A project of the Integrity InstituteConsider a radical idea: technology should serve the goals of its end-users rather than just serving the financial benefit of the people who created it, and when this is too far out of balance, Legislators should codify this principle in targeted, narrow legislation.
We've become accustomed to internet services optimizing their systems to predict and change our behavior. But that's not the only way the internet can work. The internet is at its best when it is a tool that extends the agency of the user, rather than a mechanism of control and manipulation.
The simplest example of this is Proactive Content Recommendation (PCR) - features that cajole, befuddle, and addict their users into spending more and more time on a platform through infinite feeds of attention grabbing content. Regulating these features is not only possible, but relatively simple.
Making the case against PCR, and the case for banning it at a legislative level, is too broad of a topic to be put on this single page, and it's also highly controversial, and doesn't fit cleanly into the rest of the goal of this site. Therefore, I've created a different site for this purpose, which you can access here:
The gist: PCR is a grave mistake that inverts our agent relationship with technology, and we have only a limited time left to grapple with it. If you are interested in exploring this idea with me, through academic work, model legislation, or just want to talk it through, please reach out to me.