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I do wonder about intent. Meta has spent 20 years paying its engineers and others vast amounts of money to Increase Engagement, and punishes those who fail to f

I do wonder about intent. Meta has spent 20 years paying its engineers and others vast amounts of money to Increase Engagement, and punishes those who fail to find ways to do so (over the past few years, by firing them). And it's worked! Engagement has increased greatly over the years, Meta survived the effective end of Old social media (you know, the stuff from your friends) and thrives in the new world of infinite content. Was the intent to _addict_ people? It doesn't have to be, to create a system people have become addicted to. Even if the harm is not intended, does that mean it cannot be regulated? Surely not! Let's ban infinite scroll for a start. The question of whether to punish Meta is quite separate from the question of how to reduce the harms of its products.

nsuh 2mo ago
I agree. Our policy going forward needs to be as precise as a scalpel.
- shant_extry 1mo ago
  I think this captures the essence. Many posts on here, however valid or invalid, are arguing intent. While I think punitive measures are definitely warranted, now that we know for certain about the harm caused (and how it was caused), the discussion can shift to prevention via precise policy.
SwtCyber 2mo ago
The distinction between punishment and prevention seems important here. Meta's intent might matter when deciding liability or penalties, but if a design pattern is demonstrably harmful, "we only wanted more engagement" isn't much of an argument against regulating it
- danfunk 2mo ago
  "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair
notsirius 2mo ago
have worked in analytics for a while. Engagement is a very broad category. Not all engagement metrics are toxic. For example, daily active users is healthy for a business to measure and is engagement. Commenting on Hackernews is engagement. Meta also has a wide range of engagement metrics - not all of which are problematic
- vanderZwan 2mo ago
  I've never seen a NAXALT fallacy used for the concept of engagement metrics before. It's not relevant to this discussion that in certain contexts, useful engagement metrics exist that supposedly aren't toxic, because it doesnt apply to the current context. We're clearly talking about the larger systemic issue of companies maximizing all engagement at all costs, and the consequences of such a policy.
  - notawaytothink 2mo ago
    For anyone else not understanding the reference: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/NAXALT https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/NAXALT
- nonameiguess 2mo ago
  Interesting to choose Hacker News as an example. I'm sure they measure every metric that can be measured, but it'd be interesting to see what measures they actually care about doing well on. The stated goal of the site is pretty explicitly not to be as engaging as possible. It's to satisfy intellectual curiosity. They make plenty of design choices for the express purpose of not being addictive. No infinite scroll. No personalized feed. No ability to subcribe to or follow particular users or topics. No visual or audio content. No previews. Automatic editing of clickbait titles to be less clickbaity. Built-in ability to temporarily ban yourself if you're spending too much time here. It's not the measurement that is toxic. It's what measures you optimize for that can become toxic.
realnkb 2mo ago
There was a moment in time when Instagram use to show this disclaimer "You're all caught up with the posts". You could still scroll below that and it would show you algorithmic content as it always have if you choose to view it. However I don't see this feature anymore and it's gotten worse with pure infinite slop. I really appreciated that cause every time I opened the app, saw that disclaimer I would instantly close it and go about doing other things. I wish they just kept simple stuff like that around but I guess that doesn't help their metrics.
- frankacter 2mo ago
  >There was a moment in time when Instagram use to show this disclaimer "You're all caught up with the posts". This still exists and I get it every day. It is the floor for my feed. I have to refresh or close the app and reopen to fetch more.
raffael_de 2mo ago
the engagement argument could be applied to every commercial service or product. anything that is sold is getting optimized for appeal/attraction/engagement/adictiveness.
- Voultapher 2mo ago
  Addicts are your most loyal and exploitable customers. Things will keep getting worse in the US as long as the current nothing is anti-competitive policies endure.
- nonameiguess 2mo ago
  No, it isn't. Nobody evaluates a drill on how long a worker spends using it. If you can get the same job done faster, you'll go with that. Even in entertainment, not all products optimize for time of use. Nobody intentionally makes the longest possible movies. Products optimize for engagement specifically when they exist within the attention economy and their monetization model is serving ads and/or harvesting user data. If Porsche and Rolex can sell you cars and watches you almost never use, I'm sure they're fine with that.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
roryirvine 2mo ago
Even if it's hard to conclusively prove intent, I think it's easy to see how there must have been at least recklessness in play and perhaps even wilful blindness. In other words, even if they didn't know that what they were doing was harmful, they should have.

