[HN Gopher] Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ba...
___________________________________________________________________
Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media
for kids < 16
Author : vinnyglennon
Score : 276 points
Date : 2024-01-29 13:20 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (abcnews.go.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (abcnews.go.com)
| akerl_ wrote:
| This makes me think of how, as a child, every site asked "are you
| over 13", and I diligently clicked "yes". Some more clever sites
| asked for my birth year... forcing me to do the arduous work of
| taking the current year and subtracting 14.
|
| Though I suppose the real plan here is to pass the law and then
| have the government selectively prosecute social media companies
| for having users under 16.
| ratg13 wrote:
| Just a guess .. but I get the feeling the 'law' is more to get
| this in the mind of the parents.
|
| It gives parents tools and guidelines that can help them direct
| their children.
|
| Whether this is a good approach or not, is a whole other
| argument.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| It also gives the parents an excuse to limit their children.
|
| "I'm not being mean, it's the law."
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Anyone who turned on a dome light in a car during the night
| knows you don't need an actual law on the books to do that
| akerl_ wrote:
| The legislature is claiming out loud that the law is because
| parents don't have the ability to do this on their own.
| tnbp wrote:
| Some more clever sites asked for my birth year... forcing me to
| do the arduous work of taking the current year and subtracting
| 14.
|
| But why? You could have just picked a year that worked, and
| sticked with it. Obviously, there's no way of telling _which_
| year works, but you could have bruteforced that just once.
| m2fkxy wrote:
| probably the thrill of living on the edge.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Arithmetic under stress is a helluva drug.
| justinclift wrote:
| > Obviously, there's no way of telling which year works
|
| Um, it's simple maths. Guessing you're meaning something else
| though?
| Dalewyn wrote:
| > have the government selectively prosecute social media
| companies for having users under 16.
|
| The US government is already legally mandated to prosecute
| companies known to harbor information, collected online,
| concerning minors less than 13 years old without consent from
| their parents or legal guardians.[1]
|
| It's why Youtube blocks comments and doesn't personalize ads on
| videos published for kids, to pick out a prominent example.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Prot...
|
| Obligatory IANAL.
| lupire wrote:
| Laws are getting stricter. Around the world, there is
| increasing regulatory requirement for businesses to actively
| investigate user behavior (tracking!) to identify and exclude
| underage users who are concealing their age.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I think it's better to give the media companies a requirement
| and let them figure it out rather than government mandate how
| they do it.
| akerl_ wrote:
| What if we didn't give them a mandate and then they didn't
| figure it out? The fix for social media is not "wait til 17
| to expose kids to it".
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| I don't think enforcement actually needs to be very tightly
| controlled. The barriers that are put in place like the one you
| describe are already enough to create a social milieu where
| parents and kids with think twice about these things and
| understand that there is a recognised harm potential.
|
| There's nothing stopping you pouring your youngsters a glass of
| wine with dinner, but as a society we've made the dangers of
| alcohol and similar things so well understood that no parent
| wants to.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > as a society we've made the dangers of alcohol and similar
| things so well understood that no parent wants to.
|
| Unfortunately, as a society, we have a much harder time
| grasping social media threat data. I suppose some of that is
| due to how news orgs consistently+bizarrely+hugely
| overstating the actual harms in the data.
|
| https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/08/leading-save-the-kids-
| ad...
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Oh totally! What I'm saying is that laws like this, even
| when not enforceable per se, can help move society towards
| that understanding.
| riffic wrote:
| it was always appropriate to lie and make up a fake age / date
| of birth on those signup pages.
| rtkwe wrote:
| If the year was a scroll box I was always about a flick and a
| half old which often ends up in the 60s so they had some odd
| age metrics.
| ok123456 wrote:
| A small transaction would cover 99% of cases (e.g., pay a
| dollar that's immediately refunded). It would stop kids from
| casually creating accounts. The kids who can do this are
| already precocious enough to bypass any other verification
| steps you could come up with.
|
| Maybe if they use a profile pic that you algorithmically
| determine is someone underage, you could do some additional
| checks. The smart ones would learn not to utilize a profile pic
| of themselves, which would ultimately be better.
| rndmnflnce wrote:
| You could even shave a fraction of a penny off with each
| transaction and they would never notice!
| wrsh07 wrote:
| Lol I just always added 10 to my birth year
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Yeah, similarly I had just gotten used to entering an elder
| sibling's birthday whenever asked. Adding these arbitrary age
| restrictions does nothing but make it increasingly obvious to
| kids how little our leaders and other supporters of these
| arbitrary age restrictions actually care.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I can't see how this could pass 1st amendment scrutiny.
| goda90 wrote:
| How would it be different than age restricting voting, driving,
| or alcohol and tobacco sales? It seems there's precedent for
| treating minors differently than adults in many ways.
| nickjj wrote:
| > age restricting voting, driving, or alcohol and tobacco
| sales
|
| I think those things are a bit more black and white.
|
| How do you define social media? Is HN social media? You
| engage with others through comments, posts are ranked and it
| has voting elements as well as your profile has a gamified
| score for upvotes. Is a Disqus comment on any website social
| media if that's how we broadly define social media? Where do
| we draw the line?
|
| You could make a case that leaving reviews on a site are a
| form of social media too. You can post something there and
| feel like you need to check back in hopes someone leaves a
| like or replies. If it were a wearable item you might take a
| picture of yourself and now hope people engage with it.
| bhpm wrote:
| The social media platforms the bill would target include
| any site that tracks user activity, allows children to
| upload content or uses addictive features designed to cause
| compulsive use.
| mccrory wrote:
| Then they can say goodbye to most online gaming. I wonder
| how people will feel about this when they realize their
| kids can't play games anymore?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Pretty good. Pretty good. I would go to argue that online
| games do more harm than good to children and teenagers.
| In many ways banning them from playing them might steer
| them to more productive use of time.
| serialNumber wrote:
| Must children's use of time be "productive"? They have
| their whole lives to be productive - outright banning
| video games is not the solution in my eyes
| mbreese wrote:
| At the time, Fortnite and Minecraft (and more) were my
| son's way to socialize with friends. That was how they
| hung out (pre Covid). I can honestly say it would have
| been detrimental to him from a mental health perspective
| if those outlets didn't exist or if kids were blocked
| from them.
|
| Drawing the lines between what types of media are and
| aren't allowed is a major issue with this type of law,
| regardless of if you think it's a good idea or not.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| According to another comment[1], video games are
| exempted.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39176380
| mccrory wrote:
| This exempts almost everyone and everything. lol
| nickjj wrote:
| That covers a massive range.
|
| "I hope someone likes my review" is not that much
| different than "I hope someone likes my tweet" or "I hope
| someone replies to my IG post" or "I hope someone replies
| to my HN comment".
|
| All 4 scenarios trigger the same thing which is setting
| up a future expectation that's hopefully met while you
| wait with anticipation of the event. Is that the process
| they are trying to get a handle on?
|
| Personally I don't know how any of that could get
| enforced. Even making the internet read-only wouldn't
| work because that wouldn't stop people from internally
| comparing themselves to someone else who is allowed to
| post. Although that type of thing has been going on since
| advertising existed.
| bhpm wrote:
| What products are children reviewing?
| zo1 wrote:
| You could come up with corner cases and odd delineations
| for those former examples too. Yet we all know the gist of
| the laws and manage to somehow, on the aggregate, prevent
| kids from engaging in said activity.
|
| E.g. alcohol. How do we stop kids form drinking alcohol?
| How do you define alcohol? What about kids medicine that
| includes alcohol, what about medical procedures that insert
| substances with alcohol content. What about shops that get
| conned by kids with fake ID. What if the label gets
| scratched off and kid doesn't know it had alcohol. What if
| a parent gives their child a sip of beer. What about old
| home remedies that include whiskey. What about colic
| medicine that has alcohol, okay What about carving
| exceptions for babies, etc etc etc.
|
| Granted some of those are contrived, but it's not as black
| and White as you think.
| internet101010 wrote:
| I would define it as a platform where the primary focus is
| for users post visual content of themselves.
| erellsworth wrote:
| I think the difference would be in enforcement and what that
| would imply. How do you verify someone's age online without
| exposing that person to unwarranted tracking? Do we want to
| just say social media anonymity is dead?
| pfdietz wrote:
| There's no constitutional right to drive, smoke, or drink
| alcohol.
|
| As for voting, it's constitutionally mandated that 18 or
| older can vote, which implies there's no constitutional
| mandate for anyone younger.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Minors do not have full constitutional rights when it comes
| to free speech. We've had SC precedence for this for 50+
| years, thanks to Ginsberg v. New York.
|
| >"In Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968), the Supreme
| Court upheld a harmful to minors, or "obscene as to
| minors," law, affirming the illegality of giving persons
| under 17 years of age access to expressions or depictions
| of nudity and sexual content for "monetary consideration."
|
| >Judge Fuld of the Nassau County District Court had
| convicted Sam Ginsberg, who owned a small convenience store
| in Long Island, New York, where he sold "adult magazines"
| and was accused of selling them to a 16-year-old boy on two
| occasions."
|
| It's not good for kids to have unrestricted access to
| pornography in the same way that it's not good for them to
| have access to unrestricted social media.
| summerlight wrote:
| The legal restriction needs to be very specific and
| demonstrate a good trade-off between societal gain and harms
| on the individual's right, not something a clean cut like
| many folks misunderstand.
|
| Alcohol and Tobacco are pretty straightforward in the public
| health context. And you probably don't want your toddlers to
| drive a car given the risk. The voting age is an exception as
| it's defined in the 26th amendment. I consider it as
| political compromise though.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| There's no downside to passing unconstitutional bills. They
| just need to become law and remain in effect long enough to be
| useful in electoral campaigns. When the courts strike the law
| down, they'll be painted as activist justices and yadda yadda
| we've seen all this before.
| Ekaros wrote:
| 2nd amendment seems to already been over turned. Children
| cannot own for example fully automatic weapons. And in some
| states firearms in general.
| _dark_matter_ wrote:
| > 2nd amendment seems to already been over turned. Children
| cannot own for example fully automatic weapons.
|
| Just as the founding fathers intended, children brandishing
| fully automatic firearms. James Madison is turning in his
| grave!
| lsiunsuex wrote:
| The 2nd amendment is very much alive and kicking. Those of us
| that would like to defend ourselves will fight for 2A.
|
| To your point, children cannot own weapons. Most states are a
| minimum 18 years old for if not 21.
|
| Full automatic weapons have been banned from civilian
| production for decades now. Semi automatic weapons are not
| weapons of war; are not the death machines non-gun owners
| think they are.
|
| I was very anti gun until we (the wife and I) had a need to
| defend ourselves. We were literally put in a self defense
| position. We're both all in now and actively train ourselves
| and educate ourselves. More so, friends that are anti gun are
| no longer anti gun once they go to the range with me and are
| educated on what a semi automatic weapon actually is.
|
| TL;DR - anyone anti gun is simple uneducated in the matter.
| oblio wrote:
| I'm confused, what does this have to do with freedom of speech?
|
| Also, do kids even <<have>> freedom of speech?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Freedom of speech has ~2 definitions in the US... first, the
| legal definition (with the Constitution and related case
| law). A second, the general notion of being literally free to
| make speech however/whenever one wants without intrusion for
| anybody at all (government or otherwise).
|
| In this case, we're sort of at the edge of the legal
| definition. Social media can be viewed as the modern version
| of the town square (can be, isn't 100% proven out in law
| yet). If one takes that statement as valid, then the
| government cannot regulate speech through social media
| without a very good reason.
|
| But, minors don't have the exact same rights as adults for
| various reasons (guns, alcohol, privacy at school, etc).
|
| My general impression (IANAL)... the government can likely
| limit minors' speech on media platforms, however that limit
| would have to very specific and tightly defined so as not to
| deny speech to adults. The devil is in the details
| (implementation)... the legality probably hinges on what
| method is required to verify age.
| mrstumpy wrote:
| Children don't have the same standing with the constitution as
| adults. I don't remember the exact term but children have their
| rights restricted all the time. They do not have free speech in
| school for instance. They certainly have limits to their second
| amendment freedoms. So I don't think this bill will have
| constitutional issues. Personally, I'm all for a federal
| restriction on addictive social media for kids.
| pfdietz wrote:
| So, a law preventing children from receiving religious
| instruction would also be constitutional, in your mind?
| etiennebausson wrote:
| Spirituality (and religion) are personal choice. There is
| no "religious education" for children, only indoctrination.
| It may be legal, but it is in no way moral.
| pfdietz wrote:
| This is not an answer to the question I asked.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I can think of a few reasons. This doesn't prevent children
| from criticizing the government. The 1st amendment doesn't
| guarantee a platform. Children aren't legally the same as
| adults.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I'm not sure 1st amendment legally applies to minors since they
| are legally under their parent's jurisdiction.
| perihelions wrote:
| Here's the current status of state cases, if anyone's curious:
|
| - _" FIRE's lawsuit asks Utah to halt enforcement of the law
| and declare it invalid. Other states -- including New Jersey
| and Louisiana -- are proposing and enacting similar laws that
| threaten Americans' fundamental rights. In Arkansas and Ohio,
| courts have blocked enforcement of these laws."_
|
| https://www.thefire.org/news/lawsuit-utahs-clumsy-attempt-ch...
| ( _" Lawsuit: Utah's clumsy attempt to childproof social media
| is an unconstitutional mess"_)
|
| I.e. at least four states' legislatures have passed laws like
| this, federal injunctions have paused two. Two others (Utah,
| Louisiana) aren't in effect yet.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Minors don't have the same First Amendment rights as adults.
| For example, government-run schools can have speech codes that
| students must obey. Although I have not read this bill, the
| general notion blurs the line between speech and action a bit,
| which would make it easier to pass muster.
| piperswe wrote:
| My understanding is that minors _do_ have first amendment
| rights, and school restrictions on speech can only apply to
| instances which disrupt the learning environment.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Yes, they do have First Amendment rights, just not to the
| same degree as adults. This is the same as other rights --
| they can't buy guns, vote, etc. either. The point is that
| it's definitely not a slam dunk case as claimed. I'd love
| to hear a constitutional lawyer weigh in, if there are any
| here. I used to be a lawyer, but this was never my
| specialty.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| No way. They're essentially property.
|
| If someone could extralegally ground me with no devices
| if I say something they don't like (provided that it's
| speech protected under the First Amendment -- since not
| all speech is), I essentially have no First Amendment
| right.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean. Can you explain?
| goda90 wrote:
| I'm still on the fence about government doing a parent's job
| here, especially for kids under 13, but I can't stand that no one
| pushing these bills has come up with an actually reasonable age
| verification method.
| bamboozled wrote:
| You could say the same about smoking I guess ?
|
| For kids under 13 to see any of the content , ask them to enter
| a credit card ?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Adults should not have to enter a credit card to, say, read
| HN. But kids should. And therein lies the problem...
| thsksbd wrote:
| Why not? Honestly asking here.
|
| Let's assume oposition to the law is a "progressive"
| position:
|
| If there is a constitutional right to absolutely 100%
| friction free access to information then what happens to
| all the barriers the government has erected to access
| covid, Trump, Russia and other "disinformation" progressive
| pushed for?
|
| (You can invert this example for a right wing if you want)
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Not everyone has a credit card. Some people cannot obtain
| a credit card. People under the age of 18 can also have a
| credit card. I do not trust random sites with my credit
| card.
| thsksbd wrote:
| So these are objections in practice, not principle.
| Important but consider:
|
| - Most states give free IDs
|
| - Your safety concern is addressed by other commenters
| here (see the verifying age anonymously)
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| How about this: I don't want every little thing I do on
| the internet tracked and tied to my real identity?
|
| Is the CCP conducting a psyops on HN right now or
| something? Since when were we all for every tiny
| interaction you have on the internet requiring you to
| look in the scanner and say "My name is X and I love my
| government and McDonalds"?
| CaptainFever wrote:
| HN seems to have become a lot more mainstream, in
| comparison to the old cyberlibertarian "privacy and
| piracy" days.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Where's the new hangout?
| djfdat wrote:
| Gut check was that the "Most states give free IDs"
| statement wouldn't hold up. So I checked real quick.
|
| "At least eight states issue free or discounted IDs to
| low-income or homeless residents and at least 10 states
| waive ID fees for seniors."
|
| That's far from most states, and even then it comes with
| stipulations.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| You changed the argument from credit card to government
| Id (an even worse idea imo).
|
| You seem to want the law to be that I need to show ID to
| enter most internet establishments. I will never, ever,
| ever hold that opinion.
| frumper wrote:
| Growing up I remember the trope about showing papers to
| do anything in the USSR. It was in direct contrast to the
| display of freedom in America.
| jMyles wrote:
| > If there is a constitutional right to absolutely 100%
| friction free access to information then what happens to
| all the barriers the government has erected to access
| covid, Trump, Russia and other "disinformation"
| progressive pushed for?
|
| ...those barriers go away. They never really existed in
| the first place in any real way. Like the Great Firewall,
| they were a polite fiction defining what people are
| allowed to know, but were trivially circumvented from
| minute zero.
|
| This is one of the most reliable and desirable features
| of the internet in the first place.
| Goronmon wrote:
| _I 'm still on the fence about government doing a parent's job
| here, especially for kids under 13, but I can't stand that no
| one pushing these bills has come up with an actually reasonable
| age verification method._
|
| How do you anonymously verify someone's age?
| goda90 wrote:
| Anonymous credentials. A central authority with verified age
| information of each person grants credentials that verify the
| age to third parties, but the authentication tokens used with
| the third party can't be used by the third party nor the
| central authority to identify anything else about the
| credential holder.
| bonton89 wrote:
| This is technically possible but politically impossible.
| Any system you make like this will get special government
| peaking exceptions added making it non-anonymous and
| probably rank corruption from industry lobbying will add
| some sort of user tracking for sale with data that is
| poorly anonymized. Once the sham system is in place they'll
| probably expand the requirement to other things.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Then there is a data breach, and _every person in the
| country_ is de-anonymized.
