The government does not own the implementation.
As mentioned in another comment, simply making this illegal would create a significant incentive for soc media companies to implement the solution.
The onus is on them to respect the law.
They've been slapped in the face in EU court enough now that they'd think about it seriously.
Solutions will appear naturally to fill the gaps. This is not rocket science.
This is surely an important point. People often make the argument of individual freedom. But at the same time, evidently we are excellent at using those freedoms to screw ourselves over. Globally, we've been speedrunning fucking up society in critical areas for decades now. Could the solution be less freedom? Is there some hidden hook whereby more freedom can solve everything?
It does make me want to watch the movie Equilibrium though.
Social media has also been enormously beneficial in terms of crippling the propaganda power of centralized, commercial media. It would be very bad to simply return to the authority of editorial boards. What we actually need is to grapple with the social responsibility that comes with this power, which could take decades or even centuries of living with the internet to wrangle.
Especially now that we know how little of the world traditional newsrooms are even willing to cover, let alone fund coverage of.
Besides, the cat is out of the bag.
I don't understand what you're referring to. How do you recommend reigning in a newsroom? Especially one beholden to owners and advertisers with interests directly opposed to those of readers? How do you as a consumer opt out of the financial barriers to quality reporting? The only answer is the peer to peer nature of social media and the internet.
Perhaps what you're missing is that traditional media has zero incentive to highlight the positives of direct communication between disparate populations, creating farcically-negative hysteria about the dangers of worldviews not beholden to giant interests (yes, including domestic and foreign state powers, but also individual entities with massive capital to throw around).
Not me. Having a solid experience living in some far-from-democracy countries, I can state with all certainty that social platforms opened at least a crack to alternative opinions for a lot of people. Yes, they are full of propaganda, but I think they still provide more pluralistic picture compared to the world where old media ruled supreme. The real problem with those platforms is not "misinformation" (which will be everywhere anyway), buy addictiveness, and the fact they incentivize aggressive tribalism
This is just plain wrong. Social media has moved the propaganda power to foreign hostile nations on a golden platter. That is not an improvement.
I mean it's not like the power of domestic propaganda has waned, it's just in a war for the attention of the ignorant with other interests (most of which aren't foreign powers, by the way, but simply capital). Social media that enabled independent coverage and discussion is still there for the adults in the room and it would be a true loss for any society to sweep the rug out from under the people who care to look beyond the for-profit newsroom (i.e., almost all media that's readily accessible at least to americans).
I'm not actually sure that's true. The only reliable sources on social media (in the sense of 'usually not horribly wrong') are actually traditional media companies like bbc, guardian. Perhaps I'm holding it wrong, but finding other trustworthy sources is actually really hard...
There's obviously still room for exceptions (especially in small niches, where individual content creators can still make a dent) but this isn't 2006 anymore. The vast majority of the content that covers social, political or economic issues on social media platforms is paid for and pushed by directly interested parties (political parties, companies etc.) with ample funding and is often part of campaigns that span both social media and traditional media. The "indie" outlook is part of the packaging.
The terms of the "paid by" disclaimers are sufficiently generous that they're all but useless once you get past things like goodie bags for influencers or regulated campaign ads.
Yes, it is hard, but there's no such thing as easy trust, and you should always be questioning whether such trust is actually earned or just comforting.
I don't think the "bbc" or "the guardian" are very trustworthy, either (at least by themselves)—both have obvious polemics and blind spots. They also only cover a very narrow, western-centric view of the world, leaving you with piss-poor understanding of world politics. I'm not saying you should ignore them but they're still propaganda.
Substack is invaluable; blogs are invaluable; twitter, as miserable as it is, is invaluable (for direct access to reporters sans newsrooms, if nothing else).
As always, I highly recommend Manufacturing Consent, which well illustrates how to examine financial interests to determine the above. Propaganda does not require conspiracy nor explicit instructions on what messages to convey; it only requires a class of people produced from the same environment, aiming to reproduce that same environment.
On this basis we have to exclude all "citizen jounalists" as unreliable click bait at best or just plain manufactured news.
Meta studies often illustrate this well, but one can also do this on an individual level. Seek up reliable sources which opposing core audience compared to ones own demographic and it becomes obvious how horribly wrong they seem with miss leading statements, omissions, weasel words, emotional labeled meanings, mixed with with straight falsehoods.
The only trustworthy sources are multiple sources, and even then we are likely to fail since we are going to be searching for confirmation of what we already believe to be true. Social media do not usually help here, through Wikipedia seems to be a fairly good starting point (especially the talk pages are good to see where different reliable sources disagrees the most).
That's what I was thinking too.
I am not sure what the value is in severely regulating half a dozen or so companies when work arounds are so easily to implement. Maybe as a stop gap solution while we figure out long term solutions (which the government has a horrible track record on).
But for any long term solution we would first have to define what social media even is, and in a way that's testable in court. Don't run away from the hard things, but wow, that's hard.
I’d argue the problem here is more so quality, and can really only be solved with regulation. I want to read news, not a blog and opinion.
There should be clear and concise standards media outlets need to adhere to, but as per my suggestion in regards to social media; will not self regulate.
