Senator Hawley Talks About The Right Big Tech Problems, But His “Solutions” Are Bonkers Andrew Torba, August 14, 2019August 19, 2019 Share this: A new bill has been proposed by Senator Josh Hawley which would limit the amount of time individuals could spend on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Gab. The legislation is called the “SMART-Act”, or Social Media Addiction Reduction Act in which Hawley is pushing to fight back against big tech, the way individuals focus spend their time on social media, and how private businesses can design their products. Ah just what I need, the government telling me how I can spend my time online. That’s a real solution folks! Some of the specifications of the legislation include limiting users to only thirty minutes a day before they are cut off, unless of course the user changes their allowance or turns the function off thereby making it useless. Another aspect includes changing the platforms all together by disabling the timelines from infinitely populating new content. Lovely, we should force private companies to change the essence of how their technology products work because the government says so. Cringe. What Senator Hawley’s bill doesBans infinite scroll, autoplay, and other addictive features on social mediaInfinite scroll, autoplay, and “achievements” such as “Snapstreak” exploit the science of addiction to make it difficult to leave a social media platformExceptions include music playlists, social media predominantly designed to stream music, and “achievement” badges that substantially increase access to new services or functionalitySocial media platforms would have to include natural stopping pointsRequires choice parity for consentCompanies would no longer be allowed to manipulate people into consenting by making it difficult to decline consentCompanies would have to design “accept” and “decline” boxes using the same formats, fonts, and sizesGives the FTC and HHS authority to ban other similar practicesRules would expire after 3 years unless ratified by CongressGives users power to monitor and control their use time on social mediaSocial media companies must provide an in-app tool that enables users to track the time they spend on social media across all devices and allows users to impose caps on the amount of time they spendwww.hawley.senate.gov One can empathize with Hawley, who is trying to make a name for himself in the Senate, but unfortunately like everything else government touches: the SMART-Act would be a destructive failure and would likely be highly unconstitutional in practice. Not to mention, users could also simply continue to refresh their feeds which will also give them the work around to load more content and change their time-limit settings to stay signed in. While it may be a slight inconvenience, it would definitely not stop them from continuing to open their phones or laptops to view social media sites and sit on them all day long. This bizarre bill would also take away individuals own free will to choose what they would like to do with their own time. There is a lot of content on social media that may be considered leisure time, but social media has also evolved more to be used for sources of information and news. It is also a place for connections and where users go build relationships with with other individuals that they have share common interests with. It’s also a place for family families and friends. Who is the government to tell me how to spend my time and where I spend it? The idea of limiting social media time for individuals is just not a plausible or sustainable solution. It’s just silly and it seems that Senator Hawley is looking for outrage clicks or something for attention. This is the dumbest way to fight back against big tech, in fact it reads like this bill came from The Onion. Senator Hawley means well, and he is certainly talking about all of the right problems when it comes to Big Tech, but his “solutions” thus far have been big government bonkers. Hi there! Gab is fully supported by people like you. If you want to help us on our mission to defend free expression online for all people and decentralize control of the internet away from Silicon Valley here is how you can help. Buy a VPN from one of our partners to secure your privacy and we may earn commission–Trust.Zone for Windows/Android–CyberGhostVPN for all operating systems Send bitcoin: 3DjemruRRvunHTHxNJbwoRCzCFWagw6vo2 Free yourself from Big Tech and reclaim your privacy-Create a free Gab.com, the free speech social network with over 1 million users and growing. –Install our free web browser, Dissenter, to block Big Tech trackers and ads and comment on any URL on the internet (including on this post!) Big Tech gabgovernmentjosh hawley
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Big Tech A Convenient List Of Tech Companies Who Hate The 2nd Amendment And Support Red Flag Laws September 12, 2019September 12, 2019 Share this: Read More
Big Tech Google, Apple, And Mozilla Block Kazakh Surveillance System, But Continue To Use Their Own On You August 21, 2019August 21, 2019 Share this:Good news everyone. Big Tech is putting a stop to Kazakhstan spying! Bad news everyone. Big Tech isn’t putting a stop to their own spying on your inbox, web traffic, purchasing history, and more. Borat isn’t very happy and you shouldn’t be either. Read More