You are not acknowledging the fact that the companies producing these addictive apps are very much doing it intentionally. They are specifically making it as engaging as possible because that's how they make money. And they have billions of dollars to sink into making their products as irresistable as possible.

The average person has zero chance against all-pervasive, ultra-manipulative, highly-engineered systems like that.

It is, quite simply, not a fair fight.

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TheOtherHobbes 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's not wrong, but it's a selective take. The entire economy operates like an addiction machine, using proven psychological techniques to modify individual and collective behaviours and beliefs.

It's not just social media. It's gaming, ad tech, marketing, PR, religion, entertainment, the physical design of malls and stores... And many many more.

The difference with social media is that the sharp end is automated and personalised, instead of being analysed by spreadsheet and stats package and broken out by demographics.

But it's just the most obvious poison in a toxic ecosystem.

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enaaem 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Every country in the world already does tons of intervention combatting addiction. There are already bans and restrictions on gambling, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes etc… Wether we consider social media addiction to be harmful and how to do it is a good question to be asked, but intervention into harmful addiction is generally uncontroversial.

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wat10000 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's a big difference in terms of frequency and availability.

Physical design of stores gets you when you're shopping, then it's done. Organized religion tends to get its hooks into you once or twice a week. Marketing, PR, ads, all sporadic. Social media is available essentially 24/7 and is something you can jump into with just a few seconds of spare time.

If more traditional addiction machines are a lottery you can play a few times a week, social media is a slot machine that you carry with you everywhere you go.

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GorbachevyChase an hour ago | parent [-]

I don’t know what personal religious experience you’re speaking from, but my church is a little more oriented toward helping people overcome addictions and personal failings. If you’re in Europe, then I think the messaging in the mosques about consuming alcohol are pretty strict. I can’t speak from firsthand knowledge.

	▲	wat10000 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Well sure, they don't want the competition. Churches have naturally evolved to use techniques that keep people coming back. The ones that don't do that die out.

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saubeidl 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yup. It's capitalism that's the core problem. Social media is just a particularly nasty outgrowth.

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Quarrelsome 3 hours ago | parent [-]

its not necessarily "capitalism". Think about how Myspace was, or early Facebook, that was capitalism but didn't have the same issues.

Its the "lean startup" culture as well as books like "Hooked, how to build habit forming products" - Nir Eyal.

The dark lean startup pattern is where you break down the big picture rationale for the company. You extract metrics that contribute to the company's success (i.e. engagement) and you build a machine that rewards changes to the underlying system that improves those metrics.

If done successfully, you create an unwitting sociopathy, a process that demands the product be as addictive as possible and a culture that is in thrall to the machine that rewards its employees by increasing those metrics. You're no longer thinking about purpose or wondering about what you're doing to your users. You simply realise that if you send this notification at this time, with this colour button, in this place, with this tagline then the machine likes it. Multiple people might contribute a tiny piece of a horrifying and manipulative whole and may never quite realise the true horror of the monster they've helped build, because they're insulated by being behind the A/B test.

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Jensson 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> its not necessarily "capitalism". Think about how Myspace was, or early Facebook, that was capitalism but didn't have the same issues.

No thats exactly capitalism, capitalism ensures processes gets more and more efficient over time, as you say previous versions were less efficient at inducing addictive behaviors but capitalism ensured we progressed towards more and more addictive apps and patterns.

Capitalism doesn't mean we start out with the most efficient money extractor, it just moves towards the most efficient money extractor with time unless regulated.

This is well known and a feature, capitalism moves towards efficiency and regulation helps direct that movement so that it helps humanity rather than hurts us. Capitalism would gladly serve you toxic food but regulations ensures they earn more money by giving you nutritious food. Now regulations are lagging a bit there so there is still plenty of toxic food around, but it used to be much worse than now, the main problem with modern food is that people eat too much directly toxic compounds.

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Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's a type of capitalism. Quakers built plenty of capitalistic entities that were primarily interested in profit but cared more for the long term with more of an eye on social and spiritual purpose. Extractive capitalism doesn't get to pretend its all of capitalism, we just assume that because its been active throughout our entire lifespan.

