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Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

bbc.com

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Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#161

Post by vlunkr »

Can anyone familiar with the law tell us if this will stand? What grounds does the government have to limit access like this?

On an unrelated note, I’m a little surprised how positive people are on this. How many of us spent time online in forums or chat rooms as teens? That can be a very formative experience. Especially for kids who feel like they don’t fit in with the local crowd or feel unaccepted by their parents. I’m too old to get discord, but I can see that internet subculture is going strong there.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#162

Post by [deleted] »

judge2020 wrote: post #121
ryankshaw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Utah. If that's what happens, that would be awesome! "Sorry kids, no fb/tiktok/insta and there's nothing I can do about it. None of them work where we live" Would be a huge win for all parents. No social media, and we don't have to be the bad guys taking it away.

From other comments, it seems the definition is not "what you assume is a social media app" but "any service with over 5 million users that facilitates chat via posts". I am 99% certain this includes Hacker News, Steam, probably also bugs.chromium.org and bugzilla.mozilla.org, and maybe even any website that allows user comments if they happen to have over 5 million users.

[deleted]

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#163

Post by throwaway290 »

staunton wrote: post #160
throwaway290 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there should be no laws against tobacco, alcohol, drug abuse, gambling because people can't possibly be misguided by powerful corporate interests for profit or otherwise"

That's not what I said. There is a balance to be found. I only objected to "this restriction actually makes everyone free (to do what I think they should)" being used as an argument. If enough people agree, sure, you can ban social media. The reasoning should be a cost benefit analysis though, not "my laws shall make you free".

Yes, balance is important. I guess if the law is passed then enough people agree...

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#164

Post by thot_experiment »

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #83
falcolas wrote: post #62

Is it a bad time to mention that sites like stack overflow, discord, sub stack, medium, Reddit, hacker news, GitHub, YouTube, and so forth have the same traits - the same identifying markers - as what we consider traditional social media sites? How the bill defines social media: 10) (a) "Social media platform" means an online forum that a social media company 160 makes available for an account holder to: 161 (i) crea…

Yes, and a 13 year old should absolutely not use any of those services. Discord in particular has become known as “groomercord” for it’s open pedophilia.

90%+ of the useful interactions I have with other humans working on interesting problems is through Discord these days. If I have an issue with a library, or run into a tough to solve physics problem, basically anything where I might want to talk to someone more knowledgeable or experienced than me the answer is hop on a discord server and ask. It's absolutely asinine to deny this resource to kids.

At least we're teaching kids the basics of computer security by forcing them to circumvent these restrictions, and I have full faith than they will. Most kids are much more technologically literate than someone who would unironically type "groomercord".

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#165

Post by ShamelessC »

judge2020 wrote: post #104
ShamelessC wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is precisely the solution. Tech platforms are far more culpable than parents in this matter. If that means your startup idea no longer scales - good riddance.

> If that means your startup idea no longer scales - good riddance. And if that means no startup can possibly compete against the existing players in the industry that have the bandwidth and resources to implement the regulation?

> And if that means no startup can possibly compete against the existing players in the industry that have the bandwidth and resources to implement the regulation?

I think starting a tech startup under a VC model is a high-risk, high-reward setup and that your idea should be strong enough to withstand regulations such as this, yeah. There has been a lot of false innovation lately and it has soured my view on the model.

I think it also hurts the incumbents, even though they get a moat of sorts. But only a moat around "tracking teenagers for advertising data".

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#166

Post by bdw5204 »

taylodl wrote: post #18
paxys wrote: post #16

Whether this is a reasonable law or not, my big problem with it is that it puts the burden of enforcement on tech platforms rather than the kids' parents. There is no way for any company to check for something like this without also affecting every other user of the site, whether they are in Utah or not and whether they are a teen or not. What do they do exactly, start collecting government IDs from us before every v…

Call their bluff - don’t make your service available in Utah.

The solution is actually simpler than that. Just shut down any company operations in Utah, refuse to accept any payments from users with Utah addresses and require all of your employees that are located in Utah to relocate. But people in Utah can continue using the service.

It's also quite possible that this law gets thrown out as unconstitutional by the federal courts since it seems similar to the California video game censorship law from Brown v. EMA.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#167

Post by morpheuskafka »

MBCook wrote: post #82
bananapub wrote: post #13

this is a crappy headline. by trying to put some age limit on things, they're forcing absolutely everyone to give up their identity to the government / sites.

Unfortunately that is the most reliable form of age verification we have: government ID cards. If this is 100% true in its face it would look identical to if it was a scheme to de-anonymize people.

And all of the security is in the physical card manufacturing itself. Uploading a photo of a card is trivial to photoshop and requires no hardware at all.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#168

Post by Syonyk »

Gigachad wrote: post #142
hackernewds wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about YouTube? Lots of educational material there. Fits all of the points.

There is YouTube for kids which is meant to be more stripped down.

Meant to be, sure.

Ends up being this weird blend of "disturbing kid crack" videos that you really shouldn't leave a child unattended with. The whole "Peppa Pig Drinks Bleach" stuff was only the shallow end of the darkness of the stuff generally tossed in the "Elsagate" category.

There is no "safe" way for a... oh, 2-7 year old, I'll be nice, to use the internet unattended. I've seen an awful lot of it out and about.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#169

Post by smooth_remmy »

monksy wrote: post #42
syklep wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software Developer is the most common job in Utah, it's kind of surprising this happened despite that.

It's not surprising at all for Utah. That is a highly Mormon run state that has strong stances on how you should live your life. Even if you are a "goi" (I use the word loosely to illustrate the cultural metaphor in a us v them mentality) to them. What is amazing is that they have this strong stance on how to restrictively govern the people inside their borders, but yet expect to have a western lifestyle support them…

> That is a highly Mormon run state that has strong stances on how you should live your life. Even if you are a "goi" (I use the word loosely to illustrate the cultural metaphor in a us v them mentality) to them.

I think you're crossing a line here. You are accusing the Mormons in Utah of having a us-versus-them mentality. But your own comment tries to turn readers against Mormons.

Never forget: The Missouri Executive Order 44, also known as the Mormon Extermination Order, was issued on October 27, 1838, by Governor Lilburn Boggs. The order authorized the expulsion of Mormons from the state and is sometimes referred to as the "Mormon Kill Law". However, the order was rescinded by Governor Christopher S. "Kit" Bond in 1976.

I think we should all be more charitable to Mormons after what they've been through.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#170

Post by dragonwriter »

falcolas wrote: post #148
hackernewds wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub is not being banned. Neither is SO.

What part of the bill provides them an exception?

>What part of the bill provides them an exception?

For Github? 10(b)(i)(N), to the extent that source code files are “documents”.

For Stack Overflow? 10(b)(i)(J), which was probably written for LinkedIn specifically.

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