this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

No but there should be "Malicious by Design" stickers for:

  • non-optional/on by default telemetry
  • non-optional/on by default advertising
  • vendor lock in
  • DRM (Digital "Rights Management"/Digital Restriction Malware)
  • Rootkits/root lockout
  • premanantly locked bootloaders

Im aware this would pretty much require all commercial tech products to carry one of these labels. To that I say good. Large tech firms have been weaponizing the computer illiteracy of the average smartphone user so they can normalize corporate malware. It's so bad they've even made up new names for types of malware to make it sound okay:

  • spyware became telemetry
  • adware became targeted advertisements
  • vendor lock-in became walled-gardens
  • bootloaders and root permissions were perminantly locked "for security"
  • Rootkits where pushed under the guise of DRM, or even Anti-Cheat. Including google pushing rootkits installed by default to the most popular OS on the planet (Android/Google Play)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I got a good idea. Let's put warning labels on gun owners. "Warning: potential school shooter".

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Regardless of how you feel about gun control, guns don't actively work against the people who buy them.

They can certainly be used or kept in dangerous ways that lead to tragedy, but they do exactly what you tell them. They even come with a manual full of warnings, and a big giant label that says something to the effect of "READ MANUAL BRFORE OPERATING." Many of them even have it etched into the firearm itself.

That is not the case with EULA washed legal malware.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Regardless of how you feel about gun control,

It isn't about feelings. School shootings happen more in the US.

They can certainly be used or kept in dangerous ways that lead to tragedy, but they do exactly what you tell them.

And? So does cocaine.

They even come with a manual full of warnings, and a big giant label that says something to the effect of “READ MANUAL BRFORE OPERATING.” Many of them even have it etched into the firearm itself.

That's good. As a former IT guy I know that the natural urge of humans is always to read the manual first.

That is not the case with EULA washed legal malware.

That's sounds bad. You probably shouldn't use it then. Notice how it doesn't work for guns? No? Let me explain it to you.

You can choose not to be on Instagram, you can not choose to not be shot dead. The state requires me to send my kids to school but does nothing to require that they are safe at school from gun owners.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (10 children)

It isn't about feelings. School shootings happen more in the US

I never said they didn't, and that wasn't the point of what I was saying? Those warnings are for the user, not those around them. How the fuck is the warning printed on a gun/gun box going to help victims?

You're just attaching bad faith arguments to a completely unrelated statement which is bad for both free software and the anti-gun violence movement.

And? So does cocaine.

Recreational drugs should be legalized, with sensible regulations for each specific drug/category. Certain things should probably only be sold to people who are already addicted. But they should still be legal. Shitty point.

That's good. As a former IT guy I know that the natural urge of humans is always to read the manual first.

You, me, and half of this ~~site~~, ~~platform~~, Fediverse? Point being is that the warning labels on guns are much louder, much more obvious, and much more present then the EULA most corporate software pushes.

That's sounds bad. You probably shouldn't use it then. Notice how it doesn't work for guns? No? Let me explain it to you.

You can choose not to be on Instagram, you can not choose to not be shot dead. The state requires me to send my kids to school but does nothing to require that they are safe at school from gun owners.

No shit, but making a bad faith argument that does nothing to actually solve the issue is just sticking a spoke in your wheel. Please tell me how putting "Warning: potential school shooter." on a gun is going to actually prevent violent gun crime?

If anything that sounds like a fucking advertisement for the sort of people who go commit school shootings.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

what a stupid idea... actually regulate them you fucking cowards.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (4 children)

What an absurd, ignorant notion. Of course social media has a negative impact on developing minds, but forcing sites to display warnings would have zero positive impact. Browser extensions would immediately pop up to hide those warnings, and if anything, the presence of such warnings would increase kids' use of social media, since the danger is something even adults had a hard time understanding and kids love to rebel against oppressive systems. The warnings would turn into memes.

The only answers to this problem are to break up and ban social media companies (not possible) or get parents to actually be parents and teach their kids about the pitfalls of social media.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It's pr. Same usual political dumb shit that doesn't do anything but make a dipshit look good to dumbass.