US hegemony has permitted and encouraged shareholder primacy, hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts in order to facilitate the growth of its markets. However we'd be blinkered to assume that this is the only way capitalism can be. Its a choice we make and we deserve this outcome where we've enslaved a generation of children to be eye-balls for ad impressions for silicon valley startups.

We could make other choices but then we'd be personally less rich and see less growth. Do we really think those extra zeros in very few people's portfolio's are worth this macabre world we've created?

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Jensson 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Quakers built plenty of capitalistic entities that were primarily interested in profit but cared more for the long term with more of an eye on social and spiritual purpose.

And those were replaced by profit seeking enterprises, that is capitalism. Sure some try to create such benevolent entities, but the profit seeking ones out-competes and replaces them over time, that is how capitalism works.

So you can temporarily have a nice company here and there, but 50 years later likely it got replaced by a profit seeking one. The only way to get pro social behaviors from these is to make pro social acts the most profitable via regulations, but its still a profit seeking enterprise that doesn't try to be benevolent.

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Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-]

yeah that's because we allowed aggressive takeovers, especially leveraged ones. They got replaced by extractive capitalism due to a lack of regulation, not just because "capitalism".

The extractive profit seeking entities don't "out-compete" they just use their capital in unregulated conditions to strip mine economies and poison capitalism to become sociopathy. Letting that happen is a choice, letting it continue is a choice.

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Forgeties79 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yet if you advocate for regulation you are immediately attacked by billionaires and massive companies and people who think those two groups benefit them more than the regulations protecting them. These groups bring unbelievable sums of money to bear to influence policy and public perception to make sure they are as under-regulated as possible.

“Regulation” is a four letter word in the US. Look at the hostility we see on HN whenever it comes up with AI .

	▲	Quarrelsome 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Which is why our democratic systems need to provide solutions because they're places where we still have power. I'm from the UK and an increasing amount of our economy is locked up in exploitive equity extraction, much of it US based. Its really bad in some fields (e.g. care homes, foster homes), where the entities are straddled with such debt that the orgs "have no choice" but to charge sky high rates while paying peanuts. At some point I'm sure it will break and our politicians will "break the rules" in order to reign in private equity and sour their investments. It used to be the case that we permitted these excesses because they guaranteed our security, but now that recent US governments have shit the bed on that one; there's considerably less of a need to tolerate it.

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Jensson 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The extractive profit seeking entities don't "out-compete" they just use their capital in unregulated conditions to strip mine economies and poison capitalism to become sociopathy

So they did out-compete them? You saying they won using unfair ways doesn't change the fact that they out-competed the other companies.

Capitalism will use any means available to out compete others, I don't understand why you try to argue against this. You just say "but if we restrict the means available its fine", that means you agree with me, so I am not sure what you disagree with.

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Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-]

> So they did out-compete them?

Having more money doesn't necessarily mean "out-compete". Its not that they're delivering a better product, more loyal customers or better branding. Its simply that they put down more capital at a given point, and were allowed to buy the company, despite its owners not wanting to sell. In most cases they didn't even have money, its simply because they obtained significant financing from money brokers by selling them on plans of sociopathy.

> I don't understand why you try to argue against this.

because you're trying to squash this into "capitalism bad". We get to make choices, we're making shit choices. You don't have to upend the whole system to undo these choices, you just have to have the spine to regulate and break up existing structures.

	▲	Jensson an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> because you're trying to squash this into "capitalism bad". I never said "capitalism bad", I said it optimizes for profits and that it gets better at that over time, that is not bad or good, that is just what it does.

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saubeidl 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I judge a system by what it does, not by what it's proponents say it could theoretically do.

Extractive capitalism is real-world capitalism.

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Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-]

but it does that because of US hegemony empowering its equity to be extractive. We've lost a lot of organisations in the UK due to aggressive and leveraged buyouts. That's not necessarily reflective of capitalism as an abstract but geo-political reluctance in regulating its very worst excesses.

