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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 All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday August 01 2019, @03:46PM (4 children)
More like to establish how protective of internet users the person is. It doesn't matter if it passes, it can still be used by the congressperson to promote how dedicated they are to the subject of . It can also be used as a bludgeon to "prove" that is so soft on while they are strong on .
And more to the point, this is what one gets when one takes one's political news from outlets that have no clue about politics. If a person was to worry about every single dumb-assed piece of legislation proposed you could spend the rest of your days in panic over the action of only one congressional session, literally.
One can confirm this here [govtrack.us], that shows that last Congress there were over 13,500 bills proposed and 443 laws and 774 resolutions were passed, which is under 10% of the total.
Does legislation like this have a hope in hell of passing? Nope. If passed, would it get an injunction and then be struck down as unconstitutional? Almost certainly.
Much better to worry about legislation that has traction and may actually have a prayer of passing.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday August 01 2019, @03:51PM
Wups. Lost my <psuedovariables>. It almost reads better that way though than <insert topic here>.
<Cauterize brain tissue to think before executing shift-comma in future.> maybe I need legislation to help with that.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday August 02 2019, @02:47AM (2 children)
Good points. However, citizens who are aware of and raise hell about crappy legislation are part of why some of the dumber ones don't get passed.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday August 02 2019, @03:15PM (1 child)
Well said, although there isn't the interest or support to raise Cain about every bill that passes through. Energy is better spent by calling attention to things that actually do have any sort of shot at making it, like the CASE act elsewhere. That's a story that deserves being shouted from the rafters because it is both harmful and very likely to pass. But as you say and there are such things as longshots.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Friday August 02 2019, @04:38PM
True, tho one has a better chance of killing dumb legislation by never letting it get out of committee, at which point it can garner wider support and becomes more difficult to stop.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.