To give a little historical perspective (as you are young at 23) dads have been ignoring their kids for some times in our society: before it was magazines or maybe books. Or TV at home. The cliché "don’t disturb your dad while he is reading his newspaper" is sadly anchored in a real asymmetry in terms of child care (fathers tend to care for kids on their own terms, mothers for all the rest) Said otherwise: me time for dads is usually sanctuarized

Man, that age means you're "conscious" life had smartphone/social media in it, according to this (1), if you're born 1999 or later (it's a report from 2012 and mentions teens 13-17), your teenage years probably involved smartphones/social media.

As someone older, I wonder what it must be like to grow up since childhood in a world where socializing is done a lot on Facebook/IG comment sections, as well as chasing likes for self-worth.

1) https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2012/young-adults-and-teens...

I get the sentiment you're going for and it seems very popular to shit on parents but as a dad myself with quite demanding kids I'd be more .. hesitant to make judgments like that. There literally are a million reasons I could behave like that. I could have just spend an entire week with them, ceaselessly catering to their every whim. You know this won't ever be enough. They'll yell at you all day any day to look at whatever they're doing if you're not putting in some boundaries.

I imagine this guy just told them a minute ago he needed some time off and what do you know, the next second they come and claim attention, and he is now stewing in his righteous anger-silence. You also don't know what's going on relationship-wise. In general I'd say mind your own business.

Same thing with the childless people complaining about kids having tablets in restaurants. Well, let me know, so next time I'll place two tired and severely hyperactive kids right next to you so you can enjoy their endless whining while I'll sit a few seats away shoving down some wine thank you very much.

100% agree, with the slight nuance that the EU would not care 1-bit if the dad was scrolling EU propaganda.

It's because the page you posted contains this incorrect tag:

    <link rel="canonical" href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/home/en">

For me right now it's not going to any article, but a kind of general landing page for the Eureopean Commission's "Press Corner" which lists a bunch of articles:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/home/en

> ban any kind of political bias.

This sentence has no meaning in a modern context. The US government has declared bike lanes to be "DEI". Everything is political.

"Choice" doesn't work. Everyone is under information and attention span overload. There isn't time to research what goes into the food you eat much less everything else going on in your life.

Addiction is exactly what laws should be fighting, be it social media, drugs, or something else. In a free market, people should be free to choose where they spend their time and money, but people aren't free if they're addicted. Addiction causes them to spend their time and money on things which they wouldn't consent to, if it weren't for addiction. For Instagram, the harm is the lost time, and whatever else they could have done with that time. Addictive stuff disrupts the whole market / society, not just the individual.

One thing that's potentially different, at least for Facebook, is the network effect. It only takes a few friends to start using Facebook for event planning for people to start missing events or worrying about missing out. That extra pressure cuts against individual choice.

Instagram is different, but you can see something similar happen on platforms with a chat feature. If people start to gravitate towards a singular app for talking, coordinating, etc. then there's the potential for resisters to be socially excluded. For most people, feeling socially excluded is a strong motivator. So far, this has mostly resulted in everyone having a fairly broad set of apps with chat features, so I'm not sure the centralizing power is as strong.

> i just dont think addiction by itself is something we should be fighting.

People who say this do not understand how powerful biology is. Nor do they understand that they are putting people with certain genetics more at risk.

"Choice" to people genetically prone to addiction is a trap. So unless you want to figure out the polygenetics of addiction and then have everyone tested for their genetics so they know there risk I will say I strongly disagree with your viewpoint, because there is no informed risk and you are promoting suffering with our beliefs.

The choice already exist: don't use social media like Instagram and TikTok. Yet everyone keep choosing it despite being addictive.

So you can't really trust people, even less teenagers, to make a disciplined choice of not using an addictive algorithm.

The choice already exists: migrate to bluesky, pinksky, mastodon, pixelfed. Create repost bots to start the network effect with content from Instagram. Clearly label the repost bots and choose accounts that aren't reposted yet.

> choice between addictive and "ethical" algorithms

A few years ago I would have agreed with this sentiment however after watching many adults (and children) fall into addictive AI slop alternate reality hell holes, I just want it to stop. Likewise, I prefer not to live in a society that enables drug addicts to walk the streets and used needles to litter the pavements every 10cm like empty Coke bottles.

We regulate things we know will be abused, and we are often the better for it. Social media is no different.

Open sourcing the algorithm and showing the weights used to generate the feed each time would be great.

I agree with you, for a an adult, the choice should be given and not enforced, it's same with smoking or alcohol consumptions. Both are terrible for your health on the long term, but the side effects are clear and open and people can make an educated decision.