I appreciate your position but I can't help but feel like it's like saying cars are crap because they breakdown too easily, when in practice; you're constantly red lining them.

My point is that it doesn't have to be like this, but its a choice that we as society make, and we could choose to not make it.

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Jensson 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> That's not necessarily reflective of capitalism as an abstract but geo-political reluctance in regulating its very worst excesses.

That capitalism needs to be regulated or it results in these toxic outcomes is core to capitalism, yes, that is what we are saying. There is no benevolent capitalism without regulations.

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Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> yes, that is what we are saying

its almost as if its what I've been saying the whole time, but adding the context of where the line is, where MySpace seemed healthy and TikTok is unhealthy. Lean startup culture is an equasion that produces sociopathy, I've always hated it and I think its relatively disgusting how it was embraced at the time.

I guess I needed to rail against every type of capitalism at the start for you to appreciate my position earlier.

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Jensson 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> I guess I needed to rail against every type of capitalism at the start for you to appreciate my position earlier.

No, your position earlier was wrong according to what you are saying here, you said Facebook and Myspace didn't have these issues so its not capitalisms fault. But Facebook and Myspace existed under much less regulated circumstances than exists today, so your original statement would make it seem you want less regulations and think things will just sort out themselves.

Or do you really think going back to 2005's regulations would fix things because internet was less toxic then? Internet wasn't less toxic then since capitalism was different, internet was less toxic then since it takes time for capitalism to optimize a system.

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Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-]

> But Facebook and Myspace existed under much less regulated circumstances than exists today

sorry, what regulation are you talking about here? Afaik regulation in the US is pretty much the same back then as it is now. Worst case scenarios are usually slap on the wrists like when Snapchat lied to its users about ephemeral messaging and got fined a pathetic amount.

> No, your position earlier was wrong according to what you are saying here

or how about the idea that you've misunderstood my position and instead are shadow-boxing a monsterised impression of me that isn't real.

I just don't like blaming capitalism in the abstract because it doesn't have to be like this. We can change it.

Also on the off chance you lean considerably left, it might help to understand that I have experience of the USSR. So simply saying "capitalism bad" with an implication that we need to tear down the system isn't good enough for me. Been there done that, ancestors deported to Siberia. We could maybe try regulating first?

	▲	Jensson an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> I just don't like blaming capitalism in the abstract because it doesn't have to be like this. We can change it. But saying that Facebook or Myspace wasn't that bad does nothing to support this position, so why did you bring those up? > So simply saying "capitalism bad" with an implication that we need to tear down the system isn't good enough for me Read my post, I didn't say "capitalism bad", I said its good from the start. Its you that never understood why I objected to you and not the other way around.

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saubeidl 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Lenin described this exact process a century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage...

The 'choice' is an illusion. To quote Lenin, the state becomes the 'executive committee of the financial oligarchy.'

The refusal to regulate isn't a a choice or a policy failure; it's the inevitable outcome of the system.

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Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-]

well my mother was born in the USSR, so I don't have to accept Lenin's position because my people suffered his "inevitable outcome of the system" for the choices he made.

I'd rather fix up this existing system then day dream about a glorious socialist revolution that always seems to end in blood.

	▲	saubeidl 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		What if this current system also always ends in blood, as history has shown so far?

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SirMaster 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>The average person has zero chance against all-pervasive, ultra-manipulative, highly-engineered systems like that.

So you are saying I am not an average person because I have the willpower to simply not install the TikTok app or watch short form video on any platform?

Has the bar for the average person really sunk this low?

	▲	tvink 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If only you could reach out of your own experience and ponder what might cause otherwise reasonable people to do so. Young people peer pressure, current marketing landscape, you're forced there if you want to make money as a creative, so many reasons. Great, you can live your life without. Can you live your life without assuming everyone has the privilege of your situation?
	▲	Jensson 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> So you are saying I am not an average person because I have the willpower to simply not install the TikTok app or watch short form video on any platform? Yes, since more people use Tiktok than not. The average person is also fat today, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to you. People didn't grow fat and addicted to screens due to changes to themselves, its due to companies learning how to get people to eat more and watch more since the they make more money.
	▲	foobar_______ 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Maybe? I really don't know. I don't want to believe it but the data and just looking around in public and seeing the scroll addition seems to indicate otherwise?

