Agreed completely. Crazy to see this endless iteration on ad optimization and maximizing screen time has made disinformation, polarization, and conspiracy so common. Really destroying society from the bottom up IMO
> Crazy to see this endless iteration on ad optimization and maximizing screen time has made disinformation, polarization, and conspiracy so common. Really destroying society from the bottom up IMO
I'd argue the technology that did most of the heavy-lifting for disinformation, polarization, and conspiracy was AM radio, followed by cable TV. Smartphones, the web and social media were not the cause, but a natural progression of, and an amplifier of a pre-existing trend.
There are no technological solutions to the human condition, but technology amplifies aspects of it.
We regulate gambling and tobacco for the same reason we should regulate this. Google and Facebook ads have been scientifically tuned to hijack your brain chemistry for money. This isn't blame, or whining, it's simply acknowledging that these companies weaponized visual stimulus and data collection to sell ads on the internet. No amount of personal responsibility is going to solve a human society level problem.
What reports? A simple search will provide you with all the info you need on any of those topics.
And again, the whole thrust of my argument is that telling people to close Facebook is the same as telling them to stop smoking. It's naïve and ignores the reality of brain chemistry and addiction.
That's a really weird (borderline bad-faith) way of reading what I wrote, and it kind of explains your viewpoint.
> So if I have all the information known for years from tobacco and I smoke and get into trouble, then I blame it on not having regulations?
If you, as a fully-informed, grown adult in 2021 make that choice, then no. In the real world, that's not how people get addicted to cigarettes. People generally get addicted when they are young, uninformed, and highly susceptible to the marketing aimed at them. Plenty of people living today remember doctors recommending cigarettes for pregnant women - it's silly to assume every person is going to know the risks of these things from the very minute they decide to engage in them. Just look at how quickly Juul took over high schools - you are really going to tell me that a 15 year old trying to fit in is making a full informed, long term decision about tobacco usage? Absurd. Or the Oxycotin epidemic - all those people were addicted to drugs because of Sackler's marketing and the corruption of their doctors - how does one take personal responsibility for following medical advice?
Social media is now where tobacco was in the 70s and 80s before all the information was released in a narrative form that the public could easily digest. All that knowledge about the risks comes from the process of bringing that information into the public light.
Do you see 10 year old people smoking? Usually no. Teenagers? Probably they start there. Then, when do you think they should get that information in education? It is a real question.
That would prevent way more I guess. Of course, in our law, trying to sell cigarrettes actively to underage is illegal and I find that regulation reasonable.
But trying to protect adults from their own irresponsibility is a totally different story. It is their problem.
I get your point and in some way you are right also. I am just advocating for little regulation, but, of course, I am talking also about adults here.
I did not mean underage people. If you target underage for gambling or any addiction in bad faith, that is an attempt to cause damage and punishable.
But that does not mean that the most important thing is to have the information there and decide. Again, I am talking about adults.
By the way, talking about regulations. In my country you can open a university only if it has 8 or 9 degrees offered. If I want to open the best CS degree in the country as a University, I cannot. Do you find it reasonable? Do you think this goes in the interest of consumers? Do you think the state abuses its position by doing so? (Clearly yes). That is why I do not want regulations. You give them the power and they end up regulating even your position to go to the toilet. That said, I find under/overage, even if it is arbitrary (there are teenagers that are responsible people), reasonable, to protect them from unscrupulous people.
But I do not need my life to be ruled in the name of so many things, that is bad and it goes against us if you think of it carefully.
But you will always have responsible teenagers and irresponsible adults. We should not help people that do not want to be helped.
The same way we should help people that have trouble. We should, I think, honestly, but... that we should does not mean we should have that responsibility unconditionally and coactively.
You know what? It can look selfish to you but you are going to have way more autonomous, responsible and self-sufficient people if you apply this rule. A good outcome IMHO.
