Kinda like asking a drug dealer to remove the cocaine from their milk powder, but it's an idea - Big tech is picking apart European democracy, but there is a solution: switch off its algorithms www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... - ThreadSky

eliothiggins.bsky.social • 40 days ago

Kinda like asking a drug dealer to remove the cocaine from their milk powder, but it's an idea - Big tech is picking apart European democracy, but there is a solution: switch off its algorithms https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/14/big-tech-picking-apart-europe-democracy-switch-off-algorithms

Comments

delltar.bsky.social•40 days ago

Mandatory availability of chronological feeds by default, ban on algorithmic feeds for minors, opt-in algorithmic feeds for adults. The options are there, we just take too much time to take action.

elcidofzen.bsky.social•39 days ago

Find your inner #Luigi people.

The only way this is going to change, is if we do it ourselves. Make #Fascists and #Oligarchs AFRAID again. #ArmTheLeft

darkdaysusa-uk.bsky.social•40 days ago

Banning anti-democratic Big Tech web platforms should be the priority of every European government including the UK in 2025. It should start with Twitter/X!

eldemocrato.bsky.social•40 days ago

Algorithms are why Big Tech shouldn't have Section 230 protections. They're not just 'carrying" posts, like the phone compnay of old. They're privileging some and nullifying others.

mikeilikemike.bsky.social•40 days ago

Interesting and valid point. During the last debate over 230, I pointed out that revoking 230 would arguably lead to *more* censorship of posts, not less.

thinkingsapien.bsky.social•40 days ago

Whether decisions on content are made manually or through calculations, rules, and process isn't a basis for creating liability for having made the decisions. Both are Constitutionally protected. An exception to §230 can not be based on that.

uglygoose.bsky.social•40 days ago

There is a solution: regulations and fines proportional to revenue.

dcminx.bsky.social•38 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/dcminx.bsky.social/post/3lfsc5kktvc2p

mclit123.bsky.social•39 days ago

There is only one solution.

viznut.bsky.social•40 days ago

Content sorting ought to be separate from storage and delivery. Let the user choose and configure the algorithms, maybe even run them locally.

This would require the kind of technical openness that mainstream social media services lost about 10-15 years ago.

jronc.bsky.social•39 days ago

This reads like a humblebrag.

franzivbreitenbuch.bsky.social•39 days ago

Lets do this! Maybe you should contact Roberta Metsola about this. https://president.europarl.europa.eu

marksugrue.com•40 days ago

In the early days of telephones (late 19th c) you couldn't call someone who was on a different network. People needed several phones from different companies to stay connected. Laws eventually forced telephone companies to interoperate. 1/2

marksugrue.com•40 days ago

Bit like how we all have multiple chat apps and social media accounts today. Governments should force apps to be interoperable. Let people call a friend on Signal from Whatapp, or check facebook posts from a 3rd party app. Its OUR data, not the app company's. 2/

mikeilikemike.bsky.social•40 days ago

The algorithms are awful. It’s a fancy term for “someone else deciding what you get to see.” I find it odd that so many who claim to be all about free speech, are perfectly content to allow others to dictate what content they see.

rlingur.bsky.social•40 days ago

Radical problems require radical solutions sometimes

tjmarsden.bsky.social•40 days ago

The algorithmic feed should perhaps be considered publishing. And the platforms using it held to the standards a publisher, television company, etc would have been.

Not even mainly political, but the fraud, the abuse and worse... If your algorithm puts it out there, a price should be paid.

myroslava.bsky.social•40 days ago

The coke comparison kinda falls flat for me bc in the coke+mpowder mixture, it's the coke that provides a high, whereas the 2/3 of my FB "timeline" that is posts of accounts which I have not subscribed to and which I mostly find offputting has always been an irritant and not a source of a high.

jonhallin.bsky.social•40 days ago

I suspect you're in the minority then, most people are probably "doomscrolling" through content created by people they don't know, and aren't subscribed to, except by it being similiar to stuff they have interacted with in the past.

kmcollado.bsky.social•38 days ago

Fuck fb. If I knew my gd password id delete it now.

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