New York bans 'addictive feeds' for teens(theverge.com) |
New York bans 'addictive feeds' for teens(theverge.com) |
Page 3 of the bill pdf:
> ... (b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device;
And also:
> It shall be unlawful for a covered operator to provide an addictive feed to a covered user unless:
> (b) the covered operator has obtained verifiable parental consent to provide an addictive feed to a covered minor.
"Hey, kid, activate the Dynamic Feed setting and get a cool badge on your profile!" Or: "Type your parent or guardian's email here; we'll tell them all about how we work to provide you with age-appropriate content, and if they click to upgrade your Dynamic Feed, you'll get a special hat for your avatar!"
This seems rife for abuse in practice, but I'd rather this be the case than have overly-broad definitions.
(Not a lawyer, this is not legal advice!)
Some context here: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/11/nys-safe-for-kids-act-a-...
"or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
Well, is social media "speech" or "press"?
Television and radio stations need to abide by FCC guidelines, and in general, certain topics and words aren't allowed in the daytime.
Another example: Tobacco advertising is severely curtailed, *especially advertising targeted towards minors."
In this case, what isn't restricted is social media platforms ability to express ideas or otherwise function as "press." Instead, what's restricted is the addictive nature and activities that cause psychological harm.
Speech.
> Television and radio stations need to abide by FCC guidelines
As far as the content restrictions, they only need to do so if they are broadcast channels (or cable rebroadcasts of broadcast channels), and FCC is constitutionally prohibited from regulating speech on cable-only channels. The argument for why they can do broadcast is the "compelling government interest" in policing the inherently limited broadcast spectrum, which (quite frankly) is pretty shaky precedent if you ask me.
> Another example: Tobacco advertising is severely curtailed
Advertising is commercial speech, which the government has much more powerful abilities to restrict than expressive speech.
whichever benefits them at that point in time
I also wonder if this is a first salvo to get users to submit IDs before using online services. How do you determine if a user is a minor or an adult without some form of ID, right?
You want to get adults addicted and express yourself to them, so be it, but the legal distinction on limitations on what you can express to minors is well documented.
Anyone can go to pornhub and see a landing page full of highly explicit sexual images without any kind of age verification whatsoever. How is this legal, if what you say is true? Is it just that they don't know it's a minor on the other side of the screen, so they can say it's not "intentional"?
Hochul told a reporter, “we’ve checked to make sure, we believe it’s constitutional.” And, that’s just laughable. Checked with whom? Every attempt I saw to call out these concerns was brushed off as “just spewing big tech’s talking points.”
The Constitution is not a “big tech talking point.” What the actual research shows is not a “big tech talking point.”
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/21/today-we-save-our-childr...
[2] Content discrimination
[3] Has the unfortunate side effect of restricting LGBTQIA+ youth and adults' speech
There's a reason why most of these bills are legally challenged.
>“We’ve checked to make sure, we believe it’s constitutional.”
It may be constitutional but it certainly isn't scientific. It's closer to the for-profit use of medical ideas in "anti-gay" "de-patterning" camps and the like. Except backed by people with firearms and a tendency to use them without consequence.
In case anyone was wondering why feeds are not ordered chronologically. Has nothing to do with ads.
I understand the hesitancy to government control, but at some point, what other mechanism is there? I'm seriously asking.
The biggest con economists ever pulled was to model people as "rational actors" and then generate an entire worldview off of "if everyone acts in their rational self-interest then this works great."
People are almost fundamentally irrational. People are guided by emotion and superstition and a bunch of weird shit that makes it easy for them to get addicted to things that have little to no societal value. If not a government, what force should counter balance that?
Source: Just search HN, there's been so many posts related to this.
In my view, this is a perfect case for "there's legitimate doubts about the safety of this technology, so let's ban this until it's completely proven to be safe to consume".
Say the language is fixed up replacing addiction with disorder, ... Any other objections?
My other big objection is that this bill as written applies to all people hosting websites instead of being restricted to just incorporated persons like corporations and institutions like the EU's Digital Markets Act.
If it were modified to only apply to incorporated entities then it'd be a solid bill doing net good without any significant violation of individual rights. But as is it applies to all human people that run websites and that makes it a net negative because of the violation of the rights of normal human people.
I don't need the DSM's permission to notice that.
Whether the ban will work out, open question. But pretending there's no addiction here doesn't pass the smell test.
