The Lazy Data Research (TLDR) Institute has made available a charmingly voice-acted reading of the terms of service of Instagram and Tik Tok.
"It's very soothing indeed," said Isak Landaboure Lengholm, one of the founders of the group. "After the initial excitement, we all got very sleepy when recording it."
(I won't lie, I also nodded off when listening to it.)
So which terms of service is worse? Per Lengholm, that would be Instagram's. The TikTok ToS, dating to November 2022, seemed to go "above and beyond to be relatable following all their legal issues," making it easier to follow than the newly updated Instagram ToS, which was updated to account for regulatory shifts in the European market.
"That being said, all of them balance the fine line of being almost understandable and completely incomprehensible at the same time," he added. "Occasionally, it's like you're stuck in a fever dream."
It's perfect for falling asleep to while you consider the consequences of not reading these vast, sprawling, incomprehensible, one-sided contracts, such as facing jail time when Meta sends your private messages to the police after you get your daughter abortion pills.
I had problems playing them. I think they're overloaded. Via Hacker News, an archive.org copy is available, but only for the Insta version.
