BRUSSELS — Doom scrolling is doomed, if the EU gets its way.

The European Commission is for the first time tackling the addictiveness of social media in a fight against TikTok that may set new design standards for the world’s most popular apps.

  • LukeZaz@beehaw.org
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    14 hours ago

    So, sans much context (short of a quick read on Wikipedia on the Telecommunications Act of 1996), this honestly looks like naive libertarianism, and reads like an obnoxious manifesto. Feels appropriate for the attitude of the 90s, I suppose – from what I know, there was a lot more belief in the internet as a frontier of freedom and justice, then – but it’s not so fitting these days. Many of the internet’s ills have spawned from an environment of shockingly little regulation, and I’d argue the all-too-common “move fast and break things” paradigm devolved into existence from that, too. Yet this appears to be rebuffing regulation writ large, in some misguided belief that the internet was perfectly fine how it was, would continue to be so forever, and that no positive government intervention was possible — rather than the reality that the internet was flawed, at risk, and that good law was possible if only a state had been willing to pursue such a thing. 1

    Which isn’t to say that a low- or even zero-regulation environment can’t work. But it needs specific alternatives; you can’t just not fix something. And infinite scroll is definitely a something, here. It absolutely contributes to creating an addictive environment while rarely being used for anything good. Personally, even if this letter had aged well, I don’t think this would be an appropriate time to reference it.


    1. Some of which was passed in the very law this article so hates! Section 230 comes from the TCA!

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      3 hours ago

      libertarianism

      I’m sorry to say you lost me at this word, so super-charged that my brain now filters the content and speaker.

      But I came really to say: Dude. FOOTNOTES?!? We can do that here? Beautiful example; Legend. Thanks for showing me how.

      • LukeZaz@beehaw.org
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        2 hours ago

        Were it only that we didn’t need to put carets on both sides of every word for one, haha! Ah well, Lemmy issue.