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Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

• deadbabe 2y ago
  What if we just ban all recommendation systems?
  • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
    You'll have to be more specific... Does that ban cover everything down to alphabetical ordering?
    • deadbabe 2y ago
      If the user did not actively specify what they want to search for or subscribed to a content source, it is banned.
    • kwhitefoot 2y ago
      Just forbid recommendations altogether. Let the user subscribe to posts by specific users.
• w14 2y ago
  - Ofcom sets out more than 40 practical steps that services must take to keep children safer - Sites and apps must introduce robust age-checks to prevent children seeing harmful content such as suicide, self-harm and pornography - Harmful material must be filtered out or downranked in recommended content
• fidotron 2y ago
  It's curious how aligned this is with similar moves in Canada discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40298552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40298552 For those unfamiliar Ofcom is basically the UK telecoms regulator.
• johnea 2y ago
  No intention of protecting adults?
  • Dig1t 2y ago
    As an adult, I do not want to be "protected". I can decide for myself if I like the algorithm or product/service and choose not to use it if I don't like it.
    • mantas 2y ago
      The problem is in modern societies the society is footing the bill for those who choose, let's say, unwisely. Why should my mandatory social and medical insurance taxes go fix issues created by such wrong choices? Should the society not cover them? E.g. smokers with lung cancer should pay out of pocket? Or should society try to minimize wrongdoing instead?
      • s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Indeed, there are different interpretations of the social contract. You have essentially two polar options. First option is that social services come with strings attached that entitle the providers to control the lives of the recipients. Second is that social services are freely given, and the recipients have not given up their autonomy. the givers can choose to stop giving, or place conditions on gifts, but they dont get direct control over the recipients. Either are fine in theory, but the problem is with ex-post recontracting. for example, when a gift or service is freely given, and then someone demands payment later. There are some interesting works of fiction that explore alternatives. For example, allowing adults to choose how much of their autonomy they want to abdicate for differing levels of entitlements and guarantees.
      • pixl97 2y ago
        > is in modern societies the society is footing the bill This isn't exactly true.... All societies always have footed the bill, modern or not. If you cast the person out in a middle age society then expect to get robbed by bandits on your next visit to the town next door. Which emphasizes why you should attempt to minimize wrongdoing before it gets expensive, when you don't it turns into that story of "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly"
• gedy 2y ago
  > We want children to enjoy life online. But for too long, their experiences have been blighted by seriously harmful content which they can’t avoid or control. Many parents share feelings of frustration and worry about how to keep their children safe. That must change. Yes, stop letting kids stare at screens all day. Yes, you are a bad/lazy parent letting the firehose of the Internet pipe into their heads.
  • JohnMakin 2y ago
    I agree with you but the inevitable counter argument is that not letting kids have unfettered access to screens and the internet is impractical to the point of comedy. I personally do not buy this argument, and although I do not have a child, my sister has kept my nephew screen-free so far and he's well at the age where kids start to use them independently. What does he do instead? He reads, he plays games (he's allowed some supervised access to video games), he plays sports. Stuff kids used to do and were totally fine. The other argument is that this makes kids socially isolated from their peers, because they all have and use these devices. If that truly is the case there definitely still is a way to monitor your kids device and internet consumption without giving them free-reign. There are internet safety settings for parents on every device out there. Kids are perfectly capable of communicating with each other through a variety of mediums, they don't need tiktok (or whatever app is the trendy one of the decade). The last argument, when you present the former argument, is that kids are clever and will find a way to get around controls. Yea, no shit, that's what kids do. Your role as a parent is to monitor that and teach/correct them.
    • gedy 2y ago
      Yeah I'm not talking about no access ever, I'm talking about the (very sad imho) situation where you see toddlers mindlessly staring at their tablet watching random videos/tiktoks while ignored by parents for hours, even if the mom or dad is nearby and and could be interacting with them.
  • narenst 2y ago
    Children at school use a screen for school work starting in middle school (and sometimes even in elementary school). It is very difficult for parents or teachers to always supervise this. I think the adults should educate the children of safe online behavior but like other real world experiences they need have the independence when being online too.
• ricardo81 2y ago
  It's quite obvious that Twitter/Google/Facebook/whoever do not have algorithms that scale where they can genuinely curate their content. Seems that obvious since Google bought YouTube. Isn't it quite obvious that it's never been their prerogative. Nor protecting copyright.
  • Aerroon 2y ago
    And it shouldn't be their prerogative! If we're going to randomly throw blame around, then why not throw it on the ISP too? They're the ones ultimately serving the content. But I don't think anybody wants to open up that can of worms.
