mo ago
  Weird analogy when ads aren't addictive in the same way. Look at people around and about and they're all like mindless zombies flicking through Tiktok, not looking at ads. IMO this doesn't go far enough.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo ago
Imagine if Big Tobacco had something like Section 230
- tzs 5mo ago
  I'm trying and completely failing to even begin since I cannot find any way to think of what something analogous to Section 230 would even be in the context of tobacco.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo ago
  If it's difficult, maybe that's telling Perhaps there is nothing like Section 230 in any legitimate industry
NickC25 5mo ago
Just do what China does, how fucking hard is it? They have 4x, almost 5x the population of the US. STEM or verifiable educational content only. Have a review team and an AI that moderates content. No politics, no stupid dances, no monetization of content, no slop, and only credentialed people can post on certain topics (ie a delivery driver shouldn't make posts on theoretical mathematics).
- tt24 5mo ago
  What you described sounds like an authoritarian hellscape and the suggestion would be met with laughter in any civilized country.
  - NickC25 5mo ago
    It's what happens in China with Tiktok. The Party said Tiktok needed to have educational content instead of stupid content. Tiktok complied. The CCP may be many bad things, but they don't fuck around when it comes to education and making sure their youth aren't wasting their youth on stupid dance videos.
    - tt24 5mo ago
      I am aware that that’s what happens. That’s what I’m criticizing.
spockz 5mo ago
They should also tackle Youtube. Yesterday my Youtube app opened into "Shorts" automatically. Shorts are of the same addictive variety as TikToks.
- ErigmolCt 5mo ago
  Shorts are basically the same product
- awakeasleep 5mo ago
  You can actually disable shorts now. Open the youtube time management settings and set shorts to zero. Its bliss for an old guy like me
  - qweiopqweiop 5mo ago
    Not on web (or the mobile web page either). It's a half baked solution right now.
  - spockz 5mo ago
    Amazing, thank you! I’ve set it immediately.
- benhurmarcel 5mo ago
  If you disable your watch history, Youtube won't show you personalized Shorts anymore. Much less addictive.
- joshlemer 5mo ago
  I feel like the core of the problem is that we don't as consumers have hardly any control over the software we run on our devices. People can and have written less addictive YouTube, Reddit, etc clients, but Google Play and Apple App Store don't allow them.
  - spockz 5mo ago
    Google Play and Apple App Store don’t allow them because they are in breach with the YouTube service policy. If Google changed that policy the app stores would allow those apps. Otherwise your point completely stands of course!
ErigmolCt 5mo ago
I'm usually skeptical of -protect the children- regulation, but addictive design feels like a real and concrete target
doublerabbit 5mo ago
10 year's too late. Did they really not see this coming or did they turn a blind eye again? I am fed up of this corrupted world.
euejcidnf 5mo ago
[dead]
- Ylpertnodi 5mo ago
  Which bit of Europe are you talking about? Bari, or Utrecht?
christkv 5mo ago
what about youtube shorts?
ge96 5mo ago
I don't use those sites myself/not age group anyway. One thing Instagram is riddled with ads it immediately pisses me off so one reason I don't use it. I get the engagement aspect if you're trying to promote a product. Recently I stopped scrolling reddit/being logged in and watching YouTube videos. Since it's just endless... and it's crazy. It feels unsettling, I'm bored/antsy since I'm not doing something. So I've been trying to use this time to not multi task eg. I used to have a YouTube video playing and then scroll reddit at the same time. Now it's like, listen to music/work on a computer or watch something only. Also starting to make me seek real socialization too like go to a coffee shop or something even though unfortunatley I live in the suburbs so I'd have to drive to a coffee shop. The only stuff I look at too is this site or some entrepreneurial specific site for motivation.
- codybontecou 5mo ago
  Which entrepreneurial sites are you browsing? I feel like I'm at a similar stage in my day-to-day.
  - ge96 5mo ago
    I used to read indiehackers but it's hard to tell what's real/promotional now, same for reddit sites that are entrepreneurial. The one I look at though is wip.chat which is pretty much just a shared to-do list among builders, I'm not part of it, not gonna pay $20/mo or whatever lol, but good to see it. I used to listen to digital nomad podcasts too as that was interesting to me like needing to make money/living day by day. Also similar not sure real or shilling, lot of Vietnam videos lately eg. "live here for $400/mo" kind of thing. Was briefly watching starter story on YouTube but also not sure if real or shilling. It's funny I have the $10K/mo right now but it's because I have a job lmao... it sucks having a job, I'm not free.
hamasho 5mo ago
Check this English sentence When I started working as a programmer, my company held a book club, and one of the books was about the effectiveness of AB tests. We read how Amazon changing the color of the purchase button drastically increased the sales or some shit like that. Everyone was excited. The executives, the marketing team, and the dev team praised how clever it was, and insisted we should do the same. It took me like five years to realize it was really not good idea for a small B2B business to spend a part of the limited resources in that. I needed several experiences to understand that in many cases good customer relationship and reliable system is much more important. But it wasn’t until recently that I started thinking like “wait, if it tricks the users into doing something they’re unwilling to do, isn’t it unethical?” It makes me wonder how little we think about the ethics and the consequences of our investment. It’s not like we understand it’s unethical but do it anyway for profit. We simply don’t care how unethical it can be, not even slightly, until the evidence of the harmful effects are not negligible after years and decades.
kwanbix 5mo ago
Targeting kids is good. But what about adults?
raffael_de 5mo ago
So many people here endorsing prohibition affecting everybody just because some folks aren't able to control themselves. I simply don't want the state to nanny me.
- amarcheschi 5mo ago
  People are complaining about products engineered to be as addictive as possible, we're talking about something more than simple self control
  - raffael_de 5mo ago
    everybody has a choice to just uninstall apps, leave the phone at home, switch it off at 8pm etc. that's what it means to be an adult. some people get addicted to work or sports - people even died from it - should we ban that, too?