Additionally, feelings are fine for personal behavior but legislation requires a higher level of evidence. I really do believe what I am saying: addiction is an inappropriate concept to apply here since incentive salience is not being directly hijacked. The types of legislative responses to social problems of addiction (like to cocaine) are not appropriate or justified in this context.
To be clearer: enjoyable things with intrinsic value are being targeted in this context and those things are enjoyed. While addiction involves uncontrollable reptition of things without intrinsic value which become wanted due to the system for wanting being activated directly. Stimuli on screens do not do this. Drugs do. That's why it's gambling disorder and drug addiction. That extra layer of abstraction through the senses makes all the different.
You can invite a person into your house to perform a service for you. They can define conditions on performing their service: "I'll shampoo your carpet for $50." Those conditions could also be "I'll shampoo your carpet every month if you let me read your credit card bill every month." You don't have to agree to this! If you don't want to let them read your credit card bill, you don't have to agree to this service.
If you let someone into your house to shampoo your carpet, without agreeing to let them read your credit card bill, and they secretly do that anyway, that's already illegal!
What you're asking is the equivalent of saying that, if someone has a business of shampooing carpets in exchange for reading people's credit card bills, you want to be legally entitled to invite them into your house and force them to shampoo your carpet anyway, without giving them what they want in exchange.
(incidentally - if you respond to my post by nitpicking details of the analogy instead of addressing the central point, I'm not going to bother to respond).
In addition, with software "contracts", it's often a case of "give an inch and they'll take the mile". The terms are always open to unilateral change from the vendor. So it's more like: "I'll shampoo your carpet for $50. And I can change the terms to whatever I like at any point in the future." which in itself seems insane.
This I can agree with -- but I think it would trivial to get that evidence by asking 10,000 teens if they agree with the following statement "Some of my social media apps feel addictive -- they don't bring my enjoyment but I can't seem to stop using them."
I'd bet about half of teens agree with that.
It's a very de-fanged law, but it's an iterative step in the right direction.
I think they're trying to make it go the way of smoking:
- general consensus of harm
- warning labels
- start applying pressure to phase out
It’s not putting restrictions on content that can be shown.
If the speech is theirs, they are responsible for its content.
While you may see other users talking about "him" in a personal manner, any appearance of sentience is, I assure you, entirely ineluctable.
Love to see this word used! Thank you once again HN for being a great place where I can smile every day.
Who cares what it might be like? We can see what it is like.
This is an adult website
This website contains age-restricted materials including nudity and explicit depictions of sexual activity. By entering, you affirm that you are at least 18 years of age or the age of majority in the jurisdiction you are accessing the website from and you consent to viewing sexually explicit content.
I am 18 or older - Enter
I am under 18 - ExitMaybe it's geo-location dependent?
Not in an increasing number of states where age verification is now required.
In the case of the FCC, there's a clear difference between a radio signal, and the message it carries.
If you think the FCC is unconstitutional, I don't think you are able to make an argument with merit regarding social media.
They aren't common carriers and never have been.
I don't agree with DSM decisions but I don't have to in order to see this basic nuance about their purpose.
Right, but you're suggesting that they should legally have to comply with this request and can't refuse service.
There are many mechanisms we can rely on, like teaching someone the tradeoffs of a dangerous decision.
Part of the problem of laying it at the parent's feet is that there's a much larger than zero chance the parent(s) also shows addictive behavior. To quote the after school special, "I learned it from watching you, all right?" I still go back to the fact that the addictive thing is being intentionally manipulated to increase the addictive properties. It is not natural. It is the thing in and of itself that is the problem.
I don't know of any viable rehab potential for social media. I can only imagine the relapse potential would be closer to 100% than for any other drug.
The parental controls the platforms put on there are non-existent or a mere joke at best (as the recent post about TikTok suggesting porn to minors illustrates). So a parent trying to do things then gets accused of "damaging" their kid by being over restrictive. So, again, what's a parent to do?
But plenty of parents are addicted to TikTok as well. In which case, wouldn't surprise me if they think the kid needs it too.
I didn’t say anything like that. I said they’re perhaps using the word in a way that is broader than it’s used in medical jargon. That’s not the same thing as saying the word is meaningless or has nothing to do with reality.
And from other posts it's clear that you and those behind this legislation care nothing for science of medical standards when drafting law.