New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed S4505, a law that requires websites to display warnings claiming that features like algorithmic feeds, push notifications, infinite scroll, like counts, and autoplay cause addiction – despite, as TechDirt argues, the absence of scientific consensus supporting such claims.
I like the part where the cites techdirt article implies that the authors of the bill are tied to big tech while talking about regulation that big tech absolutely does not want. Then they scream about “correlation doesn’t equal causation” while Facebook and co have repeatedly been caught admitting to trying to make their algorithms as addicting as possible.
Is it well written legislation? No. Are these arguments against it well written? Also no. Social media may not be as addicting as the bill implies, but to say that it’s pseudoscience is really stupid.
A major goal of this nonsense is so that big tech can put a warning on their shitty products and then wash their hands of any responsibility. It’s much easier and more in line with their values than for example censoring nazis, zios, pedos, et al. which are an actual problem.
What about Lemmy? Pixelfed? Y’all are advocating for the worst people on the planet to deepen their control of the internet based off fake science. The first “social media” sites to go will be ones like this.
No surprise. And yet libs support it. Also no surprise.
Maybe you don’t understand science but there is actually very little evidence that “social media” is “bad”. Just relying on your feelings is what’s actually stupid. The absolute dumbest is thinking that the state/capitalism is making a good faith effort to help humanity based on solid science.