[RGamma]

It's digital crack. My mind melts when I see what's going on there (American social media too though).

Surely letting someone make your populace addicted and/or stupid is problematic? In a way I consider it China's late payback for the opium wars.

[hellojesus]

If you know your mind melts when you see it, then why consume it? Why install it at all?

There are plenty of companies that offer digital crack: video games, porn, social media (including this site). But we must give agency to humans. We must acknowledge that they make decisions voluntarily.

Regardless of the source, either we should regulate data, including streaming videos of all kinds, or we don't. Singling out a company seems like a political stunt with zero real world impact. And a bad policy at that.

[RGamma]

> If you know your mind melts when you see it, then why consume it? Why install it at all?

For the record, I don't and never have. Occasionally something leaks through to me, including epiphenomena like this discussion. HN can be stressful at times too, but it's still somewhat useful and it'll be the final thing of this sort for me, should it ever kick the bucket (hope not, though).

> We must acknowledge that they make decisions voluntarily.

There's considerable behavioral determinism when exposing a population to addictive substances and propaganda. Modern neuroscience has basically killed the myth of free will. From an adversary's perspective this is awesome. From a profiteering actor's (corporations, drug cartels, influencers, casinos) perspective this is awesome as well. Would you like some sauce with this social capital?

> Regardless of the source, either we should regulate data, including streaming videos of all kinds, or we don't. Singling out a company seems like a political stunt with zero real world impact.

Sure, for all I care we can pull the plug on all of them and be better off. The systems we had for scientific, journalistic or cultural innovation and dissemination were sufficient and much better behaved (private TV can go as well). No more "professional" streamers (haha). No more perpetual reinserting the same recycled info into the collective goldfish's mind.

This would also abolish the "need" for storing the 86263961826th minecraft let's play, freeing up exabytes of storage space in the process.

Small online communities, that can actually (federatively?) host and moderate themselves will survive as they have before the maelstrom.