    - amarcheschi 5mo ago
      The article is discussing regulating the algorithms, not banning the social networks. Just like cigarettes and alcohol are regulated but not banned
- bognition 5mo ago
  > some folks aren't able to control themselves I get that there are some people who have anomalous abilities to self control, and i understand that they might have a hard time empathizing with those of us that dont have that level of control. However to chalk up the solution as be a better person, when in reality corporations are spending billions on research and design of addictive products is just short sighted. We saw the same thing with smoking. Plenty of people said "meh, why cant the smoker just quit, I did". Which missed the point. The tabacco companies knew if they could get kids smoking at a young age it was less likely they'd ever quit. Its naive to assume that the social media companies are not doing the exact same thing. Yes there is room for individual accountability, but also we need to be realistic about the amount of energy that is being spent subverting people's attention and self control.
claudiug 5mo ago
how about the shareholders? /s
xgkickt 5mo ago
Why do they do it? To make money. How do they make money? Advertising. Designate them broadcasters and hold them to the same advertising standards.
rmnwski 5mo ago
What I really enjoy about hn is the fact that it’s not infinite scrolling. I scan the front page, if something grabs my attention, I’ll look at. If something has a lot of comments, it seems important. When I’m done scanning/reading, I’m done. On social media, you’re never done.
- randoments 5mo ago
  thats why they invented /new and the refresh button. Tbh, i have a procrastination problem and HN is as good as an excuse as any other social network.
  - jmusall 5mo ago
    The comment sections are perfectly fit for this purpose, too.
deferredgrant 5mo ago
[flagged]
nadermx 5mo ago
Why is it always people pushing government to replace parenting? My mother use to take away my computer if I didn't abide by her rules.
- danlugo92 5mo ago
  It's not about children.
- fc417fc802 5mo ago
  People are pushing to regulate a product that's proven detrimental to wellbeing on a large scale. What does that have to do with parenting?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - GoatInGrey 5mo ago
    Some believe, though they hesitate to put it in writing where it could be openly challenged, that regulations are a dysfunctional aspect of governance and that solutions to systemic issues lie at the individual level.
    - fc417fc802 5mo ago
      I do think that's often the case. Regulations in practice are frequently (but not always) worse than the individual solution and crowd the latter out in the process. Drug laws are a fantastic example. I doubt outlawing meth or opiates has been a net benefit on the whole if you truly look at the bigger picture. But if a mega corporation is peddling meth laced sodas to children outside the local elementary school I don't think "lol parent harder" is a sensible rebuttal (or even on topic) to people demanding some minimal amount of regulation. Banning meth in sodas is a perfectly reasonable solution there - go purchase it separately at the pharmacy!
- codethief 5mo ago
  Unfortunately, your mother[0] is distracted by her phone these days, so she can't take away your computer. [0]: Obviously not your mother. :)
pllbnk 5mo ago
I would like the focus to be on harmful content creators, not so much on the platforms. Platforms have incentives to bubble this content to the top because it's desirable but there is content that is simply illegal and it's being uploaded by same creators for years without any repercussions.
data-ottawa 5mo ago
I'm all for regulating dark patterns, but I don't think it's easy to say what's addictive design or not. We have no objective basis to measure this with. You could consider unlimited scroll a dark pattern and block that, just like you'd want to block making it near impossible to cancel a service. That's testable and clear. But "addictiveness" is just too wide a net and unenforceable (or rather, selectively enforceable). And then the idea that the EU claims their own age verification app is the most private and most secure app in the world, yet it's already been hacked is laughable[1]. I'm very exhausted at out-of-touch and technologically illiterate politicians declaring mission accomplished on these things. I understand that the free venture capital backed market has failed humanity in many respects. If we want solutions to the _human_ problems technology causes then yes, we need some regulations. But once again, this is just sloppy, lazy, bad law. Not based on evidence, not based on any standards, and not clear at all. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-brussels-launched-age-checking-app-hackers-say-took-them-2-minutes-break-it/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-brussels-launched-age-che...
game_the0ry 5mo ago
The EU gave us annoying cookie pop ups. Now, they want to legislate design. Cool.
raydev 5mo ago
Hopefully there's a way to opt out of the inevitably worse experience for those of us who like scrolling through TikTok. The web was already getting bad with ads and popups, but the EU's sloppy legislation loopholes somehow encouraged all websites to show cookie popups (and never remember my selection), so the experience is even worse.
panny 5mo ago
The most absurd thing is we are supposed to believe the people who did nothing about Epstein's clients are doing this to protect children.
isaisabella 5mo ago
Actually I don't think these regulations can prevent kids from using social media if they REALLY want to. For example, in China, kids under 18 are not allowed to play video games by requiring facial verification. However, many kids will ask their grandparents to do the verification. So indeed it's not preventing anyone.
kaboomshebang 5mo ago
Why just focus on kids???? This is a massive problem for young and old. Every every day we collectively (and globally) waste so many hours on consuming posts which consists largely of unimportant content. News and opinions consists of polarized snippets of 20 sec. (You can argue: some content brings joy, or it helps brands sell products. But you can also call a friend, and the products will find us if we need them.) (Just to clarify my point: it's not *all* bad of course, but a lot of precious time is wasted)
- bcjdjsndon 5mo ago
  > News and opinions consists of polarized snippets of 20 sec I assume longer than 20sec and the content becomes harmless again?
  - kaboomshebang 5mo ago
    hahah, not sure what the threshold is exactly ;)
fractalf 5mo ago
It's not that hard. Just uninstall. I did. Everything got better

