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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

#161

Post by bryanlarsen »

aurareturn wrote: post #74
reacharavindh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

In the early 90's the dark stuff was mixed in with the porn. If you were looking for porn on the internet before it was available on web browsers, aka on usenet or anonymous FTP, you got exposed to the dark stuff.

And I'm fairly confident that a large percentage of teens using the Internet in the pre-WWW age were looking for porn.

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

#162

Post by dnissley »

2024throwaway wrote: post #87
vsnf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Riiiight. Because four year olds have a strong grasp on current events and deserve a say, and totally wouldn’t just become an extra vote for whomever their parents are voting for.

You'll be aghast as to what the average 44 year old believes then

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

#163

Post by patrickmay »

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 support that idea because I think you should be in the work force and experience both taxation and laws personally before voting on them.

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

#164

Post by geraldhh »

luplex wrote: post #156
kjkjadksj wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think the main problem with social media is the occasional inappropriate content. The main problem is that most of the "appropriate" content is soul-sucking, biased, addictive and empty of substance.

> most of the "appropriate" content is soul-sucking, biased, addictive and empty of substance

sounds a lot like tv

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

#165

Post by Hugsun »

pjc50 wrote: post #6

Is there a canonical decision of SCOTUS that children don't have First Amendment rights, and therefore it's OK to restrict their ability to post? (note that rules which require proof of age tend also to turn into rules that end anonymity, because it's more work to separate the proof systems) Edit: I ask a question about caselaw and end up at -3? Yes, I know, don't complain about downvotes, but I don't understand thes…

Your question assumes that interacting with social media is a first ammendment right which I don't think is the case. Not sure though. That's likely the reason for the downvotes.

Your comment also has a bit of a "muh free speech" vibe which some people dislike.

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

#166

Post by jl6 »

vsnf wrote: post #150
jl6 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of unethical outcomes available in the "let babies vote" scenario, to weigh against the allegedly-unethical scenario of having a voting age.

Indeed there are. There are many hills I’ll die on, and while this isn’t one of them, I do find it deeply uncomfortable to so clearly deny a whole category of citizens representation.

Why so uncomfortable though? We routinely stop children doing all kinds of things, for exactly the same reason (lack of maturity in decision-making).

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

#167

Post by dotnet00 »

lolinder wrote: post #138
evantbyrne wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 webs…

1) 3rd party service (Verifier) receives government documentation proving that the owner of {{account ID}} is over the age of 21. 2) Verifier records the fact that the owner of {{account ID}} has proven they are of the age of majority. They throw away all other identifying information, including their exact age. 3) The individual logs in to Verifier from Social Media. Verifier certifies to Social Media that the indiv…

You skipped over the Verifier expecting to be paid in some manner, being very likely to be paid using credit card, and thus having to retain those logs. Thus still making it easy to unmask users.

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

#168

Post by itishappy »

jl6 wrote: post #102
vsnf wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I understand the practical issues with my position. But I can’t ethically condone saying “you have no voice” to a fellow citizen, so I prefer no restrictions.

There are plenty of unethical outcomes available in the "let babies vote" scenario, to weigh against the allegedly-unethical scenario of having a voting age.

We have laws about how our elders with Alzheimer's and dementia vote, but self-sufficient 17 year olds have no say in how their lives will be managed for the next 4 years. There's nuance you're glossing over.

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

#169

Post by CivBase »

I was curious how the bill defines "social media" since it is a vague term. Here's the bill: https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2024/3/billtext/er/pdf

The definition starts near the bottom of page 3.

Seems to me like this criteria would be hard to prove and easy for platforms to game:

> Ten percent or more of the daily active users who are younger than 16 years of age spend on average 2 hours per day or longer on the online forum, website, or application on the days when using the online forum, website, or application during the previous 12 months or, if the online forum, website, or application did not exist during the previous 12 months, during the previous month;

Anyone know why that criteria even exists in the first place?

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

#170

Post by dahart »

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…

As a parent, I’m concerned about social media, and it has been more or less impossible to stop my teens from using it. They were jailbreaking and using VPNs and bypassing my parental controls a lot earlier than I expected. I did notice that whenever my kids didn’t have access to phones and games for several days for whatever reason, they were less grouchy and more willing to engage with us and do family or social activities.

That said, one thing my teenagers clued me in to is that these efforts to require parental involvement by law have some underlying motivations that are not being said out loud. One of them is to out kids to their parents early and cut off online support for teens going through gender identity issues, especially gay and trans kids, perhaps under the assumption that gender identity is a choice and that online activities are somehow causal.

Considering the suicide rates among teens with gender issues, and the growing number of physiological indicators, I’m not sure cutting off all online support for them is a good idea. One of my kids does have gender identity issues and has considered suicide, and as a parent that breaks my heart and scares me more than anything. It was surprising to find out about the gender issues, and it started coming out around 14, so it’s easy to jump to conclusions that social media is a bad influence. But in retrospect, the signs had been there for a long time and we failed to see and acknowledge them. Our kid said that online support is what kept her from attempting suicide even earlier.

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