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TikTok's 'Addictive Design' Found to Be Illegal in Europe in breach of the Digital Services Act
(digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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There's a big difference between infinite scrolling content that's using algorithms to specifically keep you scrolling and how Lemmy does it. On Lemmy that's a you problem not a capitalism problem.
It is subjective. I personally spend more time on non algorithmic feed than algorithm one. It is boring to keep seeing the same time of content most of the time
A social media's algorithm would optimize for engagement not content similarity.
So why when i interact with only niche content, the algotithms still show me only popular content?
On lemmy do you mean? It doesn't have personalized recommendation algorithms as far as I know or any content similarity algorithms. I think it's just a simple popularity by newness algorithm.
To clarify, I meant corporate social media companies will target engagement, and they will use personalized algos (not necessarily down to a user, could be group of similar users).
So for example if a user looks at some niche wood working content for example, they may mix in popular content that drives emotional response or is entertaining if that keeps people on the platform longer.
That's what I'm saying, it's not about content similarity necessarily, it's about showing whatever drives engagement / time on platform.
When you have a lot of user data, and a lot of content meta data, you can do that very well. To the point where you can trigger addictive behaviors. That's the issue with tiktok - but also other social media companies to lesser degrees
I mean on Instagram and Facebook . The algorithm is very static and hard to change
There is a strong correlation between similarity and engagement though. No matter how much engaging the content it there is a point where fatigue happen and I am fed up with the topic . The algorithm mare hard to modify like I used to care about video games and then I got fatigue , recommendation algorithm are still suggesting content I am no longer interesting it which make me bored and close the app.
Non-algorithmic feeds can facilitate a cycle of addiction through manual variety. By following diverse communities, I can rotate through interests switching from music to politics to sport which reset my attention span and prolonging my total time on the platform.
Non-algorithmic feeds are not free of rage baiting either. There is ton of fights in the comment of certain posts that are very time consuming and very unhealthy and I fall into it
Got it. My understanding is tiktok is on another level but have never used it.
It would surprise me if no one was doing content rotation strategies for specific user segments. similarity is a signal so is dissimilarity.
then, there will be spots that the algorithms fall apart.
But, I see what you are saying and yeah I've experienced similar, and agreed, even something simple like 'popular' has issues when driven by a score, as it can just maximize broad emotional response.
"This made me angry", does better than "this made me satisfied in life"