And here we have yet another case of the EU’s consumer protection legislation working in our favour. Dutch privacy and consumer rights organisation Bits of Freedom sued Facebook over the company’s little trick of disregarding a user’s settings under a variety of circumstances, such as when a user opts for a chronological, non-profiled timeline, only to have Facebook reset itself to the profiled timeline upon a restart.
The judge states that Meta is indeed acting in violation of the law. He says that “a non‑persistent choice option for a recommendation system runs counter to the purpose of the DSA, which is to give users genuine autonomy, freedom of choice, and control over how information is presented to them.” The judge also concludes that the way Meta has designed its platforms constitutes “a significant disruption of the autonomy of Facebook and Instagram users.” The judge orders Meta to adjust its apps so that the user’s choice is preserved, even when the user navigates to another section or restarts the app.
↫ Bits of Freedom press release
This is good news, of course, but I really wish we would take this a step further: a complete ban on targeted advertising and timeline manipulation based on harvested user data. I just don’t believe these business models and ragebait machines offer anything of value to society, and in fact, do far more harm than good. I am convinced that our world would be a better place without these business models.
We restrict of outright ban dangerous substances or activities all the time. This should be among them.
The real problem is most people don’t actually care. Facebook/Meta has a track record of disregarding user privacy. It is its business model, yet people keep using it.
I personally won’t touch any of their products with a barge pole. I am odd. Most people don’t get why I don’t use whatsapp/instagram. I am seen as a tin foil hay guy if I try to explain.
No matter the sanctions. If people keep using their “products” (we know who the actual product is) they will continue.
The problem is, a non-personalized feed is significantly worse. Not only for business (of course), but also for user experience as well.
I know this first hand, since I was working for Google Plus back in the day (long time ago), and we had these numbers.
I really cannot go into more details, but I could say “be careful for what you wish for, you might actually get it”.
(That could include things like people moving to platforms that are even less sensitive to privacy concerns. I won’t name names).
sukru,
I don’t think the quote is effective because many people actually do want what they wish for.. I’m not really seeing a huge negative for non-profiled feeds. I’ll grant you people can have different opinions on advertising and advertisers won’t like it. But I honestly don’t find things were worse before everybody’s micro-activities were being tracked. People who wish it could be like that again would probably genuinely prefer the web that way. The problem for them isn’t getting what they wish for, but that now that we’re here it’s hard to put the cat back in the bag.
Alfman,
Maybe it could be true for power users who meticulously curate their feed. (Those who would have RSS setups not needing regular news sites).
But it really does not hold for your average user.
Unless of course they prefer content that is less relevant, they are less likely to click, read or watch, and overall reduce the time they spend on the app (or even make them come back in the first place).
While another, more viral, app with personalization will take over their “scrolling”
I would say the genie is out of the bottle. But we can agree to disagree 🙂
sukru,
Well, it’s not for either of us to say what is best for other users, is it? Rather than pushing my preferences onto others, I feel very strongly about users being allowed to make their own choices. Even supposing average users don’t care, it doesn’t mean we should allow those who do care to get trampled. I am not a fan of government micromanagement, and I know you aren’t either, it’s not ideal. However the issue is that unregulated corporations just keep getting more abusive if we let them. I do actually appreciate the EU at least tries to represent our interests, otherwise we end up with little to no representation, which is unfortunately common in the world.
Why would we disagree? Genie out of the bottle and cat out of the bag mean the same thing don’t they?
I think it’s much harder to return rights to owners/users once they’ve been taken away than to protect those rights from being taken away in the first place. IMHO it makes a strong case for standing up for rights more proactively because otherwise we can loose them forever.
Alfman,
It was more of a joke 🙂
There are some industry standard objective metrics. For example, users explicitly clicking “like / favorite” buttons, or giving positive feedback in surveys.
Again, I can’t disclose numbers, but there is really a statistically significant, positive difference for personalized feeds in general.
sukru,
Ah, I probably should have gotten that, haha.
I hope you understand that I have to push back. I have no way of knowing what your secret numbers are, and it’s not a given that my conclusions would be the same as yours even seeing the same data. Secret data that can’t be publicly debated or scrutinized doesn’t really deserve to carry much weight over public policy, right? If the tables were flipped, I’d expect you to push back because your take wouldn’t necessarily be the same as mine.
IMHO having freedom and autonomy is more about ethics, I don’t know what kind of numbers would change this for me.
Alfman,
Yes, users should always have an option to just have “time ordered” stream. Maybe even a “popular” one along side “personally curated” (which should be default for everyone’s benefit)
At least this way, they would be able to see why it makes a difference (an in case of personalization issues, they could also use this to file bug reports).