|
| No thank you.
| tzs wrote:
| A data breach where?
|
| The central authority should be someplace that already
| has your non-anonymous ID data, so using your ID for age
| verification doesn't give them any new ID information.
| The only new thing that them doing age verification adds
| is that they might keep a list of verification tokens
| they have issued.
|
| Someone who obtained copies of the verification tokens
| you requested might go to various social media sites and
| ask them who used those tokens, allowing matching up your
| social media identities with your real identity.
|
| That's fixed by making it so the token that is given to
| the social media site is not the token that came from
| site that checked your ID. You give the social media site
| a transformed token that you transform in such a way that
| the social media site can recognize that it was made from
| a legitimate token from the ID checker but does not match
| anything on the list of tokens that the ID checker has
| for you.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Would you care to elaborate?
| tzs wrote:
| Say you have a user U who wishes to demonstrate to site S
| that they are at least 16, and we have a site G that
| already has a copy of U's government ID information.
|
| Here's one way to do it, with an important security
| measure omitted for now for simplicity.
|
| * S gives U a token.
|
| * U gives G that token and shows G their ID.
|
| * G verifies that U is at least 16, and then signs the
| token with a key that they only use for "over 16" age
| verifications. The signed token is given back to U.
|
| * U gives the signed token back to S.
|
| If G saves a list of tokens it signs and who it signed
| them for, and S saves a list of tokens it issues and what
| accounts it issued them for, then someone who gets both
| of those lists could look for tokens that appear on both
| in order to match up S accounts with real IDs.
|
| To prevent that we have to make an adjustment. G has to
| sign the token using a blind signature. A blind signature
| is similar to a normal digital signature, except the the
| signer does not see the thing they are signing. All they
| see is an encrypted copy of the thing.
|
| With that change a breach of G just reveals that you had
| your age verified and gives the encrypted token
| associated with that verification. These no longer match
| what is in the records of the sites you proved your age
| to since they only have the non-encrypted tokens.
|
| Someone with both breaches might be able to match up
| timestamps, so even though they can't match the tokens
| from S directly with the encrypted tokens from G they
| might note that you had your age verified at time T, and
| so infer that you might be the owner of one of the S
| accounts that had a token created before T and returned
| after T.
|
| This would be something people trying to stay anonymous
| would have to be careful with. Don't go through the full
| signup as fast as possible--wait a while before getting
| the token signed, and wait a while before returning the
| signed token. Then someone who is looking at a particular
| anonymous S account will have a much larger list of items
| in the G breach that have a consistent timestamp.
|
| Also note that to G it is just being asked to sign opaque
| blobs. Occasionally have G sign random blobs. If your G
| data shows that you are getting your age verified a few
| times a month, then it is even more likely that if one of
| those verifies is at about the same time as a particular
| social media signup it is just a coincidence.
| hn_acker wrote:
| > The central authority should be someplace that already
| has your non-anonymous ID data, so using your ID for age
| verification doesn't give them any new ID information.
| The only new thing that them doing age verification adds
| is that they might keep a list of verification tokens
| they have issued.
|
| But the central authority, a third party, will get a
| heads-up every time someone - whether child or adult -
| logs into the social media site. That's a privacy
| violation. Even if the verification system were set up in
| such a way that the third party wouldn't be able to know
| which exact website I'm trying to visit, the third party
| would be able to track how frequently I visit websites
| that require age verification. With just this law, it
| would be "you visited social media during X, Y, and Z
| times." With extensions of this law to other kinds of
| websites, it would be "you visited social media or porn
| or violent video games or alcohol sites during X, Y, and
| Z times", which obfuscates the kind of website I visit
| but also makes the internet into something I have to whip
| out an ID for just to use.
|
| > That's fixed by making it so the token that is given to
| the social media site is not the token that came from
| site that checked your ID. You give the social media site
| a transformed token that you transform in such a way that
| the social media site can recognize that it was made from
| a legitimate token from the ID checker but does not match
| anything on the list of tokens that the ID checker has
| for you.
|
| Is it possible to transform the token such that the
| social media site would be able to link it to your
| identity but an attacker who gains access to the social
| media site's data wouldn't? If so, I'd appreciate an
| example of a transformation for such a purpose. But it
| doesn't wipe out my privacy concern, that I - or anyone
| else - wouldn't be able to log in to a social media site
| without letting a third party know against my will.
| kaibee wrote:
| > But the central authority, a third-party, will get a
| heads-up every time someone - whether child or adult -
| logs into the social media site. That's a privacy
| violation.
|
| Why would you do age verification on login? It only needs
| to happen once on account creation.
| hn_acker wrote:
| > Why would you do age verification on login? It only
| needs to happen once on account creation.
|
| Oops. That slipped my mind. For sites that require log-
| in, my previous comment is wrong.
|
| I had unconsciously assumed that at least one site would
| implement the age verification system without requiring
| users to make accounts to browse the site. In this
| comment, I will make explicitly make that assumption. For
| sites without log-in walls but with government-mandated
| age verification, the concerns in my previous comment
| would apply. But sites with log-in walls have their own
| privacy problems independent of age verification, chief
| being that having to log in means letting the first party
| site track how often I use the site. A different problem
| (not necessarily privacy-related, but can be) of log-in
| walls is that I would be forced to create accounts. If I
| don't wish to deal with the burden of making accounts,
| then I won't browse the website. If the website made a
| log-in wall in response to an age verification mandate
| from a government, then my First Amendment right to
| access the speech the website wished to provide will have
| been chilled.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| > But the central authority, a third party, will get a
| heads-up every time someone - whether child or adult -
| logs into the social media site.
|
| Why? i imagine this could be a "they've signed my key"
| situation, no requests needing to go up the tree further
| then necessary...
| jlokier wrote:
| > But the central authority, a third party, will get a
| heads-up every time someone - whether child or adult -
| logs into the social media site. That's a privacy
| violation. Even if the verification system were set up in
| such a way that the third party wouldn't be able to know
| which exact website I'm trying to visit, the third party
| would be able to track how frequently I visit websites
| that require age verification.
|
| It doesn't have to work like this.
|
| It's technically possible to do verification such that
| the authority (probably the government which already has
| a database with your age), doesn't get _any_
| communication when verification takes place. They 'd have
| no idea which sites you visit or join, or how often.
|
| And the site which receives the verification token
| doesn't learn anything about you other than your age is
| enough. They don't even learn your age or birthday. They
| couldn't tell the government about you even if
| subpoenaed.
|
| (But if you tell them on your birthday that you are now
| old enough, having been unable to the day before, they'll
| be able to guess of course so it's not perfect in that
| way.)
|
| Using modern cryptography, you don't send the authority-
| issued ID to anyone, as that would reveal too much.
| Instead, on your own device you generate unique,
| encrypted proofs that say you possess an ID meeting the
| age requirement. You generate these as often as you like
| for different sites, and they cannot be correlated among
| sites. These are called zero-knowledge proofs.
|
| They work for other things than age too. For example, to
| show you are an approved investor, or have had specific
| healthcare or chemical safety training, or possess a
| certain amount of credit without revealing how much, or
| are citizen with voting rights, or are a shareholder with
| voting rights, without revealing anything else about who
| you are.
| hn_acker wrote:
| Do you mean that I can get a permanent age-verification
| key from the third-party authority, then never have to
| contact the authority again (unless I want a new key)? If
| so (and assuming that zero knowledge proofs, which I'm
| not very familiar with, work), then my privacy concerns
| are resolved. (Well, I don't want the authority to keep a
| copy of my verification key, but FOSS code and client-
| side key generation should be feasible.)
| tzs wrote:
| An example of the kind of token transformation I'm
| thinking of follows.
|
| Assume RSA signatures from the site that looks at your ID
| having public key (e,m) where e is the exponent and m is
| the modules, and private key d. The signature s of a blob
| of data, b, that you give them is b^d mod m.
|
| To verify the signature one computes s^e mod m and checks
| if that matches b.
|
| Here's the transformation. You generate a random r from 1
| to m-1 such that r is relatively prime to m. Compute r'
| such that r r' = 1 mod m.
|
| Instead of sending b to be signed, send b r^e mod m.
|
| The signature s of b r^e is (b r^e)^d mod m = b^d r mod
| m.
|
| You take that signature and multiply by r'. That gives
| you b^d mod m. Note that this is the signature you would
| have gotten had you sent them b to sign instead of b r^e.
|
| Net result: you've obtained the signature of b, but the
| signing site never saw b. They just saw b r^e mod m.
|
| That gives them no useful information about b, due to r
| being a random number that you picked (assuming you used
| a good random number generator!).
|
| For any possible b, as long as it is relatively prime to
| m, there is some r that would result in b r^e having the
| same signature as your b, so the signing site has no way
| to tell which is really yours.
|
| b is unlikely to not be relatively prime to m. If m is
| the product of two large primes, as is common, b is
| relatively prime to it unless one of those primes divides
| b. We can ensure that b is relatively prime to m by
| simply limiting b to be smaller than either of the prime
| factors of m. Since those factors are likely to each be
| over a thousand bits this is not hard. In practice b
| would probably be something like a random 128 bits.
| ip26 wrote:
| Third party, perhaps. You sign up for service A. Service A
| queries service B, which knows who you are and provides a
| one-time ack of your age.
| tnbp wrote:
| That sounds nightmarish. I don't want the verifier to know
| what porn sites I visit. Someone else proposed the
| following system to me: a third party authority issues a
| certificate which I can then use to prove I'm 18. The CA
| cannot see where I use the certificate, though.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Er... The CA needs to be used to verify the certificate
| by the third party, ergo it will know the websites.
|
| It's virtually impossible to make a verification system
| that's anonymous. _Somewhere_ the third party and
| authenticator will need to share a secret that you cannot
| touch.
|
| Furthermore, you would need the government to agree to
| this system and mandate this system universally and pay
| for the authentication services to exist. That's not what
| Florida is doing.
| zo1 wrote:
| While people are on the fence about it, our children are having
| their youth, innocence and brains destroyed by tiktok et al.
| Those platforms are cancer to adults even, let alone
| impressionable kids... yet here we are still debating it and
| faffing around about "1st amendment yaddi yadda".
| Clubber wrote:
| >children are having their youth, innocence and brains
| destroyed by tiktok
|
| For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken
| seriously. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because the
| news is nothing but hyperbole these days, so it's easy to
| pick up the habit. Second, most kids aren't having "their
| youth, innocence and brains destroyed." The news takes the
| edge cases, amplifies them and presents it as the norm to
| peddle fear because fear sells. Nothing ever is bad as the
| news makes it out to be, but they gotta make a dollar, you
| see how bad the news business is since the internet?
|
| FWIW, my kid uses social media and just connects with her
| friends. Nothing overly malicious goes on, they just goof
| off. I've checked.
|
| You really wanna protect the kids from anxiety and whatnot,
| block the news and all the talking heads trying to manipulate
| the next generation to their political opinions.
| zo1 wrote:
| I exaggerate for a reason, because I feel strongly about it
| and think that it does do those things in a literal sense.
|
| Besides, I've consumed tiktok and seen the content. It is
| nowhere near appropriate for children, it's night and day.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| Don't minimize what's going on.
|
| There's a massive rise in depression in young children. The
| teen suicide rate has almost doubled.
|
| The idea that you know what's going on, on their social
| media is pretty funny. Certainly what every adult always
| assumed about me. And now that I have kids, I can see how
| easily other kids fool their parents all the time.
|
| And what's overly malicious? It may be social media itself
| without anything bad driving this. Merely seeing a
| sanitized version of people's lives over and over again,
| without anyone bullying you, that leads to depression
| because your life isn't as good.
|
| No. Don't block the news. Because then you miss important
| things like this.
| https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/youth-
| mental-h...
| Clubber wrote:
| I think if you wanted to reduce teen suicide a
| significant amount, banning social media isn't going to
| do it. It certainly isn't responsible for half. Of course
| banning it doesn't cost the government any money, so it's
| top of the list as opposed to any real solutions.
|
| You also cherry picked your stats. If you open a larger
| window, the current teen suicide rate is not as abnormal
| as you are making it out to be.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm
|
| Perhaps all the fear mongering is having an effect on
| their mental state, no? Teens don't yet realize that most
| of the world is phony bullshit.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Umm, that chart is 10 years out of date - it ends in
| 2015; the beginning of the social media era.
|
| The current teen suicide rate is ~62 / 100K, which is
| just about double (or triple!) the last value in that
| chart. And is also an anomaly over the last 40 years.
| ditto664 wrote:
| > For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken
| seriously.
|
| I disagree that this is hyperbole. It's a huge problem
| among kids. Literacy rates are dropping. Listen to the
| stories you hear from teachers.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Teachers have ALWAYS made those screams. My mother, a
| french teacher always complained that before she could
| teach kids french, she had to teach them how to read a
| clock, how to do math, and how the days of the week work
| (these were fifth graders mind you). She blamed education
| policy, but this is nothing more than what happens when
| 30% of your students are in poverty.
|
| The reality is that some percentage of students will
| always fall through the cracks, and the human brain loves
| to blame whatever is "new" for problems that are "new"
| _to you_. This has been a problem for teachers since at
| least the No Child Left Behind policy, and even goes as
| far back as Socrates bemoaning his students being
| terrible because books meant they didn 't have to have
| perfect memories.
|
| Students suffered because covid was both a huge
| disruption to their education, and parents freaked out
| instead of trying to handle it (and plenty of people
| literally could not handle it anyway). It doesn't help
| that half the country openly cries that education is
| nothing more than liberal indoctrination, and openly
| downplay the value of even basic education, like the
| three Rs, and claims that anything higher than a high
| school education is also liberal indoctrination, is
| "woke", and is valueless.
|
| I 100% hate tiktok, but I don't think it is (currently)
| being used to mentally attack the US. Maybe someday if we
| are ever at war with China, but right now they are
| content believing that inclusivity is toxic on it's own.
| I don't think tiktok changes people's brain
| significantly. I do think it is extremely low value way
| to spend time, and that it is addictive, two serious
| issues when taken together, but then again I spent my
| life watching several hours of TV a day. I especially
| don't like how tiktok seems to purposely direct new male
| users to what is basically softcore porn.
| dang wrote:
| > _For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be
| taken seriously._
|
| That is the kind of swipe the HN guidelines ask people to
| edit out of their comments
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: " _Edit
| out swipes._ "), so please don't post like this.
|
| Your comment would be fine without that sentence and the
| one after it.
|
| (I'm not saying the GP comment is particularly good--it was
| pretty fulminatey--but it wasn't quite over the line,
| whereas yours was, primarily because yours got personal.)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > government doing a parent's job
|
| the govt already set the bar at 13, so what's different about
| setting it at 16?
| mbitsnbites wrote:
| > government doing a parent's job
|
| The problem here is that it's pretty much out of the hands of
| the parents. If your kids' friends have social media, your kids
| will absolutely need it too in order to not be left out. I've
| witnessed the pressure, and it's not pretty. Add to that the
| expectation from society that children shall have access to
| social media.
|
| Regulation is pretty much the only way to send the right
| signals to parents, schools, media companies (e.g. Swedish
| public service TV has a kids app that until recently was called
| "Bolibompa Baby", but it's now renamed to "Bolibompa Mini"),
| app designers, and so on.
| safog wrote:
| We're barreling towards an internet that requires an id before
| you can use it.
|
| It's a bit upsetting but I don't harbor the early 2000s naivete
| about the free internet where regulation doesn't exist, the
| data exchange happens over open formats and connecting people
| from across the world is viewed as an absolute positive.
|
| Govt meddling on social media platforms, the filter bubble,
| platforms locking data in, teenage depression stats post
| Instagram, doom scrolling on tiktok have flipped me the other
| way.
|
| Internet Anonymity is going to die - let's see if that makes
| this place any better.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| > Govt meddling on social media platforms
|
| And the government having unfettered knowledge of every site
| you visit - in particular the more salacious ones - is how we
| solve that? Surely that won't be used as a political cudgel
| to secure power at any point, nor will it ever be used to
| target specific demographics or accidentally get leaked.
| soared wrote:
| https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/protections/pr...
|
| Private State Tokens enable trust in a user's authenticity to
| be conveyed from one context to another, to help sites combat
| fraud and distinguish bots from real humans--without passive
| tracking.
|
| An issuer website can issue tokens to the web browser of a user
| who shows that they're trustworthy, for example through
| continued account usage, by completing a transaction, or by
| getting an acceptable reCAPTCHA score. A redeemer website can
| confirm that a user is not fake by checking if they have tokens
| from an issuer the redeemer trusts, and then redeeming tokens
| as necessary. Private State Tokens are encrypted, so it isn't
| possible to identify an individual or connect trusted and
| untrusted instances to discover user identity.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| This system clearly and trivially deanonymizes the internet.
| Even worse than a centralized system, it uses a simple "just
| trust me bro" mentality that issuers would _never_ injure
| users for personal gain and would _never_ keep logs or have
| data leaks, which would expose the Internet traffic of a real
| person.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > I'm still on the fence about government doing a parent's job
| here
|
| The issue is, as a parent who is not very technical, how do
| they _safely_ audit their child's social media use?
|
| I am reasonably confident that I could control my kid's social
| media habit, but only up to a point. there isn't anything
| really stopping them getting their own cheap phone/signing in
| on another person's machine.
|
| The problem is, to safely stop kids getting access requires
| either strong authentication methods to the ISP. ie, to get an
| IP you need 2fa to sign in. But thats also how censorship/de-
| anonymisation happens.
| bedhead wrote:
| Not sure how I feel about this, but I don't hate it,
| theoretically. I'm sure it's hopeless in practice. It might be a
| worthwhile experiment if nothing else. But a piece of legislation
| will never be an adequate substitute for good parenting.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I'd like to see more science proving that social media is bad
| for kids before I see lawmakers enacting laws around the
| theory. That said, I think 16 is too high an age. Kids go into
| high school at ~13, so I think that would have been a more
| reasonable age to consider. The hard truth is that most kids
| don't seem to have access to "good parenting" by any reasonable
| standard, and parenting is hard with good parenting being
| harder (not an excuse).
