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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

#321

Post by carabiner »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #57
causal wrote: post #36

I might be the only one here in favor of this, and wanting to see a federal rollout. It is not reasonable to expect parents to spontaneously agree on a strategy for keeping kids off social media- and that kind of coordination is what it would take, because the kids + social media companies have more than enough time to coordinate workarounds. Have the law put the social media companies on the parents side, or these k…

You can be in favor but in the US it is unconstitutional for a gov to broadly restrict speech. It's why each of these age verification + social media laws eventually get tossed. Legislators know this (or are too dumb to) but it's not their own dollars that are getting burned during this vote-baiting performance.

Deprecating the Constitution is long overdue.

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

#322

Post by IanCal »

delichon wrote: post #284
jlokier wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the only way to do this is to require ID checks, effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature of the internet That seems intuitive, but it's not actually true. I suggest looking up zero-knowledge proofs. Using modern cryptography, it is easy to send a machine-generated proof to your social media provider that your government-provided ID says your age is ≥ 16, without revealing anything else about…

[flagged]

Freedom of speech isn't, as a US legal term, about being able to post on privately owned websites.

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

#323

Post by scythe »

jcranmer wrote: post #211
scythe wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess for me it depends on what the law considers "social media". It's a bill written by the Florida House of Representatives, so there's a definition there. Mind you, it's the Florida House, which has put out some extremely bad laws in its current session -- from "Parental Rights in Education" to the Disney speech retaliation. But given that this is a less ostensibly partisan issue, there are reasons for hope. T…

> The definition seems narrowly tailored The fact that are well over a dozen exceptions carved out strongly suggests that the definition is anything but narrowly tailored, and the authors of the bill preferred to add in exceptions to everyone who objected rather than rethinking their broad definitions. 1a-c will be trivially satisfied by anything that "has user accounts" and "allow users to comment". 1e is clearly me…

>Discounting 1d, this means that virtually every website in existence qualifies as social media sites

Most websites would not satisfy 1e. Hacker News, for example. Traditional forums do not satisfy 1e.

>1e is clearly meant to cover "algorithmic" recommendations, but it's worded so broadly that a feature that includes "threads you've commented on" would satisfy this prong.

There could be some haggling over this, but I don't think that reading it in the least reasonable possible way is likely to fly in court. In particular, 1e stipulates "content offered". If "threads you've commented on" is content that the user has to request, e.g. by viewing a profile page or an inbox, that might not be considered "offering". It also says "control or target", but content with a simple bright-line definition like that is probably not controlled and certainly not targeted.

>The fact that are well over a dozen exceptions carved out strongly suggests that the definition is anything but narrowly tailored

>at least before you start applying exceptions.

Yes, the definition is excessively broad if you ignore the majority of the text in the definition. This is a circular argument.

>Actually, given that it's not covered by any of the exceptions, Wikipedia is a social media platform

Exception 2m, shared document collaboration. But I don't think Wikipedia satisfies 1e either.

>Blackboard (the software I had to use in school for all the online stuff at school) qualifies as a social media platform

Probably qualifies under 2s or 2m. I'm not familiar enough with the platform to know if it satisfies 1e.

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

#324

Post by gnicholas »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #285
gnicholas wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they do have First Amendment rights, just not to the same degree as adults. This is the same as other rights — they can't buy guns, vote, etc. either. The point is that it's definitely not a slam dunk case as claimed. I'd love to hear a constitutional lawyer weigh in, if there are any here. I used to be a lawyer, but this was never my specialty.

No way. They're essentially property. If someone could extralegally ground me with no devices if I say something they don't like (provided that it's speech protected under the First Amendment -- since not all speech is), I essentially have no First Amendment right.

I’m not sure what you mean. Can you explain?

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

#325

Post by nerdjon »

holoduke wrote: post #308
nerdjon wrote: post #266

I feel like I can almost guarantee that this bill has nothing to do with protecting children and has more to do with brainwashing children and restricting their access to opposing viewpoints, especially given this is Florida. That being said, I am not strictly opposed to a bill like this. But 16 is way too old. I feel like likely somewhere within the 10 to 13 range since most don't allow for under 13 anyways would be…

Its should be categorized in the same way as gambling. Its addictive and useless in any form. The whole world would be better off without any social media. Including the most anti social people.