> strictly ban any kind of political bias.

Any attempt to ban political bias will reveal huge political bias.

Now I don’t mean all political biases are equal, or that all biases are absolutely wrong. Of course my biases are better™. But this days it looks like even stating that genocides are bad™ is not as consensual as it used to be in Europe over the last few decades, so what do I know.

> more addictive than hard drugs people should have the option

This seems like a hot take given the (justifiably) illegality of stuff like fentanyl.

Yeah it doesn't work long term because you go back to being addicted in no time. At least that's how it was when I tried to do it by creating new accounts

My solution is to use curbox and repost content on bluesky

After resetting my algorithm the content I’m served now is even more clickbaity and trying to forcibly hold my attention

Using instagram in a browser (e.g. firefox as it allows for extension on phone) and then installing an extension like control for instagram or hide reels works great, even better to set the https://www.instagram.com/?variant=following as your main page to enter (or is that only available in europe?). Allows to use instagram as old school social media instead of a scrolling app

I highly recommend not using Instagram. Also ketamine I hear is bad for people brain. Stay safe.

What happen when wanna-be-free-market interests have some lucrative addictive crap to sell, hmm? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

Where, exactly? I browsed through the account settings and didn't see anything obviously relevant. (Could be that whatever option you're talking about is available only to mobile users, whereas I only ever visit Instagram on a desktop.)

What about calling these stuffs something like "junk media"? Using the words of the offenders to depict the landscape is giving a major concession in this battle for critical thinking.

I am with you and wish you were right, but good luck forcing Meta to change the key dark design patterns of their products (correctly identified by the regulators as "highly personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll")

This is a step in the right direction, though. It will be a long journey.

[dead]

Forcing alcoholic drinks to have a less addictive product is a much better way to protect young people’s brains than an alcohol age limit is (and frankly adults need help there too).

Social media, even before the era of dark patterns and 'engagement' maximization was still extremely addictive. It just had a less pronounced effect in large part because fewer people were using it. For instance there was a time when Facebook was university only and invite only.

And this is all for people that are of the 'legal age' so to speak using it. For kids, who are going to be even more insecure, have more ongoing brain development, and such - I think the idea of creating a non-addictive or non-harmful social media is basically a nonstarter. The same is true of use by adults as well, but we generally are more accepting of adults' right to engage in self destructive behaviors.

Agreed. HN feed is also addictive. EU should ban HN feed and only allow searching for new posts.

Quite honestly, I've been addicted to using my air fryer for cooking nowadays. The design is too good and convenient and the food comes out too tasty. I think EU should focus on making them less addictive.

That could be their punishment. Also subscribed feed.

Online advertisements should be forbidden as a whole. The attention-stealing and engagement-maximising internet with all it horribly effects only exist, due to advertising. And we know that the world without online ads is perfectly possible and livable, since we all lived through 1996.

We should do something about that too, yes.

Tax ad revenue. Increase advertising prices. Advertisers pay more to sell their wares. Consumers pay more to consume their wares.

Why instead of?

Do both.

The downside to this is that services become class based again then.

Instagram is the same service for everyone, regardless if you are homeless or a billionaire, it is exactly because it is an ad based model. Same for google and facebook.

These models are "classless business" incarnate, and people absolutely hate them. It's part bewildering and part bemusing.

> are addicted to social media and have to take psychiatric medication for it.

I’m sorry but this is just not real.

There’s not a single non-quack doctor who will recommend psychiatric medication for “social media addiction,” which is not a real thing and pretty much all of the recent academic literature proves as much.

If your doctor is suggesting medication for social media use, you either have much deeper underlying mental health issues, or you need to find a new doctor ASAP and report them for malpractice.

No, those positions aren't inherently contradictory. There are plenty of viewpoints that make them consistent.

On what grounds? Retaliation?

Replace "Facebook" with "heroin" in your argument and see how ridiculous you sound.

Many, including me, don't see e.g. personal privacy and freedom as the same case as regulating commercial activities. In fact, large business interests are well capable of authoritarian power themselves.

A functioning democratic leadership listens when told they've done good, and listens when told they messed up.

Arguing that they should receive no support or positive reactions because they also deserve blame is how the center and left break down their own power: Believing that disengagement from one another is a stronger moral obligation than working together and fixing shit with people who are willing to listen and work.

The EU is an institution that is democratically legitimized at every level (Either through direct elections in the parliament or through elections to the appropriate national government in the case of the Council / Commission). Sure, it's not perfect and sometimes the Conservatives do some messed up lawfare to introduce fucked up things like Chat Control, but at least they were voted in and can be voted out again.