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bondarchuk 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's also very much an exercise in framing, though. Making your media as engaging as possible is the basic imperative of any media company. But choosing to call this specific instance of it "addictive" has everyone up in arms.

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horsawlarway 3 hours ago | parent [-]

To the framing issue - I can frame an alternate lens through which we balance enrichment against engagement.

Media can enrich people - expose them to new ideas, new stories, different views and opinions. This expands worldview and generally trends in the same direction as education.

Media can also be engaging - Use tools that make it compelling to continue viewing, even when other things might be preferable, on the low end: cliffhangers and suspenseful stories. on the high end: repetitive gambling like tendencies.

I'd argue if we view tiktok through this lens - banning it seems to make sense. Honestly, most short form social media should be highly reviewed for being low value content that is intentionally made addictive.

---

It's not society's job to cater to the whims of fucking for-profit, abusive, media companies. It's society's job to enrich and improve the lives of their members. Get the fuck outta here with the lame duck argument that I need to give a shit about some company's unethical profit motives.

I also don't care if meth dealers go bankrupt - who knew!

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bondarchuk 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I fundamentally don't think governments should do a careful cost-benefit analysis of everything in society and then ban it if it falls on the wrong side. Just on basic principles of personal freedom. That's why the "addiction" framing is so important, because it implies that citizens don't have agency, and so justifies the authoritarian intervention.

PS if we apply your analysis to video games they surely would have been banned too.

Edit: by the way I remember back in the day we searched for "addicting flash games" and it was seen as a positive ;p

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munk-a 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It is completely unreasonable for a society to do a careful cost-benefit analysis of everything in society - it's completely reasonable for a society to identify highly harmful things (especially those that hijack our brains through direct chemical or emotional addiction) and police those, or, as per Portugal's approach, make available societal supports to allow people to better cope with that addiction. The later isn't very reasonable to expect in a world of rising austerity due to financialization so the former seems more realistic.

	▲	bondarchuk an hour ago \| parent [-]
		"Hijack our brains" - exactly what I mean by pretending people don't have agency. Who gets to decide what counts as hijacking and what is just normal culture? Anything is "hijacking" to some extent - boy bands hijack teen girl brains, the BBC created Teletubbies to hijack toddler brains, heck any artistic representation is a hijack to the extent that it is interpreted by your brain at least partially as something other than what it really is i.e. some colours on a flat surface. The point is a new form of culture, communication and coordination is emerging and the old powers are shitting their pants. (Fully agree on the Portugal approach though. The difficult to accept answer is that if people are choosing a shit life of scrolling 10 hours a day maybe we should do the actual hard work of improving the kind of life open to them.)

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jonners00 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

With social media, the cost benefit analysis doesn't deliver marginal results, just less stark/concentrated results. Drink driving is self evidently bad even though 99 times out of 100(?) it does no harm, because one time out of a hundred its consequences are catastrophic. Social media on the other hand is harming essentially 100% of the population in initially milder ways - even if you don't use it you're forced to live in a dumbed down society where wealth and power is becoming concentrated in the hands of those who pedal digital dopamine and in a democracy being undermined by disinformation. Of course 'initially milder harm' is step one in frog boiling.

	▲	bondarchuk an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> * even if you don't use it you're forced to live in a dumbed down society where wealth and power is becoming concentrated in the hands of those [...] * Exactly the same applies to TV but where is all the handwringing about that? Remember those stats about people watching 7 hours of TV a day? Those people need some serious help too. What's happening is clearly just the old mass-media-supported order refusing to yield power to new media used by younger people. Governments couldn't care one bit about false information[1], nor about zoomers getting brainrot, it's all about controlling the flow of information. [1] ("disinformation", another nice example of framing which ignores the fact that people have agency) edit: the system is escaping my asterisks automatically now, anyone know how to get italics now?

