[HN Gopher] New York bans 'addictive feeds' for teens
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New York bans 'addictive feeds' for teens
Author : ruddct
Score : 74 points
Date : 2024-06-20 19:54 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| pie420 wrote:
| first airbnb, and now this, you love to see it. hopefully banning
| all gambling is next
| BuckYeah wrote:
| I'm always amazed by how much some people want the government
| to control.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's only a natural reaction when nothing else is in control.
| Unless you think that social media platforms are fine as is.
|
| I understand the hesitancy to government control, but at some
| point, what other mechanism is there? I'm seriously asking.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| They weren't referring to Social Media Platforms, they were
| referring to the previous poster talking about AirBnB and
| Gambling specifically.
|
| There are many mechanisms we can rely on, like teaching
| someone the tradeoffs of a dangerous decision.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You say that like addiction is just something that can be
| taught by parents to overcome. You can attempt to teach
| your kids to "just say now", but they are kids and are
| going to rebel against anything they are told they can't
| do. That's just part of being a kid. Once they do it and
| become addicted, telling them no is just a useless
| concept.
|
| 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.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I don't intend for my one example to fit all issues. Just
| trying to point out there is more we can do than rely on
| government legislation.
| hot_gril wrote:
| The other mechanism is parenting and self-control. I'm not
| too concerned in the long run about which path is chosen
| for addictive social media; its days are numbered either
| way.
| jimbokun wrote:
| This puts parents back in control of what their kids are
| consuming. Without laws like this, it's extremely
| difficult for parents to supervise and control their
| children's media consumption.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I get that in theory a kid could sneak off to use
| TikTok/Instagram on some friend's device away from home,
| but that's not what's happening. Parents are handing
| their kids smartphones with unrestricted access to these
| apps.
| dylan604 wrote:
| People here keep coming back to the social pressures of
| not allowing their kids on these platforms. It's one
| thing to give them a device for being able to keep tabs
| with locations and being able to get in touche with them,
| but once they have a device where other parents have
| allowed their kids on the platforms your kid will be made
| fun of for not being on there.
|
| 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?
| 1986 wrote:
| And I'm always amazed by how much some other people think the
| free market can do no wrong and should be treated in a
| completely laissez-faire manner.
| pessimizer wrote:
| If the choice is between the government and the landlord, I
| choose the government.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I'll choose the one that can't come after me with guns
| ihumanable wrote:
| I'll choose the one that I can at least vote out.
| ihumanable wrote:
| Everyone's pro-democracy until people go "hey maybe allowing
| a few mega corporations to profit off of addicting everyone
| to dopamine feeds is actually bad for society."
|
| 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?
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| All gambling for children? Or?
| superkuh wrote:
| Another case of the political use of medical terms in completely
| unsupported ways for political goals. There is no medical or
| scientific support for the use of the word "addiction" in this
| context. It's a meme that's become more dangerous than the
| problem it imagines. It's not in the DSM 5 or ICD10 and not
| because they haven't addressed it in committee. They have, as
| recently as 2020 and found no support for it. And if you say,
| "gambling" well, yes, that's "gambling disorder" not "gambling
| addiction" and yes, words matter. Especially in legislation.
|
| >"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.
| czl wrote:
| > Another case of the political use of medical terms in
| completely unsupported ways for political goals. There is no
| medical or scientific support for the use of the word
| "addiction" in this context.
|
| Say the language is fixed up replacing addiction with disorder,
| ... Any other objections?
| superkuh wrote:
| That would be a great first step.
|
| 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.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Eh, this feels like a bad-faith argument. I think most of us on
| this site first-hand feel that obsession to update a feed that
| seems to control us more than we control it.
|
| 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.
| megaman821 wrote:
| I have never felt any compulsion to update a feed. I would
| like some actual numbers of people that have a debilitating
| relationship with social media before we pass a bunch of laws
| restricting it.
| owisd wrote:
| Lots of people have never experienced depression but don't
| feel the need to claim that means it's not real.
| megaman821 wrote:
| I didn't make any sort of claim like that. The parent
| said most people have social media compulsion, and I
| doubt those claims. If you are going to ban something
| from an entire population of people, why should they not
| study the actual prevalence of harm.
| superkuh wrote:
| Even if it may feel universal that is likely not reflecting
| the actual distribution of the perception. (ref: Inferring
| the Popularity of an Opinion From Its Familiarity: A
| Repetitive Voice Can Sound Like a Chorus
| https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-925821.pdf)
|
| 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.
| zug_zug wrote:
| > Additionally, feelings are fine for personal behavior but
| legislation requires a higher level of evidence.
|
| 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.
