Maybe it just has to run its course.
But beyond that, the most compelling content was probably the best all time videos which I’ve exhausted. Plus half the videos now seem to cut off before they answer whatever question they posed. Very frustrating.
This caused me to disable the youtube app(literally can't uninstall it on a pixel stock os), and if i ever utilize youtube on my phone its through firefox instead.
I also got the extension unhook on my desktop/laptop, and now my youtube experience is more reminiscent of the early 2010s where I would just use it to look up sports highlights or music videos, and if i don't have a video or subject in mind im not force fed one.
This also just kinda shows me how terrible the search experience is on youtube. Feel like all of their effort is on their doomscroll / suggested content, rather than their search results.
I landed on YouTube shorts once and started scrolling. Hours later I genuinely felt like I’d been drugged. It was shocking and surreal how powerful the effect was. Made it a point since then to never go there. I’ve never touched TikTok but I’ve heard stories of people spending every waking second on that thing.
Obviously some people are going to be more prone to it than others.
I think it is, but it's hard for me to articulate without getting into teleological judgments.
I can watch a 9 hour video on GTA games without problems (not in one sitting, but in parts), but 3 'shorts' in a row with not enough info and explanation to be interesting makes me close any of the 'shorts' apps (tiktok, youtube shorts, instagram....).
(eg, the 9 hour video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faxpr_3EBDk )
There’s clear scientific evidence that these shorts trigger addiction-like behavior[1]. The detrimental effects on a kid’s brain development can be inferred[2]. A reasonable argument could made that it’s not so different from things like nicotine, alcohol or other drugs when it comes to child brain development. I believe these companies know this and willfully push it on kids anyway.
[1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192...
[2]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192...
TikTok's recommender is partly built on European Technology (Apache Flink for real-time feature computation), along with Kafka, and distributed model training infrastructure. The Monolith paper is misleading that the 'online training' is key. It is not. It is that your clicks are made available as features for predicitons in less than 1 second. You need a per-event stream processing architecture for this (like Flink - Feldera would be my modern choice as an incremental streaming engine).
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skZ1HcF7AsM
* Monolith paper - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663
They don't need to design for that. If you want to become proficient in the language, you'll have to use the language for something. Whatever lessons Duolingo provides, they won't get you to become proficient in a language.
> At this stage, the Commission considers that TikTok needs to change the basic design of its service. For instance, by disabling key addictive features such as ‘infinite scroll' over time, implementing effective ‘screen time breaks', including during the night, and adapting its recommender system.
Most of these seem concretely doable, and maybe effective. But the core of the addictiveness comes from the "recommender system", and what are they supposed to do there? Start recommending worse content? How much worse do the recommendations have to be before the EC is satisfied?
Its a good thing, but its not what the title says it is
At the top of the mobile app there’s a “For You” tab and a “Following” tab. You must have been on the “For You” tab.
Switch to the “Following” tab.
If you start scrolling the “For You” tab and do it for half an hour straight, you’re basically signaling that this the content you wanted to see and will continue getting more of it.
LinkedIn has become such a pit of force-fed self-help vitriol it’s completely lost its purpose.
What makes TikTok different?
But this really just stinks of Regulatory Capture to me. Their main argument is that the consumers like to use the app too much?
Why? Because it's smarter and not as enshittified as the competitors?
I'm sure if youtube, facebook, reddit, etc reduced the number of ads, and started showing more relevant content that people actually cared about, they too would start being "more addictive". Do we really want to punish that?
What's the end goal here?
You can't legislate intelligence...
They haven’t concluded anything yet. It’s early in the process and they’re opening the process of having TikTok engage and respond.
The article starts with a headline the makes it sound like the conclusion was already made, then the more you read the more it becomes clear that this is the early part of an investigation, not an actual decision.
> Now European Union regulators say those same features that made TikTok so successful are likely illegal.
> No timeline was given on when authorities will make a final decision in the case.
RobotToaster•1h ago
How is that any different to Facebook?
Mordisquitos•1h ago
paulryanrogers•1h ago
fifilura•1h ago
EU laws are slow, sometimes stupid, but consistent.
sithadmin•1h ago
pil0u•1h ago
ulbu•1h ago
i hope i don’t have to go out of my way to explain the analogy.
xienze•42m ago
Like, where were they years ago saying “hey TikTok, we think your design is addictive and probably illegal, you need to change or face penalties.” If TikTok continues to operate in the same manner despite a warning, sure, throw the book at them. Otherwise it just seems like the EU waits for years and years until a company is a big enough player and then retroactively decides they’ve been breaking the law for years. Doesn’t help the impression that they’re running a non-EU tech company shakedown campaign.
troupo•8m ago
Lol. It's never like this.
These companies are given plenty of warnings and deadlines. After years and years of ignoring them these companies get slapped with a fine and start playing the victim.
BTW at this point DSA has been in effect for three years
nickslaughter02•1m ago
hnbad•1h ago
The answer is "Yes".
hagbard_c•1h ago
If you now think "they have to start somewhere in prosecuting these violations" you're partly correct but also partly mistaken. Sure they have to start somewhere but they could - and if they are really serious about their claims should - have started prosecuting all those other companies which did this way before TikTok or even its predecessor Musically was a thing. Algorithm-driven endless scroll designs to keep user's eyes glued to the screen have been a thing from very early on in nearly all 'social' app-site-things and the warning signs about addictive behaviour in users have been out for many years without the law being thrown at the proprietors of those entities. As to why this has not happened I'll leave for the reader to decide. There are plenty of other examples to be found in this regard ranging from the apprehension of the Telegram CEO to the sudden fervour in going after X-formerly-known-as-Twitter which seem to point at politics being at play in deciding whether a company gets to violate laws without being prosecuted or not.
So what's the solution you ask? As far as I can see it is to keep these companies from violating user's rights by keeping them in line regardless of who owns or runs the company and regardless of whether those owners or proprietors are cooperative on other fronts. Assuming that these laws were written to stem the negative influence these app-things have on their users they should have gone after many other companies much earlier. Had they done so it might even have led to TikTok realising that their scheme would not work in the EU. They might not have launched here or they might have detuned their algorithmic user trap, they might have done many things to negate the negative effects of their product. They might just have decided to skip the whole EU market altogether like many other companies have done and do. I'd have thought 'good riddance', what you?
iepathos•57m ago
pjc50•55m ago
black_puppydog•1h ago
embedding-shape•1h ago
clydethefrog•1h ago
In addition to TikTok, the social media company Meta, Facebook's parent company, is also under the investigation.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...
Quoting: >The Commission is concerned that the systems of both Facebook and Instagram, including their algorithms, may stimulate behavioural addictions in children, as well as create so-called 'rabbit-hole effects'. In addition, the Commission is also concerned about age-assurance and verification methods put in place by Meta.
And before someone mentions the other? X - the everything app formally known as Twitter - is also under the Commission's scrutiny. It was fined approximately 120 million euro at the end of last year.
input_sh•54m ago
Once the website is designated as such, you're looked at with more scrutiny, have to comply to higher standards, and the exact remediation steps are decided on a case-by-case basis. All of the cases are chugging along, but not all of them are on the same stage.
If your website is not popular enough to be designated as VLOP, this law basically doesn't exist. It's not like GDPR in a sense that it defines some things everyone has to follow, regardless of your audience size.
Aerbil313•1h ago
StilesCrisis•54m ago