Stating some of the points another way: Discourse gives unread and history and then I run into decision-making. Social feeds mix unread and repeats and prioritizes what will keep me scrolling. Not a lawyer but I can’t imagine a scenario where Discourse meets the criteria for addictive scrolling. And I agree if there’s time energy and resources a setting could be enabled where admins could choose to disable infinite scroll if there are concerns about how the forum content might be part of this sort of issue. Also chat is infinite scroll as well so it seems they will have to set some precedents. I’m not here to argue any point though. Just appreciate the topic and the opinions raised will help us stay mindful of any concerns that might arise as well in our own community. Cheers.
It looks as though a Discourse forum would probably meet the criteria for “infinite scroll” but not “addictive feed”, though only one of these (or “likes” etc) is needed for it to be an “addictive social media platform”.
“That is no excuse,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.”
“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is an ass—an idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”
I was going to write a response stating that I really don’t think Discourse meets the requirements for an “addictive social media platform” only because it has a so-called “infinite scroll” feature
but then I decided that I am not a lawyer and I would be better off putting my technical skills to work.
Here is a (quite hacky) theme component that intercepts the automatic “load more” functionality. It inserts a button and it requires the user to press the button before it loads more (topics / posts / users / groups / whatever you were looking at).
Preview → https://discourse.theme-creator.io/theme/RGJ/load-more-button
Repo → GitHub - communiteq/discourse-tc-load-more-button · GitHub
So there you have it, the law only applies to loading additional media “without any manual input from a covered user”. This theme component adds manual input, so the law does not apply.
End of discussion 
My kids are still not wearing a bike helmet either.
I don’t think it would be very hard to build this into core behind a site setting.