[openrisk]

I think the answer in implicit in my comment: When all the affected individuals can readily make their own judgement about the risks and benefits of their choices (1) they have all the relevant information, (2) they are able to comprehend it and (3) they can act on it using a menu of options.

99% of people are entirely clueless as to what happens behind the scenes in social media platforms because the information is not there, and it is doubtful they would be able to evaluate it anyway. Plus, there are hardly any differentiated alternatives available.

So when these conditions are not met, anybody throwing around terms like "nanny state" has ulterior motives to exploit vulnerable populations (ignorant, addicted, low information, trapped etc.) for their own gain.

Which is "fine" or at least understandable, moral values are not universal. But lets make clear the starkly different visions.

[throwawaythekey]

If TV were to be banned under similar reasoning would you believe that to be justified? TV programming is similarly opaque to the social media algorithms.

[openrisk]

There are many TV channel alternatives, public TV is pretty transparent and there are regulations around when various programs would air, obligatory reporting of age suitability etc.

[throwawaythekey]

> There are many TV channel alternatives

There are many social medias

> public TV is pretty transparent

In what manner? As a kid I didn't know that the pokemon cartoon existed in order to make me buy trading cards.

Even in news there is an army of editors and producers making decisions all of the time. This leads to things like the state media adding sound effects to footage to make it more sensational and then after losing in court investigating themselves and finding no intentional wrongdoing [1]!

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/05/abc-editorial-...