Comment by fc417fc802
4 days ago
TL;DR We need age verification laws to prevent minors from accessing the addictive stream of toxic sludge rather than outlawing its manufacture and distribution.
4 days ago
TL;DR We need age verification laws to prevent minors from accessing the addictive stream of toxic sludge rather than outlawing its manufacture and distribution.
How exactly would you do this without, you know, violating the first amendment? Algorithmic feeds are nothing without the content. People get toxic sludge because they signal to the algorithm that they like that.
It’s just the algorithms promoting things I want banned.
You may choose to sign up to see all the toxic sludge you wish, as is our constitutional rights as Americans.
You say “they signal to the algorithm”, but how? How did they see it in the first place to be able to provide that signal? It was suggested to them.
Often because that kind of content is really sticky for the site. Whether because you like it or it outrages you or scares you it’s manipulative in a way that is symbiotic with the platform’s goals.
It provides perverse incentives for creators and companies.
> It’s just the algorithms promoting things I want banned.
And again: the only reason the algorithm promotes things is because that person signaled that they were interested in it. They might've gotten it recommended by a friend, acquaintance, whatever, but the point is that if nobody had recommended anything to them the algorithm would have no data.
And again: how do you propose to get this to survive the first amendment? Algorithms are a form of speech under law.
6 replies →
> It’s just the algorithms promoting things I want banned
Then make a public case for prohibition. Currently, there isn’t support for it. There is for age gating social media the way we do drugs.
Presumably by outlawing the types of algorithms used with the legislation carefully limited to a particular context rather than anything being authored by an individual. Right to express oneself preserved, government regulates a harmful product, business as usual.
As far as this specific Colorado legislation goes (which is concerned with the ability to comply with their previously passed data privacy law) I think it's not entirely bad but I have two issues with it.
First, it reverses the problem. Services should be sending an age-appropriateness (or even just general content classification) signal to the device for local processing, not the other way around. If you're going to mandate that OS creators do anything it should be to implement a certain baseline level of (interoperable!) functionality as far as parental controls are concerned.
Second, the entire thing should be predicated on some metric such as MAU or revenue or combination thereof not on the exceedingly vague idea of a "free, publicly available code repository".
> First, it reverses the problem. Services should be sending an age-appropriateness (or even just general content classification) signal to the device for local processing, not the other way around.
OK, so say the device receives a signal that say that an app is not appropriate for children under 13. How would the device find out if the user trying to run the app is under 13?
2 replies →
I definitely agree with those. Age verification laws in general I have lots of beef with because they're so nonsensical.