EU To Crack Down On TikTok, Instagram's 'Addictive Design' (cnbc.com) 65
The EU plans to target "addictive design" features on TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms, including endless scrolling, autoplay, push notifications, and recommendation loops that can steer children toward harmful content. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said new regulation could arrive later this year, alongside an EU age-verification app meant to make child-safety rules easier to enforce. CNBC reports: "We are taking action against TikTok and its addictive design -- endless scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications. The same applies to Meta, because we believe Instagram and Facebook are failing to enforce their own minimum age of 13," Von der Leyen said. "We are investigating platforms that allow children to go down 'rabbit holes' of harmful content -- such as videos that promote eating disorders or self-harm," she added.
The EU's executive arm has also developed its own age verification app, which has the "highest privacy standards in the world," according to Von der Leyen. Member states will soon be able to integrate it into their digital wallets, and it can easily be enforced by online platforms. "No more excuses -- the technology for age-verification is available," the EU chief said. The EU Commission could have a legal proposal prepared as soon as the summer, as it awaits the advice and findings of its 'Special Panel of experts on Child Safety Online.'
The EU's executive arm has also developed its own age verification app, which has the "highest privacy standards in the world," according to Von der Leyen. Member states will soon be able to integrate it into their digital wallets, and it can easily be enforced by online platforms. "No more excuses -- the technology for age-verification is available," the EU chief said. The EU Commission could have a legal proposal prepared as soon as the summer, as it awaits the advice and findings of its 'Special Panel of experts on Child Safety Online.'
Wuhoo! Problem solved! (Score:4, Insightful)
We're in to the doom spiral of multi crises
dumb kids is just one of the results
dumb adults is another
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If adults want to use technology that will turn them into mindless zombies or rot their brains then that's their own choice. As long as the risks are published it's none of your or my business what someone chooses to do with their life as long as it's
Re:Wuhoo! Problem solved! (Score:5, Informative)
The EU is not trying to parent your kids. It's trying to regulate product safety, which governments have been doing for ages.
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The EU is not trying to parent your kids. It's trying to regulate product safety, which governments have been doing for ages.
I get some of it, but the EU is now going to control scrolling? I mean what is that. Are people hurt by scrolling? What is the amount of scrolling that people must be protected from? none at all? Just open the app and see one thing? Would a limit of one result be. the allowable schooling in web searches now?
Please! Protect everyone from scrolling - people are dying from the uncontrolled and life ending scrolling..... Won't somebody think of something something?
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If you believe that a government of unelected bureaucrats are better at parenting your children than you are
Given the number of kids using TikTok it's not a "belief" that the government is better at parenting in this case, that's pretty much a statement of fact.
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It is worse than nothing. If you believe that a government of unelected bureaucrats are better at parenting your children than you are...
I think that it's been proven more then sufficiently. We even have "parents" sitting their months old babies in front of a tablet for hours a day.
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It's not perfect
they do think it is, they think it gives them legitimity and leverage vs those companies in the midst of their age verification and vpn control scheme. these guys don't give a fuck about kids, at least not in the sense you might assume (if they're poor.
they're not very bright, though. they're just reckless and depraved.
on the bright side, soon some regulars here won't have to get all apoplectic whenever i post shit that hurts their feelings. i'm fine with watching the decay and depravity unfold in silence.
Re: Wuhoo! Problem solved! (Score:2)
Dumb kids is one thing
( Pause)
Dumb adults is another
Did he just call us "dumb"? Oh, the kids...
Parents (Score:5, Interesting)
Parents need to take some ownership of this issue. My kids were not allowed full Internet access or a cell phone until they were 16 (they are now currently 24 and 25). They rarely use social media because as my one son puts it, "it's a retard fest wrapped in dogged poo." It also helps that I or my wife have never used FB, Instagram, TicTac, etc..I always preached to them that "social media" was actually anti-social in nature and not to get wrapped up in it's BS.
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this is exactly why we don't need regulations for drugs, alcohol and whatever else you want to throw at parents.
yes the teaching starts at home and it should, but society at large (sole reason for a govt) has a burden for allowing these maleficent actors in its eco system.
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how about we remove the kids from the conversation and just say addictive designs are bad. for everyone.
im an "adult" but i don't want this bullshit. so maybe ill sign up as a kid and see if that helps at all. adults are tired of this bullshit too so stop this protect the kids nonsense.