516 points by thm 5mo ago

Yeah yeah, virtue signaling, and most of EU online services are now gated by the use of one of the whatng cartel web engines (IRL, google blink), namely EU web sites are broken favoring web apps. They have to restore interop with noscript/basic html web engines (past/present/and future). Then, they have to be carefull with their file formats, for instance you never give "carte blanche" to such a disgusting format like PDF, you are very careful at defining a, as simple a possible, subset of it (with some internal software for validation).

nanapipirara 5mo ago
Yeah yeah, whataboutism. I'm very happy they're taking a stance. I've seen too many messed up kids and there's no doubt the addictive design plays a big role in the problem.
- soco 5mo ago
  I must notice that every time, but really every time, EU moves a pinky finger against tech industry, a sizeable chunk of comments here will be like the one above. I wonder, is it about a general sentiment against EU? Or a general sentiment against restricting technology? Or a general sentiment against humans? Or what?
  - eowln 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - palata 5mo ago
      > The sentiment that having to present our ID to use tiktok gives us the heebie-jeebies, and for good reason. So push for privacy-preserving age verification, such that you don't need to leak your ID to anyone but TikTok can still prevent kids from accessing it?
      - eowln 5mo ago
        >privacy-preserving age verification No such thing.
        palata 5mo ago
        That's my problem with the debate: people like you seem very proud to be uninformed. It exists as much as end-to-end encryption exists. It's cryptography, it's not up to debate. But people who have no clue are very vocal about their belief that it does not exist.
        eowln 5mo ago
        There are no active implementations that do not suffer from severe issues.
        soco 5mo ago
        There are two ongoing implementations: one weaker in the EU boooo and one good in Switzerland. None having severe issues. Questions?
        eowln 5mo ago
        I have none, I already am aware of the functioning of the systems that have been deployed, hence my statements of fact.
        palata 5mo ago
        You obviously have no idea, and this really looks like a new account made for trolling (negative karma).
        NewsaHackO 5mo ago
        I also am not aware of any, do you have any examples?
  - ToucanLoucan 5mo ago
    Boiling kid's (and adult's) brains probably makes them a decent chunk of money, either directly via salary or indirectly via stocks. Ensuring kids remain healthy makes no money. An unfortunately large slice of the tech sector doesn't give the tiniest shit about the health of our broader society or any group in it if it means their lines stop going up, or even go up slightly less fast.
  - watwut 5mo ago
    Imo, both. The more right wing people started to have aggressively anti-EU stance once Vance openly stood on the side of Orban and against EU and democracies in general. And some people see tech companies as worship worthy and trying to restrict them is kind of a blasphemy.
    - modo_mario 5mo ago
      The Vance thing is far too recent and inconsequential across europe? The sentiment precedes all that and mostly stems from the EU being in some ways originally lib left dominated and still being seen as facilitating non-eu migration Regular right wing people (aka not one of the many parties potentially receiving donations) don't tend to love giant webtech companies. Especially since they feel like they're often used as a tool against them and aren't a local thing that draws nationalists either. A focus on privacy also isn't a very left-right defined thing tho i have noticed that the most far reaching expressions of it come a bit more from the further ends of that spectrum. (you'll see some very left leaning people at fosdems privacy focused/related stands for example)
      - dgellow 5mo ago
        > don't tend to love giant webtech companie That’s a bit outdated since musk bought twitter
  - palata 5mo ago
    I think it's easier and safer to complain about everything than to actually have a nuanced and informed stance. Look at age verification: it's very easy and very safe to say "nobody sane would think that it is a good idea to force people to show their ID to every website they want to access, it will obviously leak the IDs, that is very bad!". While it is not wrong, it is manipulative: that is not the only way to implement age verification. In fact, there is technology that exists that would allow age verification in a privacy-preserving manner: some service that already have access to your ID can give you a token that proves your age, and you can then use this token to access a website. The service cannot know where you use the token, the website cannot know your ID, and they cannot collude. So the constructive debate around age verification is this: assuming we implement it properly (i.e. in a privacy-preserving manner), is that something that we want or not? Does it solve a problem, or at least does it help? But we cannot ever elevate the debate to that level, because nobody can't be arsed to get informed about it.
    - soco 5mo ago
      But ironically exactly the people in the better place to influence that half-arsed implementation are those who comment here - instead of influencing said implementation. Somehow what we do ourselves at work is always good and nice and perfect (while what others do is brain-dead and pointless). Now okay you could say an engineer is too small to change politics, but how about 100 engineers? Thousands? If the whole practice would say loud "whoa this doesn't fly" I bet the decision makers would listen. But no, most of the techies will say "okay whatever let's do it" then (maybe) come online to complain.
      - palata 5mo ago
        The thing, I believe, is that engineers are just people. They also have strong, uninformed opinions. It's not like every engineer is an expert in cryptography, right? For instance, there is a large consensus against ChatControl, agreeing on the fact that it's impossible to let the good guys decrypt arbitrary data without opening it to the bad guys. As a result, I don't think it's still a debate: the EU won't ask to weaken the encryption. Now an alternative to that is stuff like scanning the messages on the device (which technically does not break the encryption) and report them when it makes sense. There is a problem with that, too: in order to detect "illegal" content, someone has to decide what is illegal. And because it evolves, probably it's a list that can be updated remotely. And whoever controls that list has some surveillance power we may not want to give anyone (I know I don't). It seems to me that this second issue took more time to get traction, but now engineers generally understand it. So if a politician asks, they can say "you can technically do that, but you are building a dangerous surveillance apparatus". It doesn't mean that the politicians won't want it, but at least they should understand the technical stance on it. So for ChatControl, engineers seem to understand the problem, and the consequence of that is that ChatControl hasn't passed. At least not yet, and now I think those in favour have to convince enough people that building those surveillance tools is a good idea. For age verification it's a lot different, IMO. There is a website dedicated to it: https://ageverification.dev/ https://ageverification.dev/, explaining how they want it to be privacy preserving, which is technically possible. But still, there doesn't seem to be a large consensus about this (see the comments on HN). Many, many engineers keep saying "it is not technically possible", which is wrong. Maybe it is not desirable, which is a different debate. But it is technically possible. What does that mean? Well for age verification, from what I see the "engineers community" is not credible at all. I can't get anything from it "as a community" other than "people yell many things, many of them being factually wrong". Many will say "not only it's not technically possible, but ON TOP OF THAT it is not desirable", but why would I listen to their second point when I can verify that the first one is already wrong? It's always the same problem: not every opinion is worth the same. The opinion of an expert is worth more in their domain of expertise. So you can't just run a poll on HN and go with its result, right? In the case of age verification, for instance, it seems like the EU has been talking to actual experts, because https://ageverification.dev/ https://ageverification.dev/ seems pretty good. I feel like many engineers yell against it because they don't like the idea of age verification, not because it's technically bad. Which is a fair stance to have. But the honest way to defend it is by actually talking about why they think privacy-preserving age verification is a bad thing. Claiming that it is not technically possible is either uninformed (and therefore not credible) or manipulative, IMHO.
- sylware 5mo ago
  It feels like they use such topic such as this one as a decoy to dodge to deal with the core and real EU online services interop issue. EU online service must interop with web sites and not be _ONLY_ web apps which are hard dependent on the massive and ultra complex web engines of the whatng cartel (this word fits their behavior). The EU online services which cannot be provided via a web site (noscript/basic HTML), which are very few to none, should use well defined, as simple as possible, stable in time, open and published protocols/file formats. That can be 'subset' of broadly available protocols/file formats. The benchmark is writing real-life code to handle such protocols/file formats should be reasonable for a very small team of devs or a solo average dev. I wonder where all the money to deal with web apps is actually going, you know where web sites were carefully broken...
Mashimo 5mo ago
Is ending endless scrolling really virtue signaling? Don't you think it will have a measurable effect?
- sylware 5mo ago
  It feels like some distraction to avoid to deal with the much more important (stategically) issue which is the interop of EU online services with 'small tech'. BTW, with noscript/basic HTML, no infinite scroll anyway. One Rock Two Birds. Ironically.

