Spain plans to ban social media for under-16s, with tougher age checks and penalties for platforms that boost illegal content via algorithms. 🇪🇸
The move, pitched as protecting kids from a “digital Wild West,” raises questions about enforcement, teen rights, and platform accountability across Europe ⚖️
"On a Thursday in early September, more than 40 strangers logged in to Instacart, the grocery-shopping app, to buy eggs and test a hypothesis.
Connected by videoconference, they simultaneously selected the same store — a Safeway in Washington, D.C. — and the same brand of eggs. They all chose pickup rather than delivery.
The only difference was the price they were offered: $3.99 for a couple of lucky shoppers. $4.59 or $4.69 for others. And a few saw a price of $4.79 — 20 percent more than some others, for the exact same product.
The shoppers were volunteers, participating in a study published on Tuesday and organized by the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy group, and Consumer Reports, a nonprofit consumer publication. In tests in four cities across the country, nearly 200 volunteers checked prices on 20 grocery items on Instacart.
On item after item, they found significant differences. In a Target in North Canton, Ohio, some shoppers were charged $3.59 for a jar of Skippy peanut butter that others could get for $2.99. At a Safeway in Seattle, some people paid $3.99 for a box of Wheat Thins while others paid $4.89. And at a Target in St. Paul, Minn., some people were charged $4.59 for a box of Cheerios that others could get for $3.99.
“Two shoppers who are buying the exact same item from the exact same store at the exact same time are getting different prices,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. “The data really backs up how extraordinarily pervasive this is.”
(...)
Groundwork’s findings are the latest example of how the notion of a single price, offered to all customers for a predictable period, is breaking down in the digital age. Companies are using sophisticated algorithms to adjust prices quickly in response to competitors’ offers and consumer behavior."
Tip of the day: Tired of missing out on the content you actually care about? 🥱 Add RSS feeds from blogs, news, YouTube, and podcasts in one organised, algorithm free place.
Surprised by data showing a decrease in the people who say they're afraid of climate change, even as climate-fuelled disasters grow? I'm not.
A big part of what’s driving this is the perfect storm of disinformation, polarization, and manipulation we're confronting today. As the clean energy transition accelerates, vested interests are doubling down on falsehoods and fear to delay it.
At the same time, social media algorithms — many deliberately optimized to amplify outrage and misinformation — are actively down-weighting factual information, boosting the trolls, and fracturing our sense of shared reality.
But there’s more to it than that. I saw this same downward trend in Canada after our devastating 2023 wildfire season. It turns out that when fear isn’t paired with a sense of efficacy — the belief that what we do matters — our defense mechanisms kick in. We disconnect, tune out, or even mock the very thing that frightens us.
“There's nothing I can do about it, so why should I care?”
That’s not apathy. It’s dissociation — a form of self-protection. But when it spreads, it leaves us even more vulnerable to what I've already discussed above: the rising tide of disinformation, polarization, and algorithmic manipulation deliberately designed to amplify confusion and delay the clean energy transition.
So what’s the antidote? Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has the answer: we need to know that others care and our actions matter: there is hope.
A map of the world showing falling concern over climate change. The source is the Forest Stewardship Alliance.
Another great topic by
@fedihost regarding #algorithms ... not the bad kind;) That could make the #fediverse an easier transition to newcomers and established users alike.
And don't forget if you want to get their videos right in you timeline, and have the ability to comment and like directly just follow the account above 👆