I think that algorithmic social media should be likewise regulated, with at the very minimum ban for minors.
Note that my focus here on the "algorithmic" part. I'm fine with little or no regulation for social media where your feed is just events in chronological order from contacts that you are subscribed to, like an old bullettin board, or the original Facebook.
Also, I think we should consider companies that provide algorithmic social media responsible for what they publish in your feed. The content may be user generated, but what is pushed to the masses is decided by them.
Pitting the average person up against that, then blaming them for having "no self control" once they inevitably get sucked in is not a remotely fair conclusion.
But I'm still wary of the motives behind these bans because they seem to be about controlling information, not addiction.
Like gambling?
What are the harmful effects of a full blown coffee addiction? Headaches?
Europe wants to ban algorithmic recommendation. You attack a straw-man: banning all the content from creators. If you have any valid argument you should bring them to the discussion instead of creating imaginary enemies.
Banning harmful design patterns is a must to protect citizens even if it ruffles the feathers of those profiting from their addiction.
They didn't say this.
please fix this to
A subset of the population who has not yet reached the age of consent
I think society broadly accepts that there are different expectations for children and adults; the line is currently officially drawn somewhere around 18-21 years old.
So, no, there is no official line at 18-21. Especially in the EU.
That is hilariously general. You're conflating a lot of different nations there. In practice; its different depending on the nation, consent is usually 16 and alcohol is ~18.
40% of the EU has age of consent 14 or lower. (Germany, Italy, Portugal, etc.) 78% of the EU has it at 15 or lower (France, Sweden, Denmark, etc.)
No 'official line' at 18-21.
I have an ideia, if you don't like regulation that protects people why don't you fuck off to your own country and advocate for it in whatever dystopian hellhole you came from?
1. The reactions to banning drunk driving: "It's kind of getting communist when a fella can't put in a hard day's work, put in 11 to 12 hours a day, and then get in your truck and at least drink one or two beers."
2. Mandatory seatbelts: "This is Fascism"
You're going to balk at just about anything that comes down the line - I guarantee it.
[https://www.unilad.com/news/us-news/americans-react-drink-dr...] [https://www.history.com/articles/seat-belt-laws-resistance]
Additionally, this is not about self control. The claim is that the algorithm is designed to exploit users. Insiders (including a designer of infinite scroll!) have admitted as much going back years: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44640959
We should be uncomfortable with companies spending huge amounts of money to research and implement exploitative algorithms. We did something about cigarette companies advertising to kids. This action is along those lines.
> it's a wildly popular form of entertainment with millions of creators sharing their lives
I don't think we should be rewarding those who make a living by creating "content" that serves for nothing but a dopamine rush, and you can bet that those who who put it in the effort to create valuable content would prefer to have one less channel where they are forced to put out content just to satisfy the algorithm overlords.
If you want to distribute short videos on a website that let's you choose what you want after search and deliberately clicking on a button to play it, by all means feel free to do it. But the current Tik-Tok mechanism removes all agency and are an extreme version of mind pollution.
you can't even be aware of what they're doing, because the algorithms they're using to do it are black boxes
youtube algorithms have shown evidence that they've lead to radicalization
would you not draw a line on any of this?