| brightball wrote:
| I'd imagine that 16 is the age when most kids finally get a
| state ID.
| dmm wrote:
| > I'd like to see more science proving that social media is
| bad for kids before I see lawmakers enacting laws around the
| theory
|
| Is there science proving that porn is harmful for children?
| If not, do you see that as an argument for legalizing it?[0]
|
| The first restrictions on tobacco purchases for children were
| in the 1880s, long before the science was settled on the
| harms tobacco use causes.
|
| Science is slow, contentious, and produces limited
| results[1]. If we can only ban things that are scientifically
| proven to be harmful, what is stopping TikTok from slightly
| modifying their app and rereleasing it?
|
| I can easily buy products that are BPA free but that just
| means clever chemists have come up with even worse
| platicizers like BPS to use as substitutes.
|
| And software can be adapted way faster than chemistry.
|
| [0] I don't. [1] It's definitely still worth studying.
| mbitsnbites wrote:
| > I'd like to see more science proving that social media is
| bad for kids
|
| Smoking tobacco was allowed for children for hundreds of
| years before it was regulated. Today we can hardly fathom how
| stupid it would be to allow children to smoke. Social media
| is much more accessible than cigarettes, far more addictive,
| and rather than messing with your lungs it messes with your
| brain and personality.
|
| There are many problems with "waiting for the science". One
| is that it takes many, many decades to get reliable
| longitudinal studies on things like addiction and how the
| brain is affected.
|
| There are so many indications that social media is bad for
| children (including scientific studies), in many different
| ways. It really should not be controversial to limit use for
| children. It's not like it is something that they need.
|
| This book, "Smartphone brain: how a brain out of sync with
| the times can make us stressed, depressed and anxious" by
| Swedish MD psychiatrist Anders Hansen, brings up one of the
| aspects (unfortunately I don't know of an English
| translation): https://www.amazon.se/Sk%C3%A4rmhj%C3%A4rnan-
| hj%C3%A4rna-str...
|
| Here's a short video with Anders Hansen:
| https://youtu.be/DwAx2kRwCRI?t=112
|
| Then there's is of course the question of _how_ to limit the
| use. But that 's another issue.
| M4v3R wrote:
| Definitely not as a substitute, but it might be something that
| helps push more parents to consider preventing their children
| from using social media. It's much easier for a parent to
| explain to the child that the reason they're not allowed to use
| it is because it's illegal, instead of trying to explain how
| social media negatively affects their brains.
| lsiunsuex wrote:
| As a Floridian and someone in IT - I'm curious how this will be
| implemented
|
| I can't remember the last time I signed up for a new social
| network; do they ask age? Is it an ask to Apple / Google to add
| stronger parental approval? Verify drivers license #?
|
| We heard about this days ago on local news and I've been
| struggling to figure out short of are you 16 years or older how
| this is gonna get done and how do you fine someone if it's
| breached.
| brightball wrote:
| My guess is that it will be most easily enforced in school.
| After school is another story entirely.
| thsksbd wrote:
| (Putting aside if the law is good or bad and the
| constitutionality of it.)
|
| Put criminal penalties to the directors if no reasonable
| attempt to keep kids out.
|
| Plus corporate death penalty if they purposely target kids.
|
| Then how they enforce it doesn't really matter as long as there
| are periodic investigations. The personal risks are too great
| and the companies will figure it out.
| djfdat wrote:
| Excessive punishment with arbitrary enforcement? What could
| go wrong?
| a_victorp wrote:
| You forgot selective punishment as well
| throwaway-blaze wrote:
| The FTC already implements a "corporate death penalty" in the
| form of massive fines if an organization collects data on
| kids and uses it to target advertising (see COPPA)
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yes, some (all?) ask for DOB/age at sign-up.
|
| If I remember correctly, at one time Google even tried to
| enforce it and there were usability problems with typos and
| wrong dates and things - there was no verification and no easy
| way to fix an error. IE, if a mid-40s adult accidentally
| entered 1/1/2024, they'd be locked out. And if a kid entered
| 1/1/1977, they'd have an account (but not way to correct that
| date when they eventually turned 18).
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Yes, they always ask your date of birth and generally won't
| allow sign ups for under 13s, it's been that way for almost 20
| years.
| internet101010 wrote:
| Yep. Twitch automatically bans any chatter who says that they
| are under that age.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > I'm curious how this will be implemented
|
| The only way to determine age is to compile a database of gov-
| issued IDs and related data. Which is an unconstitutional
| barrier to speech. Which is why this will get struck-down like
| each similar law.
|
| The part about ID data eventually being shared with 3rd
| parties, agencies - and/or leaked - is a bonus.
| tzs wrote:
| It sounds like you are envisioning age verification that
| involves just two parties: the user and the site that they
| need to prove their age to. The user shows the site their
| government issued ID and the site uses the information on the
| ID to verify the age.
|
| That would indeed allow the site to compile a database of
| government issues IDs and give that information (willfully or
| via leaks) to third parties.
|
| Those issues can be fixed by using a three party system. The
| parties are the user, the site that they need to prove their
| age to, and a site that already has the information from the
| user's government ID.
|
| Briefly, the user gets a token from the social media site,
| presents that token and their government ID to the site that
| already has their ID information, and that site sign that
| token if the user meets the age requirements. The user
| presents that signed token back to the social network which
| sees that it was signed by the third site which tells it the
| third site says the user meeds the age requirement.
|
| By using modern cryptographic techniques (blind signatures or
| zero knowledge proofs) the communication between the user and
| the third site can be done in a way that keeps the third site
| from getting any information about which site they are doing
| the age check for.
|
| With some additional safeguards in the protocol and in what
| sites are allowed to be the ID checking sites it can even be
| made so that someone who gets records of both the social
| media site and the third site can't use timing information to
| match up social media accounts with verifications and so
| could work with sites that allow anonymous accounts.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I don't think anyone in government is smart enough to
| enable or allow this.
| throwaway-blaze wrote:
| That is literally how the age verification for porn works
| in Louisiana and Virginia among other states.
| hn_acker wrote:
| > With some additional safeguards in the protocol and in
| what sites are allowed to be the ID checking sites it can
| even be made so that someone who gets records of both the
| social media site and the third site can't use timing
| information to match up social media accounts with
| verifications and so could work with sites that allow
| anonymous accounts.
|
| I'm assuming that there will be some kind of way to prevent
| matching of logged IP addresses between the social media
| site and the verification site. Is there really a method
| for preventing matches of timing without requiring the user
| to bear the burden of requesting tokens from the sites at
| different times?
|
| As I hinted at in a different comment [1] though, there
| remains a tradeoff of letting the verification party know
| how frequently I visit a single type of website vs.
| avoiding the first problem but needing my ID for multiple
| types of websites i.e. more of the internet.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39180203
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > It sounds like you are envisioning age verification that
| involves just two parties: the user and the site that they
| need to prove their age to. ... Those issues can be fixed
| by using a three party system.
|
| Okay. That sounds promising.
|
| However the method of collecting childrens' private data
| isn't what makes these laws unconstitutional. It's a
| government erecting broad, restrictive barriers to speech.
|
| ref: https://reason.com/2023/09/19/federal-judge-blocks-
| californi...
|
| ref: https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/31/23854369/texas-
| porn-age-v...
|
| ref: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/13/you-cant-wish-
| away-the-1...
|
| ref: http://mediashift.org/2009/01/u-s-supreme-court-
| finally-kill...
|
| ref: https://netchoice.org/district-court-halts-
| unconstitutional-...
|
| Utah caught a glimpse or reality and stayed their own
| unconstitutional law. They seem to looking for a way to
| retool it so it won't be quite so trivial to strike down.
|
| ref: https://kslnewsradio.com/2073740/utahs-social-media-
| child-pr...
| newsclues wrote:
| Government needs modern digital first ID/authentication services.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Probably, but that's a tough nut to crack. A significant chunk
| of the American public is insanely anti-federal ID.
| newsclues wrote:
| Doesn't need to be federal, because it's digital it can be
| distributed and portable instead of centralized.
|
| If it respects privacy, is secure and convenient and
| optional, people would love it.
| alistairSH wrote:
| That's true, however I'm not sure I trust "Big Tech" to
| self-manage this system. After all, "Big Tech" are the ones
| that forced us into needing this legislation in the first
| place. And they don't have a great track record at
| protecting PII.
|
| The federal government already has all the info it needs to
| run an ID program.
|
| But, I'd be open to debate on who should do it.
| mindslight wrote:
| First, we need privacy regulation (eg a US port of the GDPR)
| that stops the existing widespread abuses of identification and
| personal data, especially the abuses being facilitated by the
| current identification systems. Only after this is fixed does
| it make sense to talk about increasing the technical strength
| of identification.
| tzs wrote:
| > The social media platforms the bill would target include any
| site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload content
| or uses addictive features designed to cause compulsive use.
|
| That does not appear to be correct. It says it applies if any of
| 3 conditions hold. The bill text says all of the conditions must
| hold (and there are 5, not 3). Here is what the current text says
| social media platform means:
|
| < Means an online forum, website, or application offered by an
| entity that does all of the following:
|
| < a. Allows the social media platform to track the activity of
| the account holde
|
| < b. Allows an account holder to upload content or view the
| content or activity of other account holders.
|
| < c. Allows an account holder to interact with or track other
| account holders.
|
| < d. Utilizes addictive, harmful, or deceptive design features,
| or any other feature that is designed to cause an account holder
| to have an excessive or compulsive need to use or engage with the
| social media platform.
|
| < e. Allows the utilization of information derived from the
| social media platform's tracking of the activity of an account
| holder to control or target at least part of the content offered
| to the account holder.
|
| There's also a huge list of exceptions. It says that it:
|
| < Does not include an online service, website, or application
| where the predominant or exclusive function is:
|
| < a. Electronic mail.
|
| < b. Direct messaging consisting of text, photos, or videos that
| are sent between devices by electronic means where messages are
| shared between the sender and the recipient only, visible to the
| sender and the recipient, and are not posted publicly.
|
| < c. A streaming service that provides only licensed media in a
| continuous flow from the service, website, or application to the
| end user and does not obtain a license to the media from a user
| or account holder by agreement to its terms of service.
|
| < d. News, sports, entertainment, or other content that is
| preselected by the provider and not user generated, and any chat,
| comment, or interactive functionality that is provided incidental
| to, directly related to, or dependent upon provision of the
| content.
|
| < e. Online shopping or e-commerce, if the interaction with other
| users or account holders is generally limited to the ability to
| upload a post and comment on reviews or display lists or
| collections of goods for sale or wish lists, or other functions
| that are focused on online shopping or e-commerce rather than
| interaction between users or account holders.
|
| < f. Interactive gaming, virtual gaming, or an online service,
| that allows the creation and uploading of content for the purpose
| of interactive gaming, edutainment, or associated entertainment,
| and the communication related to that content.
|
| < g. Photo editing that has an associated photo hosting service,
| if the interaction with other users or account holders is
| generally limited to liking or commenting.
|
| < h. A professional creative network for showcasing and
| discovering artistic content, if the content is required to be
| non-pornographic.
|
| < i. Single-purpose community groups for public safety if the
| interaction with other users or account holders is generally
| limited to that single purpose and the community group has
| guidelines or policies against illegal content.
|
| < j. To provide career development opportunities, including
| professional networking, job skills, learning certifications, and
| job posting and application services.
|
| < k. Business to business software.
|
| < l. A teleconferencing or videoconferencing service that allows
| reception and transmission of audio and video signals for real
| time communication.
|
| < m. Shared document collaboration.
|
| < n. Cloud computing services, which may include cloud storage
| and shared document collaboration.
|
| < o. To provide access to or interacting with data visualization
| platforms, libraries, or hubs.
|
| < p. To permit comments on a digital news website, if the news
| content is posted only by the provider of the digital news
| website.
|
| < q. To provide or obtain technical support for a platform,
| product, or service.
|
| < r. Academic, scholarly, or genealogical research where the
| majority of the content that is posted or created is posted or
| created by the provider of the online service, website, or
| application and the ability to chat, comment, or interact with
| other users is directly related to the provider's content.
|
| < s. A classified ad service that only permits the sale of goods
| and prohibits the solicitation of personal services or that is
| used by and under the direction of an educational entity,
| including:
|
| < (I) A learning management system;
|
| < (II) A student engagement program; and
|
| < (III) A subject or skill-specific program.
|
| I hope they add 8 more exceptions. I want to see what they do
| when they run out of letters for labeling the exceptions.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| a lot of loopholes there
| causal wrote:
| I might be the only one here in favor of this, and wanting to see
| a federal rollout.
|
| It is not reasonable to expect parents to spontaneously agree on
| a strategy for keeping kids off social media- and that kind of
| coordination is what it would take, because the kids + social
| media companies have more than enough time to coordinate
| workarounds. Have the law put the social media companies on the
| parents side, or these kids may never be given the chance to
| develop into healthy adults themselves.
| andy99 wrote:
| I'm in favor of kids not using social media, but not of the
| government forcing this on people nor spinning up whatever
| absurd regulatory regime is required. And the chance of
| actually enforcing it is zero anyway. It's no more realistic to
| expect this to work than to expect all parents to do it as you
| say. It's just wasted money plus personal intrusion that won't
| achieve anything.
| soco wrote:
| Is there an alternative? Self-control - as we have now -
| brought us here. If the government shouldn't step in then the
| only other option left (only I can see) is magic. And we have
| a bad record with magic.
| JoshTko wrote:
| I used to want no govt intrusion for this. Then I understood
| how there are teams of PHDs tweaking feed to maximize
| addition at each social network. I think there could be even
| limits, or some sort of tax on gen pop.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Several governments have already effectively banned sites
| like Pornhub by creating regimes where people have to mail
| their ID to a central clearinghouse (which creates a huge
| chilling effect.) The article talks about "reasonable age
| verification measures" and so saying it's unenforceable seems
| a little bit premature. Also, you can bet those measures
| won't be in any way reasonable once the Florida legislature
| gets through with them.
| rschneid wrote:
| >effectively banned
|
| In my opinion, these governments haven't implemented
| 'effective' bans (though maybe chilling, as you say) but
| primarily created awkward new grey markets for the personal
| data that these policies rely on for theatrics. Remember
| when China 'banned' youth IDs from playing online games
| past 10PM? I think a bunch of grandparents became gamers
| around the same time...
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01669-8
| seanw444 wrote:
| Which is exactly what happens for markets that are
| desirable enough. We compare bans of things not enough
| people care about, to bans of things that people are
| willing to do crazy things for. They don't yield the same
| results.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| No policy is 100% effective. Kids still get into alcohol,
| but the policy is sound.
| rft wrote:
| Another example is some Korean games requiring
| essentially a Korean ID to play. A few years ago there
| was a game my guild was hyped about and we played the
| Korean version a bit. You more or less bought the
| identity of some Korean guy via a service that was
| explicitly setup for this. Worked surprisingly well and
| was pretty streamlined.
| angra_mainyu wrote:
| At least from personal experience, when there was a
| period where my ISP in the UK started requiring ID
| verification for porn, I literally ceased to watch it.
|
| Making something difficult to do actually works to _curb_
| behavior.
| 55555 wrote:
| You're proving the argument that the parent set forth.
| Anyone who wants to visit Pornhub can just visit one of the
| many sites that isn't abiding by the new law. However,
| that's not due to a lack of legislation, but rather a lack
| of enforcement, or, perhaps, enforceability. If laws always
| worked I'd be for more of them. My argument is not that we
| should never make laws because it's futile but rather that
| some laws are more futile than others and having laws go
| unenforced weakens government and enforcing them
| inequitably is injust.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Also social policy enforcement is a generational thing.
| The UK is only just getting toward outright banning
| cigarettes by making it illegal for anyone born after X
| date from ever buying them. Eventually you have a whole
| generation that isn't exposed to smoking and on the whole
| thinks the habit is disgusting, which it is.
| verall wrote:
| Except that some people born after that date will still
| acquire them, get addicted, and then what? Prosecute them
| like drug possession?
|
| It's infantilizing and dumb. Grown adults should be
| allowed to smoke tobacco if they so wish and smoking
| rates are already way down due to marketing and
| alternatives. Noone needs to be prosecuted.
| zhivota wrote:
| You don't need to prosecute any buyers at all though. All
| you need to do is make it illegal to sell in shops, and
| illegal to import. There will be a black market, sure,
| but how many people are going to go through the trouble
| and expense to source black market tobacco? Not that
| many. And everyone benefits because universal healthcare
| means everyone shares the cost of the health effects that
| are avoided.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Should mention the govt. has to find budget to fill the
| gap of tobacco budget, but they've been slowly doing this
| as demand has slumped since 2008.
| badpun wrote:
| > how many people are going to go through the trouble and
| expense to source black market tobacco? Not that many.
|
| Just see how many people already go through that trouble
| to source illegal drugs...