| surge wrote:
| You can get addicted to anything that gives you little dopamine
| hits and stimulating reward centers the same way gambling, etc
| does. Dark patterns are well documented. Medical science and
| multiple studies involving brain scans during social media use
| and lighting up those areas of the brain back this up. The DSM
| hasn't been redefined but there's recognition of it as a
| problem and Internet/Gaming (digital media) addictions being
| added to the DSM is being discussed and there's no argument
| these platforms are designed by psychologists to use our own
| brain chemistry against us and create these addictive
| behaviors. How this is done is well documented and its exactly
| what the law lays out in it's defining of what constitutes an
| addictive feed.
|
| Source: Just search HN, there's been so many posts related to
| this.
| umanwizard wrote:
| There is no requirement for laws to use words with the same
| meaning as they're used in one specific niche publication.
| "Addictive" is a normal English word; it doesn't exclusively
| belong to psychiatry.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Addiction was a meaningful word long before the DSM
| umanwizard wrote:
| Correct, which is why the DSM doesn't get to define what it
| means for all English-speakers.
| ulbu wrote:
| then tell me, why do you need scientific approval before
| consumption of novel substances, while such other forms of
| consumption (that access the brain's networks through other
| modalities than ingestion) are by default "ok"? or are
| behavioural interventions must be considered as strictly less
| effective and not require any approval, unless used in a
| medical setting? and that brings to another question - if it's
| only the medical setting that decides whether a substance
| should be considered for approval for consumption (although
| there's also zero proof that the applications in question thave
| no psychoactive effects - its rests entirely on your personal
| feelings), are all other settings simply out of bounds for
| legal (and, most importantly, moral) considerations? And the
| way you objectivize such items like "intrinsic value"
| (completely individual, i.e., case-by-case domain, obviously
| involved in choice of substance of addiction in all cases of
| addiction), for me, renders your arguments completely awry. And
| comparison with conversion therapy is just plain edgy and
| intentful misrepresentation for the sake of ackchyually.
|
| 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".
| yedava wrote:
| We need to think bigger. Having an app on your phone is like
| having a stranger in your house. The same legal protections that
| apply to property should apply inside the software that runs on
| your phone. An app should be at the mercy of the user and should
| provide easy (and automated) ways to turn off manipulative and
| surveillance features.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| An app is at the mercy of the user, who can uninstall at any
| time, just as you can kick out people out of your home, but you
| can't turn off "manipulative" behaviour for them.
| yedava wrote:
| I can let in a contractor in my house and also ask them not
| to smoke. They of course have the right to refuse that
| request and decline my money, but in the real world,
| contractors usually comply with such requests as smoking is
| known to harm health. I don't see why the digital world has
| to be any different. Just because laws and awareness are
| lagging behind, tech world's toxic practices don't need to
| get a pass.
| cowgoesmoo wrote:
| > They of course have the right to refuse that request and
| decline my money, but in the real world, contractors
| usually comply with such requests as smoking is known to
| harm health.
|
| Right, but you're suggesting that they should legally have
| to comply with this request and can't refuse service.
| yedava wrote:
| It's the other way around with apps. It's like I want to
| hire a contractor and every contractor says they _have
| to_ smoke inside my house.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Which would be legal too, assuming it's a place where
| smoking is legal (some US cities have banned it in all
| multi-tenant buildings)
| avalys wrote:
| The same legal protections already apply.
|
| 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).
| yedava wrote:
| The tech world does not give you the choice of letting you
| pay for privacy or pay by invading your privacy. Now, you can
| nitpick that you can build your own service or host your
| service, but then the question becomes why is
| programming/sysadmin knowledge a prerequisite for using your
| phone?
| vundercind wrote:
| "Here's a hypothetical ideal analogy, doesn't that seem
| reasonable?" is one of my least-favorite types of arguments
| in cases where the observable reality is extremely
| different.
|
| Who cares what it _might_ be like? We can see what it _is_
| like.
| fallingknife wrote:
| So? You have the choice of not using the service. Companies
| are not obligated to give you a choice of payment type.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This is pure fiction though. How many people read an app's
| ToS? If a carpet cleaner showed up with terms like: "I'll
| shampoo your carpet every month if you let me read your
| credit card bill every month." no one would read it before
| signing either, but I _suspect_ that a court would also
| consider this contract unenforceable.
|
| 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.
| koof wrote:
| Please ban it for me too thank you
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| HN is my most addictive social media, should this site be
| banned? :)
| btown wrote:
| I see the name "dang" discussed here quite a bit; it seems to
| be an internal code name for a highly effective algorithm for
| surfacing relevant content. Whatever it is, it seems to be
| far more intelligent than any other automated system I've
| seen. Has HN somehow created a sentient recommendation
| system?
| arduanika wrote:
| No, it's just a minced oath, as in "dang, that was a good
| moderation call".