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xp84 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I remember that website, it was called addictinggames.com and I remember finding that bad grammar offensive. (I was obviously a lot of fun at parties.)

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rzz3 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And I’m so glad they did. Tiktok has brought so many positive changes to my life, and it never would have happened if they hadn’t built a product so good that it’s literally addictive. I don’t want the government to be my parent.

Additionally, Instagram and Facebook have tried their best to make their products as addictive as possible, yet their recommendation algorithm is so absolutely terrible (not to mention their ads) that I barely stay on the platform for five minutes when I use it.

	▲	Noumenon72 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What the TikTok algorithm does for me: surfaces exercises for all my joint problems, finds people exploring local sites and reporting on local issues, helps me discover new music, reveals how we treat prisoners, shows me what it's like to do jobs from sitcom writer to oil rig tech What Europe does for me: Makes me click "Accept cookies"

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35 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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amarant 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't like this narrative. I'm a person, and HN is the only social media I use.I tolerate this one because I find the addictiveness off-putting, but unlike other social media HN doesn't engage in that much.

I'm not some sort of prodigy or anything, just a random schmuck. If I can do it, anyone can. People just really like blaming others for their own vices instead of owning up to having a vice.

HN is a vice too. One of many that I have. And they're all mine. I've chosen them all. In most cases knowing full well that I probably shouldn't have.

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afavour 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If I can do it, anyone can.

Right, but they don't. Not to mention a significant portion of the target market are children whose brains are still developing.

Smoking is a vice. Anyone can stop smoking any time they want. But it was still incredibly popular. Government regulation put warning labels everywhere, tightened regulation to ensure no sales to children, provided support to quit. And then the number of people smoking plummeted. Society is better off for it.

"Anyone can do it" is an ideological perspective divorced from lived reality.

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dinfinity 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly. It's not that the producers or distributors (of food, content, etc.) are not malicious/amoral/evil/greedy. It's that the real solution lies in fixing the vulnerabilities in the consumers.

You don't say to a heroin addict that they wouldn't have any problems if those pesky heroin dealers didn't make heroin so damn addictive. You realize that it's gonna take internal change (mental/cultural/social overrides to the biological weaknesses) in that person to reliably fix it (and ensure they don't shift to some other addiction).

I'm not saying "let the producers run free". Intervening there is fine as long as we keep front of mind and mouth that people need to take their responsibility and that we need to do everything to help them to do so.

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3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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TheOtherHobbes 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You haven't chosen anything. That's the point - the illusion of choice and agency.

If you can't stop cold at any time if/when you decide to, you don't have the agency to make a free choice.

	▲	amarant 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I can though, that's the whole point. I chose to quit Facebook and Reddit. I chose to stop drinking alcohol. I chose to keep smoking weed. Some choices are better than others, from certain perspectives, that doesn't make them any less my choices!

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dylan604 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> If I can do it, anyone can.

This is such a normie perspective and shows just how unfamiliar you are with addiction. Yes, some people can avoid becoming addicted. Yes, some addicts can break the habit and detox and stay clean. At the same time, a larger number of addicts can detox but relapse in a relatively short time. There are also addicts that have not yet admitted they have a problem, and there are addicts that are okay with being an addict. Just because you have the emergency stop button that you can hit does not mean everyone else is the same way. Your lack of empathy is just gross

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CJefferson 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That feels like it applies to so many things we make illegal, scams of all kind, snake-oil medical sellers, baby powder full of asbestos. Sure, people can handle all of these things, but we've decided, as a society, it's better not to allow them.

So then the question is, is it better to let these things happen, as a society?

