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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

#351

Post by goykasi »

kennywinker wrote: post #331
goykasi wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter required a login long before the rename or Elon owned it. He actually removed that restriction for a while before reenabling it. And with some simple div removal, IG doesnt require a login to view content. This is true about a lot of the paywalled sites.

That doesn't sound true to me... Idk specific policies, but my experience was that I was never logged in to twitter on my desktop and I was never login-walled out until recently under elon. edit: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/tech/twitter-public-access-re... > People without a Twitter account or who weren’t logged in used to be able to scroll the platform’s homepage and view public accounts and tweets. But as of thi…

Ive never had a twitter account. And I was definitely not able to view most content during the pandemic.

from 2021: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/pa6dra/twitter... and from 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30615371

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

#352

Post by rhelz »

AlexandrB wrote: post #307
fulafel wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure we should be trying to fix away awareness of the climate crisis, which seems to be a blind spot for most older people preventing the democratic process from taking the needed drastic actions. (Same could be said for the increasing economic inequality despite record GDP, though it's more survivable near term)

I think these two things are in conflict. Drastic action on the climate will almost certainly make most people's lives harder (at least in the short term) and will probably be tougher on the poor than the rich - for examples food price increases due to higher energy costs. Once you get down to the nuts and bolts of the changes needed, it's a tough sell to those already struggling.

If you include all the externalities, fossils fuels are the most expensive, not the least expensive, of the alternatives we have today.

> Drastic action on the climate will almost certainly make most people's lives harder

The human body cools itself by evaporation of sweat. This mechanism stops working at 95 degrees F at 100% humidity, or at 115 degrees with 50% humidity. Last summer in southern Indiana, where I live, we have a week of over 100 degrees/50% humidity.

Recall, if you have a temperature of 103 degrees, they recommend you see a doctor immediately. Over 108 degrees and you risk brain damage.

And currently the world is warming at the rate of just over 1/3 of a degree per decade. Drastic action? The most drastic thing we could be doing is nothing.

Solar is already cheaper than coal, and the price of solar panels is following a Moore's law like curve. Wind farms aren't far behind, and they've already saved Texas's bacon a couple of times.

It doesn't matter how many social media sites they shut down, kids are going to be depressed because nobody seems to take the problems their generation are going to face seriously.

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

#353

Post by gopher_space »

scarface_74 wrote: post #223
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.…

The last thing we need is to force everyone to have ID to “protect the children” before I can go on to a site on the internet.

Kids-only internet (moderated by child development phds, idk) you need specific, cheap hardware to access. Less walled garden, more sandbox. It wouldn't be a place for entrepreneurs.

Registration and access maintained at the county level or smaller so that community standards and relationships shape adoption and use.

Low age cutoff with actual adults trying to connect put in jail and on a list.

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

#355

Post by robocat »

boredpeter wrote: post #304
smileysteve wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you cant just tell kids they are doomed But you can expose them to broader view points; Why is owning a house a goal, or dilemma that would lead to depression? This is perhaps the "American" part; how many countries is home and automobile ownership a top coming of age marker? Environmental disasters are going to happen (especially in top article of Florida) how can a kid take part through volunteering or voting…

Owning a home is a goal because the alternative is lifetime wage slavery to fund a landlord’s lavish lifestyle. People don’t want to be exploited and see home ownership as a way to get out of that cycle of exploitation and building enough wealth to someday retire.

Paying mortgage interest is even worse slavery in my limited experience. A mortgage really ties you down.

> building enough wealth

Our current environment looks like that if you are older. Thinking of your house as savings is weird: personally I think you need a house and retirement savings - and safe retirement savings is an oxymoron because it depends on the demographics and economy.

I'm not sure that younger people can rely on the idea that their house will be worth enough because it depends on population demographics - housing is a Ponzi scheme where the older population sells there home to younger people until at some point the youngest person risks being left with something worthless: Japan and Italy have houses for ¥0 or €1 due to aging population.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/patrica-italy-town-one-euro-h...

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

#356

Post by singleshot_ »

Clubber wrote: post #284
singleshot_ wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PruneYards was found not to be significantly harmed by the expressive activity, because the goal of the commercial activity is to sell stuff. But the goal of an online social media platform is to curate a coherent speech product, and allowing people to insert themselves unwanted into that product is a very significant imposition on the platform. Also no one lives or eats or breathes on Twitter so the notion that they…

>PruneYards was found not to be significantly harmed by the expressive activity, because the goal of the commercial activity is to sell stuff. But the goal of an online social media platform is to curate a coherent speech product, and allowing people to insert themselves unwanted into that product is a very significant imposition on the platform. That is true but unrelated to the DeSantis law. The social media compan…

It is related. One poster suggested that the online platforms (which are, for a number of reasons previously noted, not town squares) are actually more like shopping malls. Another post noted that shopping malls (in California) can be subject to requirements to allow someone else’s speech in their area of commerce.

But online platforms are not like shopping malls, because online platforms sell advertiser access to a coherent speech product, which is distinct from the sale of goods in ways that profoundly affect first amendment protection of their business.

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

#357

Post by tremon »

exabrial wrote: post #333

I'll be the odd guy out and say it should probably be illegal to attempt to enter a contract (AUP, privacy policy, etc) with a minor anyway (for a lot of reasons around exploitation), so I don't _really_ have a major issue with this at face value. I know the devil is in the details though, so kinda curious what the actual provisions are. The alternative is a free internet, where we don't need accounts to do things, b…

Plenty of other goods and services are used by children, even targeted at them, without them needing to enter a contract.

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

#358

Post by tech_ken »

To me this has the flavor of adding ratings for a video game or movie, or having porn sites ask if you're over 18 before letting you in. I guess possibly it will do some good (assuming that the implementation isn't crap, which is a stretch), but overall seems like a probable nothingburger in terms of actually being good for young adults' mental well-being. Evidence for the negative impacts of social media on young adults is thin AFAIK, so ultimately seems more like an attempt to cash in on the social-media/trans rights moral panic that DeSantis has built his political brand around.

I do wonder why the bill seeks to restrict users' freedoms, rather than making it illegal to advertise to children in general or something (as many other countries besides the US did decades ago to target children's television). I don't want to impute too much into DeSantis' motivations without evidence, but from where I'm standing it certainly seems like the difference is the model of harm. If your model is: "advertising to children is profitable, so social media will do shady things to keep them engaged to shill them crap" then banning ads makes sense, whereas if it's: "children go on social media/the internet[0], meet new people, and learn that they may be gender non-conforming in some way" then dramatically curtailing their access to the internet seems more effective.

[0] Given the dominance of social media platforms these terms seems basically interchangeable in this context, IMO.

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

#359

Post by hackable_sand »

bart_spoon wrote: post #121
brk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Social media isn't controlled by the government though.

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

#360

Post by LVB »

Let the experiment take place, I say. Just like Oregon’s now-repealed drug use decriminalization bill. It didn’t achieve its intended goals, but there is now a mass of data about what assumptions were wrong, implementation issues, etc. IMO there is real value in letting states put such changes into play to get beyond the debate and actually test the hypotheses.
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