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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

#111

Post by lolinder »

evantbyrne wrote: post #99

Pretty wild to watch the basic rights of people in red states backslide in real time. Now there is the (what should be unnecessary) legal question of whether you can even run a social media platform with anonymous users in the state of Florida. Needing de facto governmental verification to communicate with people on the internet is something I had hoped I would never live to see in America. Hopefully it will not be f…

There isn't really such a question. The law explicitly requires anonymous third-party age verification to be offered as an option. There are definitely concerns about how well that will work in practice, and I would definitely want to wait and see how it works in Florida before advocating for a wider rollout, but this Florida bill is actually the most reasonable of these age verification requirements rolled out to date.

I'm all for a healthy skepticism of government intervention, but my feeling is let's let Florida try this out and see what happens.

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

#112

Post by kjkjadksj »

awkward wrote: post #49
newhotelowner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why 18 and not 25?

Because at 18 people are responsible for their own actions, and restricting them after that is unreasonable and contrary to personal freedom. There's a consistent factoid going around that brains aren't done developing until the age of 25. It's frequently used as an argument to restrict young people. Looking at performance by age in fields like math and music, declining brain plasticity seems more like a reason to im…

Why let someone who isn’t responsible for their own actions drive a car then, or have a checking account.

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

#113

Post by KaiserPro »

thrownaway561 wrote: post #103

The biggest thing about social media is that it NEVER stops. Growing up, if you had trouble with bullying at school, it ended when you went home, your home was your safe zone. Now there are no safe zones. not only that, but i fully believe that kids are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to impressionable and influenceable. there is a reason kids can't do a lot of things until 18 (even through the brain doesn't fully develop till 25).…

> if you had trouble with bullying at school, it ended when you went home, your home was your safe zone.

I went to school just at the cusp of digital bullying. A yahoo group was set up specifically to bully one kid in my class. It was shut down by yahoo, but I think because it was hosting porn, not because it was mostly designed for bullying people.

This was in the days of shared computers, and no real notifications. Now the bully is in your pocket.

I don't know what the equitable answer is. out right banning is wrong. But we do need to significantly more to allow people to escape bullying.

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

#114

Post by tmaly »

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…

I know there is this big push to limit screen time for kids.

I give screen time more as a reward for hard work and getting chores done.

I use the screen time feature on Apple devices to limit my kids screen time and the type of apps they can access.

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

#115

Post by kjkjadksj »

lolinder wrote: post #111
evantbyrne wrote: post #99

Pretty wild to watch the basic rights of people in red states backslide in real time. Now there is the (what should be unnecessary) legal question of whether you can even run a social media platform with anonymous users in the state of Florida. Needing de facto governmental verification to communicate with people on the internet is something I had hoped I would never live to see in America. Hopefully it will not be f…

There isn't really such a question. The law explicitly requires anonymous third-party age verification to be offered as an option. There are definitely concerns about how well that will work in practice, and I would definitely want to wait and see how it works in Florida before advocating for a wider rollout, but this Florida bill is actually the most reasonable of these age verification requirements rolled out to da…

If you think kids won’t route around this then you don’t know kids. Its a political move for desantis to rally his base, nothing more.

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

#116

Post by cpncrunch »

setgree wrote: post #3

I support this in theory, but good luck trying to outmaneuver teens on the internet. I foresee a proliferation of age faking tools, VPNs, etc.

Probably only a vpn with ip outside Florida required, unless they start verifying the age of everyone.

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

#117

Post by flanbiscuit »

joezydeco wrote: post #85
awkward wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because at 18 people are responsible for their own actions, and restricting them after that is unreasonable and contrary to personal freedom. There's a consistent factoid going around that brains aren't done developing until the age of 25. It's frequently used as an argument to restrict young people. Looking at performance by age in fields like math and music, declining brain plasticity seems more like a reason to im…

What's the drinking age in Florida?

> What's the drinking age in Florida?

The drinking age in all 50 states is 21 thanks in most part to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_...

In Florida it was raised to 21 in 1986: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._history_of_alcohol_minimu...

In Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands it's still 18

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

#118

Post by sf_rob »

bregma wrote: post #26

Does this require everyone present a government ID to access anything online? Are international content provider going to be compelled to report transgressions to Florida state authorities?

I think structuring the law as a penalty is "smart" in that the government does not have to explicitly ask providers to require ID, but I can't imagine them not being at significant financial risk without doing so. This will make the providers look like the "bad guy" to an end-user.

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

#119

Post by skhunted »

dotnet00 wrote: post #57
skhunted wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know at what age people are able to properly deal with things that require self control? I believe that part of the brain doesn’t mature until early 20s. At 18 a person is legally an adult so 18 seems like a much more reasonable cutoff than 16.

People don't just start being able to deal with things that require self control at a specific age. It has to be taught. Even sex ed recognizes that, where it's far more effective to teach kids how to be safe during it rather than to teach them that they can do what they want after 18. If you push off the learning to when the person can legally just do whatever they want, all you're doing is abdicating parental respo…

Yes people should be taught skills to deal with making good choices and learning self control. But we don’t give kids heroin as part of the lesson in learning self control. The biological imperative for sex is overwhelming and there’s not much we can do to stop it. There is a way to stop companies from enticing kids with social media addiction though.

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

#120

Post by evantbyrne »

lolinder wrote: post #111
evantbyrne wrote: post #99

Pretty wild to watch the basic rights of people in red states backslide in real time. Now there is the (what should be unnecessary) legal question of whether you can even run a social media platform with anonymous users in the state of Florida. Needing de facto governmental verification to communicate with people on the internet is something I had hoped I would never live to see in America. Hopefully it will not be f…

There isn't really such a question. The law explicitly requires anonymous third-party age verification to be offered as an option. There are definitely concerns about how well that will work in practice, and I would definitely want to wait and see how it works in Florida before advocating for a wider rollout, but this Florida bill is actually the most reasonable of these age verification requirements rolled out to da…

You say there is no question, but it is already being raised by social media companies as an issue with the law. Anonymous age _verification_ is not something that exists. This requires government documentation, which means any solution that involves storing identity verification information would de facto allow the government to unmask users. This raises serious free speech concerns for everyone that uses these websites in Florida.
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