    • ricardo81 2y ago
      The blame is not random. ISPs don't know what content they're serving up other than what host it's coming from 99% of the time.
• kwhitefoot 2y ago
  The thing that always strikes me in all the reporting and discussion of the problems that Ofcom is trying to solve is that no one seems to ask if the problems are equally bad in other countries, especially in non-English speaking countries. And if it isn't then can, and should, whatever helps there be implemented in the UK? I live in Norway and it doesn't seem that the problem is so severe here. Or is it simply that English speaking media is more willing to latch on to extreme events and make out that they are the norm?
  • cynicalsecurity 2y ago
    US/UK really like spying on their citizens. Privacy is not their thing. Their culture regards anything sexual as Taliban regards women not covering their head. As an extreme taboo. As a fellow European, yes, I know, it's crazy.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • whimsicalism 2y ago
      If you are european, this is basically glass houses and stones
      • hooverd 2y ago
        It's true, Europeans emit crazy Hitler particles when they see a Roma person.
    • rustcleaner 2y ago
      Eric Blair's Anti-Sex League is coming into full swing, innit? With a century of public policy fuggery, the domestic stock has been induced into a situation where it refuses to effectively breed its next generations in comparable numbers to other competing stocks. It could be mistaken for accidental if the elite weren't then back-stopping tax and investment losses with importing supply from those other stocks. If The West is purely cultural/ideal, then mere assimilation should be enough for its persistence. If The West is its people then this situation spells certain doom if not arrested. The West's place at the top of the world is going to be toppled by a nation with less feminism and anti-natalism this century, unless The West can destroy all other effective competition.
• cynicalsecurity 2y ago
  Isn't it the parents' job? Why introduce authoritarianism under the disguise of caring for children?
  • frereubu 2y ago
    The internet is a big place. How am I supposed to manage what Google / Facebook / YouTube etc. serves to my daughter?
    • polski-g 2y ago
      Did someone do that to your internet experience in 1999? Why do you think it needs to be done now?
    • devmor 2y ago
      Is there a reason you can't supervise your child's time online and/or use appropriate parental control software?
      • frereubu 2y ago
        I suppose I would flip the question around - why should I have to do that, when content platforms could do it? It's just another administrative burden that gets foisted onto the plebs because large tech companies want to scale, but won't moderate content properly at that scale.
        • bluefirebrand 2y ago
          > why should I have to do that Because you're the parent? Yeah you can't monitor 100% of the time but like.. moderating your child's experiences is kind of part of the job isn't it? Edit: I'm not saying the tech companies have no responsibility at all here, but surely the parent is the final responsibility in these matters? When I was a kid if I went over to a kid's house and their parents let us watch R rated movies or whatever, if my parents didn't like that they would talk to the parents. If that didn't change, I wasn't allowed to go over there anymore Why not the same with YouTube? If YouTube won't change, isn't it your responsibility to remove access?
• Aurornis 2y ago
  People love these proposals until they read the details and think of the consequences. Anything that requires "robust age-checks" means that everyone using the site must go through an ID check and validation process. No more viewing anything without first logging in via your ID-checked account > 1. Carry out robust age-checks to stop children accessing harmful content > Our draft Codes expect much greater use of highly-effective age-assurance[2] so that services know which of their users are children in order to keep them safe. > In practice, this means that all services which do not ban harmful content, and those at higher risk of it being shared on their service, will be expected to implement highly effective age-checks to prevent children from seeing it. In some cases, this will mean preventing children from accessing the entire site or app. In others it might mean age-restricting parts of their site or app for adults-only access, or restricting children’s access to identified harmful content. Before people try to brush aside these regulations as only applying to sites you don't think you use, the proposal is vague about what is included in the guidelines. It includes things like "harmful substances", meaning any discussion of drugs or mushrooms could be included, for example. Think twice before encouraging regulations that would bring ID checking requirements to large parts of the internet. If you enjoy viewing sites like Reddit or Hacker News or Twitter without logging in or handing over your ID, these proposals are not good for you at all.
  • whimsicalism 2y ago
    This might only be marginally relevant, but California’s digital id has a way of verifying age without revealing anything else about your identity called “TruAge”
    • throwup238 2y ago
      I always figured it'd be implemented Stripe style where completing age verification just gives the site a token that they can use to validate the third party age check. The problem is how to make the provider side anonymized so that they don't know what sites your visiting, but that could be probably solved with legislation. In California, at least. I wouldn't trust Congress with a bill like this.
