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What is “harmful behavior” when it comes to words? You may have your own definition, but I guarantee that you can’t get a supermajority to agree with it.

(There are some basic things like fraud and such that are already illegal.)

Most people don’t actually want to ban “harmful” speech except for the speech of their political enemies.

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Nobody mentioned speech. Infinite scroll isn't speech. Engagement-maximizing algorithms that push increasingly extreme content to keep you on the app longer ain't speech. The business model that makes outrage more profitable than accuracy isn't speech. You can have complete freedom of expression and still regulate that a platform isn't designed to psychologically exploit the people using it. These are not the same thing
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Infinite scrolling is now evil? But pagination is fine?

The form you use is part of expression.

Engagement maximizing is a buzzword that translates to content people are interested in viewing. Why would you want to regulate content to be uninteresting? I can't see that benefiting anyone.

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I’m fine with regulating some aspects of the business model, particularly targeted advertising (which should fall under interstate commerce). I’m less comfortable with the idea of legislating UX, which does seem to be an issue of speech, equivalent to legislating the layout of books. But if you destroy the engagement farming business model, none of that other stuff matters anyway.
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> Engagement-maximizing algorithms that push increasingly extreme content to keep you on the app longer ain't speech

Who decides what makes an algorithm engagement maximizing instead of you know, user satisfaction maximizing (because satisfied users stay around for longer, right?)

And who decides what is extremist and what is acceptable? Was Rush Limbaugh reading the names of patients who died of AIDS on a hundred year old media more or less extreme than someone praising mao zedong for killing all landlords on social media?

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> Who decides what makes an algorithm engagement maximizing instead of you know, user satisfaction maximizing (because satisfied users stay around for longer, right?)

Let the user decide. The evil algorithms require the "algorithms" such as "all my subscriptions, completely, in chronological order" to be removed. If "all ragebait" or "maximize profits for facebook" are just other buttons, I have no objection, but I do not think they will be popular.

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You do they visit or not. Should hackernews be forced to presenting their content a million ways? They present based on decisions made by the people who created the site.
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> You can have complete freedom of expression

Not if you must ID before accessing information on the world wide web.

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What are you talking about? I'm against that. I'm saying to remake Facebook so that you don't have the cesspool anymore. Did you read the post?
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> making the platform safe for everyone

No. I don't want to be treated like a child.

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> and radicalize

It always beautiful how single-word choices like this can reveal the actual intent behind seemingly "reasonable" words.

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You might be reading this through your own filter. It's an overloaded term right now but I took the parent to be referring to actual violent radicalization which is a real online threat: https://rcmp.ca/en/corporate-information/publications-and-ma...

(Forgive the link source - I can see in hindsight how that might not be perceived as the most objective source - but there are many other sources for those who care to look.)

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So social networks dont benefit from radicalizing people? Abusing their own human nature against them? Thats your argument, really?
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I may be off here, but I believe that they are referring to the political aspect of the word “radicalize”. In a standard democracy, it’s not really appropriate for the government to attempt to halt the spread of competing philosophies that may result in electoral changes. (This doesn’t apply to so-called “defensive democracies” as well as “guided democracies” which IMO aren’t really democracies.)

The problem in these discussions is that radicalize is an overloaded term. It could mean convincing someone of your non-mainstream political view, or it could mean inspiring someone to commit an act of terror. The former seems perfectly fine to me and well within freedom of speech and association.

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Here's a better fix: If a parent continuously allows their child to go to a known unsafe place, they are negligent and should no longer be a parent. The exception is if the operator of said unsafe place specifically enticed children. I haven't been following closely but weren't there internal emails showing Facebook was specifically trying to addict and hook teens? That's definitely wrong and a bad thing Facebook did, and they should be held accountable for sure.

However, if my platform says on the outside that it's for 18+, identifies itself as such using machine-readable signals, and I don't take specific action to entice children into the service, it's your failure to parent if they access it, and you should shoulder most or all the liability for it.

The slipperly slope here to avoid is this: do you really want to adopt a model where the state is the one who "owns" your child (except financially, of course, you still have to pay everything) and can unilaterally do things to you and your child in the same of child safety without your input or consent? This exists currently to some extent, it can get much worse.

A government body may review a service and determine it is addictive and radicalizing. This is fine, and helpful. Even requiring the service to display a warning is OK. Then, parents who ignore the clear warning and repeatedly fail to control their children from accessing it should lose parental rights.

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> I haven't been following closely but weren't there internal emails showing Facebook was specifically trying to addict and hook teens? That's definitely wrong and a bad thing Facebook did, and they should be held accountable for sure.

> ... and I don't take specific action to entice children into the service

What part of these services have been designed to be inherently addictive do you have a hard time understanding?

It's very strange that you can be aware of the fact that Facebook et. al. have been trying to get kids addicted and then pretend that there's no "specific action" to entice them.

> The slipperly slope here to avoid is this: do you really want to adopt a model where the state is the one who "owns" your child (except financially, of course, you still have to pay everything) and can unilaterally do things to you and your child in the same of child safety without your input or consent?

So you're okay with a model where private companies intentionally get your kids addicted to digital crack and can unilaterally sell all their personal information, advertise all sorts of harmful products and services to them, let predators target and contact them, etc.?

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> should no longer be a parent

Do you seriously think looking at websites, no matter what kind of websites, is more damaging than separating a children from his or her god damn parents and throwing them into the pit of neglect and abuse called the foster care system?

Get serious. This is not a suggestion on how to protect kids. The kids have everything to lose and nothing to earn under your system.

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"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

It's angels and saviors like you who make the world a living hell.

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Why does your "better solution" shift responsibility from the people who built the unsafe environment to the parents? A platform labeling itself 18+ doesn't make it safe, it just moves the blame. Adult content isn't where the supposed "harms" we are trying to protect children from are coming from. They're from how the platform is designed to keep people on it. That's fixable. Infinite scroll, algorithmic radicalization, engagement mechanics, etc. None of that requires an age label, it requires a different product. I want every platform to be safe no matter who uses them and a warning sticker on the door is not a substitute for that. We don't allow arsenic in bread just because people got used to eating it
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