00:00What if the next time you scroll through social media, you actually reached an end point?
00:05No autoplay or endless feed pulling you into a doom scroll.
00:09Perhaps a message that just says you're all caught up.
00:12Right now, that sounds impossible because these apps are built to be infinite.
00:17Our brains have adapted to expect it, even though it's a time suck that undermines our mental health.
00:22But Europe is trying to change that, and it's a worthy goal.
00:26A new proposal from the European Commission called the Digital Fairness Act would switch off addictive features by default.
00:33If you want them back, you'd have to go into the settings and turn them on yourself.
00:37That matters because these aren't neutral features.
00:40They're engagement hacks borrowed from gambling, like variable rewards.
00:45You don't know when the next hit is coming, so like a slot machine, you just keep scrolling.
00:50But the fight here isn't just technical, it's political.
00:52European leaders are targeting the engine of social media, and so tech lobbyists are pushing back.
00:59Out of 100 meetings that European politicians had with different organizations about the law over the past year,
01:0683% were with tech companies like Apple, Google, and Snap.
01:11These companies argue that the law is unnecessary and would kill innovation.
01:15But that's nonsense.
01:16It's actually answering a fundamental question.
01:19Should social media be allowed to manipulate our attention at scale?
01:23There's a real risk this plan gets killed, or watered down, or even just limited to children.
01:29But that would miss the point.
01:31Everyone is affected by addictive design patterns.
01:34In the past, public pressure combined with regulation broke the model of big tobacco.
01:40Now with more talk of national bans for kids and a landmark jury trial in the U.S.,
01:45social media is approaching a similar tipping point.
01:48The only question is whether a few European politicians hold the line,
01:53or let us keep doom scrolling.
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