Yeah yeah, whataboutism.

I'm very happy they're taking a stance. I've seen too many messed up kids and there's no doubt the addictive design plays a big role in the problem.

Is ending endless scrolling really virtue signaling? Don't you think it will have a measurable effect?

For sure.

The other thing I really love about HN is that titles are all supposed to be boring and to the point. The guidelines[1] for titles are excellent and I wish more of the web and honestly legacy media too would behave that way. Things that are of no interest to me are not trying to waste my time and attention.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> I think especially restricting endless scrolling

The actual point is that they are designed to be addictive. "endless scrolling" is just an implementation detail. If you "ban endless scrolling", they'll still be using every other trick to make it addictive.

Makes it an easier sell politically. If you position it as dangerous to kids in particular, your opposition then looks like they're encouraging child harm.

Had the exact same thought

> the responsibility of a parent to protect their children from harm

I agree with you, but only in theory. Because that's where we are now and it does not seem to work that well.

Maybe through more education? But then again I think reducing addictive tactics like endless scrolling could be part of a 2 prong attack.

With alcohol we have education on what happens, but we also have laws that regulate it.

It's not so easy, they need phones and social media to communicate with their friends. They also need to fit in and find an identity. The algorithms basically all engagement engines have is harmful for humanity as a whole. They are marketed as recommendation engines but it's 100% about engagement and that is why the content you see is mostly creating dopamine from it being fun or rage for it being provocative. It's built to serve one purpose, to keep people using the platform as much as possible. Not because the platform is good, but because it serves content that maximizes engagement.

I read a post about someone saying his wife worked for a snack company. They used MRI scans to see how much salt (or sugar) they should have in the snacks to maximize the response in the brain. Sounds disturbing right.

Well engagement engines are the same thing. It's artificial intelligence optimized to get people to react and stay addicted. Basically AI doing harm. It's not what is best for the individual in terms of health. It's what generates most money to the owner of the platform.

It should not be allowed to build a business around something that exploits humans brains. Basically biohacking our brains for profit.

And when does the user decide? Must a platform do nothing to stimmy spam, or even illegal content to qualify as impartial?

I suppose the answer could be that only platforms that do indeed allow spam or worse are impartial, but that is a tricky position to be in.