I disagree, what social media has turned into thanks to algorithms and engagement is a problem.

But in its purest form Social media isn't a bad thing and is a good way to actually keep in contact with friends. Also a good way to keep up on events happening around the world without relying on the news for everything.

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

#326

Post by Kye »

qwertox wrote: post #316
lukev wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the only way to do this is to require ID checks, effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature of the internet (and probably unconstitutional under the First Amendment, to boot.) It's the same problem with requiring age verification for porn. It's not that anyone wants kids to have easy access to this stuff, but that any of these laws will either be (a) unenforceable and useless, or (b) draconian and…

Lately I'm repeatedly reminded of how in Ecuador citizens, when interviewed during a protest, see it as a normal thing to tell their name as well as their personal ID number into the camera when also speaking about their position in regards of the protest. They stand to what they are saying without hiding. Since about half a year I've noticed the German Twitter section getting sunk in hate posts, people disrespecting…

People have zero qualms about being absolute ghouls under their wallet names. The people with the most power in society don't need anonymity. The people with the least often can't safely express themselves without it.

Also:

https://theconversation.com/online-anonymity-study-found-sta...

>> "What matters, it seems, is not so much whether you are commenting anonymously, but whether you are invested in your persona and accountable for its behaviour in that particular forum. There seems to be value in enabling people to speak on forums without their comments being connected, via their real names, to other contexts. The online comment management company Disqus, in a similar vein, found that comments made under conditions of durable pseudonymity were rated by other users as having the highest quality. "

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

#327

Post by woodruffw »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #317
lukev wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the only way to do this is to require ID checks, effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature of the internet (and probably unconstitutional under the First Amendment, to boot.) It's the same problem with requiring age verification for porn. It's not that anyone wants kids to have easy access to this stuff, but that any of these laws will either be (a) unenforceable and useless, or (b) draconian and…

> But the only way to do this is to require ID checks COPPA has entered the building. If you're under 13 and a platform finds out, they'll usually ban you until you prove that you're not under 13 (via ID) or can provide signed forms from your parent / legal guardian. I've seen dozens of people if not more over the years banned from various platforms over this. We're talking Reddit, Facebook, Discord and so on. I get…

"Finds out" is the operative part. COPPA is not a proactive requirement; it's a reactive one. Proactive legislation is a newer harm that can't easily be predicted based on past experiences with reactive laws.

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

#328

Post by riversflow »

delichon wrote: post #284
jlokier wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the only way to do this is to require ID checks, effectively regulating and destroying the anonymous nature of the internet That seems intuitive, but it's not actually true. I suggest looking up zero-knowledge proofs. Using modern cryptography, it is easy to send a machine-generated proof to your social media provider that your government-provided ID says your age is ≥ 16, without revealing anything else about…

[flagged]

> There is no age limit to that restriction

Wrong I’m afraid. Minors don’t have full rights, that’s why their bag/locker/car can be searched randomly, why they can have speech abridged, why they can’t see NC-17 movies(edit: scratch that one). The supreme court has weighed against minors many times.

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

#329

Post by mrangle »

nerdjon wrote: post #320
mrangle wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I stand by what I said. And judging by the quite fascinating trend of voting up and down I am noticing on my comment most people understand exactly what I am referring too. Whether they agree with those actions or not.

Let the record show that we all stand by what we said.

Let it also show that absolutely everyone knows to what you are referring.

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

#330

Post by woodruffw »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #257
lukev wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what makes a site a social media site? Anywhere you can post interactive content? You do realize that laws like this would apply to sites like HN, Reddit, the comment section of every blog, and every phpBB forum you ever used? It's not just Instagram and Tiktok.

I think a perfectly clear line could be drawn that would separate out phpBB from TikTok very easily. I genuinely don't understand this comment, we shouldn't do it because it's hard or the results might be imperfect?

I think your comment would be much stronger if you laid out precisely what you think that line would be.

Laws do not have to be perfect to be good, but they do have to be workable. It's not clear that there's a working definition of "social media" that includes both TikTok and Reddit but doesn't include random forums.

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