SoylentNews

martyb writes:

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.

Original Submission