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With all due respect, things have changed a lot in the 12 years since your kids became teenagers.
Most parents are good people with good intentions, but in today's world they just need a little help in steering their children away from the many dangers that are impossible to avoid entirely.
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If your kids say that social media is a "retard fest wrapped in dogged poo" then it's nothing to do with your parenting (beyond raising really smart kids). If their opinion on social media were different they will have found a way to use it regardless of what you as the parent expect of them. That's the nature of kids and parent relationships.
Your example (and their opinion) may buck the trend but in a more generalised case there are two scenarios:
a) A parent knows their kids are accessing things they forbi
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Depends what you do with them.
On TikTok I watch martial arts or Thai/Indian dance.
On Facebook I am in science and energy forums and Martial Arts forums.
It is pretty convenient to get information about events via Facebook, and share it with "friends". After all, most of the information you get: is coming from friends, anyway.
However I learned that there are indeed people who use Facebook et. all. as news replacement. I actually have no idea how that works. I do not get any news via TikTok or Facebook.
Addictive Design is just Good Design (Score:2)
Re: Addictive Design is just Good Design (Score:2)
Addictive products are just good products! Have a cigar.
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Addictive products are just good products! Have a cigar.
If you're an adult who understands the risks and still wants a cigar, why not? I've never understood this obsession some people have with forcing others to be virtuous in spite of themselves. If your religion and/or personal code of beliefs says you can't partake in $VICE, that's entirely on you.
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We regulate certain things more or less out of existence because they're dangerous. Certain types of products which people can't or won't make themselves can be prohibited from sale, for example. I generally am in favor of legalizing things and enforcing laws against fraud, so that people get honest information about consequences, but I also like for people to be protected from other people.
Tobacco products are my favorite example because they affect people who aren't even using them. We allow them to persi
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We regulate certain things more or less out of existence because they're dangerous. Certain types of products which people can't or won't make themselves can be prohibited from sale, for example. I generally am in favor of legalizing things and enforcing laws against fraud, so that people get honest information about consequences, but I also like for people to be protected from other people.
Tobacco products are my favorite example because they affect people who aren't even using them. We allow them to persist only because of a profitable and highly taxable industry, not because of any notions about freedom. Freedom would be to permit you to grow your own instead of enabling the cancer stick industry, and let all the smokers move to farms in the south.
And people are doing just that - growing their own tobacco, and rolling cigars out of the results.
This is not in contradiction to what you wrote, just a question of how far we go to protect people. Somehow I ended up in a Youtube rabbit hole for a while of people growing tobacco and rolling cigars. I haven't smoked for 50 years, but it was interesting. Fun fact - it takes two different types of leaves, one for the wrap and one for the filler. And Tobacco is actually an attractive ornamental plant as wel
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So in the end, while smoking tobacco isn't a good habit, and chewing it is disgusting, as long as a person doesn't do it around others who object, I'm cool with it.
Every time I have someone else's tobacco smoke come into my car in traffic I wanna puke. I don't get a chance to object to their face. If smoking is so fucking great, why don't they roll the windows up?
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So in the end, while smoking tobacco isn't a good habit, and chewing it is disgusting, as long as a person doesn't do it around others who object, I'm cool with it.
Every time I have someone else's tobacco smoke come into my car in traffic I wanna puke. I don't get a chance to object to their face. If smoking is so fucking great, why don't they roll the windows up?
Vomiting from the smell of smoke is not a normal reaction, Do all forms of smoke get this response? All smoke is at some level carcinogenic, and it is really difficult to avoid.
Re: Addictive Design is just Good Design (Score:2)
No, I'm not a fan of wood smoke either but it's not that nauseating
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I feel your pain. ...
Especially the poison they call tobacco in some countries
I mean if a someone smokes a pipe, I do not like it, but at least I can follow, that they like the smell and taste. ... I can somewhat tolerate, but try to change place.
Then comes a joint with "good tobacco", if I only smell it and do not get the real smoke
Ordinary cigarettes in German, awful - but no puke reaction.
Outside of the EU, I do not know: do those cigarettes indeed contain tobacco? It is all at once: strange unpleasant h
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The problem with nitrate is not nitrate per se. Or in other words, it is warned to have to much in drinking water for example, especially for small kids ... that is it.
The real problem - here comes the bacon, or more important the cheese - is having nitrate salts in food with high concentration of proteins.