The benefit of the doubt is that they might mean well but they probably don't.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

get parents to actually be parents and teach their kids about the pitfalls of social media

Also not possible

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Exactly - such labels would be ignored even more than the ones on cigarettes are, especially by the addicts. And it's so much easier to completely hide them too - adblockers already hide a lot of content people don't want to see, this would just become another line in the filter list so fast...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (14 children)

Except many advertisers don't want to be associated with damaging things. So this has an impact on advertising revenue for social media companies and they would absolutely view this as a blow to their public image.

We need to break them up, and legislate against their practices for the future but this is something that can happen right away and hit them in their pockets

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

On one hand great, on the other, has the "Confirm you're an adult" prompt ever stopped a curious young man who just learned the word, "boobs" from viewing adult imagery?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

What’s great about it?

the boobs, of course

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If you're gonna do that, you're gonna have to start labeling other media. And people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Aaaah, I would love it if people had to carry a visible law-mandated label saying "May contain bigotted and un-read-up (i.e. dumb), toxic opinions about all things" unless they pass some psychological exam.

Brave new world.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Isn’t social media just a distillation of the interactions innate in society? If exposure to social media is damaging that’s indicative of deeply flawed and damaging society.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

The key difference is its sorted by an algorithm designed to increase your engagement and view duration. And quite often the easiest way to do that is by generating negative emotional responses, etc

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Even with perfect algorithms I think it’s reasonable to expect problems within society to sharpen.

I mean if there was some theoretical social media entity completely disconnected from optimization for its own benefit then the people using that system would still have been provided the tools to do all their social relations faster, more often and with more intensity.

That’s gonna, and maybe I’m giving away the game here, uh, heighten the contradictions.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So, let California be a lesson to you: excessive PSA warnings of things that cause health problems (e.g. Known to the state of California to cause cancer ) leads to the public generally ignoring the PSA warnings.

Putting a warning on social media like the warning on tobacco products will weaken the efficacy -- and veracity -- of the labels already on tobacco products.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This won't affect tobacco in anyway. The only reason its in the conversation is because of the term "Tobacco-style label".

Youll have to connect the dots better on how social media popup warnings would cause people to smoke more.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well, the California example is about too many PSA warning labels. So many things are known by the State of California to cause cancer that no-one takes heed of the labels anymore. Similarly Nancy Reagan's anti-drug campaign (and Tipper Gore's parental advisory music labels) only encouraged kids to do more drugs and listen to angrier music.

So it's not that kids will smoke more (or much more) it's that the labels will be more easily ignored when the government fails to be sparing in their use.

In an non-government example, when everything is a sin, then nothing is a sin.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Different groups of people, and different sub groups within those, react to things in different ways, and I think most would argue that the group of people who responded in the opposite way rather than getting along were not a detriment to the whole movement.

To your point specifically about California surgeon general warnings, quite a lot of people take them seriously, including myself. In most cases they aren't off the mark by much if at all.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

When I was a kid they just called modern Music and Pokemon the products of Satan. They didn't have to dress it up in pseudoscience to justify it. I bet Vivek Murthy got butthurt on reddit and is now trying to take the ball home.

Get away with it to. No one ever gets punished for a moral panic. Janet Reno tortured a confession out of a 17 year old during the daycare panic and had a long fruitful career.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Can we put one on Congress?

"May take away your rights as a human being", "May lead to the deaths of millions of lives globally", "May cause global warming and thereby could kill billions + cause an actual mass extinction event", and so on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"extremely interested in your genitals"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

That too. Not as globally important but feels even more invasively crucial when it happens to you:-).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

May suspend your rights to support a foreign country.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

It's tabacco-like in that it's a warning. It's not tabacco-like in that there's no science demonstrating definite cancerous harm.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

This has the same vibes as old people complaining about things kids do. “Why don’t they listen to the radio and play with sticks in the woods like I did? Kids these days are just listening to rock music and reading comic books.”

Social media is here to stay and putting warning labels on it won’t do a damnest. Kids will still use it because the option would be not to be included in their friend groups.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I don't know about you but I'm going to have to keep my daughter away from social media! It'll rot her brain and make her a tankie! (We are taking about Lemmy, right? /s)

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