Trump administration attacks Australia’s ‘opt-out’ algorithm law in rare intervention
In an extremely uncommon move, the US government has publicly criticised an Australian government policy proposal.
It wants US social media companies excluded from digital duty of care laws, which would give Australians the option to opt out of algorithmic feeds.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in New York promoting Australian tech policies at the United Nations.
LMAO EXTREMELY UNCOMMON Since fucking when
I think they mean the new “Extremely Rare American InterventionTM” proper name/branding being used for legal purposes. Not to be confused with the old interpretation of interventions of actual historic use. /s lol
Since Tuesday.
The US couped the Australian government because the PM threatened to cancel the lease for the US Pine Gap facility.
That’s gotta be on lawmakers’ minds now that the US is involving itself here.
The day after Albanese said he supported the USA abducting Maduro, I emailed his office suggesting if he did not denounce it, he would be eating his words. I’m feeling pretty smug today.
that was back in the 70’s and it would be surprising if it colored anyone’s behavior since then.
People are goldfish in your reality?
People are goldfish in this reality, lol. But information is also restricted/not disseminated as it should be.
American government never forgets a slight done to it no matter how long ago. Just “forgets” when it was something it has done to other nations.
It looks like I have some reading to do
I just read about the AI NASA engineer at Science Daily, then I see an article by ABC’s AI reporter. Good news is he looks like a real, live reporter who covers the topic of AI.
I swear to god, “journalists” are the most disgusting people alive. Fuck off.
How trump is supposed to spread propaganda without algorithms?
Not a defense of “Algorithmic Feeds” but imagine trying to use the TikTok “for you” page in chronological order.
I’ve never used tiktok, but i recall some twitter engineer starting a pro algorithem debate about how people wouldnt enjoy the platform without one
I think it’d be great if people grew tired of social media and logged the fuck off
Sure, people should just log off. Honestly though, my real problem is that chronological is also just an algorithmic feed. You’ve just decided that the algorithm that drives the feed is one that takes all posts and sorts them in decending or assending chronological order. I’m sure for all the posturing by the US Feds here, there is probably enough gray area in the law that allows them to still deliver you some kind of currated feed with residual harmful effects. Since “algorithmic feed” is not a narrow enough term to identify exactly what is problematic about the current implementation, it means that the law will be vague enough to bypass. Or to argue the very nature of what is “algorithmic” in a way that makes the whole law useless.
Ultimately, the issue is the inputs to whatever algorithm is being built, not the algorithm itself. If the law stipulated that users must be allowed to opt into a curated feed where only the posts timestamps were considered when ranking them, then that really locks people into a specific design: chronological. If a law were written that said it would be illegal under massive financial penalties to use a person’s viewing history, duration of session, time spent watching individual content, likes, demographics, and comment activity when ranking the content for their feeds, then that also really narrows down the kinds of algorithms that can be implemented.
I think equating chronological feeds to an algorithm is needlessly reductive and kind of pedantic. I’m not slamming anyone that argues it, and it does have its own issues.
But nothing is imparted on the content the way it is with a weighted algorithm or any form of synthetic ranking. In fact it’s entirely outside of the application and follows naturally from the flow of time. That can’t be algorithmic behaviour in the way that people argue against.
This was actually what turned me off on Mastodon. Some people post too much meh stuff, others post too little good content. But to be fair, this legislation is for being able to opt out, not change the default.
Revanced has a patch to do that on Instagram that works wonderfully. And it might encourage different style of content creators with dedicated consistent followers rather than random unpredictable feed. I see no downsides.
not a tiktok person, but that’s basically the normal way to use tumblr
people who use the “for you” page on there are considered weird (derogatory)
Is Tumblr good? I feel like the thing I used to use the internet for doesn’t really exist anymore, that being, fallowing artists who post their art. In the early 2000s I remember being on a webforum where that was the whole deal, just artists posting shit, and I if I remember right, some people came out of that forum and went on to do cool stuff professionally. I don’t remember what it was called now… but they would have competitions and the like. I remember it being really fun. My impression is that maybe Tumblr has that vibe, but I have no idea where that impression came from.
it’s not really “good”, for many reasons (transphobic moderation, the literal open purge of BLM/Black social justice accounts during the 2020 protests, unhinged “call out culture” in certain communities that is just what if kiwifarms but Woke™ etc.) but unlike most other social medias your user experience will depend almost entirely on who you follow and how you use it
like my dash (timeline) is just trans people, communists, communist trans people, pictures of animals, cool art, and Palestine fundraisers because that’s who i follow
I regularly use my following feed and it’s somewhat chronological. I wouldn’t mind a purely chronological following feed as the default, but yeah the for you page would be useless and probably real unpleasant if it was chronological
