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A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 from Joining Social Media

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Re: A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 from Joining Social Media

#62
post #55
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system to verify age is not needed. Simply making it illegal and holding parents accountable is enough. It's one of those things where perfection is the enemy of good. Some kids will do it anyways but parents can install hard to remove monitoring software on devices and the penalty can be similar to a somewhat serious traffic citation.

I'd love to live in a town with these parents with superpowers you envision. In my town, people look at me like I have 3 heads when I explain we've enabled Microsoft's Family Link on our son's computer and that screen time rules make it so he just can't use it after bedtime, which is why unlike their kids, he's not up til 2 am. Installing software? How about just using what's already there and begging you to use it.…

That's not a problem, device makers and carriers would gladly sell you all that and even install it if it isn't already. And that software isn't needed if they're a good parent that can actually tell their kid stuff and their kid trusts them enough to do that.

Re: A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 from Joining Social Media

#63
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system to verify age is not needed. Simply making it illegal and holding parents accountable is enough. It's one of those things where perfection is the enemy of good. Some kids will do it anyways but parents can install hard to remove monitoring software on devices and the penalty can be similar to a somewhat serious traffic citation.

Parents don’t do that and nobody is going to be able to enforce a law specifically against them

It can be enforced when other parents,teachers,etc... find out.

I will give you all an example, cyberbullying is illegal right? Yet it happens a lot but making it illegal and when caught, punishing offending kids has reduced the volume (where such laws exist). No ominous backdoor involved.

Re: A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 from Joining Social Media

#64
Interesting to compare this thread with the banning gas one in New York. In general once you accept the government making decisions for you “for your best interest”, don’t be shocked once they start doing things you disagree with.

This is why I generally do not support any bans dictated by the government.

In this case it’s difficult to find a reasonable solution that’s not draconian. You could tell parents to use screen limiting tools but those are unlikely to be used by the parents whose children need it the most.

Perhaps making social media require a $1/year fee with it being returned to you after 6 months would stop the vast majority of children.

Re: A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 from Joining Social Media

#65
post #45
post #39

This is movement is going to be widely regarded as on of the largest prohibitions in our era. * Whatever verification system a user has to do to prove they are older than 13 will also being to freak users out about 'whoes listening'. It's insane to think a First Name, Last Name, and Address might be tied to _every reddit account_. * That data will be used for government surveillance. Maybe I should start creating a h…

There are solutions like Yivi[1] (previously IRMA) that allow you to have a wallet of attributes signed by federal or local government (eg. "user is over 13" or "user lives in Wisconsin"). That way you never have to share your identity, just certain attributes that are specific to the use-case. [1] https://www.yivi.app/en

Even with that it would be trivial to uniquely identify specific individuals. If anything that would be worse than the current situation as you would know certain attributes are definitely not spoofed.

Re: A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 from Joining Social Media

#66

Why are always these US politicans talking about banning something? This decisions should only be up to the parents, not someone in DC...

Should it be up to parents if children drink or smoke? I don't think so.

Furthermore, peer pressure is very strong, and children and adolescents will make your life miserable if they can't have what everyone else has. So it would be a lot easier if nobody else had social media.

Re: A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 from Joining Social Media

#68
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be sensible and set it at 21. It cannot be less harmful than alcohol.

Why should there be age restrictions once you're legally an adult at 18? 21 is unnecessarily puritanical (EU countries don't have that) and most teenagers are going to drink anyway, just as they're going to find a way to bypass age verifications for their social media of choice.

Maybe the law could have different ages for beer and distilled spirits. Let the kids have a beer at 16 or 18.

I have the same feeling about motorcycles. The age for riding them should be a bit later, when you've acquired some sense. Maybe 21 or even 24.

Re: A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 from Joining Social Media

#70

Interesting to compare this thread with the banning gas one in New York. In general once you accept the government making decisions for you “for your best interest”, don’t be shocked once they start doing things you disagree with. This is why I generally do not support any bans dictated by the government. In this case it’s difficult to find a reasonable solution that’s not draconian. You could tell parents to use scr…

It's also interesting to compare which countries have banned gas in new buildings (the Nordics, the Netherlands) and which countries have draconian surveillance (China, Russia).
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