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).
Topic → Load More Button
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, that 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.
Alas, compared to addictive browsing, most site owners are probably more concerned about the lack of registered users on their forums.
I’ve never considered forums like Discourse to be social media.
Forums are built for depth. They organize discussions by topic, create searchable threads, and build knowledge over time. Social media is the opposite — fast, algorithm-driven, and focused on short-term engagement. It prioritizes speed and reach, not structure or long-term value.
Infinite scroll doesn’t change that — it changes how content is consumed, not what the platform is. It can make a forum feel more like social media by encouraging browsing and constant engagement, but if the core is still structured threads and long-term knowledge, it’s still a forum.
A UI feature does not define the platform. A forum is a forum.
I love these features; I wonder when Discourse will add them. 
Ignoring the premise if Discourse is social media or “just” a forum. (I think the latter)
- What are the technical implications of infinite scrolling. If my forum has 1,000,000 topics. What will happen when I keep scrolling?
- What about adding a “catch your breath after scrolling N units” notice? (When can come up with a cool/funny unit name, which isn’t “bananas” as reddit already uses that)
There is Take a break! Theme component. It’s not based on scrolling but based on the time you spend on the forum.
Hello, it seems to me that infinite scrolling isn’t inherently a good or bad technique. Whether it’s good or bad depends on the site’s theme and content. With that in mind, it’s not a bad idea to give administrators the option to use one technique or the other. But frankly, knowing the primary use of Discourse forums—which seems quite different from TikTok or Instagram—I seriously doubt this feature would be of any interest.
I think the problem here, as others mentioned, is conflating the term “infinite scroll” with “infinite content”.
As Richard mentioned here:
and as Jonathan mentioned with email too:
Discourse does not have infinite content, unlike social media — which keeps providing new randomized content nonstop (that you’ve never seen before) as you keep scrolling. That’s what makes it addictive.
Discourse and email do not constantly keep providing new random content if there is no more content at the bottom of the screen. You have a finite number of emails, just as there is a finite number of topics in a Discourse category or forum.
When browsing the homepage list of topics, you eventually reach the line on Discourse that marks the topics published since your last visit. And both Discourse and email visually indicate on the homepage the topics that you’ve read before, by un-bolding them, but they still keep them on your feed.
Whereas in social media feeds (on X/Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, BlueSky, etc), they don’t keep a static list of content ordered by date published - it’s an ever-changing feed of new content. Every time you open the homepage feed, it’s different, and they don’t show you things that you’ve seen before — they’re constantly pushing new unseen posts onto the feed. That’s not the case at all with Discourse. Discourse doesn’t remove topics that you’ve already seen from the homepage, and then keep shuffling random new topics onto your feed nonstop.
The term “infinite scroll” in Discourse does not refer to infinite content — it just refers to the mechanism by which the list is displayed, whether it is displayed by pages or a scroll feature. What’s more, I think your suggestion of the “Show More” button in the OP fundamentally is not that different to the existing feature — it just shows the next set of topics by a press of a finger rather than a swipe of a finger.
Trust me, it’s such a relief coming back to Discourse forums after having tried out those other sites at others’ behest — the addictive features on those sites are a completely different beast. If you’ve had to use them for a month at least (which I myself had never had to do before), you’ll start to understand how different they are to Discourse.
(If you haven’t used those sites for a month before, try it and then come back with your observations, as I’d be interested to hear your opinions. It was genuinely quite a shock to me seeing what other people in my generation have grown up with, as someone who has mainly limited herself to forums / blogs / articles / videos and the like when browsing for longform online content before)
There’s probably an argument that while Discourse forums do have infinite scroll (as defined in that New York law) it’s not a “significant part of the services” – at least, not when you compare them with Facebook and the others they’re trying to target.