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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

#491

Post by loeg »

oceanplexian wrote: post #425
loeg wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly teenagers are smart enough to select an age over 18. The governor's tweet is: https://twitter.com/GovCox/status/1639015949964840960 > SB152 requires social media companies to verify that users in the state are 18 or older to open an account. Minors will need parental consent to create an account. Ok, so what age verification does SB152 require? https://le.utah.gov/~2023/bills/static/SB0152.html > 246 (3) (a)…

There are already laws on the books in numerous states requiring porn sites to verify that users are over 18. As far as I know, none of them require users to upload a government ID. As usual I think HN is making leaps of logic without actually reading the law or thinking of how else users might be verified (A $0.10 refundable credit card charge for example).

To my knowledge no porn site requires anything beyond clicking "yes, I'm 18," which is the exact kind of "how old are you?" mechanism easily circumvented by teenagers. A credit card charge is not exactly less burdensome than providing state ID.

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

#492

Post by dahart »

jandrese wrote: post #361
dragonwriter wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN appears to be totally banhammered under this since /the mods/ don’t post the news. Does HN have more than 5 million user accounts?

I guarantee that there are more than 5 million bot accounts alone.

Ooh I’m curious to hear more. Do you have inside knowledge, or see widespread evidence of bots? I’ve only seen perhaps a few here and there, almost always downvoted to oblivion.

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

#493

Post by tzs »

Europe might help here with getting around the privacy issues.

Organize your social media company so that all of the posts are made through, stored, retrieved, and controlled by a European company and all the processing/storage occurs in Europe.

GDPR would then apply to the European company. Yes, it would still apply even when the data is about someone who is not European. GPDR's extraterritorial rules are that it applies (1) to companies not in Europe that are offering products or services to people "in the Union" or tracking the actions of people in the Union that take place in the Union, and (2) to companies in the Union regardless of where they operate or where the data subjects are.

The CLOUD Act in the US would not apply, because the data would be controlled by a European company. The CLOUD Act applies to the case where a US company is storing data in a non-US location but still under its control, and allows the US to order that US company to retrieve the data.

It should be fine if the European company is partly or even completely owned by a US company, just as long as it is set up so that the European company controls the data. GDPR would still apply because of the European company, and the CLOUD Act would still not apply because the US company would not control the data.

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

#494

Post by MBCook »

vxNsr wrote: post #294
MBCook wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re also taking away the support some marginalized people may get from social networks (eg LGBT, uncommon religions for the area) that their local community doesn’t provide/discriminates against/their parents hate. Social networks, for all their faults, are not pure evil. They can be beneficial for some people.

And your argument is that you’re ok with the general harm these cause to most people for the marginal possible benefit for a very small minority. Notwithstanding the fact that many so-called marginalized minorities are also terribly bullied online.

I’m not trying to advocate either way, just pointing out it’s not as clear cut as some people in these comments act like it is.

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

#495

Post by somethingreen »

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…

Just use BankID/GovID/whatever verified OAuth service and request a single age/date of birth data point once. No need to authenticate or store anything.

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

#496

Post by [deleted] »

jart wrote: post #434
corobo wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents and schools having an "I know better than you" attitude and blocking sites/access is how I learned how to bypass those restrictions in fairness. Within a year I knew more than they did about tech, and they could no longer block me without physically removing cables (good luck with that in a 5G-enabled world!) They're just setting up the next generation of hacker!

I got my mom to disable parental controls so I could do hacking. I showed her that the programming websites I wanted to access were blocked and so were the IRC servers where programmers congregated. She decided she didn't want to hold back my education. I don't think the people who build these things really mentally model for children that do more than consume Disney.

