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Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

reuters.com

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Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#71

Post by mwigdahl »

Cheer2171 wrote: post #47
aurareturn wrote: post #25

>Critics have said the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech and that parents, not the government, should make decisions about the online presence of their children of all ages. It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. This law should make it easier and it would put the work on Meta, Snap, Tiktok, Pinterest…

> It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. What are you talking about? Parents can use on-device controls, you can lock a phone down in many ways. There will be whiz kids who can get around these, but those few whiz kids can also easily get around any controls via legislation with VPNs.

It doesn't require a whiz kid to get around the absolutely terrible implementation of parental controls on iOS. Based on the number of bugs in ScreenTime (TikTok restricted to 15 minutes, but on the same screen shows 2.5 hours of use that day) I'm half convinced the feature is just parental control theater.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#72

Post by bdw5204 »

aurareturn wrote: post #25

>Critics have said the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech and that parents, not the government, should make decisions about the online presence of their children of all ages. It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. This law should make it easier and it would put the work on Meta, Snap, Tiktok, Pinterest…

So you grew up without AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo accounts, web forums and MySpace? Or for the generation before that, Geocities and Usenet?

The current form of interactive online platforms may be flawed but banning teens from using them is not the solution and any effective method of enforcing such a law is likely to run afoul of the 1st Amendment. Besides obviously the Tinker v. Des Moines precedent about how teens have the right to engage in non-disruptive speech at school which is probably sufficient to overturn this if the Supreme Court recognizes the precedent.

Under COPPA, the "parental consent" requirement for under-13s to sign up for online accounts turned into a de-facto ban because no parent or web site wants to deal with mailed permission forms. The informal "don't ask don't tell" policy works pretty well though because it functions as an IQ test to keep the kids who are too dumb to figure out that you're supposed to lie about your age (as I did to be able to use Geocities when I was 10) off of the internet. A "parental consent" requirement is effectively a ban which is what it was in the original law that DeSantis vetoed. But it sounds like this was a major priority for the Speaker of the state House so it was going to happen in some form possibly over the governor's veto in a worse form if he completely opposed it.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#73

Post by Vox_Leone »

In light of empirical evidence, it is positive legislation. However, let us not be fooled that the problem is the algorithms. In my anecdote I see a clear divide between the classic phase of interaction in chronological order and algorithmic intervention.

The action of algorithms orchestrating human interactions reminds me of Asimov's Mule[0] and at this point in events it is certain that the algorithm builders have very fine control over human mental patterns. If I were to choose just one target for my efforts to sanitize the internet I would focus my fire on algorithms. Legislate without mercy.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_and_Empire

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#74

Post by aurareturn »

reacharavindh wrote: post #58
aurareturn wrote: post #25

>Critics have said the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech and that parents, not the government, should make decisions about the online presence of their children of all ages. It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. This law should make it easier and it would put the work on Meta, Snap, Tiktok, Pinterest…

Not speaking from personal experience. My kid is only 4. Your argument seems like exactly what my parents would have said about me spending so much time on TV, computers and electronics instead of studying, playing outside, sports etc. Almost exactly like your last paragraph.. “I’m personally glad that I grew up without infinite channels on TV, computers and its games, cell phones and your SMSes. I’m worried about yo…

I think there are magnitudes and cliffs for this stuff.

TV --> has quality control, professionally done, goes through a team of editors/creators before making it onto the screen

Early internet --> Mostly harmless content, can find dark stuff if kids look for it but it's pretty hard to find. More dangerous than TV but not too bad.

SMS --> just chatting with people you know. Not afraid.

TikTok, IG Reels, Youtube Shorts, Snapchat, Twitter: Good luck to you. Your kid is going to see a ton of deep fakes, edited images of unrealistic body proportions that the influencer won't disclose, heaps of radical and extremist views, undisclosed sponsorships masquerading as advice, targeted ads that anyone can buy, etc.

The magnitude is much higher now - hence I think laws need to come in to make it easier for parents to get back some control.

Go ahead and try to teach your kid who is going to spend hours each day seeing hundreds of videos each day - probably tens of thousands in a year. What are you going to do? Watch 100 Instagram Reels per day with your kid and explain each and every single one? As an adult, even I'm easily influenced by this stuff.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#75

Post by devsda »

> Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, opposed the legislation, saying it would limit parental discretion and raise data privacy concerns because of the personal information users would have to provide to be age-verified.

They can delegate or they can archive and choose not to use this data for anything other than the stated purpose.

Are they indirectly saying that they can't restrain themselves and that any data they collect for whatever reasons is fair game ?

I guess their problem is if someone submits identifying data willingly they will not be able to use it for other purposes without consent and they will look suspicious even when they infer the data/connections independently.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#76

Post by vsnf »

CSMastermind wrote: post #69
dotnet00 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might as well raise the age of majority to 25, if the brain isn't finished developing they're obviously incapable of handling personal freedom!

I'd unironically support raising the voting age in the US to 25. I was an idiot when I was 18 and had no business picking a leader of any kind. There's something to be said for waiting until people have actual life experience.

I have the opposite take you have. There should be no restriction on voting age at all. Everyone possesses the right to have a say in the direction of the government that governs them.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#78

Post by apantel »

There’s an alternative to a blanket restriction on all types of social media:

When I was growing up, there was basically just ICQ (predominantly chat, sparse text profile), then MSN (predominantly chat, sparse text profile with one or a few profile photos), then early MySpace where nobody was uploading their real identity. I think it would have been a shame to not have access to those types of networks. I met so many people through those types of networks.

The law could put a restriction only on the post-2005 type of social media which is about publishing a curated stream of life updates with one’s real identity in rich media (photos, videos). If you take that all of that out, there’s nothing to ‘like’ or compare yourself to.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#79

Post by aurareturn »

bdw5204 wrote: post #72
aurareturn wrote: post #25

>Critics have said the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech and that parents, not the government, should make decisions about the online presence of their children of all ages. It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. This law should make it easier and it would put the work on Meta, Snap, Tiktok, Pinterest…

So you grew up without AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo accounts, web forums and MySpace? Or for the generation before that, Geocities and Usenet? The current form of interactive online platforms may be flawed but banning teens from using them is not the solution and any effective method of enforcing such a law is likely to run afoul of the 1st Amendment. Besides obviously the Tinker v. Des Moines precedent about how tee…

>So you grew up without AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo accounts, web forums and MySpace? Or for the generation before that, Geocities and Usenet?

Both.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#80

Post by michaelt »

edgyquant wrote: post #50
Lord-Jobo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The actual solution here is regulation requiring social media and device manufacturers (networking and user devices like phones) to have simple, accessible, and robust parental controls. The law proposed here is a stupid hammer that won't do anything but piss everyone off. Definitely what I've come to expect from my worthless state government (I live here, I'm sorry, ive tried to replace these people several tim…

If teens are so so amazing at getting around restrictions why do you propose parental controls? No these companies should be responsible for not letting teens use their platform just as tobacco companies and those selling their products are responsible for not selling to teens. We already have parental controls and this is a do nothing solution which puts the onus on already overwhelmed parents and fixes literally no…

If they worked, a solid set of device parental controls would let the parent manage their kid's usage of social media without the privacy risks of doing effective age verification.

It'd be a privacy nightmare if everyone ended up sending all the major websites a copy of their passport/driving license to get access.

And policies like "tick box to confirm you're over 18" are a pointless joke.

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