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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

#521

Post by toss1 »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #444
maximinus_thrax wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let the experiment take place, I say. I think the experiment is more about the judiciary and about tribal politics. There's ample case law against something like this, so to me this seems unconstitutional, and I doubt it will stand. But DeSantis will win some more heart and minds of the folks who secretly do want big government protecting them from the boogieman. Regardless of anyone's views about social media, the…

Laws are often just social signals in writing. A law indicates that a large group agrees that something is bad. Often times people find it easier to just agree with a law rather than navigate the mental gray area around behaviors that aren't black and white.

>>A law indicates that a large group agrees that something is bad.

No, it only indicates that a potentially very small group who has gained power agrees that something is bad.

This is especially true in a system that does not require runoff elections (or an Instant Runoff voting system) so that the winner must gain a majority of votes, or where various forms of voter suppression, skewing, or not playing by the rules happen (e.g., sham elections as happened in Russia).

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

#522

Post by sodality2 »

ein0p wrote: post #515

Could we maybe also start passing laws under which internet connected devices such as phones are not allowed in schools during class? I fear that we’re raising a generation of scatter brained know nothings with attention spans of a fruit fly, who watched YouTube in class instead of listening to the teacher. That is not without cost - some of those kids will have much worse life outcomes due to the lack of even basic…

Your fear is not unfounded in the slightest. Going to repost a comment I made on the same article elsewhere:

There is an enormous wealth of research showing social media access at a young age is INCREDIBLY detrimental.

* [The Smartphone Kids Are Not All Right](https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/03/smartph...) - Hanna Rosin, The Atlantic, March 2024

* [End the Phone-Based Childhood Now](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/teen-...) (Unpaywalled at [MSN](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/end-the-phone-base...)) - Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic, March 2024

* [Get Phones Out of Schools Now](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/ban-smartp...) - Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic, June 2023

* [The Dangerous Experiment on Teen Girls](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/facebooks-...) - Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic, November 2021

* [The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic Began Around 2012](https://www.afterbabel.com/p/the-teen-mental-illness-epidemi...) - Jonathan Haidt, Afterbabel, February 2023

* [Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults With Worse Mental Health](https://www.afterbabel.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report) - Jonathan Haidt and Zach Rausch, Afterbabel, May 2023

* [Coddling Plus Devices? Unequivocal Disaster for Our Kids.](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/books/review/jonathan-hai...) - Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, New York Times, March 2024

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

#524

Post by b112 »

rhelz wrote: post #367
LVB wrote: post #360

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.

> IMO there is real value in letting states ... test the hypotheses. "Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will have no other" -- Benjamin Franklin

Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn in no other.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/05/25/dear-school/

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

#525

Post by fragmede »

handoflixue wrote: post #449
wvenable wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might feel that way but what's the real difference between TikTok and watching TV? Society has always restricted children's access to specific content but now we're restricting children's access to specific mediums regardless of the content itself. Why is TikTok or YouTube shorts not a valid way to consume media? It's a bit like arguing graphic novels are acceptable to children but short comics are not.

> what's the real difference between TikTok and watching TV? One is a heavily regulated medium where people spend millions of dollars and work together in teams of hundreds. It's content is overseen by numerous regulatory agencies before it airs. Tons of powerful people stand to lose a lot of money if anyone screws up and sneaks porn onto the news - even a nip slip on live TV can become a major scandal that's remembe…

That's not the problem with TikTok. All the extreme stuff is filtered out. The problem is with content that moderation is fine with being of seemingly low value. Unfortunately, because of how the app and its algorithm works, there is no good way for an outside researcher to observe and report the full nature of the content of the platform.

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

#526

Post by jorvi »

queuebert wrote: post #492
jorvi wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that once such a thing fails, it gives massive ammunition to future naysayers that get to conveniently ignore all the implementation failures because campaigning for/against will ultimately boil down to bullet points.

So it's better to not have any data and live in continued ignorance?

No, but saying “ah, what does it matter if we try things haphazardly? If we fail we just try the thing again in a couple of years” is equally naive.

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

#527

Post by stainablesteel »

a good step forward

but i think it would be both better and easier to make it illegal for the reason being that you can assume that's how they're using social media, so its a pretty good way to stop it, and this doesn't require annoying age or identity verification mechanisms for everyone else

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

#528

Post by vundercind »

queuebert wrote: post #492
jorvi wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that once such a thing fails, it gives massive ammunition to future naysayers that get to conveniently ignore all the implementation failures because campaigning for/against will ultimately boil down to bullet points.

So it's better to not have any data and live in continued ignorance?

It’s better to have no data than one high-profile poorly-executed experiment.

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

#529

Post by morkalork »

motoxpro wrote: post #511
morkalork wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I went to the bakery and I can attest that they are indeed run by millennials. I will argue with the technical ineptness point made earlier though. If you can figure out how to make videos with music and edit in animated graphics using the tools Instagram or whoever else provides, you can figure out Wix's website builder.

Why do you need them to have a website? A thing that has no traffic, no discoverabilty, needs to be updated, paid for, etc? All the information is already on google maps and IG/Facebook. They have 2-3 billion people in their target audience.

Well presumably a website would be accessible to everyone, account login and government ID or not.

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

#530

Post by groby_b »

morkalork wrote: post #497
groby_b wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their competence is measured by their success, not your opinions. And it turns out that in many professions, an insta is the thing you need for success. If you don't like it, that's your problem, not theirs. You're part of a small enough group they don't care about. I'm not sure how that's an age question in the first place, though. The "being run by millenials" throwaway by GP is just... well, at best, sloppy thinki…

Well, I went to the bakery and I can attest that they are indeed run by millennials. I will argue with the technical ineptness point made earlier though. If you can figure out how to make videos with music and edit in animated graphics using the tools Instagram or whoever else provides, you can figure out Wix's website builder.

Sure. Would you also remark on their hair color? Shoe size? First letter of their name? Because those are likely about as relevant to their choice of advertising medium. It might be true, but there's no relevance.

And the point isn't if Wix is hard or not. It's that they answered the question "where do we need to advertise" for themselves, and just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's wrong.

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