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Senators Introduce Bill That Would Ban Websites From Using Manipulative Consent Forms (vice.com)
U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Deb Fischer (R-NE) have introduced a bill to ban online social media companies from tricking consumers into giving away the rights to their data. The Deceptive Experiences To Online Users Reduction (DETOUR) Act would ban companies "from manipulating adults into signing away their data, or manipulating children into staying on a platform compulsively," reports Motherboard. "The bill also requires platforms to ensure informed consent from users before green-lighting academic studies." From the report: The DETOUR Act would make it illegal to "design, modify, or manipulate a user interface" in order to obscure, subvert, or impair a user's ability to decide how their data is used. The interface refers to the "style, layout, and text" of a privacy policy. The rigor of default privacy regulations would also be subject to regulation under the DETOUR Act. The DETOUR Act would also ban features that encourage "compulsive usage" for children under 13 years old. This would directly target platforms like YouTube, which has auto-play for both its regular site and for its child-specific YouTube Kids app. A representative for Common Sense Media told Motherboard in a phone call that the organization provided feedback and input to the authors of the bill.
The law would also apply to "behavioral or psychological experiments or studies," such as the ones used by Cambridge Analytica in order to sort users by personality type. Per the bill, any such studies have to get informed consent first, and experimenters would need to make routine disclosures to participants and to the public every 90 days. If enacted, the DETOUR Act would require tech companies to make their own Independent Review Boards, which would be responsible for making sure they comply with the law. The act would also give the FTC one year to make infrastructure to would review tech companies and enforce violations of the law.
The law would also apply to "behavioral or psychological experiments or studies," such as the ones used by Cambridge Analytica in order to sort users by personality type. Per the bill, any such studies have to get informed consent first, and experimenters would need to make routine disclosures to participants and to the public every 90 days. If enacted, the DETOUR Act would require tech companies to make their own Independent Review Boards, which would be responsible for making sure they comply with the law. The act would also give the FTC one year to make infrastructure to would review tech companies and enforce violations of the law.
Aside from 'deceptive' practices I think the average person doesn't understand what they're consenting to in the first place. Make it into a teaching session, and they have to pass a quiz, proving they understand what they're signing.
This is the big corp v's single person. Who is going to sue and what would you get if you did win? perhaps they would delete your data, or say they did. Hard to assign a value to what you have signed away.
Legislative measures do have a place, not sure if this is one but it sure is an area of abuse so would be worth looking at.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
Hows that going to work for ads? :)
A person looks at a web site, social media for content they want and expect.
Are all ads placed now "manipulating" as the user did not consent to see any ads?
This returns all power of content back to the user and what is displayed on their computer
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Yet another fucking so-called "acronym" that was built backward. They started with the acronym they wanted and just plugged words until it almost sounded like english.
#DeleteFacebook
It sounds like you care about freedom of speech. You want too avoid regulation of speech. That's cool.
In order to make a convincing argument regarding restrictions in speech, you might want to learn the basic vocabulary of the topic. Things like:
A. The first amendment prohibits the federal government from infringing freedom of speech. (You might know that already.)
B. A censor is someone who redacts portions of a work before it can be seen by the public.
C. Censorship is a system of - censors. Government officials who have to approve speech before it can be published.
Censorship is one method of implementing or enforcing severe restrictions on speech. Other methods include fines and jail time.
That was funny
Approximately 50% of American adults don't know who the Vice President is.
Yet some say it's super important that everyone come out and vote for your Senator. Because they all know which fiscal policy proposals supported by each Senate candidate will be more effective in the long run, and in the short run?
For a lot of people, public policy, economics, and international relations are not on their top 10 list of interests. They don't care to spend their time learning about any of that. I'm not so sure our state or country is so much better off because they vote (based on a Tweet their friend told them about, or "he's good looking").
Maybe, just maybe - we should encourage people to learn about civics so they can be informed voters. If they decided they don't want to know the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics, if they don't care who the incumbent is, if they don't know what their current tax rate is, maybe it's okay if they leave the voting to people who do have some basis for making a rational decision of who to vote for.
Actually, expanding that idea might make for a good system. I've had multiple friends put me in the awkward position of asking me who they should vote for, because I'm a nerd who likes to study this stuff. I don't feel right answering the question of who they should vote for, but I kinda don't feel right leaving their questions unanswered. So here's an idea:
I bet most people know someone who knows who the Vice President is. They probably have one friend who knows their current tax rate. They could vote for the person that they know. You vote for whichever of your friends you think is most informed or would vote smart. Maybe one every ten or twenty adults gets voted in by their friends. Then it is their responsibility to study the candidates and the the issues and vote for the actual office holder. That way everyone gets a say, and the people directly voting for a senator or president actually know what the candidate's policy proposals are.
"in order to obscure, subvert, or impair a user's ability to decide"
Laws should be objective. Judging something like this is, however, entirely subjective. Anyway, if they were serious about this, they would have to put all the advertisers and marketeers up against the wall. This sounds a lot more like the kind of law that can be applied arbitrarily, against companies that you don't like. Leading to campaign contributions by potential targets, in self-defense. In a word: cronyism.
