this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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I hate meta and Google, but looking at this from a broader scale: "How the fuck are you supposed to punish anything that's designed for entertainment, being too good at entertaining you?" Am I supposed to sue Nintendo because Super Smash Bros Melee was so good me and my friends probably spent like 2000 hours playing it? Or maybe sue the ITTF because table tennis is fun as hell and I want to play it every chance I get.
But for real. How are you supposed to impose a tangible limit on how fun or addictive something is allowed to be? Does every TV show have to end with a total resolution so you aren't overly compelled to view the next episode? Did the first run of king of the hill need to be cancelled for being too great to not watch?
I think there's a tangible difference between entertaining and addicting, with a detriment to the consumer.
If you think about something like slot machines, and gambling addiction, many people are addicted, losing money, and can't stop:
Arguably, addiction is bad and should be regulated (see: cigarettes).
The detriment instead of money (in this particular case) was teens' mental health, and from what I can recall, the algorithm was explicitly predatory and would serve them up advertisements for things when it detected low or turbulent emotional states, encouraging them to keep using the application and feeling shitty about themselves.
Meta was given a slap on the wrist, it's a fine of $300M ($0.3B) on a company sitting on $217.24 billion.
I doubt they'll change their behavior but legal outcomes are about setting precedents.
It still just can't work as a baseline. How are you supposed to quantify "too entertaining"? It's a ghost concept that the court is just deciding on the fly with no basis or precedent that can be set. Like, why YouTube and not Fortnite? Being too entertaining shouldn't be a crime.
Did you read any of the articles? Its not about too entertaining, young girls were being solicited for sex, and the ads targeting them are vicious. The platform allows others to prey on young people, and facebook allowed it for profit.
This is more similar to the roblox case, it has nothing to do with how entertaining something is.
Nintendo games didn't have live A/B testing feedback loops that continuously take metrics and adjust to maximize screen time.
No. The feedback loops were much slower. Super Smash bros: get feedback and try to improve so people want new game even more. Super Smash bros Melee: get feed back and try to improve it so people want to play it even more. Super Smash Bros Brawl: get feedback and try to improve..... You get the point.
Anyhow, are you saying that you've decided that there's a limit on how well entertainment manages to entertain you? Gonna make sure porn is only allowed to use missionary position, next?
forgive me, for i have sinned
I imagine it as if lunchables started putting small amounts of nicotine in their food so chilldren get addicted and buy more.
I'm not saying that it is straightforward or that you don't have a point about the complexity, but something being entertaining and addictive really should not be conflated! You might spend tonnes of time on something because you genuinely enjoy it, but you can also spend tonnes of time on something addictive without enjoying it. Arguing that things are only addictive if they're good is a gross misrepresentation of reality
I disagree. You're addicted to anything you like enough. I know people that go out fishing every single week it's possible. I used to play table tennis in a weekly league and would never get sick of playing it. There was also a stretch of about three years where the only game I'd play if I had a chance to play videogames was league of legends. I had friends that played WoW every single day for years. Another friend will never shut up about hiking. It's all the same. All these are things you genuinely like. All could be viewed as an addiction. They're often one and the same.
I have around $500 worth of sharpening stones and strops for knives and straight razors. I sharpen people's knives for free. I hate seeing a dull knife and have sharpened knives for over 30 years now.
Am I addicted, or is it a hobby?
Another conflation you seem to be making is habit formation vs addiction. What you're describing in your own life does not sound like an addiction.
I think the problem is how to separate those things, particularly in a legal sense. Social media could come under "compulsive use" but not physical dependence. But so could a lot of games and TV shows, insofar as they are trying to make you feel a strong urge to keep playing/watching which doesn't derive from providing value (better entertainment). There's so many products that use every trick they can to keep you consuming, should we legislate against them all? It would be nice to do something about all of that but using the law to do it can only lead to overreach.
Yes. Gambling, drugs and other predatory practices have regulations and laws around advertising, operation and use. I don’t see why any platform or service should get an exception.
If a TV program ends a series on an unnecessary cliffhanger, should there be legal consequences? How about if a smartphone game has timed events to encourage the player to come back regularly? While I agree that these things aren't typically beneficial, I don't think legislation is always the answer. There's a huge gray area around the question of whether a feature is beneficial or just designed to increase compulsive consumption. Trying to legislate something so ambiguous is bound to produce bad results.
Your comment is a little nonsensical. Again, I think your core issue is confusion over what addiction is and is not. Looking forward to the next TV episode is not addiction either.
Don’t you care about spreading misinformation online?
That's right. Because if your definition of addiction is broad enough to include compulsive use of social media, there's a lot of scope for confusion. That is a case of media companies using psychological tricks to get their users/viewers coming back for more, which is not fundamentally different from a lot of TV programming techniques. There are variations of degree or complexity, but it's the same game, and one which we've routinely accepted for years.
How is that relevant?
We disagree on whether (or where) there is a line between compelling engagement and engineered compulsion/addiction. If you or anyone else is interested in authoritative insights on this, here's a good starting point: https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/addictive-behaviours-gaming-disorder
Yes, I don't believe there is a line such as you have mentioned because the difference between engagement and compulsion is only a matter of degree and varies from one individual to another. Indeed the link you gave illustrates how some individuals exhibit unhealthy compulsive behavior from overuse of an engaging product. Games are not generally considered to be "addictive" in the sense that it would warrant legal sanctions. The same could be said of social media addiction.
For clarity, I'm just talking about addiction here, not any of the other problems such as disinformation or active promotion of unhealthy or dangerous behavior. I think it's odd that the reporting is primarily focused on addiction, because it's the totality of these things that really makes it worthy of legal intervention.
Gambling is regulated, this isn't new or a big deal