    • 2y ago
• sudofail 2y ago
  In my view, we need legislation to step in and enforce some level of algorithmic tuning. Modern algorithms drive engagement at all costs, regardless if it's healthy for the individual. I want to be able to tune the algorithm to potentially use a timeline feed instead, or limit content to only come from topics I subscribe to, etc. We probably need parental controls that allow parents to enforce algorithm tuning as well. A recent example of an algorithm going wrong is Reddit. Home used to show you strictly a feed of reddits you subscribed to, and it was shown as a timeline. The most recent changes not only removed the timeline approach to the feed, it's now injecting subreddits you don't subscribe to and asks if you're interested in them.
• causal 2y ago
  Something important to keep in mind: most people never experience just how twisted these recommendation algorithms can get, because each of us gets an experience tailored to our developed tastes. But these algorithms will totally curate wildly disturbing playlists of content because it has learned that this can be incredibly addicting to minds unprepared for it. And what's most sinister is how opaque the process is, to the degree that a parent can't track what is happening without basically watching their kids activity full-time. Idk if OFCOM is implementing this right or not, but I think there would be a much greater outcry if more people saw the breadth of these algorithms' toxicity.
  • geor9e 2y ago
    If, instead of a machine algorithm, we wired newborn human brain in a jar and "trained it" to choose the next thing to show in a feed, to get nothing but reward for when someone clicks/comments/lingers on something, and nothing but punishment when they leave, plus the basic human functions of walking and talking etc, then put that brain into an adult human body, what would we describe that person as? Probably a psychopath with no moral compass? A sicko willing to do indescribable horrors? Evil incanate? A calculating manipulator for sure. But somehow when we "train" a machine model with singular goal of profit alignment, people think that's just the free and efficient market. And the idea of aligning the models with human good instead is seen as overregulation.
• yawboakye 2y ago
  next week: music studios must tame toxic lyrics to protect children.
• surfingdino 2y ago
  Interesting... if you sob and moan to YT or Instagram about not having enough followers or views they'll tell you to replace the word "algorithm" with "audience", so people. It makes sense, if your content is not popular with people no algorithm will surface it (recent tweaking of Instagram algo notwithstanding). But if we follow that interpretation we have to admit that it's not the algorithms that are toxic, but people. So what Ofcom is asking tech companies is to "tame" toxic people. Good luck with that. Parents have to realize that computers, phones, or tablets help sometimes unsavoury characters get in touch with their children. We do not allow strangers into daycare centres, schools, or children's hospitals, so why do we allow strangers unrestricted access to our children via the devices we give them? Parents need to be told to take responsibility for who has access to their children.
• eddof13 2y ago
  No. The parents are responsible for their children, not tech firms or anyone else.
• Digit-Al 2y ago
  Personally, I am against the idea of adults having to prove their age before being able to access certain types of content - particularly if that means giving their identity. I am not, however, adverse to the idea that big tech companies should be more responsible for what they are serving to youngsters. Yes, I know their are plenty of tools to allow parents to restrict what sites their children visit, etc... but not all parents are tech savvy enough to be able to set this stuff up, plus you could still allow a child to access Youtube, for example, but then find they are getting unsavoury recommendations from the algorithm. This made me think about the fact that the major platforms (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft) gather enough data on their users that they almost certainly know roughly how old someone is, even if no age has been provided to them. They can use all the signals they have available to provide a score for how certain they are that an individual is, or is not, legally an adult. (As an example, if you have a credit or debit card in your Google or Apple wallet then you are almost certainly an adult because it would be very difficult for a child to obtain a card and get it into a digital wallet due to the security procedures that are in place.) Given that, if these companies get forced to discern whether users are adults or not in order to serve appropriate content then it seems a no brainer for them to provide free age verification as well. My vision would be for the UK government to provide an anonymised age verification router service. When a website requires you to verify your age in order to access some particular content it could ask you which age verification service you wish to use. It then sends a request to the government "middleman" that includes only the URL of the verification service. The router forwards the request anonymously to the specified server (no ip address logs are stored). If you are logged in to the account already then it will immediately return true or false to verify that you are or are not an adult. If you are not logged in then you will be prompted to login to your account with the service and then it will return the answer. The government server will then return the answer to the original website. That way, we can get free, anonymous verification. I'm sure people will have issues with this idea, such as "do you trust the government server to not log details fo your request instead of being anonymous?" - to which I do not have a definitive answer, but I feel like it is potentially a little better than having Google or Facebook knowing what sites I am visiting that need verification. Anyone out there have any thoughts on this? I have only just had the idea pop into my head, so no serious thought has gone into it. There are probably issues that I have not thought about.
• az09mugen 2y ago
  I have a better solution : tech firms must stop using toxic algorithms for everyone, not just childrens. Why are they allowed to use these practices in the first place ? Why do we have to endure/tolerate this stuff that makes internet a worse place ?