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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

#191

Post by skhunted »

dotnet00 wrote: post #159
skhunted wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We would give them heroin in a controlled manner if the consumption of heroin was the primary means of social interaction for the majority of adults. The heroin analogy is eye catching, but ultimately nothing more than idiotic "think of the children"-esque hyperbole.

We agree that giving kids access to heroin as a way to teach self control is idiotic. What we don't agree on is that social media in its current incarnation is heroin like. I think it is.

..heroin was the primary means of social interaction for the majority of adults..

We aren't talking about adults we are talking about kids. That the majority of adults use social media for social interaction is a separate problem and in no way indicates that we should subject kids to something as highly addicting and harmful as social media (in its current incarnation).

There are tons of studies that show that social media harmful to peoples' mental health. It is profoundly dumb for society to subject kids to it. In same way it is profoundly dumb to let drug companies advertise. People are easily manipulated and kids especially so.

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

#192

Post by mbrumlow »

Clubber wrote: post #158
macintux wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve gotten by for the last several years without Facebook or Google (I do use a YT account, but not for anything meaningful). It’s annoying, but doable.

>I’ve gotten by for the last several years without Facebook or Google (I do use a YT account, but not for anything meaningful). It’s annoying, but doable. I think the point is that the internet and particularly social media is now the de-facto town square. States are basically requiring identification to speak or criticize government in the town square. If you take a step back and look at it that way, it's grossly an…

Even if it was the town square many actual town squares require adults to accompany minors. Sure enough if you had a bunch of unattended 12 year olds hanging out the cops would be called and parents asked to be parents.

Even worse would happen if you left your 6 year old wonder around the town square unattended while you went to a movie.

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

#193

Post by iteria »

mbrumlow wrote: post #192
Clubber wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I’ve gotten by for the last several years without Facebook or Google (I do use a YT account, but not for anything meaningful). It’s annoying, but doable. I think the point is that the internet and particularly social media is now the de-facto town square. States are basically requiring identification to speak or criticize government in the town square. If you take a step back and look at it that way, it's grossly an…

Even if it was the town square many actual town squares require adults to accompany minors. Sure enough if you had a bunch of unattended 12 year olds hanging out the cops would be called and parents asked to be parents. Even worse would happen if you left your 6 year old wonder around the town square unattended while you went to a movie.

Except that's new too. When I was a kid, I could travel wherever I wanted without anyone calling the police on me. It was just normal for gangs of elementary schoolers to wander about. I'm a millennial, so it wasn't even that long ago this was a thing.

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

#194

Post by awkward »

e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #104
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…

> Because at 18 people are responsible for their own actions This is only because we arbitrarily picked an age - we used to consider people responsible for their own actions at much younger ages, it makes sense to change the number when we get new science supporting that. If the argument is that we shouldn't use brain development as a reason to restrict young people, then why not lower the drinking age again or get r…

Science has discovered that the age of 25 is when neuroplasticity starts to decline. So what? There's a lot of argumentation needed to link that physical threshold with legal restriction.

It seems like you're arguing that people shouldn't fully participate in society until they start losing their ability to learn. Have you met people who've lived overly sheltered lives until the age of 25? Their tolerance towards risk is low. Their ability to adapt to new experiences is busted. Forcing that on a society wide scale would be nuts.

The science does throw in a lot of complexity between the social ideas of freedom and the physical effects of alcohol. But have you met 18 year olds? They're drinking.

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

#195

Post by iteria »

lolinder wrote: post #100
nekochanwork wrote: post #45

"I don't want my kids using social media without my permission" is a problem that already has a solution: put parental controls on your kids devices. We don't need Daddy Government to make decisions that can and should be made by parents.

There's a collective action problem here, though. Some parents are willing to do the hard thing and tell their kid no over and over and over. Most aren't. The result is that kids don't hang out in person any more and so the only social outlet left is digital, which makes the decision to ban it at the family level even harder because you may actually do more harm than good by forcing your child to not participate with…

We can apply this to everything. No one is trying to raise the age of candy and soda purchase to 16. Although we know that having access to these things drastically impacts children's health. Fast food too.

Like it's the literal job of a parent to tell their kids no. Over and over and over again. So instead of parents teaching healthy habits easy with something a child will not be a le to avoid as an adult, we'll just unleash them on them right when failure is high impact because some parents are lazy and we're not willing to have public service campaigns anymore.

Or really want this is is one more step to a de-anon'd internet, where everyone's speech can be controlled.

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

#196

Post by reaperman »

throw0101b wrote: post #130
reaperman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

*Unless emancipated, which also often can happen at 16.

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

#197

Post by renewiltord »

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.

Personally, I think we should set the voting age to 35 and cut off everyone above 37. It’s too risky to let the old or young vote. We can raise both thresholds by one per year to account for inflation.

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

#198

Post by awkward »

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.

That’s because of Ralph Nader and the FDIC, obviously.

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

#199

Post by Ajedi32 »

bart_spoon wrote: post #108
internetter wrote: post #41

I agree with Meta that this should be implemented at an app store level

That seems ridiculous considering virtually all social media is available both as an application, and as a website. App Store controls won’t do anything in regards to usage through the web.

For the web it should be an HTTP header, integrated into the existing parental control systems on the device.

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

#200

Post by kelseyfrog »

jl6 wrote: post #187
kelseyfrog wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that's an opportunity to reevaluate those restrictions rather than make the argument that because restrictions exist that one is as good as another. It's about as logical as saying, "we put people in jail, therefore it's ok that you go to jail." The nuance and reasoning is the point.

That’s not the argument. The argument is: restrict children from voting due to their lack of maturity in decision-making. We apply this argument in all kinds of cases that are super-uncontroversial so it’s surprising to hear that it makes someone uncomfortable in this particular case.

If lack of maturity predicates voting, then we're inconsistently disenfranchising individuals within classes. That doesn't seem very fair and I don't really buy feasibility as an excuse. "Sorry, but it's not practically feasible to give you the rights you deserve," is beyond the moral pale.
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