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

reuters.com

551–560 of 783 posts

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

#551

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…

> the government wants 'papers please' for you to access a website should really scare everyone We've been doing that for R and X movies forever.

> We've been doing that for R and X movies forever.

Those aren't enforced by the government. Movie ratings and the enforcement of them are entirely voluntary on the part of producers and theaters. Some films are released that are non-rated, and enforcement at the ticket booth/theater level has never been consistent or particularly effective. Enforcement by retail is basically non-existent (Nobody is stopping a 13 year old from buying an R rated movie at walmart), and it's the same with streaming services. Quite rightly, it's up to parents to police what media their kids watch.

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

#552

>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…

Not speaking from personal experience. My kid is only 4. Your argument seems like exactly what my parents would have said about me spending so much time on TV, computers and electronics instead of studying, playing outside, sports etc. Almost exactly like your last paragraph.. “I’m personally glad that I grew up without infinite channels on TV, computers and its games, cell phones and your SMSes. I’m worried about yo…

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

#553

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…

>The alternative is a free internet, where we don't need accounts to do things, because we're not building or storing advertising profiles on users. Hmmmm... imagine that.

Sure, so long as you pay for the service you're using. 10c per HN post, 50c per facebook photo.

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

#554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was just pointing out the absurdity of your hyperbolic comparison to heroin.

It wasn’t absurd. It established that pretty much everyone agrees that government intervention is sometimes needed to protect people from their impulses. The idea that everyone (especially kids) can simply exercise self control when it comes things as addicting as social media is absurd.

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

#555
post #480
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.

That assumes (at the very least) that any data gathered from such an "experiment" would be representative of what the effects of such legislation would be elsewhere. Perhaps... but my guess is that repeatability wouldn't depend on the children but on the wants and needs of the governing politicians. That is, the data would, in my view, likely be worthless for its purported goal, but can give some insight into some po…

I don't follow your logic. The legislation is designed to minimize the negative effects of social media on teens. This can be measured and compared to states other than Florida. How do 'the needs of the governing politicians' confound that data?

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

#556
post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What about them? They’re not being forced into that, most are having to fight tooth and nail to be heard and to get access to the treatment. You very clearly have no idea what’s going on with trans kids. Modern trans healthcare has nothing to do with people in the past being sterilized as punishment. OTOH, this law is actually being forced on minors, even if they’re not in what you consider a punishable minority. Als…

This is a hilariously backwards and slightly scary take.

"If you aren't X you can't care about Y or you are a Z." is basically a huge logical fallacy.

Insulting people because they care about things that affect them indirectly but not directly is pathetic and you should feel terrible. We all live in the same world that connects, we actually do have to deal with outer spheres of responsibility eventually.

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

#557
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should companies be forced to help parents supervise their own children? It's ironic that DeSantis is all about parental freedom yet wants to turn the companies into a nanny.

He's a leader in the party of big government -- but I doubt he would admit it. At least the other side doesn't hide the fact that they're in favor of regulations.

He's a leader in t̶h̶e̶ a party of big government

FTFY

In the US, at least, all significant parties are parties of big government...

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

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting it to 18 is obviously pretty ridiculous. That's just going to continue the weird trend of infantilizing people by pushing back the age at which they learn to deal with things that require self control. At 16 there are at least 2 years where parents have the ability to actually interfere and help bring any negative effects under control.

Do you know at what age people are able to properly deal with things that require self control? I believe that part of the brain doesn’t mature until early 20s. At 18 a person is legally an adult so 18 seems like a much more reasonable cutoff than 16.

At 25 the brain is no longer plastic enough to learn self regulation. So if you wait till then to give people the chance to make mistakes you end up with a whole lot of women-children who can't function at all. The whole point is that you need to let people make mistakes so they can learn from them while they still can.

Saying that you have to wait to be an adult to make adult decisions is like saying that we shouldn't expose anyone under 3 to language since they can't speak.

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

#559

I don't think this is really about protecting minors, or hurting big tech, or scoring some short term votes, or anything like that. I feel it's more likely that the long game is ultimately about de-anonymizing the Internet. This particular objective is a solid plausible explanation of so many initiatives over the last few years. Perhaps not full public de-anonymization, but at the very least to make it easier for thi…

Although I don't support it, would the internet be a better place with people being identified? For this to be a constructive discussion, can we assume companies have a proper and secure way to validate identities and store your data? A lot of the extremism we see online is because people hide behind their keyboard. I sometimes wonder if the internet as we know it and social medias pervasive influence would be much different if people were less anonymous.

Please convince me I'm crazy or provide anecdotes that suggest this to be a terrible idea.

I grew up with internet access in the early 90s and have been behind a keyboard ever since.

edit: Downvotes are not for disagreement, please provide constructive discussion to a reasonable question.

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

#560
post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, I almost forgot we're talking about the US where it was OK for the state to secretly conduct mind control human experimentation for over 20 years.

Apparently it wasn't "ok" if it had to be done secretly...

It's not as if the US government can't do something secretly then declare that it was perfectly legal after they get caught. Just because they don't want to have to go through to trouble of justifying their actions to the public that doesn't mean they must consider their actions inappropriate
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