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I think it's hyperbolic to look at tobacco like other
| drugs. Tobacco is a lifestyle thing, it doesn't get you
| high, it's a cultural habit. There are only upsides to
| getting rid of the social demand for it.
|
| If you think taking tobacco away from consumers is
| infantilizing, why yes, yes it is. We are dealing with
| children's futures. Adults get to continue smoking,
| children less likely to even want to smoke as the social
| acceptance goes down and with that there is less and less
| desire to smoke. Nicotine doesn't do much other than get
| you addicted, no one is chasing after a pronounced high
| with it, people start smoking because it's perceived as
| cool.
|
| I can't imagine an adult wanting to start smoking, most
| adults get addicted in their teens.
|
| I think you have have an import ban, and a black market,
| and still see significant gains in eroding the demand. I
| do not think people should be prosecuted for possession,
| but the UK will probably make some bad decisions there,
| but that doesn't mean the overall policy is bad.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Does this actually work or does it just push those same
| people to sketchier websites?
| angra_mainyu wrote:
| Worked in my case when my ISP required ID for it in the
| UK.
|
| I just noped out of it entirely.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| My main issue is that the only effective way to ban access
| to a website is to also ban VPNs and any sort of network
| tunneling. A great firewall would have to be constructed
| which I am very much against. Even China's firewall is
| surpassable and it is questionable how much it is worth
| operating given the massive costs which would be incurred.
|
| I think the government should invest in giving parents the
| tools to control their child's online access. Tools such as
| DNS blocklists, open source traffic filtering software
| which parents could set up in their home, etc.
| OJFord wrote:
| We don't even have to speculate, isn't it already the case
| for <13yo? Or is just Europe? Anyway - yeah, of course
| they're still on it. Expect less compliance and harder
| enforcement the older they are, not more/easier.
| samtho wrote:
| The only protection in the Us is technically "collection of
| personal information" via COPPA[0] which you can argue
| would kneecap social media. Any parent can provide consent
| for their child, however. Children themselves can also just
| click the button that says they are over 13 if it gets them
| what they want.
|
| [0]: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-
| library/browse/rules/childrens-onl...
| loceng wrote:
| So, maybe it a law - but requiring parents-guardians to
| enforce it, and not the state - sounds like a reasonable
| inbetween?
| yew wrote:
| There are degrees of enforceability.
|
| When I was first getting online, the expectation was that you
| at least had to be bright enough to lie about your age. Now I
| have to occasionally prune my timeline after it fills up with
| "literally a minor." Even an annoyance tax might have some
| positive effect. Scare the pastel death-threats back into
| their hole...
| arcticbull wrote:
| It seems like you are in favor of something that requires
| coordination, but don't believe in coordination. Is there a
| different way you think this could be achieved?
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I don't believe in the disbelief of coordination so it
| seems like we're at a bit on an impasse. Please expound.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| We have a ban on gambling for minors, so if you see social
| media as more harmful than gambling (personally, I do) it
| probably makes sense.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Gambling is outright banned for a majority of regions in
| the US, not just kids. I don't think they are equally bad,
| just different bad. Gambling is addictive, and it destroys
| people. Social media is addictive and socially toxic, on
| the whole it erodes the very fabric of a society.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| >Social media is addictive and socially toxic, on the
| whole it erodes the very fabric of a society.
|
| It's interesting how every generation seems to decry new
| forms of media as eroding the fabric of society. They
| said it about video games, television, music, movies,
| etc. I'm sure we're right this time, though.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Yeah, none of those are comparable. TV never lead to
| children bullying each other anonymously which then leads
| to kids committing suicide.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Television clearly did _something_ pretty significant to
| society. Cable news makes the country more polarized,
| that we didn't do anything about it doesn't mean it
| wasn't a problem. We just missed and now the problem is
| baked into the status quo.
|
| Video games are typically fiction, so the ability to pass
| propaganda through them is usually a little more limited.
| It isn't impossible, just different.
|
| Social media is a pretty bad news source for contentious
| issues. We should be pretty alarmed that people are
| getting their news there.
| angra_mainyu wrote:
| Apples-to-oranges comparison.
|
| Plenty has been written already on the ravaging effects
| of social media on society and it's pretty plain to see.
|
| https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-
| social-me...
|
| > Rates of sexual activity have been in decline for
| years, but the drop is most pronounced for adults under
| age 25 (Gen Z).
|
| > For Gen Z, a rise in sexlessness has coincided with a
| decline in mental health.
|
| > Sexual activity can boost mood and relieve stress and
| may serve as a protective factor against anxiety and
| depressive disorders.
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-myths-
| sex/2022... missing-out-the-benefits-sex
| lumb63 wrote:
| ... we've _been_ right. Television, music, video games,
| movies, etc., have decimated social capital and
| communication in the western world. It is not uncommon to
| "hang out" with people who are your "friends" without
| ever interacting with them in any meaningful way because
| everyone is focused on, e.g., a television. That's
| assuming everyone isn't too busy playing video games to
| leave their houses.
|
| Whether you agree or not that they're "eroding the very
| fabric of a society" (I would argue they are), it should
| be acknowledged that almost all the downsides predicted
| have come to pass, and life has gone on not because these
| things didn't happen, but in spite of them having
| happened.
| viraptor wrote:
| People are interacting through online games quite often
| though. You can't throw them all in one basket. You can
| make friends / longer term connections that way (I did)
| or keep in touch with people you don't live near to.
| badpun wrote:
| That's not community, though. You're not inhabiting the
| same space, share the same problems and try to work them
| out them together. You're not helping each other out if
| someone falls into trouble.
| mynameisash wrote:
| It seems that all data on the subject of social media
| point emphatically to, Yes! It's terrible for
| adolescents[0] (and probably society writ large?).
|
| [0] https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Social media isn't new. It's over 20 years old by now. If
| you count things like forums you're looking at 30+ years
| old.
| rchaud wrote:
| Not anymore. A 2018 Supreme Court decision opened the
| floodgates to legalized sports gambling, much of it
| online. The only states with existing bans are Hawaii and
| Utah, which combined have only 5 million residents.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Colleg
| iat...
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Oof.
| alexb_ wrote:
| This is just blatantly not true, anyone who has tried to
| gamble on sports can tell you that companies go to quite
| incredible lengths to make sure that nobody outside of
| the few jurisdictions where they're legal can gamble
| online. I live in Nebraska, and I have to go travel
| across to Iowa before I can do anything.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| True, it's state by state, but a lot of states allow it.
| And even if you're not in the right state you can always
| go to sites from other countries (e.g. betonline.ag)
| WindyLakeReturn wrote:
| The ban we have on gambling seems weak. From trading card
| games to loot boxes to those arcade games that look to be
| skill based but are entirely up to chance, children are
| allowed to do all. The rules feel very inconsistent to the
| point that they appear arbitrary in nature.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| Agreed, the gaming industry has done it's damndest to
| undermine the restrictions of gambling.
| incomingpain wrote:
| I'm in favor of kids not using porn, but not of the
| government forcing this on people nor spinning up whatever
| absurd regulatory regime is required. And the chance of
| actually enforcing it is zero anyway. It's no more realistic
| to expect this to work than to expect all parents to do it as
| you say. It's just wasted money plus personal intrusion that
| won't achieve anything.
|
| I only changed 2 words for 1.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Social media's existence is predicated on their algorithms
| being good at profiling you. Facebook's already got some
| level of ID verification for names, where they'll
| occasionally require people to submit IDs. No reason that
| similar couldn't be applied to age if society agreed it was
| worthwhile.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There is a societal problem that is beyond just parenting.
| The peer pressure for kids to feel left out and ostracized
| because they are the only ones _not_ on the socials is
| something a teen is going to definitely rebel against their
| parents on. It 's part of being a teen. I'm guessing the
| other parents would even put pressure on the parents denying
| the social access.
|
| To me, the only way out of this is by changing one nightmare
| for another giving the gov't the decision of allowing/denying
| access. Human nature is not a simple thing to regulate since
| the desire for that regulating is part of human nature
| diputsmonro wrote:
| Is talking to other people online really so bad that we
| need the government to step in and tell us who we can and
| can't talk to? How quickly will that power expand to what
| we can and can't talk about?
|
| I agree that neither solution is perfect, but exchanging an
| imperfect but undoubtedly free system of communication for
| one that is explicitly state-controlled censorship is an
| obvious step backwards.
|
| "Thinking about the children" should also involve thinking
| about what kind of a society you want to build for them. A
| cage is not the answer, especially not with fascism
| creeping back into our politics.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I think you are willingly playing this down as "talking
| to people online" to make some point. However, it is
| beyond what one kid online says to another online. It is
| what predators say to those kids online. I don't just
| mean Chester and his panel van. I'm talking about anyone
| that is attempting to manipulate that kid regardless of
| the motive, they are all predators.
|
| Social media has long since past just being a means of
| communicating with each other, and you come across as
| very disingenuous for putting this out there.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| I think people are being incredibly disingenuous when
| they imagine that the government won't abuse this power
| to censor and harm marginalized communities. Many states
| are trying to remove LGBT books from school libraries for
| being "pornographic" right now, for example. All it takes
| is some fancy interpretations of "safety" and "social
| media" for it to become a full internet blackout, for
| fear of "the liberals" trying to "trans" their kids.
|
| I don't deny that kids can get into trouble and find
| shocking or dangerous things online. But kids can also
| get in trouble walking down the street. We should not
| close streets or require ID checks for walking down them.
| Parents should teach their kids how to be safe online,
| set up network blocks for particularly bad sites, and
| have some kind of oversight for what their kids are
| doing.
|
| Maybe these bills should mandate that sites have the
| ability to create "kid" accounts whose history can be
| checked and access to certain features can be managed by
| an associated "parent" account. Give parents better tools
| for keeping their kids safe, don't just give the
| government control over all internet traffic.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I 'm in favor of kids not using social media, but not of the
| government forcing this on people nor spinning up whatever
| absurd regulatory regime is required._
|
| People said the same thing about age restrictions for
| smoking, alcohol, movies, and on and on and on.
|
| It's not some unsolvable new problem just because it's the
| ad-tech industry.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| You can be in favor but in the US it is unconstitutional for a
| gov to broadly restrict speech. It's why each of these age
| verification + social media laws eventually get tossed.
| Legislators know this (or are too dumb to) but it's not their
| own dollars that are getting burned during this vote-baiting
| performance.
| bilsbie wrote:
| The FCC seems to get around that pretty easily not allowing
| nipples on Tv.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Only on broadcast TV, and the decision is fundamentally
| reliant on the nature that RF spectrum is a finite resource
| to be able to justify the restriction.
|
| SCOTUS has routinely struck down prohibitions against the
| same things in other media, including explicitly the
| internet.
| carabiner wrote:
| Deprecating the Constitution is long overdue.
| spogbiper wrote:
| honest question, is an american child granted the right of
| free speech? or do you get that right at a certain age?
| brightball wrote:
| I'm normally anti-regulation as well, but as a parent I'm fully
| on board with this. The amount of peer pressure to be on social
| media is insane.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Are you asserting that parents should not have the rights to
| determine this for their own children?
| brightball wrote:
| Parents don't have the right to get their kids a tattoo,
| vote or buy alcohol before a regulated age. Is this
| different?
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| So your answer is yes?
|
| Your position is that decisions about youth access to
| social media should be fully taken from the parents and
| made by govs instead. Penalties can be assumed from your
| examples.
|
| This is the reality that you want imposed on parents and
| children - yes?
| brightball wrote:
| Is your position that no age limits should exist for
| anything?
| samus wrote:
| This is already the reality for alcohol and plenty of
| other things. Maybe not everywhere. Reality check:
| parents giving unrestricted access to these things are
| usually perceived as irresponsible.
| somenameforme wrote:
| There's actually a really simple and elegant penalty -
| forfeiture of the device used to access the social media.
| With all seized devices to then be wiped and donated to
| low income school districts/families. This gets more
| complex when using something like a school computer, but
| I think it's a pretty nice solution outside of that.
| That's going to be a tremendous deterrent, yet also not
| particularly draconian.
| runsWphotons wrote:
| Yep thats what low income families need: more cell
| phones.
| foobarian wrote:
| Now they too can get on social media!
| 6yyyyyy wrote:
| Actually, in many states there is no minimum age to get a
| tattoo with parental consent.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_tattooing_i
| n_t...
| brightball wrote:
| That is...shocking
| lupire wrote:
| Likewise for cosmetic surgical modification of the penis
| by a doctor, or puncturing the earlobe by a non-medical-
| professional.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Missouri law allows minors to consume alcohol if
| purchased by a parent or legal guardian and consumed on
| their private property.
|
| edit: Apparently Missouri is not the only state. I had
| trouble finding a definitive list though. There are also
| other exceptions such as wine during religious service.
| WindyLakeReturn wrote:
| While there are exceptions, and in general exceptions
| seem pretty common, they still require businesses to
| officially get approval and it gives power to parents to
| enforce rules that would otherwise be hard to do so. Even
| with the exceptions for children to legally be allowed to
| drink, I would be surprised if that led to more kids
| drinking than alcohol obtained illegally, which means the
| question should be back on how well does the law work
| (obviously not perfectly, but there is a large gap
| between perfect and so poorly that it is useless purely
| from an efficiency perspective).
| giarc wrote:
| Are you a parent? It's not as easy as saying "no social
| media" to your kids. In this day and age, it's basically
| equivalent to saying "you can't have friends". Online is
| where kids meet, hang out, converse etc. I'd LOVE to go
| back to the days before phones and social media, where kids
| played with neighbours and ride their bikes to their
| friends house, but that's slowly slipping away.
| foobarian wrote:
| We try pretty hard to get our kids to play with their
| friends in person (we invite them or give rides to
| playdates) but what do they do when they meet up? Sit on
| the couch with their tablets and play virtually in Roblox
| :-)
| amalcon wrote:
| When my friends would meet up in the 80's-90's, quite a
| bit of Nintendo happened. Is it really that different?
| The proportion of video games should eventually drop (not
| to zero), in favor of (if you're lucky) talking and
| whatever music bothers you the most.
| eitally wrote:
| You organize playdates for middle & high schoolers?
| somenameforme wrote:
| I'm almost invariably anti-regulation, but in this case -
| absolutely!
|
| There's extensive evidence that social media is
| exceptionally harmful to people, especially children. And
| in this case there's also a major network effect. People
| want to be on social media because their friends are. It's
| like peer pressure, but bumped up by orders of magnitude,
| and in a completely socially acceptable way. When it's
| illegal that pressure will still be there because of course
| plenty of kids will still use it, but it'll be greatly
| mitigated and more like normal vices such as
| alcohol/smoking/drugs/etc. It'll also shove usage out of
| sight which will again help to reduce the peer pressure
| effects.
|
| This will also motivate the creation/spread/usage of means
| of organizing/chatting/etc outside of social media. This
| just seems like a massive win-win scenario where basically
| nothing of value is being lost.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| Yes, parents should not have unlimited rights to determine
| what is good/bad for their children.
|
| Social media is a powerful, addictive and dangerous. Pretty
| much anywhere on this earth, parents will end up in jail or
| lose custody of their kids, if they give them harmful
| substances like drugs. Social media should be regulated
| like how drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes are regulated.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Because drug regulations are so effective with no
| collateral damage at all. /s
| lupire wrote:
| Parents can make accounts to use on collaboration with
| their children.
|
| The law prevents the corporation from directly engaging
| with the child without parental oversight.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Do you also think that children should be allowed to buy
| cigarettes? I'll be honest, I am not certain that social
| media is any less deleterious than tobacco.
|
| I'm a pretty pro-market guy, but there are times when the
| interests of the market are orthogonal to the interests of
| mankind.
| tstrimple wrote:
| I can pretty confidently say that the half a million
| deaths a year attributable to smoking is a little more
| deleterious than getting bullied online and the suicides
| which follow. Many orders of magnitude more.
| nkohari wrote:
| Just because one thing is worse than the other doesn't
| mean the less-bad thing is suddenly good.
| tstrimple wrote:
| The original statement was:
|
| > "Do you also think that children should be allowed to
| buy cigarettes? I'll be honest, I am not certain that
| social media is any less deleterious than tobacco."
|
| To which I pointed out that cigarettes kill far more
| people than social media. And your response was somehow
| that I'm implying that a less-bad thing is good? Are you
| sure you're following the conversation? It's really not
| clear that you're addressing anything I said, and it's
| unclear what your point is.
| 1shooner wrote:
| Because regulation worked so well in eliminating peer
| pressure for drinking, smoking, and drugs.
| scythe wrote:
| Drinking, smoking and drugs don't depend on a central point
| of control. Social media companies of any significance can
| be counted on two hands, and are accountable to corporate
| boards.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Regulation worked _remarkably_ well on smoking.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| How so?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| A massive, decades-long decline in the habit? Stemming
| from ad restrictions, warning labels, media campaigns,
| taxation, legal action by states/Feds, etc.
| akerl_ wrote:
| This must be why there's not 50 vape shops in my town
| with big neon signs.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see vaping turn into a
| prescription-only smoking cessation aid, but it's not
| _smoking_. I 'm 100% happy with even a one-for-one
| replacement of smoking for vaping, even in kids, given
| the dramatically lower risk of resulting health problems.
| LynxInLA wrote:
| Have you not seen people vaping at a young age now?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Vaping isn't the same thing as smoking.
| lbhdc wrote:
| They are consuming nicotine, and tobacco companies are
| invested in / are the companies producing products in
| that space. It seems functionally to be the same.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Only if you ignore... a lot. Cancer rates, smoking
| sections in restaurants, the smell, the yellow grime and
| used butts sprinkled everywhere, the impact on
| asthmatics... Smoking a cigarette gets you a lot more
| than just the nicotine.
|
| A smoker moving to vaping is an _enormous_ benefit to
| health and society.
| lbhdc wrote:
| That sounds like you are being disingenuous. Smoking
| sections haven't been a thing in the US for a long time
| (I went to the last one I could find around 2009). Waste
| from single use vapes is also a huge problem. Similarly
| there are health effects specific to vaping, time will
| tell if cancer is among them.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Smoking sections haven't been a thing in the US for a
| long time...
|
| Yes, the regulations that made this happen are good.
| That's my point.
|
| > Waste from single use vapes is also a huge problem.
|
| Nothing like the cigarette butts that used to be
| everywhere.
|
| > Similarly there are health effects specific to vaping,
| time will tell if cancer is among them.
|
| We've plenty of data to safely conclude vaping is safer
| than smoking tobacco. That doesn't make it _safe_ , but
| it's absolutely safe _r_.
| lbhdc wrote:
| You aren't exactly disproving my point. It seems like
| vaping is close enough to smoking to say that it is
| functionally close enough to be equated.
|
| But you have raised my curiosity about your relationship
| with vaping. Do you work in the industry?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It seems like vaping is close enough to smoking to say
| that it is functionally close enough to be equated.
|
| Bullshit. Both are nicotine delivery methods. One is far
| better for both individual and societal reasons. Water
| and whiskey are both wet, but that doesn't make them the
| _same_.