Big Tech is some foreign rich dudes being dictators of their little fiefdom doing whatever they can to make themselves even richer. We have zero control over them and what they do to our society in this pursuit. No elections. No recalls. No public votes.

The only correct reaction is for the sovereign to assert its sovereignty and lay out some ground rules.

Maybe you missed it but the commission and parliament consists of a lot of people and groups that are all pushing for different things. While we have chat control being actively pushed by some groups actively funded by Facebook we have other groups like this working against Facebook.

If social media was just your family, friends and acquaintances sharing stuff like it used to be you may have a point. But with the algorithm feed its turned into a der sturmer like propaganda pipeline.

This is the EU Commission. Yesterday was the Christian nutjobs and right-wing ghouls in the European Parliament who undemocratically pushed through their crackhead Chat Control.

EU Commission = US Senate, EU Parliament = US Congress. Kinda.

This is just boiling the frog slowly. The DSA will first get them to change the algorithm to "protect the kids" and years later it will get them to change the algorithm to push state propaganda and ban all hateful speech, which will be anyone who complains about the state and its rulers.

They're playing the long game. First with the carrot, then with the stick, but the end goal is state tyranny, and control over tech platforms is one of the means.

They saw what China managed to achieve with their internet censorship and ID control, and they want exactly that, but with a blue coat of paint sprinkled with yellow stars, and pushing child safety up front is a easy way for the public to be onboard with this capture.

"The ship has sailed."

Then torpedo the damn thing and set fire to the shipyard that built it. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, about the predatory nature of Big Tech is inevitable or required for society to function. Suggesting we all just accept it is ridiculous, especially when we can trivially get rid of it with nothing more complicated than applying life-altering punitive damages to the C-suite, board, and majority shareholders.

I personally think the answer should be mandating user controls of said algorithms. If you have a large social media site that suggests results or provides a feed then you must allow users to configure said feed.

The default should be simple, something like time-ordered of followed only with opt in for recommendations. Ideally I'd love to be able to swap algorithms for something open source but setting a standard there rather than just mandating a level of control seems a bigger hurdle.

It seems entirely anti-consumer that I am just the behest of whatever Google or Meta decide is most profitable to show me instead of finding important news or entertainment in a way that I want.

Do you think people made similar arguments about privacy before the GDPR?

> all citizens are invited to broadcast

Is this really the way we’re wired after thousands of years of evolution? Even the word broadcast implies something very one way. Pre social media it was very normal to “broadcast” by discussing ideas with friends, family and neighbours, face to face in a civil manner. Good ideas gained traction gradually, bad ideas didn’t get traction because the extremists were too far apart. A nice natural protection against extremes.

I don't follow, the argument is against the addictive design of the feed algorithms, not the information being shared per se.

Nothing in this is geared towards curtailing platforms like social media to exist, it's trying to curtail the design of psychological manipulation for "engagement". Ragebait is the most common case, it makes people interact with content if it enrages them; another common case is to feed kids with slop content that makes them fixated on the platform, scrolling endlessly trying to get the elusive dopamine hit quite similar to the feeling of playing a slot machine.

I think framing this as the EU trying to censor platforms because people post content against the current order is a big cynical leap. I can't see how these platforms' current practices need to be defended, what is your reason for doing that? Maybe you have ulterior motives as well?

> It is precisely on Facebook and Instagram where you find the only popular movements against the current order in Europe, and the citizen journalists who expose and scrutinize the powers. It's a giant political threat towards those in power.

Also known as Russian, Iranian, Israeli and Chinese bot farms.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/22/experts-w...

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/09/g-s1-9010/russia-bot-farm-ai-...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/facebook-bot-fa...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-allies-using-armies-...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/volunteers-found-iran...

People calling this stuff "popular movements" and "citizen journalists" are either naive or complicit.

> Nothing was ever said about the addictive design of mainstream TV - because then the rulers controlled the message being streamed into the brains of the population.

More outlandish conspiracy theories on hackernews...

You are in fact wrong - see the myriad of rules advertising, especially what can be advertised on children's TV.

What messages are not being allowed to be 'streamed into the brains of the population' exactly? Are you suggesting, for example, that claims made by the US president should not be shown on TV? Are you suggesting that these are not then analysed and scrutinised by people on TV?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I'd say: the fediverse. Everyone can "broadcast" and discuss freely without having a central power that can censor or subtly manipulate the broader discussion.