LuckyBuddy 5mo ago

[dead]

FinnKuhn 5mo ago

I think especially restricting endless scrolling is a good thing overall to reduce the addictiveness of social media and its harmful effects. HN having pages instead of a feed or endless list is one of the things I really like about it.

nanapipirara 5mo ago
For sure. The other thing I really love about HN is that titles are all supposed to be boring and to the point. The guidelines[1] for titles are excellent and I wish more of the web and honestly legacy media too would behave that way. Things that are of no interest to me are not trying to waste my time and attention. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dinfinity 5mo ago
  It's probably not something that can be enforced legally, but the concept of DeArrow (user-provided titles and thumbnails for Youtube) should be the norm. Perhaps there can be an EU maintained browser extension that allows netizens to provide alternate, honest titles and thumbnails for all kinds of content. Probably still incredibly hard to implement throughout apps etc., but a man can dream.
ekjhgkejhgk 5mo ago
> I think especially restricting endless scrolling The actual point is that they are designed to be addictive. "endless scrolling" is just an implementation detail. If you "ban endless scrolling", they'll still be using every other trick to make it addictive.

bschwarz 5mo ago

Imagine the pressure on Instagram and Tiktok to serve better content if they were forced to pick out, say, 100 short videos per person per day. And not just for kids, adults need a break from this addiction machine as well.

thiago_fm 5mo ago

Why should only kids be protected from addiction? I have a hard time understanding this. We have plenty of adults with terrible social media addiction that is destroying their lives, and nothing being done about it.

Mashimo 5mo ago
[dead]
gib444 5mo ago
Makes it an easier sell politically. If you position it as dangerous to kids in particular, your opposition then looks like they're encouraging child harm.
- palata 5mo ago
  Well and if you tell adults that they need to be regulated, they get pissed very, very quickly.
indymike 5mo ago
This is the best question of all. Why are we allowing this?
mrintegrity 5mo ago
My girlfriend's mother is visiting, 60 years old and constantly looking at instagram. I was sharing my data plan so she could use her phone outside the house but started lying that my plan had run out. Gives "parental controls" a whole new meaning!

yipbub 5mo ago

Thanks, I'm an adult and I need it too

mrosenbjerg 5mo ago
Had the exact same thought
butlike 5mo ago
FWIW, social media use is mediated by ∆FosB expression, so the less you use social media, the less you want to use social media. Timeline of ~3 months.

garrettjoecox 5mo ago

At what point should the responsibility fall on the parent to protect their children from harm? Don’t get me wrong, if I had my way TikTok wouldn’t exist for anyone, adults included. It’s just so strange to me that so many parents hand their 7 year olds unrestricted access to TikTok and expect someone else to keep their kid safe.

Mashimo 5mo ago
> the responsibility of a parent to protect their children from harm I agree with you, but only in theory. Because that's where we are now and it does not seem to work that well. Maybe through more education? But then again I think reducing addictive tactics like endless scrolling could be part of a 2 prong attack. With alcohol we have education on what happens, but we also have laws that regulate it.
perarneng 5mo ago
It's not so easy, they need phones and social media to communicate with their friends. They also need to fit in and find an identity. The algorithms basically all engagement engines have is harmful for humanity as a whole. They are marketed as recommendation engines but it's 100% about engagement and that is why the content you see is mostly creating dopamine from it being fun or rage for it being provocative. It's built to serve one purpose, to keep people using the platform as much as possible. Not because the platform is good, but because it serves content that maximizes engagement. I read a post about someone saying his wife worked for a snack company. They used MRI scans to see how much salt (or sugar) they should have in the snacks to maximize the response in the brain. Sounds disturbing right. Well engagement engines are the same thing. It's artificial intelligence optimized to get people to react and stay addicted. Basically AI doing harm. It's not what is best for the individual in terms of health. It's what generates most money to the owner of the platform. It should not be allowed to build a business around something that exploits humans brains. Basically biohacking our brains for profit.
kioleanu 5mo ago
I am from Eastern Europe and I’ve been living for many years in Western Europe. Where I come from, kids get their first phones when they start school at 6 (there’s a pre-school year) simply because every other kid has one. I keep coming back in my mind to two examples from my birth country: a friend’s kid carrying an 8 inch smartphone in his hand everywhere because the phone was as big as half his thigh and would have to carry a bag for it. The second one was on a visit at the zoo, I was on a bench and a family with two young children with them, in a cart. And both children, couldn’t have been older than 4 or 5, were scrolling TikTok, that was showing them children content! In contrast, in Western Europe, my son is now in the sixth grade, more than half his class doesn’t have phones, phones are absolutely forbidden on school grounds and at school activities, and they are now doing a class trip where they were told that there’s a pay phone at the hotel, in case they want to call the parents - our son promptly informed us that he’ll rather buy a pack of Pokémon cards than call us and 3 days is not so much anyway. And it is not only at school, he travels for tournaments with his team every other week and mobile phones are absolutely forbidden on the team bus. Children read, play games (including chess on a magnetic board), sing and change stories for hours at a time