Cooking at the wrong temperature, usually the edge where pizza gets super crusty, and even the melting cheese gets a crust, creates amino acid + nitrate = chemical compound "nitrosamine". Those nitrosamin
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The problem with nitrate is not nitrate per se. Or in other words, it is warned to have to much in drinking water for example, especially for small kids ... that is it.
The real problem - here comes the bacon, or more important the cheese - is having nitrate salts in food with high concentration of proteins.
Cooking at the wrong temperature, usually the edge where pizza gets super crusty, and even the melting cheese gets a crust, creates amino acid + nitrate = chemical compound "nitrosamine". Those nitrosamine are generally carcinogenic.
That means, bacon just happening to contain nitrite salt, or sausages or cheese, are not carcinogenic. If they were: it was not allowed to sell them :P
Note, the devil is always in the details.
Ah, I get troll modded every day, yesterday two guys modded a post of mine to 0 ... I hope you see this in time :P
I get modded troll all the time. So I hear ya! Seems like a troll mod is another version of someone disagreeing with me in here.
But yes, all you wrote is correct. All that said, if we actually rid meat products of nitrates, we'll trade assumed cancer for botulism, and not the type that helps with migraine or freezes the faces of the vain.
Almost like humans will die at some point. 8^)
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It is against the mod rules to mod down you disagree with.
I carefully take care not to fall into that trap.
Despite the fact that some idiots troll mod me - and make new fake accounts - which get mod rights removed instantly: I can mod nearly every day.
However I do not have anymore the 35 mod points I used to have 20 years ago.
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It is against the mod rules to mod down you disagree with. I carefully take care not to fall into that trap.
Despite the fact that some idiots troll mod me - and make new fake accounts - which get mod rights removed instantly: I can mod nearly every day.
However I do not have anymore the 35 mod points I used to have 20 years ago.
I just looked at your number - yes, you have been here for quite a while.
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The vast majority of adults do not fully understand the vast majority of the risks that they are exposed to every day.
However, on this specific topic you seem to agree that you'd need to be an adult to make an informed choice to use the technology and that information should be available warning you of the risks so that you can make an informed choice.
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Addictive products are just good products! Have a cigar.
If you're an adult who understands the risks and still wants a cigar, why not? I've never understood this obsession some people have with forcing others to be virtuous in spite of themselves. If your religion and/or personal code of beliefs says you can't partake in $VICE, that's entirely on you.
What Is worse, the puritans end up actually creating more issues as pushback happens. I started smoking at 13 because I was rebelling against those who would determine what I was allowed to do. Fortunately, I stopped when I was 19 because it is stupid. But I see people today lighting up, and if you talk to the a little while, they universally don't like people telling them what they are allowed to do as long as they aren't harming anyone else.
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"And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it riding the gravy train."
They will fail to fix the problem (Score:2)
and make everything worse
Government is a blunt instrument with limited ability so solve problems
Highest privacy standards? (Score:2)
The EU's executive arm has also developed its own age verification app, which has the "highest privacy standards in the world,"
Such as? Will the application use some kind of device level PGP, or another independent encryption standard, with the keys being held by the user? If we take it less literally, are they simply saying they'll try and care more than other nations, which is such a low bar, it's a limbo bar set 3 metres off the ground. It's not private unless the person in question getting verified, has 100% of the control, and since Age Verification is all about side stepping user rights, the contradictory statements of "high
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The privacy standards: The website only gets to know 1 bit of information (whether your age is above a threshold), the government does not get to know which website you consult, multiple verifier services can be used (you can choose one you trust); the protocol was designed openly; the app is open source.
You can check:
* Technical Annex B on Zero-Knowledge Proof and the rationale for Elliptic Curve... (ECDSA) https://ageverification.dev/av... [ageverification.dev]
* The paper on "Anonymous credentials for the ECDSA" https://lists. [w3.org]
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The privacy standards: The website only gets to know 1 bit of information (whether your age is above a threshold), the government does not get to know which website you consult, multiple verifier services can be used (you can choose one you trust); the protocol was designed openly; the app is open source.
You can check: * Technical Annex B on Zero-Knowledge Proof and the rationale for Elliptic Curve... (ECDSA) https://ageverification.dev/av... [ageverification.dev] * The paper on "Anonymous credentials for the ECDSA" https://lists.w3.org/Archives/... [w3.org] (click on the pdf) * Openly requested and provided feedback from cryptographers on the proposed protocol https://github.com/eu-digital-... [github.com]
Is the code open source and inspectable? If not, you are trusting the people who developed the code.
