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.
It will be interesting for businesses like restaurants that don't have paper menus but have you scan a code that opens an IG with their menu in an album. Frankly, I applaud the state for eliminating this use case.
People might see it as harsh but looking at reality and the hard numbers collected about the gigantic negative impact it has on kids and teenagers this is the right move, would even push it till 18.
Why 18 and not 25?
Why not ban the businesses entirely? Certainly all the interesting points about banning TikTok apply even more to domestic companies than they do to foreign ones.
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 Just like Oregon’s now-repealed drug use decriminalization bill.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.
Policy-making isn't supposed be, at least shouldn't be, some lab experiment. The hey at least we tried isn't the best reasoning for the lack of insight of those in charge.
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…
If someone is convinced that all housing is going to stay/become extravagantly expensive, shouldn't they get into real estate development to cash in on the opportunity? So they can build houses/condos/etc. Seems like they could become architects, or real estate agents, or work for (or own) a construction company. Maybe designing robots that build houses. Or work for a REIT.
I notice a distinct lack of jobs like plumber or carpenter in that list. In some sense my parents are home builders (I'd say it's like a hobby for them), so I have some familiarity with the process. I even fill in some of the labor on occasion. It really doesn't require a lot of administrative work (though they avoid building in places with lots of codes at this point), but a ton of low-paid labor. I don't think any amount of money could ever get me to do concrete work, and pretty much every job sucks in South Texas in the summer, but roofing is the worst on that count. Plumbing and electrician probably pay a bit better at least, but it's still work that is often done by immigrants, so there is some competition.
>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…
One thing I worry about, as a parent in Silicon Valley, is that my kid will somehow procure a phone and hide it from us. My kids don't have enough cash to go buy a new phone without us noticing, but used phones are pretty cheap. Also, a wealthy friend/boyfriend could buy a phone and pay for cellular (MVNOs are quite inexpensive these days), which would defeat router-based monitoring. My kids are currently too young to do any of this, but I foresee it as an issue in the future.
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…
Policy should not be informed by TikTok memes about brain development.
>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…
> It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. I'm trying to decide whether it's "extremely easy" or "extremely difficult" for parents to stop their children from having a cell phone. One the one hand, all you have to do is not spend money and not buy a phone, easy. And yet, almost every kid has a cell phone, so evidently it is hard for parents to say no…
Phones are not that expensive anymore. Kids can buy used phones for $100, or get hand-me-downs from friends. They can use them on wifi, or if they are able to get a prepaid SIM they can use them on cellular also.
Can anyone not from the US explain how we can work with the data from social media? These are the questions we need to address:
1. How can we identify if the user is based in Florida?
2. How can we determine their age?
3. How can we map the parent-child relationship here?
4. What will happen if the account was created in Argentina during traveling?
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.
Children aren't allowed to play slot machines either and that's what TikTok (and Youtube Shorts, etc) sure feels like to me.
The biggest problem I see is that we’re now essentially requiring ID to use substantial parts of the internet. So many business only have a Facebook page, Google maps has social features. I already didn’t want a Facebook account just to see a businesses specials, now I’ll need to present ID too? Certainly interested to see how all this plays out.
Imagine if all those sites weren't social but could just provide the info. And business would have regular website and not parasite Facebook page...