conception 5mo ago

This is pretty easy to solve. If you present data by algorithm, you are no longer an impartial common carrier and are liable for the content you present. If the user decides you don’t, ala social media 1.0.

an0malous 5mo ago
It’s so elegant that there’s zero chance the EU will do it since this is all performative for them
shiandow 5mo ago
And when does the user decide? Must a platform do nothing to stimmy spam, or even illegal content to qualify as impartial? I suppose the answer could be that only platforms that do indeed allow spam or worse are impartial, but that is a tricky position to be in.
- leogiertz 5mo ago
  The mechanism would be that if the user has chosen to follow an account then posts from that account falls under common carrier. If the platform choses to show you other posts then it's under their responsibility.
stingraycharles 5mo ago
This is one of those things that don’t translate to legal reality very well, as then you have to define “what is an algorithm”. Is adding advertisements an algorithm? Is including likes an algorithm? Is automatically starting the next video after a previous one has finished an algorithm? Is infinite scroll an algorithm? Etc
- randunel 5mo ago
  Everything other than sorting the list of entities by a standard measurement unit (time, length, mass, temperature, amount) needs to be covered by this law. The moment you add other entities to the list (e.g. ads inbetween posts), then it's also subject to the same restrictions.

anzerarkin 5mo ago

I don’t think this is only a kids issue. A lot of adults need this too. The addictive apps are very well designed, while most blockers are either too easy to ignore or too annoying to keep using. I built a small iOS blocker because I had the same problem. Making it strict enough to actually work without making people hate it is the main challenge.

kgwxd 5mo ago
As an adult, who despises all those apps, I don't want to grant government the power to make that decision for me.
- criddell 5mo ago
  An an adult, do you also believe seat belt laws are a bad thing?
  - nekusar 5mo ago
    Yes, I do. Its just another way that cops can pull you over for bullshit charges and revenue enhancement. I remember in my state, it was initially only a citation that couldnt be pulled over on. Then they flipped that and started pulling over for it. Why? Pure fucking money grab. Me not wearing a seatbelt means I risk getting splattered. Not you, or anyone else.
    - chinathrow 5mo ago
      Is this satire?
      - nekusar 5mo ago
        Is school busses without seatbelts satire? Are motorcycles without seatbelts or harnesses satire? All im saying is that an adult should be able to choose to wear a seatbelt or not in their own vehicle. And also, shouldnt get fined for choosing to not wear one. BTW, i wear one when i drive or am a passenger. And if im driving, i ask everyone to wear one.

Pesthuf 5mo ago

Tell me: why are these algorithms suddenly okay when the victim turns 18? They are bad for everyone and if you’re willing to regulate them, make them illegal to be used on anyone.

Mashimo 5mo ago
Just from this article it's not clear if the methods like endless scrolling or "watch next video" are going to be regulated based on user age or not. It just says the platform who use such methods, often target kids.
palata 5mo ago
Same as for the cigarette: it's a lot easier to regulate stuff for kids, because we as a society tend to agree that they need to be protected. Much harder to do with adults, because it is much less of a consensus.
- abyssin 5mo ago
  I genuinely wonder if there would be any end user against banning these algorithms. I’d love rss style content providers back. Just let me freely subscribe to accounts.
- ZetsuBouKyo 5mo ago
  The ban is meant to protect kids, but secondhand smoke is almost everywhere.
- bcjdjsndon 5mo ago
  > Much harder to do with adults, because it is much less of a consensus. It's because humans are motivated primarily by fear, not logic. The exact same moral panic was made about fuckin printed books. This is all hysteria, just like the TV is evil phase everyone went through. Proof of this is that nobody can even agree what social media is, let alone point to what's actually harmful about it
  - palata 5mo ago

hnthrowaway0315 5mo ago

But they are so profitable, and we need them to track people around and create a police state efficiently. Ah let's keep them but just fine them as well for the show.

boringg 5mo ago
What else will fund the AI boom but computationally expensive video AI?

evanjrowley 5mo ago

The most on-brand solution for the EU would be to require mobile phone users to upload brain scans in real-time so the state can check for neural activity associated with addiction.

buellerbueller 5mo ago
The most on brand solution for a kneejerk reactionary American would be to satirize the EU for its consumer protections.
- irusensei 5mo ago
  Pretty sure candy colored EU paradise even today is discussing on breaking encryption and privacy for its citizens. I'm posting from the EU.
  - buellerbueller 5mo ago
    -In the EU it is a political discussion. -In the USA, the government buys the data legally from the parties who are allowed to collect it and there are no political discussions. One of these is obviously better than the other.
    - irusensei 5mo ago
      > "In the EU, there is a a political discussion about outlawing privacy." > "In the US, the government is using illegal methods to violate rights granted by the constitution." Agreed one is obviously better than the other. The EU treats privacy as a privilege granted by the government while the US treats it as a fundamental right. I'm not a fan of the US gov but I also don't agree with the candy colored view of the EU as an institution that does no wrong and when it does its a "well intended but misguided".
      - buellerbueller 5mo ago
        >Agreed one is obviously better than the other. The EU treats privacy as a privilege granted by the government while the US treats it as a fundamental right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy https://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html https://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/righto... There is no express constitutional right to generalized "privacy" in the USA and even if there were, the constitution only binds the government, which is allowed to buy data on American citizens collected by 3rd parties.