|
| > But you have raised my curiosity about your
| relationship with vaping. Do you work in the industry?
|
| No, nor do I vape/smoke. I'm just old enough to remember
| how shitty it was to have smokers everywhere, in a way
| that isn't the case for vapers... and I've seen the
| multi-decade decline in lung cancer incidence stats.
| sneak wrote:
| No, they are not remotely the same. Nicotine isn't really
| that harmful, but combustion byproducts very much are.
| Also the effects on bystanders are orders of magnitude
| better.
|
| Most of the harm from smoking comes from the smoke, not
| the nicotine or associated addiction.
| huytersd wrote:
| Nicotine by itself is harmless besides the addictiveness.
| A nicotine addiction is not going to drastically affect
| your mental state or cause socially disruptive behavior
| like domestic violence or armed robbery so it's really
| nothing to be concerned about.
| LynxInLA wrote:
| I agree it is different, but the jury is out on whether
| it is better. Banning "social media" is likely to push
| users to a "lite" version of it. I'm not convinced that
| will be better.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| I would call IRC "social media lite", and it is indeed
| better.
| huytersd wrote:
| Vaping (non flavored) vapes has basically a negligible
| impact on your health.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| It's more influence than actual regulation enforcement.
| Smokers these days are seen as social pariahs in some
| circles.
| ScoutOrgo wrote:
| You also had to go in store to buy cigarettes, so the
| application of regulation would work a little differently
| in the case of social media.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| It absolutely did for smoking and drunk driving.
| CJefferson wrote:
| I'm fairly sure more 13 year olds are on social media, than
| are drinking, smoking, or on drugs.
| huytersd wrote:
| Absolutely. Almost no kids smoke cigarettes (vaping non
| flavored varieties have almost no risk associated with it)
| and drunk driving is a shadow of what it used to be.
| Getting alcohol for someone under 21 is not child's play
| either.
| tedajax wrote:
| Answering a problem with unenforceable garbage like this
| doesn't seem like a very sound strategy.
| soco wrote:
| This discussion can be seen every time when the EU decides on
| some regulation against tech industry. A lot of people will
| jump that it won't be enforced, then when we see the first
| fines those people will jump that it won't move a needle,
| then when the tech giants do change a bit their course
| then... well the tech bros will always find a reason to jump
| against doing anything to curb tech.
| lupire wrote:
| This is not a "tech bro" thing. It's not particular to tech
| nor bros. This a business thing. Phillip Morris weren't
| "tech bros".
| soco wrote:
| You are right. I was having in mind the HN crowd when I
| commented.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Enforceability is a foregone conclusion, and when it comes to
| things like this it's somewhat expected. The same can be said
| for pornography, drugs and alcohol and tobacco (remember Joe
| Camel?), and anything else that would fall under blue-laws.
|
| The goal of this is to bring attention to the fact that it's
| a problem and should be seen as undesirable, like pornography
| or Joe Camel. The cancellation of Joe didn't prevent kids
| from getting cigarettes but it did draw attention to the
| situation and there has been a marked decline in youth
| smoking since the late 90s when the mascot was removed. It's
| correlative, for sure, but the outcomes are undeniable. The
| same happened with the DARE program and class 1 drugs (except
| for marijuana iirc).
| 20after4 wrote:
| Multiple studies have determined that the dare program is
| entirely or almost entirely ineffective.
|
| Here's just one:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448384/
| o11c wrote:
| It doesn't have to be perfectly enforceable to have a
| positive effect.
|
| Even just making illegal the _promotion_ of social media
| toward children would have a huge effect.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I find myself agreeing with this. Me 15 years ago would have
| raged at this. I have kids now and they are pressured to join
| all sorts of social media platforms. I still don't allow them
| to have it but I know they take a slight social hit for it.
|
| There is zero positive to giving kids the ability to access
| social media sites designed to be addictive when they don't
| have the mental facilities to determine real from not real.
| Many adults seem to suffer from this as well. Plus kids don't
| understand that the internet is forever, really no need for an
| adult looking for a job or running for office to be crippled by
| a questionable post they made as an edgy teen.
|
| I'm against a lot of government regulation but in this case I
| am even more against feeding developing kids to an algorithm
|
| Just remove the temptation and pressure all together.
| runsWphotons wrote:
| The internet is just as real as anything else. Out of touch.
| lukev wrote:
| But the only way to do this is to require ID checks,
| effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature of
| the internet (and probably unconstitutional under the First
| Amendment, to boot.)
|
| It's the same problem with requiring age verification for porn.
| It's not that anyone _wants_ kids to have easy access to this
| stuff, but that any of these laws will either be (a)
| unenforceable and useless, or (b) draconian and privacy-
| destroying.
|
| The government doesn't get to know or regulate the websites I'm
| visiting, nor should it. And "protecting the children" isn't a
| valid reason to remove constitutional rights from adults.
|
| (And if it is, let's start talking about gun ownership
| first...)
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| > effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature
| of the internet.
|
| Not at all. Just the social media sites, which are
| objectively bad for kids. As an adult, you do what you want
| on the internet.
| lukev wrote:
| And what makes a site a social media site? Anywhere you can
| post interactive content?
|
| You do realize that laws like this would apply to sites
| like HN, Reddit, the comment section of every blog, and
| every phpBB forum you ever used? It's not just Instagram
| and Tiktok.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Trying to force independently owned and operated forums
| to enforce laws that might not even be applicable in the
| country that the owners / admins live and work in is
| going to be about as effective as trying to force foreign
| VPS/server/hosting providers to delete copyrighted
| content from their server using laws that don't apply in
| their jurisdiction.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| I think a perfectly clear line could be drawn that would
| separate out phpBB from TikTok very easily. I genuinely
| don't understand this comment, we shouldn't do it because
| it's hard or the results might be imperfect?
| lukev wrote:
| Kids _want_ to communicate. Whether it 's TikTok,
| Discord, phpBB, chatting in Roblox or Minecraft, they
| will if they can.
|
| If we want to "ban social media" we'll need a consistent
| set of guidelines about what counts as social media and
| what doesn't, and what exactly the harms are so they can
| be avoided.
|
| I don't believe that's as easy as you think.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Any clear line would be gamed pretty quickly I imagine.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think your comment would be much stronger if you laid
| out _precisely_ what you think that line would be.
|
| Laws do not have to be perfect to be good, but they _do_
| have to be workable. It 's not clear that there's a
| working definition of "social media" that includes both
| TikTok and Reddit but doesn't include random forums.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| So if a random person on the internet doesn't have a
| perfect solution then it shouldn't be considered?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Their opinion that it would be straightforward shouldn't
| be considered.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Yes, this isn't the right solution. The power needs to be
| given to the users.
|
| A better solution is more robust device management, with
| control given to the device owner (read: the parent). The
| missing legislative piece is mandating that social media
| companies need to respond differently when the user agent
| tells them what to send.
|
| I should be able to take my daughter's phone (which _I_ own),
| set an option somewhere that indicates "this user is a
| minor," and with every HTTP request it makes it sets e.g. an
| OMIT_ADULT_CONTENT header. Site owners simply respond
| differently when they see this.
| notsound wrote:
| Another option that allows for better privacy and
| versatility is the website setting a MIN_USER_AGE header
| based on IP geolocation.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Geolocation to that degree not that reliable and not
| necessarily 1:1 with jurisdiction or parental intent.
|
| If we're already trusting a parental-locked device to
| report minor-status, then it's trivial to also have it
| identify what jurisdiction/ruleset exists, or some finer-
| grained model of what shouldn't work.
|
| In either case, we have the problem of how to model
| things like "in the Flub province of the nation of
| Elbonia children below 150.5 months may not see media
| containing exposed ankles". OK, maybe not quite that bad,
| but the line needs to be drawn somewhere.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Exactly, any design for this stuff _requires_ parental-
| involvement because every approach without it is either (A)
| uselessly-weak or (B) creepy-Orwellian.
|
| If we assume parents are involved enough to "buy the thingy
| that advertises a parental lock", then a whole bunch of
| less-dumb options become available... And more of the costs
| of the system will be borne by the people (or at least
| groups) that are utilizing it.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| Emancipation of children is also a thing, where a minor may
| petition the court to be treated as an adult. This also
| falls afoul of a blanket age restriction.
|
| https://jeannecolemanlaw.com/the-legal-emancipation-of-
| minor...
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| then propose the RFC.
|
| I haven't read the legislation myself but I don't see why
| this couldn't still be done, I doubt the legislation
| specified _how_ to do it.
| Izkata wrote:
| > "Reasonable age verification method" means any
| commercially reasonable method regularly used by
| government agencies or businesses for the purpose of age
| and identity verification.
|
| So no, that wouldn't work right now.
| cesarb wrote:
| Sounds like you want PICS (though it works on the opposite
| direction, with the web site sending the flag, and the
| browser deciding whether to show the content based on it).
| basil-rash wrote:
| Already exists, simply include the header
|
| Rating: RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA
|
| in HTTP responses that include adult content, and every
| parental controls software in existence will block it by
| default, including the ones built into iPhones/etc and
| embedded webviews. As far as I know all mainstream adult
| sites include this (or the equivalent meta tag) already.
|
| In general, I don't think communicating to every site you
| visit that you are a minor and asking them to do what they
| will with that information is a good idea. Better to filter
| on the user's end.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| I honestly wasn't aware of this, and it sounds like a
| great solution for "adult content." Certainly, the site
| specifying this is better than the user agent having to
| reveal any additional details about its configuration.
| jlokier wrote:
| > But the only way to do this is to require ID checks,
| effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature of
| the internet
|
| That seems intuitive, but it's not actually true. I suggest
| looking up zero-knowledge proofs.
|
| Using modern cryptography, it is easy to send a machine-
| generated proof to your social media provider that your
| government-provided ID says your age is >= 16, without
| revealing anything else about you to the service provider
| (not even your age), and without having to communicate with
| the government either.
|
| The government doesn't learn which web sites you visit, and
| the web sites don't learn anything about you other than you
| are certified to be age >= 16. The proofs are unique to each
| site, so web sites can't use them to collude with each other.
|
| That kind of "smart ID" doesn't have to be with the
| government, although that's often a natural starting point
| for ID information. There are methods which do the same based
| on a consensus of people and entities that know you, for
| example. That might be better from a human rights
| perspective, given how many people do not have citizenship
| rights.
|
| > (and probably unconstitutional under the First Amendment,
| to boot.)
|
| If it would be unconstitutional to require identity-revealing
| or age-revealing ID checks for social media, that's all the
| more reason to investigate modern technical solutions we have
| to those problems.
| lukev wrote:
| It'd be cool if any of the proposed bills actually
| suggested something like this. They do not. They specify an
| ID check.
| emporas wrote:
| Definitely, we can use a government issued id, or we can
| create our own. Social graphs i call em. Zero knowledge
| proofs have so many ground breaking applications. I have
| made a comment in the past, relevant to how could a social
| graph be build, without the need of any government [1]. We
| can create effectively one million new governments to
| compete with existing ones.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36421679
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Governments monopolize violence. At least at the
| foundational level. When too many of them compete at once
| it can get very messy very quickly.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| I've been thinking a lot lately about decentralized
| moderation.
|
| All we need to do is replace the word "moderate" with
| "curate". Everything else is an attestation.
|
| We don't really need a blockchain, either. Attestations
| can be asserted by a web of trust. Simply choose a
| curator (or collection of curators) to trust, and you're
| done.
| satellite2 wrote:
| I'm not a cryptographer so I might miss something but I
| have the impression that
|
| - either a stolen card can be reused thousands of time
| meaning that it's so easy to get a fake that it's not worth
| the implementation cost
|
| - either there is away to uniquely identify a card and then
| it becomes another identifier like tracking ids.
| neom wrote:
| It would be neat if some authority like the passport
| office or social security office also provided a virtual
| ID that includes the features OP described and allowed
| specific individual attributes to be shared or not
| shared, revoked any time, much like when you authenticate
| a 3rd party app to gmail or etc.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Assuming you can make active queries to the verifier, you
| could do something like
|
| - Have your backend generate a temporary AES key, and
| create a request to the verifier saying "please encrypt a
| response using AES key A indicating that the user coming
| from ip X.Y.Z.W is over 16". Encrypt it with a known
| public key for the verifier. Save the temporary AES key
| to the user's session store.
|
| - Hand that request to the user, who hands it to the
| verifier. The verifier authenticates the user and gives
| them the encrypted okay response.
|
| - User gives the response back to your backend.
|
| Potentially the user could still get someone to auth for
| them, but it'd at least have to be coming from the same
| IP address that the user tried to use to log into the
| service. The verifier could become suspicious if it sees
| lots of requests for the same user coming from different
| IP addresses, and the service would become suspicious if
| it saw lots of users verifying from the same IP address,
| so reselling wouldn't work. You could still find an
| over-16 friend and have them authenticate you without
| raising suspicions though, much like you can find an
| over-21 friend to buy you beer and cigarettes.
|
| Since you use a different key with each user request, the
| verifier can't identify the requesting service. Both the
| service and the verifier know the user's IP, so that's
| not sensitive. If you used this scheme for over-16 vs.
| over-18 vs. over-21 services, the verifier _does_ learn
| what level of service you are trying to access (i.e. are
| you buying alcohol, looking at porn, or signing up for
| social media). Harmonizing all age-restricted vices to a
| single age of majority can mitigate that. Or, you could
| choose to reveal the age bucket to the service instead of
| the verifier by having the verifier always send back the
| maximum bucket you qualify for instead of the service
| asking whether the user is in a specific bucket.
| johnhenry wrote:
| > I suggest looking up zero-knowledge proofs.
|
| Sure, but is the Florida legislature actually looking into
| stuff like this?
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| You can send a proof that _someone 's_ government-provided
| ID says that their age is >= 16.
|
| That's not enough proof to levy a requirement.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The government doesn't learn which web sites you visit,
| and the web sites don't learn anything about you other than
| you are certified to be age >= 16.
|
| If the zero-knowledge proof doesn't communicate _anything_
| other than the result of an age check, then the trivial
| exploit is for 1 person to upload an ID to the internet and
| every kid everywhere to use it.
|
| It's not sufficient to check if someone has access to an ID
| where the age is over a threshold. Implementing a 1:1
| linkage of real world ID to social media account closes the
| loophole where people borrow, steal, or duplicate IDs to
| bypass the check.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > destroying the anonymous nature of the internet
|
| Aren't the really problematic social networks the ones where
| you've lost your privacy and anonymity long ago and are being
| tracked and mined like crazy?
| lukev wrote:
| That's like saying "80% of the internet has gone to shit,
| might as well destroy the remaining good 20%".
| jf22 wrote:
| I don't think it's like saying that at all.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > privacy-destroying
|
| We ARE talking about social media.
|
| Like, the least private software on the planet.
| blitz_skull wrote:
| You know, I'm not really sure that requiring IDs for access
| to porn / social media is a terrible idea. Sure it's been
| anonymous and free since the advent of the internet, but
| perhaps it's time to change that. After all, we don't allow a
| kid into a brothel or allow them to engage in prostitution
| (for good reasons), and porn is equally destructive.
|
| But with the topic at hand being social media, I think a lot
| of the same issues and solutions apply. It's harmful to allow
| kids to interact with anyone and everyone at any given time.
| Boundaries are healthy.
|
| Aaaaand, finally there's much less destruction of human
| livelihood by guns than both of the aforementioned topics if
| we measure "destruction" by "living a significantly
| impoverished life from the standard of emotional and mental
| wellbeing". I doubt we could even get hard numbers on the
| number of marriages destroyed by pornography, which yield
| broken households, which yield countless emotional and mental
| problems.
|
| So, no, guns aren't something we should discuss first. Also,
| guns have utility including but not limited to defending
| yourself and your family. Porn has absolutely zero utility,
| and social media is pretty damn close, but not zero utility.
| tempestn wrote:
| You think watching porn is equally destructive to engaging
| in prostitution? I'd hate to see what kind of porn you're
| watching.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| The biggest problem with this is how we would define
| "porn". Some states are currently redefining the existence
| of a transgender person in public as an inherently lewd act
| equivalent to indecent exposure.
|
| I have no doubt that if your proposal were to pass that
| there would be significant efforts from extremist
| conservatives to censor LGBT+ communities online by
| labeling sex education or mere discussion of our lives as
| pornographic. How are LGBT+ people supposed to live if our
| very existence is considered impolite?
|
| Nevermind the fact that the existence of a government
| database of all the (potentially weird) porn you look at is
| a gold mine for anyone who wants to blackmail or pressure
| you into silence.
|
| The horrors and dangers of porn are squarely a domestic and
| family issue. The government does not need to come into my
| bedroom and look over my shoulder.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > destroying the anonymous nature of the internet (and
| probably unconstitutional under the First Amendment, to
| boot.)
|
| The First Amendment guarantees free expression, not
| _anonymous_ expression.
|
| For example, there are federal requirements for
| identification for political messages. [1] These requirements
| do not violate the First Amendment.
|
| [1] https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-
| committees/advertisi...
| o11c wrote:
| In particular, "anonymous speech is required if you want to
| have free speech" is actually a very niche position, not a
| mainstream one. It just happens to be widely spammed in
| certain online cultures.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Correct.
|
| I am staunch believer in the moral and societal good of
| free speech.
|
| Anonymous speech is far more dubious.
|
| Like, protests seem valuable. Protests while wearing
| robes and masks however...
| TillE wrote:
| > Protests while wearing robes and masks however
|
| This is absolutely permitted in America. It is illegal in
| countries like Germany which have no strong free speech
| protections.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| No. It is not "absolutely permitted in America".
|
| They're Klan Acts, because a bunch of guys in masks and
| robes marching through is obviously a threat of violence.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_law
| TillE wrote:
| America has a very long tradition of anonymity being part
| of free speech, going back to the Federalist Papers. This
| is not some new online issue.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > But the only way to do this is to require ID checks
|
| Not _necessarily_ , consider the counterexample of devices
| with parental-controls which--when locked--will always send a
| "this person is a minor" header. (Or "this person hits the
| following jurisdictional age-categories", or some blend of
| enough detail to be internationally useful and little-enough
| to be reasonably private and not-insane to obey.)