[deleted]

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

#497

Post by insane_dreamer »

morbia wrote: post #365
heavyset_go wrote: post #306

I feel like this is a response to the exponential popularity of sites like r/exmormon among younger generations. For example, look at these exceptions. It seems like organic, unapproved discussion between users is what the bill is trying to stifle: > (D) news, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated, ... (Q) to permit comments on a digital news website, if th…

Gay guy here. I have always said that these sort of laws designed to protect children will do precisely the opposite. An LGBTQ child is effectively forcibly outed by this law, potentially before they've come to terms with their sexuality / gender themselves. Whilst I don't doubt social media causes a lot of harm on children growing up, giving parents full access to your messages is not the solution. In my opinion, ba…

In theory I agree with you and the other posters on this. But as someone with preteen kids there’s the other side of me that wants to a) protect them from all the actual shit out there, and b) perhaps more importantly encourage them to do something more constructive than mindlessly scrolling through TikTok clips that have no value whatsoever. In fact I’m far more worried about b) than a) because I know they can learn to discern a) but b) can become a true addiction. I want them to explore whatever their interests are - which may be very different than mine were at their age - what I don’t want is for them to become the equivalent of “zombie couch potatoes”. I’m also concerned about all the negative comparisons that come with “oh look how those peoples lives are so much better than mine” ; I suffered from that myself as an adult (even though I knew that what I saw on social media was not a true representation of peoples lives) and was happier after I deleted my FB account (not to mention wasting less time). Anyway I wonder how many people responding here have teenagers, because when you do, you think of this issue from a different perspective. (I’m not religious nor in Utah)

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

#498

Post by insane_dreamer »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #497
morbia wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gay guy here. I have always said that these sort of laws designed to protect children will do precisely the opposite. An LGBTQ child is effectively forcibly outed by this law, potentially before they've come to terms with their sexuality / gender themselves. Whilst I don't doubt social media causes a lot of harm on children growing up, giving parents full access to your messages is not the solution. In my opinion, ba…

In theory I agree with you and the other posters on this. But as someone with preteen kids there’s the other side of me that wants to a) protect them from all the actual shit out there, and b) perhaps more importantly encourage them to do something more constructive than mindlessly scrolling through TikTok clips that have no value whatsoever. In fact I’m far more worried about b) than a) because I know they can learn…

PS. Having said the above, I do not agree with a law parental consent being required until 18. I would want my kids to have acquired good habits and be able to make reasonable decisions in their own without our involvement by 14 or so.

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

#499

Post by Mezzie »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #481
Mezzie wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to add that this may have outsized unintended effects like COPPA did - COPPA being the law that established that accounts online required you to be 13. I was 12 when COPPA went into effect. What a lot of people don't know about COPPA is that there is a provision to allow for children under 13 to have accounts with proven parental permission. My parents would have allowed me - I'd been online for 8 years at t…

How likely is it that today's teens simply check the "I am over 18" box and set themselves a fake birthday that is Jan 1 from 20 years ago? I've been 25 for the past 25 years, after all.

The problem is that you can't easily verify whether someone is 12 or 14 with documentation so the checkbox is all they had. You can easily verify if someone is over 18 and there are systems in place to do so, which means it's highly likely if this takes place that ID is going to be required. (I mean I also just lied after COPPA, but I was pissed to lose so many accounts that I'd signed up for honestly in 95-99.)

Are the kids going to get around it? Yes. (And good, that's one way to develop a healthy skepticism as well as some systems thinking.) But it's going to be way harder and likely involve forging documents or impersonating particular adults. (I can see a reverse of a situation I had growing up where my parents used us as shields against piracy accusations: "Ooops, sorry, I'll talk to my kid. They're totally the one who downloaded this game." nudge nudge wink wink where children act through their parents - it's not like it's hard for a 15 year old to take their mom/dad's driver's license and use it). Those actions are more likely to be punished, whereas a simple lie is 'kids will be kids'.

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

#500

Post by datavirtue »

morbia wrote: post #365
heavyset_go wrote: post #306

I feel like this is a response to the exponential popularity of sites like r/exmormon among younger generations. For example, look at these exceptions. It seems like organic, unapproved discussion between users is what the bill is trying to stifle: > (D) news, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated, ... (Q) to permit comments on a digital news website, if th…

Gay guy here. I have always said that these sort of laws designed to protect children will do precisely the opposite. An LGBTQ child is effectively forcibly outed by this law, potentially before they've come to terms with their sexuality / gender themselves. Whilst I don't doubt social media causes a lot of harm on children growing up, giving parents full access to your messages is not the solution. In my opinion, ba…

The goal was to make kids unwilling to use social media.
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