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Protection Ploy (thelemmy.club)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] 2 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

That is factually incorrect.

It was exposed in 2014 that FB was running experiments on its users by tinkering with their news feeds, so culturally, conversations around this have been happening for at least twelve years, and tech addiction has been a known problem for at least a decade. These products are designed to be addictive, induce mental illness, and foment rage bait because it keeps eyes glued to ads, and the corporate media providers know this.

Now, we live in a world where it's causing widespread mental illness in young people, because its effects are more pronounced in developing brains. This is a public health issue, and it's not going to be solved with whoo whoo solutions like expecting parents to actually parent, because we can see from the last 5-10 years that this 'solution' is ineffective.

Regulation is necessary, whether it's ID verification, or banning cell phone sales to kids, or even limited solutions like disallowing cell phone use in schools.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    Why should the regulation allow for more surveillance of users and data collection instead of outlawing the practices and algorithms that lead to many of these issues on the first place?

    They've been trying to tie devices to identities for years now, and doing so allows them greater leeway to fuck with people's heads, to spread propaganda more effectively, and to target dissent against themselves and their allies. This doesn't protect people from having their mental illnesses exacerbated, it just allows their disfunctions to be shaped in the direction tech billionaires want them to be.

    In my opinion, anything that uses an algorithm to drive engagement by presenting material designed to play on the emotions of the user should be outlawed outright. Video ads and paid content should be identified with title cards at the begining and end. Images and posts should be marked with headers and footers that make it clear this is paid content.

    If the user decides to subscribe or block certain content, that's the user's choice. But the timeline should always be based on time and date or activity and never influenced by paid advertisements or engagement.

    And that's the bare minimum. I still consider that somewhat risky to interact with. If I had my druthers Facebook, Xitter, Reddit, and the rest would all be shuttered and taken offline next week.

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