|
| That would mostly puts control into the hands of parents, at
| the expense of sites needing some kind of code-library that
| can spit out a "block or not" result.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| The definition of "social media" in this bill actually seems
| to exempt anonymous social networks since it requires the
| site "Allows an account holder to interact with or track
| other account holders".
| giantg2 wrote:
| "probably unconstitutional under the First Amendment, to
| boot"
|
| Probably not. Minors have all sorts of restrictions on
| rights, including first amendment restrictions such as in
| schools.
|
| "(And if it is, let's start talking about gun ownership
| first...)"
|
| Are you advocating for removing ID checks for this? If not,
| it seems that this point actually works against your
| argument.
|
| Not saying that I agree with a ban, but your arguments
| against it don't really stand.
| qwertox wrote:
| Lately I'm repeatedly reminded of how in Ecuador citizens,
| when interviewed during a protest, see it as a normal thing
| to tell their name as well as their personal ID number into
| the camera when also speaking about their position in regards
| of the protest. They stand to what they are saying without
| hiding.
|
| Since about half a year I've noticed the German Twitter
| section getting sunk in hate posts, people disrespecting each
| other, ranting about politicians or ways of thinking, but
| being really hateful. It's horrible. I've adblocked the
| "Trending" section away, because its the door to this
| horrible place where people don't have anything good to share
| anymore but disrespect and hate.
|
| This made me think about what we're really in need for, at
| least here in Germany, is a Twitter alternative, where people
| register by using their eID and can only post by using their
| real name. Have something mean to say? Say it, but attach
| your name to it.
|
| This anonymity in social media is really harming German
| society, at least as soon as politics are involved.
|
| I don't know exactly how it is in the US but apparently it
| isn't as bad as here, at least judging from the trending
| topics in the US and skimming through the posts.
| Kye wrote:
| People have zero qualms about being absolute ghouls under
| their wallet names. The people with the most power in
| society don't need anonymity. The people with the least
| often can't safely express themselves without it.
|
| Also:
|
| https://theconversation.com/online-anonymity-study-found-
| sta...
|
| >> _" What matters, it seems, is not so much whether you
| are commenting anonymously, but whether you are invested in
| your persona and accountable for its behaviour in that
| particular forum. There seems to be value in enabling
| people to speak on forums without their comments being
| connected, via their real names, to other contexts. The
| online comment management company Disqus, in a similar
| vein, found that comments made under conditions of durable
| pseudonymity were rated by other users as having the
| highest quality. "_
| qwertox wrote:
| There are two points which matter:
|
| - No more bots or fake propaganda accounts.
|
| - Illegal content, such as insults or the like, will not
| get published. And if it does, it will have direct
| consequences.
|
| I'm also not tending towards a requirement to have all
| social networks ID'd, but I think that a Twitter
| alternative which enables a more serious discussion
| should exist. A place where politicians and journalists
| or just citizens can post their content and get commented
| on it, without all that extreme toxicity from Twitter.
| belval wrote:
| The thing is, the political climate is very toxic and the
| absence of anonymity can have a real impact for things
| that are basically wrong think.
|
| Say for example I held the opinion that immigration
| threshold should be lower. No matter how many non-
| xenophobic justifications I can put on that opinion, my
| possibly on H1B colleagues can and would look up my
| opinion on your version of Twitter and it would have a
| real impact on my work life.
|
| There is a reason why we hold voting in private, it's
| because when boiled down to its roots, there are
| principles that guide your opinions they are usually non
| -reconciliable with someone else's opinion and we
| preserve harmony by keeping everyone ignorant of their
| colleagues political opinions. It's not a bad system, but
| it's one that requires anonymity
| DylanDmitri wrote:
| Or, to post on a political forum you must have an ID. You
| can have and post from multiple accounts, but your id and
| all associated accounts can be penalized for bad
| behavior.
| pohuing wrote:
| Plenty of hate under plain names on Facebook, been that way
| for a decade and I doubt it will change with ID
| verification.
| simmerup wrote:
| Attach their pictures too, so you can see the ghoul
| spouting hate is a basement dweller
| Zak wrote:
| The algorithm powering the trending section, which rewards
| angry replies and accusatory quote-tweets is at least a
| good a candidate as a source of harm to political discourse
| than anonymity.
| adaptbrian wrote:
| Take it a step forward, ban Engagement based algorithmic
| feeds. I've said this and I'll continue to say this type
| of behavioral science was designed at FB by a small group
| of people and needs to be outlawed. It never should have
| been allowed to take over the new age monetization
| economy. There's so much human potential with the
| internet and its absolutely trainwrecked atm b.c of
| Facebook.
| claytongulick wrote:
| I wonder what percentage of the hate stuff is bots.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > But the only way to do this is to require ID checks
|
| COPPA has entered the building. If you're under 13 and a
| platform finds out, they'll usually ban you until you prove
| that you're not under 13 (via ID) or can provide signed forms
| from your parent / legal guardian.
|
| I've seen dozens of people if not more over the years banned
| from various platforms over this. We're talking Reddit,
| Facebook, Discord and so on.
|
| I get what you're saying, but it kind of is a thing already,
| all one has to do is raise the age limit from 13 to say... 16
| and voila.
| woodruffw wrote:
| "Finds out" is the operative part. COPPA is not a
| _proactive_ requirement; it 's a _reactive_ one. Proactive
| legislation is a newer harm that can 't easily be predicted
| based on past experiences with reactive laws.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Indeed, nothing is stopping said companies from scanning
| and assessing age of a user uploading selfies though.
| This is allegedly something that TikTok does. My point
| being, the framework is there, and then people actually
| report minors, the companies have to take it seriously,
| or face serious legal consequences.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >But the only way to do this is to require ID checks,
| effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature of
| the internet
|
| Ban portable electronics for children. Demand that law
| enforcement intervene any time it's spotted in the wild. If
| you still insist that children be allowed phones, dumb flip
| phones for them.
|
| It could be done if there was the will to do it, it just
| won't be done.
| slily wrote:
| People can post all kinds of illegal things online and no one
| is suggesting that content should be approved before it can
| be visible on the Internet. It doesn't have to be strictly
| enforced to act as a deterrent. How effective of a deterrent
| it would be has yet to be seen.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| How many social media users who create accounts and "sign in"
| are "anonymous". How would targeted advertising work if the
| website did not "know" their ages and other demographic
| information about them. Are the social media companies lying
| to advertisers by telling them they can target persons in a
| certain age bracket.
| huytersd wrote:
| Ah so be it. I don't care much for the things that come from
| anonymous culture. I want gatekeepers. This tyranny of the
| stupid online is pretty tiresome.
| spogbiper wrote:
| I propose the Leisure Suit Larry method. Just make users
| answer some outdated trivia questions that only olds will
| know when they sign up for an account.
| badpun wrote:
| In the Internet era, the answers will just be googleable.
| People wil quickly compile a page with all possible
| questions and with answers to them.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| But with ChatGPT, all the answers will be wrong.
| onion2k wrote:
| _effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature
| of the internet_
|
| Social media is _on_ the internet. It is not the internet.
| dustedcodes wrote:
| > The government doesn't get to know or regulate the websites
| I'm visiting, nor should it.
|
| They already do (e.g. gambling), and in my opinion they
| should. Federal regulation is IMHO desired in cases where
| there is a huge power imbalance between corporations and
| consumers to the detriment of the nation. Social media
| companies wield more power than the average parents can cope
| with and it's hugely detrimental to have entire generations
| of kids growing up being complete useless insecure
| brainwashed unconfident depressed virgins who can't even
| articulate the difference between man and woman. That's a
| sick dying society and it's not good so it makes sense to
| regulate the thing which is undoubtedly the root cause of it.
| kcrwfrd_ wrote:
| Yes. Rather than mandating verification, can we just mandate
| that there a registry or that websites are legally required to
| include a particular HTTP header, combined with opt-in
| infrastructure in place for parents to use?
|
| e.g. You could set up a restricted account on a device with a
| user birthdate specified. Any requests for websites that return
| an AGE_REQUIRED header that don't validate would be rejected.
| blitz_skull wrote:
| You're not the only one!
|
| I also believe that this is a Big Deal(tm) that we need to take
| seriously as a nation. I have yet to see any HN commentator
| offer a robust pro-social media argument that carries any
| weight in my opinion. The most common "they'll be isolated from
| their peers" argument seems pretty superficial and can easily
| be worked around with even a tiny amount of efforts on the
| parents' part.
|
| As an added bonus, this latest legislation removes the issue of
| "everyone is doing it". I mean, sure, a lot still will be--but
| then it's illegal and you get to have an entirely separate
| conversation with your kid. :)
| ben_w wrote:
| > I might be the only one here in favor of this, and wanting to
| see a federal rollout.
|
| I'm not American, I think it's perfectly reasonable to ban kids
| from the internet just by applying the logic used for film
| classification. Even just the thumbnails for YouTube (some)
| content can go beyond what I'd expect for a "suitable for all
| audiences" advert.
|
| This isn't an agreement with the specific logic used for film
| classification: I also find it really weird how 20th century
| media classification treated murder perfectly acceptable
| subject in kids shows while the mere existence of functioning
| nipples was treated as a sign of the end times (non-functional
| nipples, i.e. those on men, are apparently fine).
|
| Also, I find it hilariously ironic that Florida also passed the
| "Stop Social Media Censorship Act". No self-awareness at all.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| No I definitely agree. I'm a little skeptical of how they'll
| enforce this but ultimately I think less kids on the internet
| and social media will be a positive and I agree that it doesn't
| seem like parents have managed to figure out how to address
| this.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > I might be the only one here in favor of this
|
| Not even close. I am with you
| robotnikman wrote:
| Same here. With the way the internet is nowadays, its probably
| best to keep kids off the internet until they are older. One
| just has to look at whats on places like Youtube 'Kids' to see
| all the stuff that is not kid friendly and probably detrimental
| to their mental health.
| huytersd wrote:
| Right there with you. This is probably the only thing I'm on
| board with the republicans about.
| jijijijij wrote:
| I am an adult and I wish someone would take social media away
| from me. Honestly, I think social media has done more harm than
| good and I wish it would just cease to exist.
|
| However, especially in Florida, social media may be the only
| way for some teens to escape political and religious lunacy and
| I fear for them. I think it's not wise to applaud them taking
| away means of communication to the "outside", in the context of
| legislation trends and events there.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I can't agree. This teaches kids that the government is the
| answer to everything. this should 100% be the responsibility
| and decision of parents. Kids are different, and these one-
| size-fits-all authoritarian tactics that have become a
| signature of the current GOP Floridian government are just the
| beginning of the totalitarian christofascist laws that they
| want to implement. Before you ask, I am a parent, and my kid's
| devices all have this crap blocked and likely will remain that
| way until he's at least 15, give or take a year depending on
| what I determine when he gets to that age. He knows that there
| are severe ramifications if he tries to work around my
| decision, and will lose many, many privileges if such a thing
| happens.
| iouwhldkfjgklj wrote:
| I'm very anti-giving-kids-screens and am also against this
| bill.
|
| Land of the free - let people do what they want. I know _my_
| kid isn 't getting anywhere near a screen though.
| tootie wrote:
| I have two teens and have yet to see the negative effects of
| social media for them or any of their peers. Not to say it
| doesn't exist, but I sincerely doubt it's as awful as the
| doomsayers think. My personal observation of being raised in he
| 80s is that kids were far more awful to each other then than
| now.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| As the parent of an 11 year old, I wholeheartedly agree. The
| science is pretty clear that social media has had a very
| detrimental effect on teens' mental health. We should treat it
| like we do other substances that are harmful for teens; once
| they're older they are better able to make wiser decisions as to
| if, when and how they want to consume social media.
|
| It may be impossible to enforce outside school, but so is the
| 13-year old limit on opening accounts (my kid's classmates all
| have accounts; they just lie about their age). But that's not a
| reason not to have it on the books, as it sets a social standard,
| and more importantly puts pressure on social media companies.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The evidence is not all that solid. The most demonstrable link
| is between use of portable devices at bedtime and poor sleep
| quality. Everything else has mixed evidence.
| coolbreezetft24 wrote:
| Seems like it does even more harm to adults, so much of the
| "content" is just a cess-pool of conspiracies and vitriol
| k12sosse wrote:
| Does this mean Florida will be the first state off the Internet?
|
| If traffic source is Florida, redirect to null
|
| Easier than implementing an ID verification platform that isn't a
| massive tracking anklet for a 3rd party or government.
| spacebacon wrote:
| I would like to see regulation on notifications to address
| reaction driven addictions as opposed to an outright ban.
| Classical conditioning is clearly the issue at hand but opponents
| are not referencing the proven science enough.
|
| If we don't teach children how to use these platforms in
| moderation now they will certainly not be educated on how to use
| them responsibly in adulthood. I'm not against an outright ban
| totally but we are missing educational opportunities with what is
| likely an unenforceable attack on the problem.
| jshaqaw wrote:
| Does YouTube count? Yes I think TikTok is largely a hellscape for
| my daughters around this age. But one of them learns all sorts of
| crafting projects via YouTube and the other has taught herself an
| incredible amount on how to draw. Would be a shame to throw away
| access to resources like this with the bath water.
| pavlov wrote:
| The law has a list of applications that are specifically
| excepted. User tzs posted it in this thread.
|
| It seems like YouTube would be covered by the ban because it
| doesn't fall under any of the exceptions. The closest one is
| this:
|
| _" A streaming service that provides only licensed media in a
| continuous flow from the service, website, or application to
| the end user and does not obtain a license to the media from a
| user or account holder by agreement to its terms of service."_
|
| But of course YouTube does "obtain a license to the media from
| a user or account holder", so it's not covered by this
| exception.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Does she need her own account in her name where she can upload
| though?
| Ekaros wrote:
| I would prefer it to be straight 18. Much more reasonable limit
| and I think 16-18 is very vulnerable group from effects of social
| media.
| captainmuon wrote:
| I guess for me it depends on what the law considers "social
| media".
|
| Is something like the bulletin boards we used to have around the
| late 90s/early 2000s social media? What about chat rooms? Local
| social web sites for the school or your city? I think a lot of
| these things can even be beneficial, if I think about my own
| experiences as a somewhat introverted teenager.
|
| And what about things like Netflix, Youtube, Podcasts? They can
| be just as harmful as TokTok and Instagram. Especially on Youtube
| you have a lot of similar content.
|
| I've found accounts that claim to be official accounts of
| children's shows - maybe they even are - and which are full of
| nonsensical videos, just randomly cut together action scenes of
| multiple episodes. It's like crack for children. Of course
| YouTube doesn't do anything, they want you to pay for YouTube
| kids. And the rights holders want you to buy the content, so they
| leave the poor quality stuff up.
|
| The thing is, exploitative content is always going to be created
| as long as there are incentives to do so. You can ban stuff, but
| it's whack-a-mole, and you are going to kill a lot of interesting
| stuff as collateral damage. The alternative is much harder,
| change the incentives so we can keep our cool technology and
| people are not awarded for making harmful stuff with it. But that
| would require economic and political changes, and people don't
| like to think about it.
| scythe wrote:
| > I guess for me it depends on what the law considers "social
| media".
|
| It's a bill written by the Florida House of Representatives, so
| there's a definition there. Mind you, it's the Florida House,
| which has put out some extremely bad laws in its current
| session -- from "Parental Rights in Education" to the Disney
| speech retaliation. But given that this is a less ostensibly
| partisan issue, there are reasons for hope.
|
| The definition seems narrowly tailored. I think that part (d)1d
| is a questionable choice, since most social media platforms
| will probably argue that they are not really "designed" to be
| addictive (for various definitions of "designed" and
| "addictive"). It appears that specific exemptions were made for
| YouTube, Craigslist and LinkedIn (without mentioning those
| companies by name), and algorithmic content selection is part
| of the definition. This is one of the better versions of this
| law I could imagine being written by a state legislature,
| though it isn't without its faults. It's nice to see my home
| state in the news for something good for once.
|
| I agree that YouTube is a particularly difficult case. But part
| of the problem comes from using it as a digital pacifier,
| rather than peer pressure. There's no particular reason why the
| technology market should produce a free stream of child-
| appropriate videos. Ad-supported media has its ups and downs,
| but when the targets of those ads are young children, it's much
| harder to defend. And parents have more control over the
| behavior of their 4-year-olds than their 14-year-olds.
|
| Here's the definition:
|
| >(d) "Social media platform:"
|
| >1. Means an online forum, website, or application offered39 by
| an entity that does all of the following:
|
| >a. Allows the social media platform to track the activity of
| the account holder.
|
| >b. Allows an account holder to upload content or view the
| content or activity of other account holders.
|
| >c. Allows an account holder to interact with or track other
| account holders.
|
| >d. Utilizes addictive, harmful, or deceptive design features,
| or any other feature that is designed to cause an account
| holder to have an excessive or compulsive need to use or engage
| with the social media platform.
|
| >e. Allows the utilization of information derived from the
| social media platform's tracking of the activity of an account
| holder to control or target at least part of the content
| offered to the account holder.
|
| >2. Does not include an online service, website, or application
| where the predominant or exclusive function is:
|
| >a. Electronic mail.
|
| >b. Direct messaging consisting of text, photos, or videos that
| are sent between devices by electronic means whe re messages
| are shared between the sender and the recipient only, visible
| to the sender and the recipient, and are not posted publicly.
|
| >c. A streaming service that provides only licensed media in a
| continuous flow from the service, website, or application to
| the end user and does not obtain a license to the media from a
| user or account holder by agreement to its terms of service.
|
| >d. News, sports, entertainment, or other content that is
| preselected by the provider and not user generated, and any
| chat, comment, or interactive functionality that is provided
| incidental to, directly related to, or dependent upon provision
| of the content.