nalekberov 5mo ago

Why, it’s always okay to harm adults? Like adults spending their hours scrolling through infinite feed is somehow beneficial to the society?

tolerance 5mo ago

Either what defines an "adult" is going to be raised exponentially or what defines a "kid" is going to be lowered to determine who is allowed access to information in transit and who needs to be "safeguarded" from it.

lp4v4n 5mo ago

I don't agree with this. Addictive, unless we're talking about a chemical substance or something like that, is a subjective thing. At some point, books, movies, comics, etc, etc might have been considered addictive. Social networks in general should be banned for underage people, that's the thing. And the social network itself should be liable for verifying the age its users, like a nightclub is liable for people who enter it. No bullshit operating system age verification, that's, trust me, totally intended to protect kids and not to spy on you.

bootsmann 5mo ago
The reason why it is done this way is that “social media” is much harder to delineate and also not what is generally considered harmful.
simion314 5mo ago
>At some point, books, movies, comics, etc, etc might have been considered addictive The difference compared to a book is that a book is not personalized for each individual reader, so the example is not a good one IMHO.
jampekka 5mo ago
Addiction at least is quite straightforward to differentiate from otherwise engaging things by whether it causes significant harmful effects. E.g. per Wikipedia "Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces an immediate psychological reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences." Addictive would be then something that (for a substantial portion of population) has a tendency to cause addiction.
bogwog 5mo ago
> Addictive, unless we're talking about a chemical substance or something like that, is a subjective thing. What makes you say that? It's well known that the addictive patterns in these apps trigger dopamine the same way drugs do. In a sense, dopamine is the "chemical substance" central to the addiction. Heroine and algorithms are just different ways to get it. https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2021/10/addictive-potential-of-social-media-explained.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2021/10/addictive-pot...

seydor 5mo ago

they are going to put kids on a drip basis. addiction is still there, just limited amount per session. Intermittent rewards is actually the perfect schedule for an advertising company, you don't want people to be making unmonetizable page views.

epolanski 5mo ago

Never understood the kids focus, looks to me like 50+ are by far the most addicted. Which makes it also a matter of also parents and grandparents setting bad examples.

thedetailsguy 5mo ago

Isn’t it more of “emotional” design than “addictive” design?

nirui 5mo ago

You know, yeah, you can crack down "addictive design", but then what? If you don't provide better alternative, the "kids" (and please, stop using "kids" as excuse because everybody can see through it now) will just stick on these platforms because, believe or not, these platforms are much MUCH safer than the alternatives. How about, let's see the real problem here: 24% of EU children at poverty risk or social exclusion (2024), see https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20250528-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d.... That's not just a statistic about children, it's also about their parents. Do you know that if you go outside, then there's this huge risk of having to PAY for stuff you don't actually need to live? Like transportation to go to place that don't bring you wealth, like drink that you drink even you're not that thirsty, like movie tickets just so it will not be too awkward after all the dialogue options are exhausted? Does these politicians just somehow forgot all of these costs money, in this economy that they helped to create? And that is not to mention the REAL risk, such as drugs the bad ones, rude or crazy drivers, unpleasant adults who's only life purpose is to earn enough money to keep them going a little bit longer, just to name a few. ..... ORRRR, you can just stay in your conformable home, sit on your soft and warm sofa/couch, and swipe your life away on TikTok or Instagram for free, safely. You see the problem here? I'm really sick and tired of these politicians putting up this act pretending to "love children", when in the reality what they do is putting up easy patches to hide the real problem, which is poverty and inequality, that's the real problem.

caaqil 5mo ago

In the modern world: any tech proposition that starts with protection of children as a goal can be dismissed out of hand, since it's emotional manipulation masquerading as tech policy. When I hear "protect kids", all I see is a sleazy politician bowing to their respective Security State apparatus.

jrflo 5mo ago

I heard someone on a podcast call social media algorithms "the modern-day cigarette" and that really resonated with me. These companies know their product is addictive and bad for users, but they keep pushing it anyways. Like cigarettes, it's bad for everyone, not just kids. I made an algorithm blocker for Safari because of that and it's actually crazy how much more pleasant social media is if you don't have recommendation algorithms at all. I think the EU and other jurisdictions should really look beyond just limiting this stuff to kids, but I understand why it's starting there...

p2detar 5mo ago
Look up images in Google with `eu cigarettes boxes`. Banning is a thin wedge, but I think we need something like these warning labels for social media.
mrits 5mo ago
[flagged]
- toasty228 5mo ago
  People stuck in 1940 and not able to imagine new words for new things should not be allowed to discuss these topics online.
  - rvnx 5mo ago
    the correct modern word is censorship DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN there has to be a bug in Europe on some news websites... at least we can use VPNs, for now protecting the children is always a good pretext but the real goal with this addiction law is to have one extra leverage on the platforms
  - mrits 5mo ago
    "should not be allowed to discuss these topics online." At least you are consistent
- tgv 5mo ago

shevy-java 5mo ago

I do not buy this "holy knight war" by the EU at all. It also makes no real sense to me. Nothing against US mega-corporations paying fins, mind you, but I equally do not trust the EU bureaucrats either. There has to be a limit to both what politicians can do, what corporations can do and what bureaucrats can do, while retaining a democratic base system at all times. If you go against addictive design, then why not against ALL ads? I don't want to see any ads. Ublock origin made me change my mind here - I literally see no reason as to why I would ever want to burden my brain cells with irrelevant content. This is a bit different to website layout though. I equally fail to see why the EU should meta-regulate what is permissive in regards to design and what is not. Why would I have to accept any random EU bureaucrat here? If a user interface sucks, I'd rather expect ublock origin to kill it off. This could also be community maintained. No need for the EU to waste taxpayers money. After the EU wants to sniff for age data and then also declared its holy war against VPNs, I do not trust anything coming from Brussels. Even less so with Ms. Leyen in charge - can't the anti-corruption offices in Germany get rid of such lobbyists?

