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from the price-of-liberty-is-constant-vigilence dept.
A cursory reading of the 14-page Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology bill suggests that it may apply to SoylentNews.
What do you think?
US Could ban 'Addictive' Autoplay Videos and Infinite Scrolling Online:
The Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (Smart) Act takes aim at techniques and features that, according to its author, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, are created to encourage and deepen addictive behaviours.
The bill targets "practices that exploit human psychology or brain physiology to substantially impede freedom of choice" and specifically prohibits four general practices:
Infinite scroll or auto refill, such as the Facebook newsfeed or a Twitter timeline, which automatically loads in new content when the user nears the end of the existing content, without requiring any specific request from readers.
Autoplay, when a site automatically plays music or video "without an express, separate prompt by the user", as on YouTube and Facebook. Curiously, the bill explicitly excludes autoplaying advertisements from its coverage, despite the general unpopularity of that content. It also provides exceptions for autoplaying music on music streaming services, and autoplaying from a pre-built playlist.
Badges and other awards linked to engagement with the platform. These are most notably used by Snapchat in the form of the Snapstreak badges, which mark how long two friends have exchanged daily messages. Parents have complained that the Snapstreak mechanic leads to problematic behaviour from children, who fear their friendship is at risk if the streak ends.
"Elimination of natural stopping points", a catch-all category for any website that loads more content than a typical user scrolls through in three minutes without the user expressly requesting that additional content.
Proposed US law Would Ban Infinite Scroll, Autoplaying Video, Limit Daily Use:
The technique for compliance as outlined in the bill, however, seems to be to annoy consumers into abandoning their social accounts altogether.
As described in the text, social media companies would have to limit users to 30 minutes of use per day by default. Users would be allowed to choose their own time limits for daily and weekly use, but companies would have to reset that time limit to half an hour every single month, as well as providing "conspicuous pop-up" displays at least once every 30 minutes showing how much time you have spent using a service in the past day, across all devices.
Hawley, whose website features an automatically playing video loop in the header image, said in a statement that the tech sector has "embraced a business model of addiction."
So, are we in the clear, or not?
Also at Vox, Digital Information World, Techdirt, Futurism, The Verge, TechSpot, Washington Examiner, Washington Post, Engadget, The Hill, The Washington Times & CNET.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by progo on Thursday August 01 2019, @08:52AM (10 children)
The mainstream web is a cesspool of offensive, abusive design, but what good can stupid unenforceable laws do?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 01 2019, @09:07AM (2 children)
If it helps more shit-consiuming zomboids end up under cars, busses, and lorries, then I'm all for it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01 2019, @11:34AM (1 child)
Why do you want to give the rich more money?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01 2019, @12:56PM
Because he hates:
[ ] People
[ ] Dumb People
[ ] Dumb People Who Use Social Media
[ ] Freedom
[ ] Choice
[ ] Puppies
[ ] Money
[x] Surveys
[ ] Bones In His Ice Cream
[ ] All of the above
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday August 01 2019, @09:18AM (6 children)
The only way a site can tell the difference is if they use high-granularity snooping (e.g. is the accelerometer registering movement, if so it's still in the user's hand) to work out exactly when you're "interacting", and when you're not. It would have to be clever enough to know that when you prop the phone in the stand and watch a boring video, it can distinguish between you actually watching it versus trolling on #shitlords instead - so probably facial recognition and eye-tracking are needed too.
And the law appears to demand that, for the benefit of the users?
This law weren't writ by smart peeps.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday August 01 2019, @04:25PM (4 children)
This calls for a new web extension.
One that will scroll for a bit. Pause. Scroll some more. Pause. Scroll more. Repeat infinitely. Just leave the tab open, and it will keep auto scrolling the website.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 01 2019, @06:52PM (3 children)
For I have resurrected the technique I invented whilst playing with /The Nice/ - namely that I stab a knife into my keyboard, and then let the force of the knife hold down the down key (I forget if I used down arrow or page down, now, but I'm dead, so my memory isn't what it used to be), so that 180 slices of not-quite-infinite scroll fetches can be done, such that I can read the final element of a list sorted on a particular field, after heading off to make myself a cup of coffee, and drink all of it.
True Story.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday August 01 2019, @07:04PM (2 children)
Maybe infinite scroll web pages are actually finite in length. The top and bottom edges of the web page are taped together. They are on rollers. Eventually if you scroll far enough down the web page, you will see the tape that holds the beginning and end of the web page together. Then the content will repeat.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday August 03 2019, @05:23AM (1 child)
Eventually, something has to give. The website, after all, only has a finite amount of content. So will the page stop actually scrolling, or will it repeat content, or will it just be an endless scroll of nothingness?
Unfortunately, the answer is still unknown as any modern browser will consume all your system's ram and crash before you can hit that point.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Saturday August 03 2019, @08:06PM
The website's infinite scroll generator, coupled with its fact simulator and information misquoter can provide infinite content. Or at least enough content until your browser runs out of resources. It will become an arms race between:
scenario 1:
... between the infinite scroll web sites and Microsoft to see who can crash your system first.
scenario 2:
... between the infinite scroll web sites and the hardware innovators to see whether hardware can keep up with the infinite scroll nonsense generators.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 02 2019, @02:41AM
Yeah, all that -- and as I read the bill, I had these thoughts:
Too much of whatever, according to whose definitions? where's the defining limit of social media -- any site that allows comments?
So which research on "human psychology or brain physiology" shall we take as gospel for purposes of this bill?
Why is how I spend my time anyone else's business, most especially the government's business??
Someone else's addiction should not be made into MY problem (as site operator or as fellow user).
Computers all have an OFF switch. Is forcing regular reboots the next step in the chain?
If you're going to define social media as an attractive nuisance, just do so; don't beat around the bush.
How do you plan to deal with noncompliant non-US sites? block the whole rest of the world??
We're going to need a new class of popup blockers, that automagically and invisibly acknowledge and dismiss the damned required timer notices. Because there's nothing more annoying when I'm actually doing something on a site, than being interrupted by irrelevant bullshit.
I hate infinite scroll, but mostly because it's a PITA (sometimes impossible) to save or search the page, and frequently has its own ideas about How To Scroll which disagree with mine.
I can't see ANY upside on this bill. Methinks it's scratching a personal itch.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.