|
| >e. Online shopping or e-commerce, if the interaction with
| other users or account holders is generally limited to the
| ability to upload a post and comment on reviews or display
| lists or collections of goods for sale or wish lists, or other
| functions that are focused on online shopping or e-commerce
| rather than interaction between users or account holders.
|
| > f. Interactive gaming, virtual gaming, or an online service,
| that allows the creation and uploading of content for the
| purpose of interactive gaming, edutainment, or associated
| entertainment, and the communication related to that content.
|
| > g. Photo editing that has an associated photo hosting
| service, if the interaction with other users or account holders
| is generally limited to liking or commenting.
|
| > h. A professional creative network for showcasing and
| discovering artistic content, if the content is required to be
| non-pornographic.
|
| > i. Single-purpose community groups for public safety if the
| interaction with other users or account holders is generally
| limited to that single purpose and the community group has
| guidelines or policies against illegal content.
|
| > j. To provide career development opportunities, including
| professional networking, job skills, learning certifications,
| and job posting and application services.
|
| > k. Business to business software.
|
| > l. A teleconferencing or videoconferencing service that
| allows reception and transmission of audio and video signals
| for real time communication.
|
| > m. Shared document collaboration.
|
| > n. Cloud computing services, which may include cloud o. To
| provide access to or interacting with data visualization
| platforms, libraries, or hubs.
|
| > p. To permit comments on a digital news website, if the news
| content is posted only by the provider of the digital news
| website.
|
| > q. To provide or obtain technical support for a platform,
| product, or service.
|
| > r. Academic, scholarly, or genealogical research where the
| majority of the content that is posted or created is posted or
| created by the provider of the online service, website, or
| application and the ability to chat, comment, or interact with
| other users is directly related to the provider's content.
|
| > s. A classified ad service that only permits the sale of
| goods and prohibits the solicitation of personal services or
| that is used by and under the direction of an educational
| entity, including:
|
| > (I) A learning management system;
|
| > (II) A student engagement program; and
|
| > (III) A subject or skill-specific program.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > The definition seems narrowly tailored
|
| The fact that are well over a dozen exceptions carved out
| strongly suggests that the definition is anything but
| narrowly tailored, and the authors of the bill preferred to
| add in exceptions to everyone who objected rather than
| rethinking their broad definitions.
|
| 1a-c will be trivially satisfied by anything that "has user
| accounts" and "allow users to comment". 1e is clearly meant
| to cover "algorithmic" recommendations, but it's worded so
| broadly that a feature that includes "threads you've
| commented on" would satisfy this prong. 1d is problematic; it
| can be interpreted so narrowly that nothing applies, or so
| broadly that everything applies. IANAL, but I think you'd
| have a decent shot of going after this for unconstitutionally
| vague on this prong for sure.
|
| Discounting 1d, this means that virtually every website in
| existence qualifies as social media sites, at least before
| you start applying exceptions. Not just Facebook or Twitter,
| but things like Twitch, Discord, Paradox web forums, Usenet,
| an MMO game, even news sites and Wikipedia are going to
| qualify as social media platforms.
|
| Actually, given that it's not covered by any of the
| exceptions, Wikipedia is a social media platform according to
| Florida, and I guess would therefore be illegal for kids to
| use. Even more hilariously, Blackboard (the software I had to
| use in school for all the online stuff at school) qualifies
| as a social media platform that would be illegal for kids to
| use.
| soared wrote:
| Agreed - they're effectively banning most commonly used
| websites and then carving out exceptions.
| scythe wrote:
| >Discounting 1d, this means that virtually every website in
| existence qualifies as social media sites
|
| Most websites would not satisfy 1e. Hacker News, for
| example. Traditional forums do not satisfy 1e.
|
| >1e is clearly meant to cover "algorithmic"
| recommendations, but it's worded so broadly that a feature
| that includes "threads you've commented on" would satisfy
| this prong.
|
| There could be some haggling over this, but I don't think
| that reading it in the least reasonable possible way is
| likely to fly in court. In particular, 1e stipulates
| "content offered". If "threads you've commented on" is
| content that the user has to _request_ , e.g. by viewing a
| profile page or an inbox, that might not be considered
| "offering". It also says "control or target", but content
| with a simple bright-line definition like that is probably
| not controlled and certainly not targeted.
|
| >The fact that are well over a dozen exceptions carved out
| strongly suggests that the definition is anything but
| narrowly tailored
|
| >at least before you start applying exceptions.
|
| Yes, the definition is excessively broad if you ignore the
| majority of the text in the definition. This is a circular
| argument.
|
| >Actually, given that it's not covered by any of the
| exceptions, Wikipedia is a social media platform
|
| Exception 2m, shared document collaboration. But I don't
| think Wikipedia satisfies 1e either.
|
| >Blackboard (the software I had to use in school for all
| the online stuff at school) qualifies as a social media
| platform
|
| Probably qualifies under 2s or 2m. I'm not familiar enough
| with the platform to know if it satisfies 1e.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Most websites would not satisfy 1e. Hacker News, for
| example. Traditional forums do not satisfy 1e.
|
| Hacker News has a page that lets me see all of the
| replies from comments I've posted. Posting is clearly
| "activity of an account holder", and that means there is
| "at least part of the content" being "control[led]" by
| that activity.
|
| > If "threads you've commented on" is content that the
| user has to request, e.g. by viewing a profile page or an
| inbox, that might not be considered "offering".
|
| You're the one who's criticizing me for "least reasonable
| possible way", and you're trying to split hairs like
| this? (FWIW, an example that would qualify under your
| more restrictive definition is that the downvote button
| is not shown until you receive enough karma.)
|
| But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you
| think, nor what I think, nor even what a court will
| think. What matters is how much it will constrain the
| government using this law to harass a website. And 1e
| isn't going to provide a barrier for that.
|
| > Yes, the definition is excessively broad if you ignore
| the majority of the text in the definition. This is a
| circular argument.
|
| No, it's not. The definition boils down to "everything on
| the internet is social media, except for these categories
| we've thought of" (or more likely, had lobbyists who
| pointed out that the definition included them and so we
| through them into the list of exceptions). That the
| majority of the text of the definition is a list of
| exceptions doesn't make it a narrow definition; indeed,
| it just highlights that the original definition sans
| exceptions is overly broad.
|
| > Probably qualifies under 2s or 2m
|
| Definitely not 2s, it's not "a classified ad service".
| I'm not sure there are any classified ad services are
| "used by or under the direction of an educational
| agency", but that's what you have to be to qualify under
| 2s. (This makes me think someone did a bad job of
| splicing in the exception, and the second half of 2s is
| supposed to be 2t. Just goes to show you the level of
| quality being displayed in the drafting of this bill, I
| suppose.)
| scythe wrote:
| >Hacker News has a page that lets me see all of the
| replies from comments I've posted. Posting is clearly
| "activity of an account holder", and that means there is
| "at least part of the content" being "control[led]" by
| that activity.
|
| It doesn't say "control" by the activity, it says control
| by the _platform_. Control is a little bit difficult to
| define, but one reasonable necessary condition is that if
| someone is in control of something, then someone else
| might do it differently. "Show me threads I've commented
| on" should produce the same result regardless of
| platform. "Show me a random page" should at least have
| the same probability distribution. But "my
| recommendations" is fully under the platform's _control_.
|
| I grant that trying to interpret "offer" was a bit of a
| reach on my part. On the other hand, "control" can be
| interpreted in a pretty reasonable way to imply some form
| of meaningful choice.
|
| >You're the one who's criticizing me
|
| I'm not criticizing you, I'm criticizing your argument.
| It's important to keep a safe emotional distance in this
| kind of discussion.
|
| >it doesn't matter [...] even what a court will think.
| What matters is how much it will constrain the government
| using this law to harass a website. And 1e isn't going to
| provide a barrier for that.
|
| It certainly does matter what a court will think. Once a
| couple of precedents are set, it should be possible to
| identify what legal actions are meritless, and
| governments bringing frivolous suits may find themselves
| voted out of office. Unfairly targeted websites can bring
| a claim of malicious prosecution.
|
| Now, if you don't trust the voters and the courts, that's
| a different issue, but it's going to affect every law,
| good or bad. That's just how government works.
|
| >That the majority of the text of the definition is a
| list of exceptions doesn't make it a narrow definition;
| indeed, it just highlights that the original definition
| sans exceptions is overly broad.
|
| If we assume that ad targeting and algorithmic content
| recommendation are profitable, the original definition
| clearly constrains the ability of sites to make money
| while offering user accounts for minors. Lobbyists
| probably don't want profits constrained for their
| employers, even if the targeting aspects aren't
| necessary.
|
| But just because it targets _features that can be added_
| to every website, it isn 't reasonable to say that it
| targets every website. Most of the Internet functions
| just fine without needing to create accounts, and when
| accounts are necessary, they're for buying stuff.
| ramblenode wrote:
| Thanks for posting the details.
|
| > f. Interactive gaming, virtual gaming, or an online service
|
| This bill is already out of date. The new generation's social
| media are games like Roblox. And these are as addictive as
| the old social media.
|
| Good luck with this whack-a-mole. A comprehensive bill would
| stop this at the source: kids owning smartphones. But
| addressing smarphones would upset too many parents and too
| much business, so it won't get done.
| tokai wrote:
| Its impressive how people here, that should know better, are
| cheering this on - just because they are parents themselves. Even
| disregarding the legality, its not going to work technically. The
| perceived safety of ones kids really crosses some wires in
| parents.
| efields wrote:
| It's good to have this conversation. I don't think anyone here
| wants the bill enacted as-is (did anyone actually read it? I
| didn't, and I don't live in FL).
|
| Of course this is technically unenforceable. There will always
| fbe workarounds. You could smoke as an 11 year old if you were
| determined enough.
|
| But we need more pushback and dialogue on social media's role
| in the common discourse. For a while, nobody talked about
| smoking being bad and it became normalized while killing a lot
| of people. Seatbelts. Dumping waste in the river... most people
| go with the flow of common consensus until that consensus is
| scrutinized.
| syrgian wrote:
| It would definitely work if a parent could report the accounts
| of all the kids involved and their tiktok/whatever accounts got
| deleted + their phone numbers and emails got block-listed for
| the service.
|
| Even more if the system worked in a centralized way: this
| email/phone is used exclusively by a kid, so now all on-boarded
| companies must delete their accounts and not allow them to
| register again.
| voidwtf wrote:
| Herein lies the rub, every time I've seen this happen in the
| past companies just applied blanket wide bans to accounts.
| Sometimes retroactively for accounts that were illegal at the
| time of their creation regardless of the users current age.
| Both Google and Twitter did this to users who created
| accounts before they were 13 but were then adults.
|
| If you're going to introduce legislation like this, then it
| needs to include provisions that it will not permanently bar
| those users access to the services once they are of age. I
| manage my children's social media interaction (near 0 with
| the exception of YouTube), if their accounts get permanently
| disabled that would be unfortunate in the future when they
| are old enough.
| semiquaver wrote:
| I'm a parent and think this is bullshit. It won't work and it
| isn't designed to work, it's just political posturing destined
| to be struck down by courts.
| exabrial wrote:
| I fail to see how anyone under 18 can legally agree to any kind
| of contract without a parental co-signature. This should be
| enforceable without new laws, but I'm glad to make it explicit:
| progress over perfection.
| rpmisms wrote:
| This is good. Seriously, the damage it does is massive, kids
| should not be on Instagram, Snapchat, or Tiktok.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| I have a hunch that you're right, but there are a few other
| things that coincided with the rise of social media, so it's
| hard to tell what has driven the change in kids' psyches. Among
| them is the explosion of pharmaceuticals that are routinely
| prescribed to kids.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I think these things are linked. Either way, kids are having
| serious issues, so let's roll back the clock and see what
| innovation causes it. Kids were fine before social media,
| arguably better.
| owisd wrote:
| The pharmaceuticals thing is unique to the US, but every
| country has seen a simultaneous rise in kids mental health
| issues, so that rules out pharmaceuticals.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| What about an Instagram for Kids type thing?
|
| Like there is YouTube for kids,
|
| Make it ad-free (I know this is a pipe dream, but at the very
| least it should have ads from companies that do not sell
| gambling apps), scrolling time limits (that actually work which
| should be a bare minimum), chronological time feed
| rpmisms wrote:
| No. I'm not talking about the content itself, I'm talking
| about the firehose of useless garbage, appropriate or not,
| that's frying their dopamine receptors.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Great idea. We could also give them clove cigarettes until
| they're old enough to smoke!
| dartharva wrote:
| NO. The base concept of Social Networks by itself is harmful.
| It does not matter how much you "improve" those things.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| control behavior by _regulating the intermediary_
|
| this is a strategy that works under any governance system on the
| planet. so to actually make an enforceable law don't try to
| impose restrictions on the action, provider, or users of the
| action, instead you should think about things they rely on and
| restrict those.
|
| this law doesn't do that. but it would be fun to think of things
| that would. can we take something away from social media users?
| can we incentivize non-social media users? maybe we can leverage
| our disdain of data brokers into a partnership where data brokers
| can't serve companies that have children's data
|
| just spitballing, I don't actually care about this law or any of
| those proposals, just noticing the current state of the
| discussion lacks... _inspiration_.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Is Hacker News considered social media?
| riffic wrote:
| yes
| tzs wrote:
| For this bill, no. It does not meet conditions (d) and (e) of
| the 5 conditions a site must meet in order to be a social media
| platform. I've quoted the relevant part of the latest bill text
| in this prior comment [1].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39176380
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| i don't know why people are cheering for this?
|
| the government shouldn't take the place of the parents.
|
| I think the real reason is they don't like how tiktok is creating
| activists out of the next generation of voters.
|
| we should demand better from big tech but banning does nothing to
| improve platforms.
|
| so many adults here were on forums, 4chan, mmos, ventrilo growing
| up, even Facebook which was useful keeping in touch as a kid.
| causi wrote:
| All those things were horrible for us. I can't imagine the
| nightmare of combining that with the use of my real name. Like
| yeah, I _want_ a free for all, but how bad does something have
| to be before we say no way?
| tstrimple wrote:
| > All those things were horrible for us.
|
| Except that they weren't. My life would actually be
| substantially worse now without most of those apps /
| websites. I was just another loser growing up in a rural
| trailer park with no real prospects before I got interested
| in programming and taught myself employable skills in those
| online forums and chat apps. It's insane to me that anyone
| could call themselves a part of a "hacker" community and
| complain about kids having access to information and wanting
| legislation to restrict it.
| mminer237 wrote:
| I agree it's the parents' responsibility, but I don't know that
| the government can't prevent things it deems harmful just
| because parents are okay with it. It also often makes things
| easier for parents by being able to require service providers
| to work with parents and limit their sales to children.
|
| I'm fine with the government enforcing curfews, smoking, and
| drinking laws on children even if their parents disagree.
|
| I don't think any of the things you listed, except probably
| Facebook would qualify as a social medium under this law. I'm
| honestly very thankful more manipulative social media didn't
| exist when I was a teen. My life probably would have been
| better if I didn't have access to as many as I did even.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| I support this. Normally, I think government intervention is bad
| and parents should be in control. But, as a parent myself, it was
| hard not to allow my child to have a phone when she kept saying,
| "Everyone has one. I'll be the only one without a phone". No one
| wants their child left out or left behind. This will remove that
| rationale.
| frumper wrote:
| This wouldn't stop your kid from wanting a phone. They'll all
| still want phones for games, chatting, cameras, videos, comment
| sections, forums. Of course many parents won't care if their
| kids sign up to social media sites through some workaround, so
| the pressure will still be there to join social media sites.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Just to be clear, because parenting is hard you want to
| legislate how other parents are able to raise their children so
| that it's easier for you to get the behavior you want? I think
| all parents should take this approach. * Having
| trouble getting your children to go to church because their
| friends don't? Let's just legislate mandatory church attendance
| so that will remove the rationale for kids whose friends don't
| attend! * Having trouble getting your kids to eat
| healthy because all their friends get to eat and drink whatever
| they want? Let's outlaw sodas so kids won't have to feel peer
| pressure! * You think your kid is playing too many
| video games? Why not just pass legislation that restricts all
| video game usage so your kid doesn't feel left out!
|
| Telling your kids no is part of being a parent. Explaining to
| your children why they aren't allowed to do some things that
| other kids do is part of being a parent. It seems we have an
| abundance of parents who don't want to actually be a parent and
| would rather legislation was passed so they don't have to say
| no to their kids.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| It's not my deficiencies as a parent that make me support
| this law. It's the need for a reverse network effect. That's
| how social media works. If everyone else has it, your kid
| wants it. If no one else has it, your kid doesn't want it.
| Social media has been found harmful to children, like smoking
| or alcohol. For many reasons, it should be limited for
| children.
| TheCaptain4815 wrote:
| I don't agree with any type of "outright ban". However, having
| EXTREME restrictions on these social media sites for children
| seems so obvious. I'd prefer a complete restriction on any
| content outside of friends groups, any algorithm restriction,
| etc.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I don't know where I saw this idea but instead of banning just
| force these companies to make their feed algorithms open source.
|
| It would be much less heavy handed and would freedom increasing
| instead of decreasing.
|
| It would work because There would be enough outrage over seeing
| nefarious topics being pushed that the companies would refrain.
| mindslight wrote:
| I agree with where you're coming from, but publicly documenting
| their feed algorithms (which is what a call for "open source"
| effectively is) wouldn't change much. What is actually needed
| are open API access to the data models, so that competitive
| non-user-hostile clients can flourish.
|
| I believe this would be legally straightforward by regulating
| based on the longstanding antitrust concept of _bundling_ -
| just because someone chooses use to use Facebook 's data
| hosting product, or their messaging products, does not mean
| they should also be forced to use any of Facebook's proprietary
| user interface products.
|
| This would not solve the collective action problem where it's
| hard for an individual parent(/kid) to individually reject
| social media, but I also don't see this bill doing much besides
| making it so that kids have to make sure their fake birthday is
| three years earlier than the one they already had to make up
| due to COPPA. Of course the politicians pushing this bill are
| likely envisioning strict identity verification to stop that,
| but such blanket totalitarianism should be soundly rejected by
| all.
|
| Unfortunately the larger problem here is that the digital
| surveillance industry has been allowed to grow and fester for
| decades with very few constraints. Now it's gotten so big and
| its effects so pervasive that none of the general solutions to
| reigning it in (like similarly, a US GDPR) are apparent to
| politicians. It's all just lashing out at symptoms.
| dartharva wrote:
| Is the feed algorithm the only problem that is harming
| children? Not the concept of a social network in general, the
| entire point of whose is to publicise lives and keep its users
| stuck onto their screens for as much time as possible?
|
| The entire fault of social networks is that it is hampering
| children's development by keeping them online. Trying to
| improve those services by making the algorithms better will
| _worsen_ the situation. You want to make children lose the
| appeal of social media, not increase it!
| manicennui wrote:
| Perhaps a better solution is to allow children on social media,
| but drastically limit how companies are allowed to interact with
| such accounts. Random ideas: no ads, no messages from people they
| don't follow, limit ability to follow other accounts in some way.
| djfdat wrote:
| Can I have that as an adult please?
| dartharva wrote:
| Children are not as much at danger from falling for online
| advertisements as they are for the overall detrimental effects
| of social media in general. Social networks are _inherently_
| bad for kids; they are addictive and directly harm children by
| constantly dosing them with dumb entertainment and cutting off
| their attention spans.
| tamimio wrote:
| This is idiotic, they will find a way to watch and be on social
| media regardless. Also, I don't see how social media is bad but
| MSM that brainwashed generations is any good, are they going to
| enforce the same rules on other forms of media? Or is it because
| "we can't censor XY social media" so we are gonna ban them all?
| mullingitover wrote:
| Florida House essentially breaking out the classic: "We're from
| the government and we're here to help."