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Is the code open source and inspectable? If not, you are trusting the people who developed the code.
Obviously you trust the people developing the code.
Do you assume a company/some random people working on an EU project put in backdoors?
Most EU projects are open source, see https://code.europa.eu/ [europa.eu]
No idea about this one.
The general push in the EU is for "Once-Only Technical System (OOTS)", and open source is published under the European Union Public License (EUPL).
For further reading: https://commission.europ [europa.eu]
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Is the code open source and inspectable? If not, you are trusting the people who developed the code.
Obviously you trust the people developing the code. Do you assume a company/some random people working on an EU project put in backdoors?
Yes. If I'm wrong, I will be pleasantly surprised. I'm not certain teh EU or any nation is worthy of trust.
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Then read the rest of the comment you knee jerked answering too.
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Then read the rest of the comment you knee jerked answering too.
I answered not from knee jerk, but experience. If you find my lack of trust problematic, I do not care.
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Is the code open source and inspectable?
See the repo for the main app (with instructions to build and test) https://github.com/eu-digital-... [github.com]
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Is the code open source and inspectable?
See the repo for the main app (with instructions to build and test) https://github.com/eu-digital-... [github.com]
I'm looking - out of curiosity, is the EU going to only use Android?
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They use Apple as well. The account for the EUDI (EU Digital Identity) project includes 81 repositories, of which 11 have "android" in the name, 17 have "iOS", and one is called "cross platform". The latter specifies minimum requirements as Android 10 or iOS 16 and says "you can build it yourself using Xcode for iOS" https://github.com/eu-digital-... [github.com]
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They use Apple as well. The account for the EUDI (EU Digital Identity) project includes 81 repositories, of which 11 have "android" in the name, 17 have "iOS", and one is called "cross platform". The latter specifies minimum requirements as Android 10 or iOS 16 and says "you can build it yourself using Xcode for iOS" https://github.com/eu-digital-... [github.com]
Have you performed all of the builds and verified that all age verification is anonymous, and always will be? A mere 81 repos.
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No, but I haven't done that either for the linux kernel and the other FOSS software already on my machine. Right now I have no reason to doubt the app faithfully implements the protocol, and I rely on the "many eyes" to catch errors and sabotage attempts.
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Perhaps you should read up how OAuth works.
The age verification app gets once configured, with passport, ID and what ever.
Then every app on the phone can ask the age verification app one thing: is the person owning the phone - who originally configured the verification app - over age X.
And the answer is Yes or No, and that is it. To trigger the answer, the verification app will pop up and ask for a finger print or the unlock key of the phone.
Privacy and secure means: you can not ask anything else from the A
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How is that done? Is it done entirely on device in an offline enclave that is fully destroyed and wiped once the verification is done? If not, that's a huge issue, since then, the body that verifies will have more device data points, and at that point correlating that my phone visited ProtonMail, and I was over 18, is rather simple. Not to mention they'd have IP information, user agen
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Why would an age verification app have all that data?
And how would another app be able to ask for it?
No idea what you mean with IP ... you mean IP address?
That changes every "few minutes" - who cares with what IP you activated the "age verification app" and with what IP it is challanged?
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My idea, involves two enc
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No idea why you are currently -1. Algorithmic targeting of people to push views that will swing them on wedge issues is absolutely what is causing the increase in polarisation and encouraging people to dismiss any fact that differs from their carefully curated stream of opinion reinforcement as 'fake news'.
Endless scrolling is not an issue (Score:2)
The real problem is endless content. Ban endless scrolling and they will go back to the old model - endless pagination.
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I think what they intend is a break of a minute with a banner: "you are scrolling mindlessly around here since 90 minutes, your GF called already 3 times and you tabbed her away ..." (pun intended :P )
It is not the scrolling per se. "Endless scrolling" is meant to be a metaphor of: being captured in the hamster wheel of scrolling.
The EU Ministry of Truth will provide all info (Score:2)
as you can't leave that up to TokTik and Instabook because all them youngster might just pick up wrong ideas.
only now (Score:2)
Only now that TikTok is largely US-owned has the EU developed an appetite to suppress it.
Addictive (Score:2)
We are taking action against TikTok and its addictive design
Would that the City of Seattle take the same position on fentanyl.