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Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

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

#171
post #153

> The bills also impose a social media curfew that blocks children's access between 22:30 and 06:30, unless adjusted by their parents. The main bill is a possibly a bit overreaching but I’m fully in favour of this part. There’s a huge problem where I live with kids just not going to school and many of those same kids are staying up until 1am each night doom scrolling or watching YouTube.

[flagged]

> Now I'm more successful (and better educated) than almost everyone I grew up with

You realize you might be something of an outlier, right? Most teenagers are dramatically sleep-deprived, more so than teens of your generation. Your experience won't generalize.

> This law is just religious fundamentalist tradlife censorship dressed up in the moral panic of the moment.

Really?

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

#172

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…

> There’s exceptions for email, Netflix, Amazon, news, traditional media kinds of sites.

The fact that there are 20 categories of services exempted shows that this is a terrible bill that is based on punishing specific actors and not regulating data privacy or child wellbeing in a meaningful way.

for reference, line 165 to 224 of that link are the exceptions:

"Social media platform" does not include an online service, website, or application: (i) where the predominant or exclusive function is:

  (A) electronic mail; (B) direct messaging [only between two users],  (C) a streaming service, (D) news, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated,   (E) online shopping or e-commerce [when limited to posting reviews and wish lists], (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,  (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, (J) providing 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,  (M) cloud storage, (N) shared document collaboration, (O) cloud computing services, (P) providing access to or interacting with data visualization platforms, libraries,  (Q) to permit comments on a digital news website, if the news content is posted only by the provider of the digital news website, (R) providing or obtaining technical support for a platform, product, or service, (S) academic or scholarly research, (T) genealogical research
(J) is a carve-out for linkedin, wonderful.

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

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the bills yet but according to the article it applies to children under 18. 17-year-old me would have considered this draconian bullsh*t, for the same reasons I would now. (So does dad me, incidentally. My kid's messages have always been her business, not mine.)

I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17.

So that's why I didn't become a professional programmer. SO and Github hadn't been invented yet when I was 17.

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

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here’s their definition of such a company (from the same link): 155 (9) "Social media company" means a person or entity that: 156 (a) provides a social media platform that has at least 5,000,000 account holders 157 worldwide; and 158 (b) is an interactive computer service. So, size is really the only relevant discriminator.

> So, size is really the only relevant discriminator. No, its not, see the vast horde of use/function based exclusions starting at line 165 comprising code section 13-63-101(10)(b).

None of which clearly protect GH or SO, the subjects of this thread branch.

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I haven't read the bills yet but according to the article it applies to children under 18. 17-year-old me would have considered this draconian bullsh*t, for the same reasons I would now. (So does dad me, incidentally. My kid's messages have always been her business, not mine.)

> 17-year-old me would have considered this draconian bullsht, for the same reasons I would now.

If anyone thinks that this bill is going to keep 17 year olds from accessing everything from Reddit to GitHub, they are going to be very disappointed.

It's kind of wild to see so much of these comments insisting that anyone under the age of 18 be locked up and prevented from accessing basic internet sites and* encouraging laws that would force every site to implement strict ID verification just to use it.

Did everyone just forget what it was like to grow up with draconian content blockers at school preventing you from getting to benign information on the internet?

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

#176
post #153

> The bills also impose a social media curfew that blocks children's access between 22:30 and 06:30, unless adjusted by their parents. The main bill is a possibly a bit overreaching but I’m fully in favour of this part. There’s a huge problem where I live with kids just not going to school and many of those same kids are staying up until 1am each night doom scrolling or watching YouTube.

[flagged]

Considering we have compulsory schooling in the US through age 18 (generally), I don’t think this is making the point you think it is.

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

#177
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it puts the burden of enforcement on tech platforms rather than the kids' parents What else do you expect? When tech companies make phones secure enough for the NSA, every app has passwords, and most apps have disappearing messages, how exactly do you expect parents to monitor what their kids are doing? All the "parental monitoring" apps do is check how much time kids are using the phone. They give zero info on wha…

You don't have to give your kids a phone...

This, I think it would far more realistic to ban the type of devices a child can purchase or own then push this burden to "social media companies" on the internet.

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

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An important difference being the ID’s purpose being just to prove your age during for that transaction, not provide a mechanism to create a permanent record of your behavior.

Large numbers of states actively monitor (via swiping IDs) your alcohol purchase history. Many states have entire bureaus whose job it is to keep this information.

Interesting, I did not know that, and that is disappointing to find out.

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

#179
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17.

So that's why I didn't become a professional programmer. SO and Github hadn't been invented yet when I was 17.

You’re thinking about it wrong. How many people that you knew when you were 17 would have become programmers if the current resources existed.

See also: survivorship bias.

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

#180

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.

> 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".

It's baffling to read all the HN comments encouraging draconian restrictions and forced PII collection on websites, all with the assumption that it will only apply to websites I don't like.

Laws like this, if enforced, would make a lot of the sites you use on a daily basis require strict ID verification. Are you really ready to be doing the ID verification dance with GitHub, Reddit, Hacker News and every other big site on the internet just to post?

Of course not. You're going to sign up for a VPN and use it, just like all of the 17 year old kids who just want to use the internet like normal people.

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