The whole selection process for Congresscritters seems to pre-select certain kinds of people. Some put on a good act, but are actually dumber than a bag of hammers (see Maxine Waters or AOC). Others are just fundamentally corrupt, and enjoying the power and wealth that come with the job (too many examples to count).
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Crap - my relatives are really gonna miss those "What color dildo are you?" Facebook quizzes.
My wife tells me that my sister and the other female relatives are still going to these sites. No doubt there are ones for stupid narcissistic males as well.
Some people must think I do that too, because they all come up to me and ask "What kind of asshole are you Ol?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I found this here:
DUTIES OF LARGE ONLINE OPERATORS:
Any large online operator that engages in any form of behavioral or psychological research based on the activity or data of its users shall—
(1) disclose to its users on a routine basis, but not less than once each 90 days, any experiments or studies that user was subjected to or enrolled in with the purpose of promoting engagement or product conversion;
(2) disclose to the public on a routine basis, but not less than once each 90 days, any experiments or studies with the purposes of promoting engagement or product conversion being currently undertaken, or concluded since the prior disclosure;
(3) shall present the disclosures in paragraphs (1) and (2) in a manner that—
(A) is clear, conspicuous, context-appropriate, and easily accessible; and
(B) is not deceptively obscured;
(4) establish an Independent Review Board for any behavioral or psychological research, of any purpose, conducted on users or on the basis of user activity or data, which shall review and have authority to approve, require modification in, or disapprove all behavioral or psychological experiments or research; and
(5) ensure that any Independent Review Board established under paragraph (4) shall register with the Commission, including providing to the Commission
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
I don't think we generally need separate laws for transactions on the internet. The same sort of problem occurs in paper contracts.
I wonder if there's a helpful step where a third party translates contracts (government or otherwise) into normal-people language or classify the contract with iconography. Most of the click-through agreements are impractical to actually read; the benefit from the service or product is less than the effort to read the agreement. So the average consumer has to either (A) Hope it's not bad or (B) Not agree to anything ever.
-Dave
Do you want to allow us to track you all over the internet using cookies, scripts, malware and zero day exploits?
[x] Yes, please do not exclude me from your list of people not on the list of those who you do not track using less harmful techniques.
[_] No, I do not want to be included on the list that tracks people who do not want to be on the list of those we track using invasive and harmful techniques.
Please select your choice.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The US has among the highest education spending in the world, and among the worst results in the developed world. As our spending has increased, results have gotten worse.
I'm fortunate to live in a school district that is very much not "one size fits all". Embracing "different strokes for different folks", we have several different types of magnet schools to choose from, charter schools, and traditional schools. Many the schools are rated 10 or 9 (of 10) on GreatSchools.org.
With the current electoral college system, one doesn't know either the electors or the candidates, so you have to study.
Thinking of people I know personally, I can think of three or four people who have shown some wisdom in how they lead their life. I see that they make solid decisions, very reasonable decisions, which are sometimes different than the decisions I made. Suppose I care evenly about social policy and tax policy. I could reasonably say "my friend from church who built her accounting practice from the ground up into a successful business with five employees is a smart lady. I don't know the details of the different tax proposals, but I can trust that when she says she has studied them, she'll draw reasonable conclusions. On social issues, I know we and I are coming from the same general mindset. I trust she'll choose candidates with positions that are reasonably compatible with our shared world view".
The point being, I DON'T have to study tax policy if I can vote for a friend who does study tax policy, and who makes good choices. Heck, even if 20% of adults were chosen as electors, that would leave you with roughly the following choices among five people you know:
Your high school drop out brother who bags groceries and dreams of being an actor
You brother-in-law, the tax lawyer
Your 50% senior mother
The crackhead staying on your couch
Your sister, who is working on her masters in social work
Two of these choices are obviously better than the other three, to put in charge of studying the candidates. Either choice significantly improves the average voter knowledge compared to having all five vote directly. Crackhead can vote for tax lawyer knowing ONLY that the tax lawyer isn't likely to make choices much worse than the choices crackhead tends to make.
Of course if you DO want to study the issues and the candidates' positions, you could step up as a rep voter yourself. Just find four friends to choose you as their designated representative.
I should have said "an authority" rather than "government".
From Oxford Dictionary:
censor
NOUN
An official who examines books, films, news, etc. that are about to be published and suppresses any parts that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
There are two key parts of the definition, a part that is there and a part that is NOT there. The definition does not mention the word "bad". Something can be bad and not be censorship. Something can violate free speech and not be censorship. Censors is one of many methods of infringing on free speech, generally the most extreme method. So if I say something is not censorship, that doesn't mean I think it's good. It might be bad, and not have any censors involved.
The key part of the definition that IS there is " examines books, films, news, etc. that are about to be published". Censorship prevents the public from ever seeing the material at all. That distinguishing it from systems in which the material is available to the public, and later the public can judge whether any charges brought against the publisher are just.
The article you linked, titled "It Turns Out Spending More Probably Does Improve Education", concludes that the very poorest, least-funded districts saw improvement when their funding was increased to "adequate".
Which is a lot like the correlation between eating and riding a bicycle - people who are starving to death don't do much pleasure riding. That in no way suggests that if the average American ate more, they'd bike more.
That's the conclusion of an article cherry-picked to argue for once again increasing spending even more.