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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

#121

Post by bart_spoon »

brk wrote: post #34
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're 15, you're not allowed in a bar, and you're not allowed on a porn site, and you're not allowed to buy cigarettes. The list goes on and on. I fail to see how not being allowed on Facebook is different.

I think the argument is that there are no constitutional rights to bars, cigarettes, and porn. Social media is being held up as an example of "speech" here, which all US citizens are entitled to (at least in theory).

I’m not sure I buy “social media” = “speech”. By that definition, social media companies shouldn’t be able to prevent anyone from using their website for any reason. Being banned for anything would then be equivalent to violating someone’s rights to speech.

Social media companies aren’t required to give a voice to anyone. They are platforms for enabling exercising speech, but they aren’t speech themselves. This seems equivalent to stating that not allowing children in bars or strip clubs violates their right to assembly.

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

#122

Post by prpl »

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…

You forgot IRC.

Most the bad stuff I saw on the internet ~99/2000 was from IRC.

I had the unfortunate idea to nick myself TheGiver after the novel at 14.

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

#123

Post by nozzlegear »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #109
KaiserPro wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are getting at, but to inject some nuance: TV, print, radio, music and to a lesser extent games are all subject to some level of industry or statutory content regulation. For example, in America, you're very unlikely to have a kids TV channel suddenly switch to videos of people being killed in industrial accidents. new media, not so much. Watershed, age constraints and company ending fines exist…

25 years ago us kids were watching viral content on the internet that wasn’t even acceptable to go on youtube then or now. Still today, we are now your young doctors and lawyers and young business executives, despite all the quite disturbing viral content that characterized the early 2000s internet. I think we did fine and I think the kids will be alright too.

Who is us kids? I assume you’re talking about 4Chan? I wasn’t watching what I’d describe as disturbing viral content 25 years ago.

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

#124

Post by skhunted »

reaperman wrote: post #95
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.

When people say "the brain is still developing until you're 25" it means "your brain is noticeably worse at learning after the age of 25". Noting that, should people learn self-control in the presence of social media before 25, or after 25?

I believe the part of the brian that deals with impulse control isn’t fully developed until early 20s.

We don’t willingly and willfully let kids have access to alcohol and heroin. By your reasoning it seems like we should so that they can learn self control.

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

#125

Post by throw0101b »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #112
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…

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

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

In many jurisdictions you cannot do those things without adult supervision.

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

#126

Post by heresie-dabord »

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…

> May be [sic] kids of now will just need to be educated about the real impact

Education about the real impact will not happen if there is profit to be made in forsaking education.

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

#127

Post by vel0city »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #109
KaiserPro wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are getting at, but to inject some nuance: TV, print, radio, music and to a lesser extent games are all subject to some level of industry or statutory content regulation. For example, in America, you're very unlikely to have a kids TV channel suddenly switch to videos of people being killed in industrial accidents. new media, not so much. Watershed, age constraints and company ending fines exist…

25 years ago us kids were watching viral content on the internet that wasn’t even acceptable to go on youtube then or now. Still today, we are now your young doctors and lawyers and young business executives, despite all the quite disturbing viral content that characterized the early 2000s internet. I think we did fine and I think the kids will be alright too.

25 years ago most people didn't even have a broadband connection in their home much less any kind of mobile data plan.

25 years ago kids didn't walk around with challenging to audit handheld computers. The computer, if your family had one, was that one big thing shared with the whole family that an adult could pop their head in and see what the child was up to.

That some kids (an incredibly tiny fraction) did have unrestricted access to the internet and turned out fine isn't indicative of the general population of kids having this kind of exposure and being fine. If in 1999 you had internet fast enough to really download many many hours of videos without being audited by a parent you were probably the 1% of 1% of 1% of child populations. A high percentage of households didn't even have internet at all. In 2000 only 1% of US households even had broadband internet.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-bro...

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

#128

Post by lolinder »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #115
lolinder wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Like I said, let's wait and see. I don't expect all kids to keep off social media—not all kids stay away from alcohol either—what I'd hope is that a significant enough percentage of them stay off that kids who do stay off have an easier time setting up healthier interaction patterns among their friend groups.

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

#129

Post by itishappy »

reaperman wrote: post #95
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.

When people say "the brain is still developing until you're 25" it means "your brain is noticeably worse at learning after the age of 25". Noting that, should people learn self-control in the presence of social media before 25, or after 25?

Under that framework, we should learn self control as early as possible. We learn faster at age 6 than at age 16.

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

#130

Post by throw0101b »

reaperman wrote: post #92
ejb999 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because under 18 is not an adult legally speaking, and 18+ is?

Again, not the best argument given that the drinking age is 21. Additionally, children can volunteer for the military at the age of 16. So there's clearly a range, "legally speaking". Leaning on existing laws isn't really the best for these things, because existing laws may be flawed. Would prefer to base it on scientific insights, but we don't have much relevant for this stuff. So the real answer is "We don't know,…

> Additionally, children can volunteer for the military at the age of 16.

In the US, under 18, only with parental consent.

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