Attention capitalism has generated design processes and product development decisions that prioritize platform growth over all other considerations. To the extent limits have been placed on these incentives, interventions have primarily taken the form of content moderation. While moderation is important for what we call "acute harms," societal-scale harms -- such as negative effects on mental health and social trust -- require new forms of institutional transparency and scientific investigation, which we group under the term accountability infrastructure. This is not a new problem. In fact, there are many conceptual lessons and implementation approaches for accountability infrastructure within the history of public health. After reviewing these insights, we reinterpret the societal harms generated by technology platforms through reference to public health. To that end, we present a novel mechanism design framework and practical measurement methods for that framework. The proposed approach is iterative and built into the product design process, and is applicable for both internally-motivated (i.e. self regulation by companies) and externally-motivated (i.e. government regulation) interventions for a range of societal problems, including mental health. We aim to help shape a research agenda of principles for the design of mechanisms around problem areas on which there is broad consensus and a firm base of support. We offer constructive examples and discussion of potential implementation methods related to these topics, as well as several new data illustrations for potential effects of exposure to online content.

翻译：注意力资本主义催生了优先考虑平台增长而忽视其他因素的设计流程和产品开发决策。在对此类激励施加限制方面，干预措施主要体现为内容审核。尽管内容审核对处理我们所谓的"急性伤害"至关重要，但社会层面的伤害——例如对心理健康和社会信任的负面影响——需要新型制度透明度和科学调查，我们将这些统称为"问责基础设施"。这并非新问题。事实上，公共卫生史上存在许多关于问责基础设施的概念性经验与实施方法。在回顾这些见解后，我们通过参照公共卫生框架重新诠释技术平台产生的社会伤害。为此，我们提出一个新颖的机制设计框架及其配套的实用测量方法。该方案具有迭代性，并嵌入产品设计流程，既适用于内部驱动的干预（即企业自律），也适用于外部驱动的干预（即政府监管），可应对包括心理健康在内的多种社会问题。我们旨在推动形成一套围绕广泛共识且具有坚实支持基础的议题领域，进行机制设计原则的研究议程。我们提供了与这些主题相关的建设性案例和实施方法讨论，以及关于线上内容暴露潜在影响的若干新数据佐证。