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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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I’m not sure you could meaningfully enforce a ban on maximally addictive features simply because the entire industry is based on getting, holding and selling your attention. As tge saying goes, “if you’re not paying for it, you are the product.” You can’t really do anything unless you’re going to change the business model. The other option being paid subscription, which to my knowledge has never worked for a social media platform. And absent that, the incentive would be to be as addictive as possible, while avoiding the things the public associates with addictive content. This would be a constant arms race, and likely the social media platforms would win because they can always stay just on the legal side of the line and can deploy new techniques before the regulations can be drafted to stop them.