qweiopqweiop 5mo ago
Weird analogy when ads aren't addictive in the same way. Look at people around and about and they're all like mindless zombies flicking through Tiktok, not looking at ads. IMO this doesn't go far enough.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo ago

Imagine if Big Tobacco had something like Section 230

tzs 5mo ago
I'm trying and completely failing to even begin since I cannot find any way to think of what something analogous to Section 230 would even be in the context of tobacco.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo ago
If it's difficult, maybe that's telling Perhaps there is nothing like Section 230 in any legitimate industry

NickC25 5mo ago

Just do what China does, how fucking hard is it? They have 4x, almost 5x the population of the US. STEM or verifiable educational content only. Have a review team and an AI that moderates content. No politics, no stupid dances, no monetization of content, no slop, and only credentialed people can post on certain topics (ie a delivery driver shouldn't make posts on theoretical mathematics).

tt24 5mo ago
What you described sounds like an authoritarian hellscape and the suggestion would be met with laughter in any civilized country.
- NickC25 5mo ago
  It's what happens in China with Tiktok. The Party said Tiktok needed to have educational content instead of stupid content. Tiktok complied. The CCP may be many bad things, but they don't fuck around when it comes to education and making sure their youth aren't wasting their youth on stupid dance videos.
  - tt24 5mo ago
    I am aware that that’s what happens. That’s what I’m criticizing.

spockz 5mo ago

They should also tackle Youtube. Yesterday my Youtube app opened into "Shorts" automatically. Shorts are of the same addictive variety as TikToks.

ErigmolCt 5mo ago
Shorts are basically the same product
awakeasleep 5mo ago
You can actually disable shorts now. Open the youtube time management settings and set shorts to zero. Its bliss for an old guy like me
- qweiopqweiop 5mo ago
  Not on web (or the mobile web page either). It's a half baked solution right now.
- spockz 5mo ago
  Amazing, thank you! I’ve set it immediately.
benhurmarcel 5mo ago
If you disable your watch history, Youtube won't show you personalized Shorts anymore. Much less addictive.
joshlemer 5mo ago
I feel like the core of the problem is that we don't as consumers have hardly any control over the software we run on our devices. People can and have written less addictive YouTube, Reddit, etc clients, but Google Play and Apple App Store don't allow them.
- spockz 5mo ago
  Google Play and Apple App Store don’t allow them because they are in breach with the YouTube service policy. If Google changed that policy the app stores would allow those apps. Otherwise your point completely stands of course!

ErigmolCt 5mo ago

I'm usually skeptical of -protect the children- regulation, but addictive design feels like a real and concrete target

doublerabbit 5mo ago

10 year's too late. Did they really not see this coming or did they turn a blind eye again? I am fed up of this corrupted world.

euejcidnf 5mo ago

[dead]

Ylpertnodi 5mo ago
Which bit of Europe are you talking about? Bari, or Utrecht?

christkv 5mo ago

what about youtube shorts?

ge96 5mo ago

I don't use those sites myself/not age group anyway. One thing Instagram is riddled with ads it immediately pisses me off so one reason I don't use it. I get the engagement aspect if you're trying to promote a product. Recently I stopped scrolling reddit/being logged in and watching YouTube videos. Since it's just endless... and it's crazy. It feels unsettling, I'm bored/antsy since I'm not doing something. So I've been trying to use this time to not multi task eg. I used to have a YouTube video playing and then scroll reddit at the same time. Now it's like, listen to music/work on a computer or watch something only. Also starting to make me seek real socialization too like go to a coffee shop or something even though unfortunatley I live in the suburbs so I'd have to drive to a coffee shop. The only stuff I look at too is this site or some entrepreneurial specific site for motivation.

codybontecou 5mo ago
Which entrepreneurial sites are you browsing? I feel like I'm at a similar stage in my day-to-day.
- ge96 5mo ago
  I used to read indiehackers but it's hard to tell what's real/promotional now, same for reddit sites that are entrepreneurial. The one I look at though is wip.chat which is pretty much just a shared to-do list among builders, I'm not part of it, not gonna pay $20/mo or whatever lol, but good to see it. I used to listen to digital nomad podcasts too as that was interesting to me like needing to make money/living day by day. Also similar not sure real or shilling, lot of Vietnam videos lately eg. "live here for $400/mo" kind of thing. Was briefly watching starter story on YouTube but also not sure if real or shilling. It's funny I have the $10K/mo right now but it's because I have a job lmao... it sucks having a job, I'm not free.

hamasho 5mo ago

Check this English sentence When I started working as a programmer, my company held a book club, and one of the books was about the effectiveness of AB tests. We read how Amazon changing the color of the purchase button drastically increased the sales or some shit like that. Everyone was excited. The executives, the marketing team, and the dev team praised how clever it was, and insisted we should do the same. It took me like five years to realize it was really not good idea for a small B2B business to spend a part of the limited resources in that. I needed several experiences to understand that in many cases good customer relationship and reliable system is much more important. But it wasn’t until recently that I started thinking like “wait, if it tricks the users into doing something they’re unwilling to do, isn’t it unethical?” It makes me wonder how little we think about the ethics and the consequences of our investment. It’s not like we understand it’s unethical but do it anyway for profit. We simply don’t care how unethical it can be, not even slightly, until the evidence of the harmful effects are not negligible after years and decades.

kwanbix 5mo ago

Targeting kids is good. But what about adults?