nsuh 2mo ago

I agree. Our policy going forward needs to be as precise as a scalpel.

shant_extry 1mo ago
I think this captures the essence. Many posts on here, however valid or invalid, are arguing intent. While I think punitive measures are definitely warranted, now that we know for certain about the harm caused (and how it was caused), the discussion can shift to prevention via precise policy.

SwtCyber 2mo ago

The distinction between punishment and prevention seems important here. Meta's intent might matter when deciding liability or penalties, but if a design pattern is demonstrably harmful, "we only wanted more engagement" isn't much of an argument against regulating it

danfunk 2mo ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair

notsirius 2mo ago

have worked in analytics for a while. Engagement is a very broad category. Not all engagement metrics are toxic. For example, daily active users is healthy for a business to measure and is engagement. Commenting on Hackernews is engagement. Meta also has a wide range of engagement metrics - not all of which are problematic

vanderZwan 2mo ago
I've never seen a NAXALT fallacy used for the concept of engagement metrics before. It's not relevant to this discussion that in certain contexts, useful engagement metrics exist that supposedly aren't toxic, because it doesnt apply to the current context. We're clearly talking about the larger systemic issue of companies maximizing all engagement at all costs, and the consequences of such a policy.
- notawaytothink 2mo ago
  For anyone else not understanding the reference: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/NAXALT https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/NAXALT
nonameiguess 2mo ago
Interesting to choose Hacker News as an example. I'm sure they measure every metric that can be measured, but it'd be interesting to see what measures they actually care about doing well on. The stated goal of the site is pretty explicitly not to be as engaging as possible. It's to satisfy intellectual curiosity. They make plenty of design choices for the express purpose of not being addictive. No infinite scroll. No personalized feed. No ability to subcribe to or follow particular users or topics. No visual or audio content. No previews. Automatic editing of clickbait titles to be less clickbaity. Built-in ability to temporarily ban yourself if you're spending too much time here. It's not the measurement that is toxic. It's what measures you optimize for that can become toxic.

realnkb 2mo ago

There was a moment in time when Instagram use to show this disclaimer "You're all caught up with the posts". You could still scroll below that and it would show you algorithmic content as it always have if you choose to view it. However I don't see this feature anymore and it's gotten worse with pure infinite slop. I really appreciated that cause every time I opened the app, saw that disclaimer I would instantly close it and go about doing other things. I wish they just kept simple stuff like that around but I guess that doesn't help their metrics.

frankacter 2mo ago
>There was a moment in time when Instagram use to show this disclaimer "You're all caught up with the posts". This still exists and I get it every day. It is the floor for my feed. I have to refresh or close the app and reopen to fetch more.

raffael_de 2mo ago

the engagement argument could be applied to every commercial service or product. anything that is sold is getting optimized for appeal/attraction/engagement/adictiveness.

Voultapher 2mo ago
Addicts are your most loyal and exploitable customers. Things will keep getting worse in the US as long as the current nothing is anti-competitive policies endure.
nonameiguess 2mo ago
No, it isn't. Nobody evaluates a drill on how long a worker spends using it. If you can get the same job done faster, you'll go with that. Even in entertainment, not all products optimize for time of use. Nobody intentionally makes the longest possible movies. Products optimize for engagement specifically when they exist within the attention economy and their monetization model is serving ads and/or harvesting user data. If Porsche and Rolex can sell you cars and watches you almost never use, I'm sure they're fine with that.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]

roryirvine 2mo ago

Even if it's hard to conclusively prove intent, I think it's easy to see how there must have been at least recklessness in play and perhaps even wilful blindness. In other words, even if they didn't know that what they were doing was harmful, they should have.