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > The social media platforms the bill would target include any
| site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload content
| or uses addictive features designed to cause compulsive use.
|
| So, is ClassLink exempt? This seems pretty broad.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| This might be the first bill approved by the Florida legislature
| in the last 8 years that I agree with. I like it in spite of all
| the reasons these people voted for it. And I like it in spite of
| the absolute horror show of an enforcement dilemma it's going to
| impose on the residents of Florida. Will it force all Florida
| residents including children to use VPNs to use the internet? Yes
| it will.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Social media exclusively uses a predatory pricing model and the
| companies should be forced to stop subsidizing their products
| with targeted ads. The algorithms drive max engagement because
| that drives max impressions and cpcs. The algorithm doesn't care
| that its' making people angry and divisive - it's optimizing
| revenue!
|
| All of the other evils stem from this core issue - Meta, et al.
| makes money off of their customers misery. It should hardly
| surprise anyone that children are affected much more strongly by
| industrialized psychology.
| brocklobsta wrote:
| This is a very complex problem. Its not just social media, but
| porn and other content that is not intended for young eyes.
|
| One issue I have is with the age verification system. This will
| either be totally ineffective or overly effective and invasive. I
| feel legislation is drifting towards the latter with the
| requirement of ID.
|
| One idea I had is a managed dns blacklist of inappropriate
| content. The government can have a requirement that a website
| register their site in this list to operate, otherwise they are
| subject to litigation for their content. At the same time have
| isps and network gear support this list in a 1 click type
| fashion. I have multiple dns blacklists I use at home. I know
| this may be a little more technical for the parents and
| guardians, but that is the world we are living in.
|
| Limitations being:
|
| Section 230 - user posts explicit content and the site isn't in
| the blacklist.
|
| Network scope - This blacklist will have to be added to all
| networks accessed by children. What about public wifi? coffee
| shops?
|
| IDK, I love being able to be anonymous online, but I do see the
| negative effects of social media, porn, and explicit content on
| our youth. I don't really trust the government to solve this
| effectively.
| cheschire wrote:
| What qualifies for the blacklist? It's a moral question. What
| happens when the blacklist maintainer's morals differ from your
| own? Sure, in the U.S. it seems fairly uniform that most people
| do not want children having access to porn. But what about
| women having access to information about abortion? Or
| information about suicide? The use of drugs on psychological
| conditions? Vaccination efficacy?
|
| Really sucks when someone that controls the blacklist decides
| you're on the moral fringes of society.
| brocklobsta wrote:
| Agreed, some are easy to classify like nude content, but what
| about a website about war history, that content is
| simultaneously factual and explicit. This is why I say its up
| to the website owner to register for the blacklist. That in
| itself has an incentive to reduce the surface of liability of
| the website.
|
| Social media is a hard problem. What is exactly the issue? Is
| it creating a larger social hierarchy than children can cope
| with? Is it meeting and interacting with strangers? Is it
| reinforcing dopaminergic pathways from superficial digital
| content and approvals?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I think that online anonymity is overrated (and yes, I'm aware
| of my username). Social media platforms ought to require
| traceability and age verification.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I don't even want the blacklist idea floated.
|
| In a few states, you'll imminently see any information about
| LGBTQ+ people, include mental health resources, on that
| blacklist. (This has already been the case for decades in
| various school districts.)
|
| And I'm not even trying to exaggerate. Ohio is working to
| eliminate any transgender medical treatment from the state.
| They've already succeed in making it nearly impossible for
| minors and now they are working on preventing adults from
| receiving hormone treatments.
| carabiner wrote:
| It's crazy how in 2017, YC was proposing a social network for
| kids as a startup idea:
|
| > Social Network for Children: This is a super tough nut to
| crack. You have to be cool and offer a safe and private
| environment for kids to communicate with each other while
| enabling trusted adults to peer in/interact, etc... The company
| that can build something that is used and useful for all parties
| can build something of great value throughout a person's entire
| life. - Holly Liu, Kabam/Y Combinator
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/13-startup-ideas
|
| There was very little notion that a social network, no matter how
| safe, was inherently detrimental to childhood development. Like
| cigarettes initially, it just seemed to be mostly positive with
| some niggling annoyances. I wonder what other current YC ideas
| will be considered horrible 7 years from now.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I have no idea how this would be enforced but I agree with the
| spirit of the law.
|
| We either live in a world where children are hopelessly pressured
| into joining social media early in life and suffering its
| effects, or we ban them from it all together and allow them to
| have something that still looks like a childhood.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I'm willing to buy an argument that certain kinds of "social
| media" have negative impact on kids under 16; but I'm absolutely
| not willing to buy an argument for a world in which the
| government is able to ban your communications with other people
| because you're under 16.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I feel like I can almost guarantee that this bill has nothing to
| do with protecting children and has more to do with brainwashing
| children and restricting their access to opposing viewpoints,
| especially given this is Florida.
|
| That being said, I am not strictly opposed to a bill like this.
| But 16 is way too old. I feel like likely somewhere within the 10
| to 13 range since most don't allow for under 13 anyways would be
| fine. But then if they all block under 13 what is the point of
| the bill?
| mrangle wrote:
| Restricting social media use is tantamount to brainwashing? I
| don't see the connection.
|
| As for restricting access to "opposing" (opposition to what?)
| viewpoints, what children can be exposed to has long been
| restricted.
|
| But since there isn't a syllabus for what children will be
| presented on social media, I don't see the viewpoint
| restriction angle either.
|
| In fact, that position is illogical to the point that it raises
| the question of whether or not people concerned with it have an
| agenda to expose kids to "viewpoints" that their parents would
| disapprove of. Under the radar of supervision.
|
| Going only on my experience with social media, a valid and more
| plausible reason for this restriction would be that social
| media seeks to optimize the feed of users for engagement. In a
| manner that "hacks" psychology in a way that makes it difficult
| for even adults to disengage. Given that minors do not have
| fully developed brains, the ability to disengage may be even
| more hindered.
|
| Television programing has long sought this goal as well and
| with some success. While that use isn't restricted, there is
| theoretically a red line. Florida may see it in social media
| use.
| netsharc wrote:
| How TikTok users trolled the Trump campaign:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rally-tiktok-crowds-
| tulsa...
|
| Well, true, TikTok probably has more negatives than
| positives, but I have a feeling the American Talibans[1] in
| power don't like teens organizing, and where do they
| organize? On social media...
|
| [1] Yes this is an apt comparison. Suppression of opposing
| viewpoints, growing voter suppression and not even accepting
| results of democratic elections, and then the whole anti-
| Abortion movement.
| holoduke wrote:
| Its should be categorized in the same way as gambling. Its
| addictive and useless in any form. The whole world would be
| better off without any social media. Including the most anti
| social people.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I disagree, what social media has turned into thanks to
| algorithms and engagement is a problem.
|
| But in its purest form Social media isn't a bad thing and is
| a good way to actually keep in contact with friends. Also a
| good way to keep up on events happening around the world
| without relying on the news for everything.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Do you realize that this is a social media site?
| dylan604 wrote:
| > what is the point of the bill?
|
| This is a valid question for pretty much all legislation. It
| serves by allowing the congress critters to toot their horns as
| doing something for those that only pay attention to news bites
| while doing no harm by doing nothing
| nerdjon wrote:
| I really hate how right you are. And that meaningless thing
| will be all over ads and or your opponent voted against it
| (since it was meaningless and shouldn't be on the books) that
| turns into an attack on them.
| throwup238 wrote:
| I feel like the Australian TV show Utopia should be mandatory
| viewing for anyone who wants to understand government, even
| though it is ostensibly a comedy.
| geogra4 wrote:
| I remember when I was 10 years old at a computer camp during the
| summer at a local college. They had me set up my first email
| account with hotmail. They all asked us to lie about our age. I
| think even then they had restrictions that you had to be 13 years
| old.
|
| But - that was over 25 years ago. The internet was a much
| different place.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Might be thinking of this?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Prot...
|
| I remember joining ebay (well, auctionweb - aw.com/ebay, IIRC)
| and it not even being an issue that I was around 14, we mostly
| trusted each other, and just mailed money orders around. A
| different time.
| nojvek wrote:
| What if the social network is created by kids?
|
| I guess I need to write to my representatives.
|
| It's funny that the Republicans tout they are the party of
| "freedom", yet restrict the liberties.
|
| Why not let parents decide how they want to raise their kids?
| soared wrote:
| Technical implementation looks like a good use case for this,
| morals/etc aside -
|
| https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/protections/pr...
|
| Private State Tokens enable trust in a user's authenticity to be
| conveyed from one context to another, to help sites combat fraud
| and distinguish bots from real humans--without passive tracking.
|
| An issuer website can issue tokens to the web browser of a user
| who shows that they're trustworthy, for example through continued
| account usage, by completing a transaction, or by getting an
| acceptable reCAPTCHA score. A redeemer website can confirm that a
| user is not fake by checking if they have tokens from an issuer
| the redeemer trusts, and then redeeming tokens as necessary.
| Private State Tokens are encrypted, so it isn't possible to
| identify an individual or connect trusted and untrusted instances
| to discover user identity.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yep - one of those "it's possible but do we want this"
| situations. Something feels a bit slimy about government-
| approved browser tokens. Like,
|
| "We're sorry, your revocation appeal is taking longer than
| expected due to ongoing unrest in your area - please refrain
| from using internet enabled services like ordering food,
| texting friends, uploading livestream videos of police, giving
| legal advice, finding directions to your employer - a nonprofit
| legal representation service, or contacting high-volume
| providers like the ACLU. Have a nice day!"
|
| But it could just be "Please execute three pledges of
| allegiance to unlock pornhub"
| solarpunk wrote:
| you've posted this in a few threads, but i dont think i
| understand what the scenario it is used in would be?
|
| every user of social media in florida now has to visit a third
| party (who?) that sets a cookie (private state token?) on their
| browser that verifies their age?
| soared wrote:
| Correct - ISP requires you to visit Florida.gov (or
| realistically a company the government trusted to set up
| verification) to set your token if you're an adult. Then each
| social media site checks whether a visitor is from Florida,
| and then if they have a valid token. If valid, load like
| normal. If not valid, don't load the site.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| And now the state of Florida has a receipt of every website
| you ever visit. That will surely _never_ be an issue when
| the Governor 's private law enforcement arm looks through
| it or the inevitable data leak happens.
| soared wrote:
| The intention of the API is for that to not be possible.
|
| > The privacy of this API relies on that fact: the issuer
| is unable to correlate its issuances on one site with
| redemptions on another site. If the issuer gives out N
| tokens each to M users, and later receives up to N*M
| requests for redemption on various sites, the issuer
| can't correlate those redemption requests to any user
| identity (unless M = 1). It learns only aggregate
| information about which sites users visit.
|
| https://github.com/WICG/trust-token-api?tab=readme-ov-
| file#p...
| tempestn wrote:
| 16 seems ridiculously old for such a ban. Especially if sites
| like YouTube count as social media (and I can't imagine how it
| wouldn't, given most of the content is identical between the
| short video platforms).
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| Why does 16 seem ridiculously old?
| tempestn wrote:
| Because 15 year-olds are the prime audience for a lot of
| social media. And while much of it is a waste of time at best
| or actively harmful at worst, a lot of it is also engaging or
| even educational content that high school students should be
| allowed to access. And will access regardless; it'll just be
| a hassle for them or their parents to have to jump through
| hoops to get to it.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| A much better better move in my local state, they banned all
| phones in school up to year 10.
|
| https://www.act.gov.au/our-canberra/latest-news/2023/decembe...
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| What's an enforcement mechanism that works for this? My concern
| is that teenagers are going to learn yet another way to be
| dishonest.
| iosystem wrote:
| The tech industry needs an association similar to how doctors
| join the American Medical Association, where they can
| collectively agree on ethics and guidelines that must be
| followed. Any person in tech is behaving unethically if they
| assist in implementing software to restrict children in Florida
| from accessing information on the internet that their peers in
| other states can access. Florida shows little concern for the
| potential harm to children resulting from information
| restrictions. Kids in abusive environments greatly benefit from
| the social connections online communities provide, as well as the
| diverse information and perspectives from other people. Florida
| has created this bill as a means to censor content it deems
| immoral, whether it be abortion information for girls,
| understanding sexuality, the existence of trans kids, or any
| other topic arbitrarily designated as immoral by the ruling
| political party. It is disconcerting to target the rights of
| children, who have the lowest chance of having the resources
| needed to challenge something like this bill in court, which
| should happen under the first amendment.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| The AMA has many problems but Ill just mention one - they
| artificially restrict the number of graduates each year _WHILE_
| reporting nation wide shortages. Its not a silver bullet for
| ethical behavior or efficient economics.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Great! Now can we ban it for those over 16?
| spdustin wrote:
| I truly don't understand how the party of small government and
| parental rights of determination can justify passing this.
|
| Perhaps more relevant to HN, it seems to me that any solution
| here would be a dramatic loss of agency, privacy, and anonymity.
| bentt wrote:
| I am here to report as a parent of children that I have been able
| to keep them off of social media by not getting them phones,
| controlling the Internet in the house, and paying close
| attention.
| munificent wrote:
| How has it impacted their social life?
|
| My experience with my kids (middle and high school age) is that
| online is "where" most kids socialize today and if I don't let
| my kids go there, I am socially isolating them.
| redder23 wrote:
| I am all for it but the question is how will this be enforced? If
| they use this to require government ID on every other website now
| and crack down on semi anonymous accounts and go full
| surveillance I do not like it.
|
| You might say "they do know you are when you make any account"
| and it might be true, well if I would use a VPN all the time and
| really no let any info slip maybe not. I just to not like the
| total deletion of privacy.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I don't like it's mandated by law (id check on the internet is a
| identity fraud disaster waiting to happen), but I'm copying this
| for my kids
| kmeisthax wrote:
| My impression of these bills was that none of them had survived
| contact with SCOTUS. What is going to make this bill any
| different?
|
| And why aren't we just passing a proper damned privacy law
| already? All of the addictive features of social media are
| specifically enabled by their ability to collect unlimited
| amounts of data. Yes, I know, the NSA really likes that data
| thank-you-very-much, but SCOTUS isn't going to be OK with "censor
| children" to protect that data flow.
| aktuel wrote:
| I would ban it for everyone under 21. It is certainly not safer
| than alcohol.
| swozey wrote:
| I wonder what this would affect culturally. There is a LOT more
| to this that will happen than just keeping children off of social
| media.
|
| The USA exports its culture/pop/etc all over the world. I don't
| follow teenager arts/music/etc sources but a lot of musicians
| start in middle school and have so many mix tapes online and get
| known around their cities from using social media. Artists find
| other artists, learn other styles, etc.
|
| I got into programming through IRC as a kid, which maybe that's
| like tiktok nowadays, I don't know a good comparison. I learned
| so much through sites/apps I could "upload content" and "tracks
| user activity."
|
| So, what happens when every kid-teenager in a nation thats the
| worlds biggest culture exporter isn't getting their culture out?
|
| I can't believe this got 106 to 13 with the "Regardless of
| parental approval."
| financypants wrote:
| This is such a silly issue on a governmental level. Shouldn't the
| parents, who spend more time around their children than the
| Florida House of Representatives does, worry about and monitor
| their own children?
| it_citizen wrote:
| Should we apply the same reasoning for banning kids from buying
| alcohol or firearms then?
| arijun wrote:
| Off the top of my head, I can think of two reasons why it might
| be preferable to have the government intervene.
|
| 1) We are happy to have the government intervene in other cases
| for the sake of children; I would be pretty upset at any
| politician who espoused removing age restrictions on
| cigarettes. I don't know that social media is as bad but it
| certainly has some of the addictive properties
|
| 2) An argument from tragedy of the masses: if all kids' social
| lives currently revolve around social media, unilaterally
| disallowing one child to use it could result in alienation from
| their peer group, which might be worse for the kid than social
| media. A government mandate would remove this issue.
| paxys wrote:
| Is this a real bill or another one of those performative ones
| that they know will get deemed unconstitutional by a court?
| int0x21 wrote:
| Ahh yes. When you can't parent, let the government do it.
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