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Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

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Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#2
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.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#3
post #2

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.

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.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#4
post #3
post #2

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.

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.

It also gives the parents an excuse to limit their children.

"I'm not being mean, it's the law."

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#5
post #2

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.

  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.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#6
post #2

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.

[deleted]

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#8
post #2

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.

> 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.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#10
post #9

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.

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 ?

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