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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

#321

Post by pests »

appplication wrote: post #207
jiayo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many social media sites allow you to do anything without an account? Twitter used to be wide open but X competely locked down. Instagram lets you click 2 things and then the paywall pops up. I'm not sure about Facebook but it isn't much better.

Without speaking to merits, the entire point of this law is to reduce usage by minors. So being able to do less without an account is a feature through this lens.

The question was about merits though, you can't just ignore the question.

How do teenagers find and discover businesses when they are locked behind a sign up wall for social media?

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

#322

Post by AlexandrB »

vel0city wrote: post #135
aurareturn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Also TVs since 2000 in the US were all required to support v-chip which allowed parents to set restrictions on content. Getting around v-chip could often be somewhat complicated. Meanwhile it is usually pretty trivial to get around parental control software on computers.

My parents couldn't switch inputs on the TV, there's zero chance they could configure a v-chip without my help. Most of my friends' parents were the same way. I don't think this technology had the impact you think it had.

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

#324

Post by rhelz »

ericmcer wrote: post #233
Buttons840 wrote: post #231

The recent World Happiness Report[0] concluded: > In many but not all regions, the young are happier than the old. But in North America happiness has fallen so sharply for the young that they are now less happy than the old. By contrast, in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the young are much happier than the old. In Western Europe as a whole happiness is similar at all ages, while elsewhere it…

I have a 14 year old and the content of social media seems to be what bums her out. She seems to be ingrained with the idea that she will never own a home, environmental disasters will be constant and the economy will be in shambles by the time she reaches adulthood. Maybe America just has a uniquely depressive social media environment? I have not read any kind of large scale studies examining the "tone" of social me…

> I respond by letting her know she will be able to buy a house if she wants one

I assume she's good at math? I'm sure she's solved way harder math problems than calculating how long it will take to save up a $200k down payment when you make $4k a month and pay 80% of that in rent and taxes.

> the economy will always be good for people who are work smart and hard,

Ummm....well, if that's been your experience, God bless you man. But you are writing a check you can't cash if you say it will be true of your daughter's generation.

Is it really even a good idea to emphasize hard work? My teachers/parents always said if I worked hard enough I would succeed, but man, this has only made me work 50, then 60, then 80 hours a week, desperately trying to turn an inherently doomed project into a success.

I've worked waaaay harder on my failures than on my success. That one time I was competing with a team of 5 russian Ph.D.'s to see whose software library would go into the product. That one time at a startup, where I found out too late that the founder always fires all his workers before their stock options vest.

Even my failed marriage!! I worked harder trying to keep things together than I ever worked on anything. With my current wife its not work at all. If you just tell your daughter that hard work will always ensure success, you are just setting her up for serial burnout after burnout.

If you are working hard, that's not a sign you are winning, its a sign you are losing.

And blaming it on social media is just shooting the messenger.

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

#325

Post by skhunted »

callalex wrote: post #306
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.

Wait you can buy heroin in Florida if you’re over 16?

There are some things society thinks people should not be allowed to be legally tempted with. Some people think one of those things is social media for people under a certain age.

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

#327

Post by RegBarclay »

psadauskas wrote: post #241
ericmcer wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 14 year old and the content of social media seems to be what bums her out. She seems to be ingrained with the idea that she will never own a home, environmental disasters will be constant and the economy will be in shambles by the time she reaches adulthood. Maybe America just has a uniquely depressive social media environment? I have not read any kind of large scale studies examining the "tone" of social me…

> she will be able to buy a house if she wants one, the economy will always be good for people who are work smart and hard, etc. Yeah, I don't think that's true at all. Its just anecdata, but I have several friends in their 30s for which that's just not the case. They're smart and work (harder than I do, just not in tech), but the price of a down payment on a home is going up faster than they're able to save, and the…

I'll add my own anecdata here. My older kids are in their late 20s and one has bought a home and the other is buying a new build home this year.