Additionally; there is no accountability and responsibility.
I would argue that the only benefit that has been made is making this more apparent and obvious.. and hopefully for the better.
I know that some people here on HN want to go full Unabomber and live in the woods but I kind of like the internet.
Yea that's be great but it's never going to happen, and if it did happen you wouldn't like it. It's like people wanting unbiased journalism: that only exists in the minds of the people who think there are only two serious opinions to have on any topic.
In response to an article posted in the global news thread on reddit, someone who lives there and actually has local knowledge and context can click 'reply' and explain what's actually going on and contradict/correct what the clickbaity sensationalist mass media article contains.
For example, I live here, the government is passing trying to pass said law that they can't control the implementation of. It's also seen by some as a surveillance state move under the guise of "won't someone think of the children". Under the proposed rules, theoretically people < 16 won't even be allowed to text one another.
More in depth/informative article from a local source, not Reuters:
[1] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-poli...
The linked article is way more informative and in depth compared to the link in the original HN post.
An apple tree has 2 apples on it. It's a fact. There is no 'other position'. So sick of narrow-minded idiots/bigots. The article I linked to has way more factual information than the Reuters one.
The government is trying to legislate something it can't control. The whole situation is stupid.
- The post in question is about legislation which has opinions on at least 2 sides: for it or against it.
- The post in question openly advocated for 1 of the sides while effectively ignoring the others. It's not more informative, it's just someone announcing a lot of their opinions. Their opinions aren't additional information, and thus are not informative.
- Someone disagreeing with you doesn't make them obsessed or narrow-minded or a bigot.
> The government is trying to legislate something it can't control
This suggests that you consider unbiased journalism to be journalism which agrees with you. That's the outside perspective from someone who, unlike you, doesn't feel one way or the other on the legislation in question (it doesn't affect me).
I think we're stuck with it no matter what so we better develop better ways to deal with its existence regardless.
I am definitely not alone in submitting a report about a fake profile only for the system to nearly automatically deny it. Even when the real person being impersonated is literally sitting next to me asking me to help them submit the report. Even illegal drug dealers operate in the open on Meta properties with no recourse whatsoever.
The process of eliminating a huge swath of fake and harmful content could be implemented trivially, we have so many ways of muting or limiting the spread of information which is unvetted, dubious origin, has outlier qualities and so on - yet nothing of the type is engaged by these networks to obvious harmful consequences.
On a similar note; a family member was being exposed to intense and violent content over Facebook. There was no block, ignore, or report feature on the content exposed. The only option we could find, after researching it; was a “show less of this content” setting buried deep in the Facebook web app (not even available on the standalone app).
Honestly; if the account owner has little option to manage the content they are exposed to.. ugh!
That point is that even the user making positive attempts to moderate their experience on the platform is futile and in my experience largely ignored. (I actually have the experience that it then shows me more of that content.)
Social media platforms are keenly aware that anger and fear drive significantly more engagement and whistleblowers have detailed how Facebook prioritises this content, shovelling it to users specifically to drive usage (and with that ad value and ad impressions).(1)(2)(3)(4)
There is a deep commercial incentive for social media networks to act against their own "community guidelines" and legislation. I applaud Australia's direction for recognising that these networks are not acting in good faith and introducing measures that address the proven harms.(5)
1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-frances-...
2. https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture...
3. https://time.com/6103645/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haug...
4. https://time.com/6097704/facebook-instagram-wall-street-jour...
5. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039
I simply don't use it.
I didn't need any government "assistance".
Personally I would like them to regulate what kind of info the algorithms are allowed to use to profile people. No super-focused targeting.
Here's a better solution option that is easier to implement; even adults can benefit, and I think it solves some of the problems:
1. Have an easy option to turn off feeds and enforce for non-adults. This would apply not just to meta, twitter, but also to Youtube, LinkedIn, etc.
2. Disable like display. The like counts are what hooks people and gives the dopamine kick. Add the ability to hide it and not show for under 18 easily.
3. Social and news sites should not be allowed to send notifications, period. Not on phones or browsers, at least not for those under 18.
Something along these lines would improve social media for everyone, not just kids. Parents' mental health affects kids the same. So blocking it just for kids only goes so far.
I think you have valid points, but as noted; the industry has no interest in any form of regulation or responsibility.
I don’t see any alternative.
If such regulations come in to effect, I think those business / institutions will adapt (eventually) to cater to communicating via additional channels.
Probably in a similar way to how they did prior to 2010
I have never needed either of these so maybe those kids will manage too?
And especially in the public transport case that information should really be made available outside of private platforms in any case.
With my direct and indirect experiences of social media; I strongly support this.
That said; how does a young individual get updates to public transport outages that are only available via twitter/x, or read the menu of the local cafe that is only posted on Facebook?
I do worry about the implementation, especially if government owned. The government has, in the past, said one thing and executed another. (DNS metadata collection for ISP’s, for example) Whilst I have nothing to hide, and am happy to be entirely transparent with them; I can appreciate, respect, and understand the hesitation.
And, if government owned; how long until it’s “privatised”.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out.