raffael_de 5mo ago

So many people here endorsing prohibition affecting everybody just because some folks aren't able to control themselves. I simply don't want the state to nanny me.

amarcheschi 5mo ago
People are complaining about products engineered to be as addictive as possible, we're talking about something more than simple self control
- raffael_de 5mo ago
  everybody has a choice to just uninstall apps, leave the phone at home, switch it off at 8pm etc. that's what it means to be an adult. some people get addicted to work or sports - people even died from it - should we ban that, too?
  - amarcheschi 5mo ago
    The article is discussing regulating the algorithms, not banning the social networks. Just like cigarettes and alcohol are regulated but not banned
bognition 5mo ago
> some folks aren't able to control themselves I get that there are some people who have anomalous abilities to self control, and i understand that they might have a hard time empathizing with those of us that dont have that level of control. However to chalk up the solution as be a better person, when in reality corporations are spending billions on research and design of addictive products is just short sighted. We saw the same thing with smoking. Plenty of people said "meh, why cant the smoker just quit, I did". Which missed the point. The tabacco companies knew if they could get kids smoking at a young age it was less likely they'd ever quit. Its naive to assume that the social media companies are not doing the exact same thing. Yes there is room for individual accountability, but also we need to be realistic about the amount of energy that is being spent subverting people's attention and self control.

claudiug 5mo ago

how about the shareholders? /s

xgkickt 5mo ago

Why do they do it? To make money. How do they make money? Advertising. Designate them broadcasters and hold them to the same advertising standards.

rmnwski 5mo ago

What I really enjoy about hn is the fact that it’s not infinite scrolling. I scan the front page, if something grabs my attention, I’ll look at. If something has a lot of comments, it seems important. When I’m done scanning/reading, I’m done. On social media, you’re never done.

randoments 5mo ago
thats why they invented /new and the refresh button. Tbh, i have a procrastination problem and HN is as good as an excuse as any other social network.
- jmusall 5mo ago
  The comment sections are perfectly fit for this purpose, too.

deferredgrant 5mo ago

[flagged]

nadermx 5mo ago

Why is it always people pushing government to replace parenting? My mother use to take away my computer if I didn't abide by her rules.

danlugo92 5mo ago
It's not about children.
fc417fc802 5mo ago
People are pushing to regulate a product that's proven detrimental to wellbeing on a large scale. What does that have to do with parenting?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- GoatInGrey 5mo ago
  Some believe, though they hesitate to put it in writing where it could be openly challenged, that regulations are a dysfunctional aspect of governance and that solutions to systemic issues lie at the individual level.
  - fc417fc802 5mo ago
    I do think that's often the case. Regulations in practice are frequently (but not always) worse than the individual solution and crowd the latter out in the process. Drug laws are a fantastic example. I doubt outlawing meth or opiates has been a net benefit on the whole if you truly look at the bigger picture. But if a mega corporation is peddling meth laced sodas to children outside the local elementary school I don't think "lol parent harder" is a sensible rebuttal (or even on topic) to people demanding some minimal amount of regulation. Banning meth in sodas is a perfectly reasonable solution there - go purchase it separately at the pharmacy!
codethief 5mo ago
Unfortunately, your mother[0] is distracted by her phone these days, so she can't take away your computer. [0]: Obviously not your mother. :)

pllbnk 5mo ago

I would like the focus to be on harmful content creators, not so much on the platforms. Platforms have incentives to bubble this content to the top because it's desirable but there is content that is simply illegal and it's being uploaded by same creators for years without any repercussions.

data-ottawa 5mo ago

I'm all for regulating dark patterns, but I don't think it's easy to say what's addictive design or not. We have no objective basis to measure this with. You could consider unlimited scroll a dark pattern and block that, just like you'd want to block making it near impossible to cancel a service. That's testable and clear. But "addictiveness" is just too wide a net and unenforceable (or rather, selectively enforceable). And then the idea that the EU claims their own age verification app is the most private and most secure app in the world, yet it's already been hacked is laughable[1]. I'm very exhausted at out-of-touch and technologically illiterate politicians declaring mission accomplished on these things. I understand that the free venture capital backed market has failed humanity in many respects. If we want solutions to the _human_ problems technology causes then yes, we need some regulations. But once again, this is just sloppy, lazy, bad law. Not based on evidence, not based on any standards, and not clear at all. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-brussels-launched-age-checking-app-hackers-say-took-them-2-minutes-break-it/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-brussels-launched-age-che...

game_the0ry 5mo ago

The EU gave us annoying cookie pop ups. Now, they want to legislate design. Cool.

raydev 5mo ago

Hopefully there's a way to opt out of the inevitably worse experience for those of us who like scrolling through TikTok. The web was already getting bad with ads and popups, but the EU's sloppy legislation loopholes somehow encouraged all websites to show cookie popups (and never remember my selection), so the experience is even worse.

panny 5mo ago

The most absurd thing is we are supposed to believe the people who did nothing about Epstein's clients are doing this to protect children.

isaisabella 5mo ago

Actually I don't think these regulations can prevent kids from using social media if they REALLY want to. For example, in China, kids under 18 are not allowed to play video games by requiring facial verification. However, many kids will ask their grandparents to do the verification. So indeed it's not preventing anyone.

kaboomshebang 5mo ago

Why just focus on kids???? This is a massive problem for young and old. Every every day we collectively (and globally) waste so many hours on consuming posts which consists largely of unimportant content. News and opinions consists of polarized snippets of 20 sec. (You can argue: some content brings joy, or it helps brands sell products. But you can also call a friend, and the products will find us if we need them.) (Just to clarify my point: it's not *all* bad of course, but a lot of precious time is wasted)

bcjdjsndon 5mo ago
> News and opinions consists of polarized snippets of 20 sec I assume longer than 20sec and the content becomes harmless again?
- kaboomshebang 5mo ago
  hahah, not sure what the threshold is exactly ;)

fractalf 5mo ago

It's not that hard. Just uninstall. I did. Everything got better