My youngest is 18, the greatest consumer of social media of my 4 children, and she's convinced she won't be able to buy a home like her under-30 siblings are doing right now.

Sounds very much like a YMMV situation, but it feels like social media has influenced my youngest to believe otherwise.

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

#328

Post by wvenable »

ericmcer wrote: post #288
psadauskas wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> she will be able to buy a house if she wants one, the economy will always be good for people who are work smart and hard, etc. Yeah, I don't think that's true at all. Its just anecdata, but I have several friends in their 30s for which that's just not the case. They're smart and work (harder than I do, just not in tech), but the price of a down payment on a home is going up faster than they're able to save, and the…

You are totally right housing prices have skyrocketed relative to wages, but you cant just tell kids they are doomed. There have always been good times and hard times and there are always people who succeed or fail regardless.

> There have always been good times and hard times and there are always people who succeed or fail regardless.

That is a weird statement. What does it mean when times are good or bad then?

If times are bad, and it feels like they are, then less people are going to succeed. I'm not sure pretending that problems don't exist improves your odds of being in the succeed category.

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

#329

Post by tech_ken »

Vox_Leone wrote: post #73

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…

> at this point in events it is certain that the algorithm builders have very fine control over human mental patterns

IMO this dramatically oversells the power of recommender systems, and in a way which further serves their owners' interests rather than challenging them. In fact, I think what's clear is that they are at best able to achieve a very gross level of control over human mental patterns, one which is not meaningfully different than previous forms of media that have popped up throughout history. "Engagement", keeping someone scrolling long enough that they accumulate a nontrivial probability of clicking on an ad, is the lowest common denominator of marketing. Television, radio, and print media have long understood how to keep people serially "engaged" (consider the 'if it bleeds it leads' mentality of local news, or the emergence of 'angertainment' on CNN or FOX in the 90s and onwards).

But stimulating engagement is very different from actually controlling someone or altering their behavior in a way beyond "hey look at this interesting thing!". Consider that the click-through rate for Meta ads is on the order of ~1%, and this is literally their most valuable metric. They achieve this not by actually persuading people that an ad they don't care about is actually interesting (which to me would be the real acid test of whether they have 'fine control'), but rather by (a) effectively segmenting the audience in a way TV can't and (b) keeping the audience engaged long enough that maybe they click an ad. While they're no doubt good at both of these things, I think it's telling that the best these platforms have been able to do is the same strategy that every other form of mass media has also stumbled on: throw enough sensational crap your way that you stick around long enough to maybe click an ad.

To your point more directly: I agree that being able to agitate large groups of people in the same way is a dangerous ability, but I think it's also one that's very old and very common. It is not the unique provenance of 'algorithms', it's just the nature of mass media acting as a demagogue (look at role of newspapers in the lead-up to the Spanish-American war, for an example that predates our modern era). The way we challenge this is IMO not by treating the problem as something entirely new and overwhelmingly powerful ("big tech algorithms are mind control rays"), it's by looking at the historical record and recycling the strategies which have worked before (libel and slander laws, journalistic ethics, and trust-busting). Certainly there are elements of the problem which are new and unique , but from where I'm sitting the differences seem smaller than the similarities.

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

#330

Post by rokkitmensch »

morkalork wrote: post #273
oliwarner wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H.B.3 only prohibits these minors holding accounts on social media. They can still browse, as can anyone without an account and age verification. You'd be able to view a business's information, watch videos, etc etc etc, just not create your own. It also has conditions for which sites are affected by this law. The site has to have doomscroll and already be popular with kids. Google Maps isn't what they're targeting.…

This is not true! I was looking at a hair salon and bakery recently. Both, being run by millennials, have nothing but a google maps listing and an Instagram account. But I don't have one and after looking at a few photos of cakes and hairstyles, it gives me the boot and asks me to sign in to see more! Adding mandatory government ID to that is crazy.

Anything that contributes to funnel friction for those wreckers is a social net positive in my book.
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