	▲	amarant an hour ago \| parent [-]
		False equivalence. Unless you can point to an instance where tiktok claims to cure cancer or erectile dysfunction with their recommendations. To be clear: I don't like these addictive recommendation engines. That's why I avoid them. Some people do like them. I don't want to take their fun vice away from them. I also don't want them to take my fun vices away from me! Yes it'd probably be better for my health if I stopped with a few of them. I don't care. I like it. It's my health, and I'm an adult. If I can choose my vices, why shouldn't others be allowed to? Will they make choice I wouldn't have? Of course! That's the point! It's THEIR choice! This logic does not apply to scams or firearms, there's no informed consent in getting shot. It also doesn't apply to asbestos baby powder(wtf?) Getting scammed is not a choice. Scammers lie to you. Recommendation engines never claim to do anything other than recommend stuff you're likely to interact with based on previous behaviour. They give you exactly what's on the package label. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would want something like that, but I also don't understand why people eat surströmming. I say let them, anyway. I can put up with the stink, it's not the end of the world.

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forgotaccount3 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> They are specifically making it as engaging as possible because that's [how they make money.] ... what people want.

Fixed that for you.

Your argument is basically the same as saying that Banana Ball should be banned because they are intentionally making the experience as fun as possible, because that's how they make money.

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mrpandas 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You're suggesting that it doesn't matter what children are exposed to / become addicted to because companies should be able to sell what children want? So there's no limits to that in your mind? Should every child be given cocaine because they ask for it? They're certainly given candy, right? You must believe there's no difference between cocaine and candy, I can assure you there is a difference and show you evidence to the contrary, if you're that dense.

	▲	anthonypasq an hour ago \| parent [-]
		sigh... he is saying that addictiveness itself is not a justification to ban something. exercising is addictive to some people, sex is addictive, reading is addictive for some people. everything worth doing in life is addicting. what matters is the negative consequences of doing something. so the justification for banning tiktok is that it destroys childrens attention spans for life and lets them get propagandized by a hostile foreign government, NOT that its addictive.

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darkhorse222 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah! Or cigarettes!

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luxuryballs an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The government could spend effort on making a documentary and funding a study on brain scans and a little campaign to show everyone the damage and educate rather than just wielding the ban hammer. Especially because it’s often possible that they can have a different motive for ban hammering even if the reason given is valid.

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moi2388 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do they though?

I’d love to think of myself as an exceptional individual because I don’t use Facebook or TikTok, but most likely I’m not exceptional at all, and other people could also just not use TikTok.

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stronglikedan 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I hate this age of zero personal accountability. It's so easy to just not doomscroll, but I should be allowed if I want to.

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saithir 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's also super easy not to use hard drugs, yet that's not a reason to stop restricting them.

If something's harmful it should be controlled.

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landl0rd 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I find it pretty hypocritical that the same people who push for e.g. legal marijuana would go for banning social media apps. Don't get me wrong, I use neither and think both are mentally, physically, and morally corrosive. I would not care to have either present in the community where I live, nor for my future children to use them.

That does not mean it is the province of the state to ban them.

	▲	rzz3 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To give them some credit, they support both positions because they were told to support them by the same people and never put much thought into it.

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wasmainiac 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

did you see what happened when we tried to decriminalise hard drugs in Vancouver? Feel good for yourself that you have the discipline to have self control, other do not and need help.

You are free to not use TikTok yourself, no one is stopping you.

Also drug decriminalisation is very nuanced, I’m not 100% against it, I’m just pointing out just that open drug use spiked after.

	▲	dylan604 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Also drug decriminalisation is very nuanced, I’m not 100% against it, I’m just pointing out just that open drug use spiked after. Was that spike a true spike in new users, or existing users just coming out of the shadows?

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saubeidl 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Personal accountability is contrary to human nature.

We are primates dominated by our primitive urges.

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trcf23 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And it’s also mostly targeting children/teenagers. As a parent you can add limitations on cinema, binging series. You can’t on TikTok.

I’m quite glad that there is a form of control preventing a company from a different part of the world that don’t really care about the mental health or wellbeing of my kids to creep into their life like that…

As a parent, it’s not a fair fight and I should not have to delegate that to another private company

	▲	luxuryballs an hour ago \| parent [-]
		This strikes me as potentially a hardware problem more than a software problem.