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The algorithm is actually quite old. While dang is the
| result of numerous modern innovations, the approach has
| roots in a 1770 technique due to Johann Wolfgang Ritter von
| Kempelen de Pazmand, who is perhaps better known for his
| work on speech synthesis.
|
| While you may see other users talking about "him" in a
| personal manner, any appearance of sentience is, I assure
| you, entirely ineluctable.
| Freedom2 wrote:
| > ineluctable
|
| Love to see this word used! Thank you once again HN for
| being a great place where I can smile every day.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Karma probably should be
| surge wrote:
| You can lie on your birth date in your profile.
| vundercind wrote:
| The "definitions" section of the bill is a lot more decent than I
| expected it to be.
|
| Page 3 of the bill pdf:
|
| https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2023/S7694A
| btown wrote:
| > [The definition for Addictive Feed applies] unless any of the
| following 18 conditions are met, alone or in combination with
| one another:
|
| > ... (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!)
| varispeed wrote:
| That sounds like: lets appear that we are doing something,
| but make it easy enough to go around so it doesn't hit our
| bottom line.
| m463 wrote:
| Now, with improved >Addictive Feeds< you'll get cool blue
| messaging bubbles instead of plain green ones!
| leotravis10 wrote:
| This is obviously unconstitutional and it'll be shot down in the
| courts before it takes effect since this is their version of KOSA
| among other First Amendment issues.
|
| Some context here: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/11/nys-safe-
| for-kids-act-a-...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| What is unconstitutional about it?
| jcranmer wrote:
| It's content-based discrimination, which means it goes
| straight to strict scrutiny.
| josho wrote:
| How is it discriminating content?
|
| It's not putting restrictions on content that can be shown.
| jcranmer wrote:
| It's discriminating between social media companies purely
| on the basis of their speech--the recommendation
| algorithms they choose to use.
| jimbokun wrote:
| If the algorithm constitutes speech by the social media
| companies, doesn't that remove their common carrier
| status?
|
| If the speech is theirs, they are responsible for its
| content.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > If the algorithm constitutes speech by the social media
| companies, doesn't that remove their common carrier
| status?
|
| They aren't common carriers and never have been.
| leotravis10 wrote:
| [1] Age veriifcation
|
| [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.
| apantel wrote:
| I don't understand #3.
| surge wrote:
| First Amendment doesn't cover things that cause direct harm or
| speech to minors. In this case, you can draw a straight line
| between social media usage and an increase in teen suicides,
| and keeping them on it for long periods is detrimental to their
| overall mental health especially when they don't have fully
| developed impulse control or are not legally expected to.
| You're not allowed to advertise gambling products, alcohol and
| tobacco to minors under the First Amendment. You can't
| intentionally show porn to a minor without going to jail in
| many cases. (18 U.S. Code SS 1470 - Transfer of obscene
| material to minors)
|
| 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.
| baq wrote:
| Just a reminder that getting adults addicted to stuff is not
| always legal either.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > You can't intentionally show porn to a minor
|
| 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"?
| kube-system wrote:
| Intent is when someone mentally commits to an action
| munchler wrote:
| Pornhub home page has a very clear warning before you get
| to anything explicit: 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 - Exit
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I don't see that. And no, it's not because I have cookies
| from them.
|
| Maybe it's geo-location dependent?
| neetle wrote:
| Try it in a private browser, without any cookies? May
| also be an ad blocker
| owisd wrote:
| Seems like they're getting around the complaints about the
| previously overturned laws by just going after the feed order
| while not banning access to the underlying content via
| conventional means.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > This is obviously unconstitutional
|
| "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.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Well, is social media "speech" or "press"?
|
| whichever benefits them at that point in time
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Well, is social media "speech" or "press"?
|
| 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.
| akdor1154 wrote:
| There's a pretty strong argument that an algorithmic feed
| optimised for engagement is commercial speech.
| jcranmer wrote:
| How is that feed "proposing a commercial transaction"?
| hot_gril wrote:
| The bill sponsors are senator Andrew Gounardes and
| assemblywoman Nily Rozic. Rozic told CBS news: "Jewish parents
| are being told to remove social media apps completely from
| their phones because there is no way to actually prevent what
| their children will see."
| O1111OOO wrote:
| > This is obviously unconstitutional
|
| 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?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| No feeds from addictive algorithms? No notifications after
| midnight? Can we please raise the age from 18 to maybe 65?
| out-of-ideas wrote:
| should be for all regardless of age; long as "age" is a
| required input, there will be incentive to track users one way
| or another. if its ageless, they have no right to ask for that
| information (unless they find some other means - which is what
| we should care about more: stop collecting + tracking users,
| and parents should be supervising their own kids)
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Restricted from to 65, and then also anyone on Medicare,
| Tricare, or any federally provided medical insurance....
| andrewstuart wrote:
| At a glance this sounds like fast food.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Are you talking about how they are handling the thing, or the
| thing itself? If the thing itself, I'd say it is closer to
| niccotine/bigTobacco more than fast food. These people are
| intentionally tweaking the algo to make it more addictive just
| like bigTobacco did.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Official release: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-
| hochul-joins-attor...
| prmoustache wrote:
| How can they enforce it?
| aaomidi wrote:
| NY is a huge market both for employment and for ads and sales.
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