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The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

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Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#191

Post by paytonjjones »

jschveibinz wrote: post #182

I just listened to a radio program on my local NPR station about the topic of kids and social media. From what was presented, the research shows (longitudinal study) that there is very little evidence of social media impacting mental health--which is shocking because a majority of adults think there is a connection and the politicians are pushing that narrative. I have not personally vetted the research. Has anyone e…

Yes.

The research is quite confusing. This is because the strongest version of the argument is not "your child uses social media, and that makes them depressed". The strongest version is more like "when a society mass adopts social media, this irrevocably alters the culture in ways that causes massive changes in mental health, most prominently among young girls, including those exposed to the culture who don't even use social media."

This means you get a weird effect where experimental studies of high quality - which are usually the best evidence, are expected by the strong argument to show zero effect.

Correlational studies usually show either a weak effect (stronger in young girls) or no effect (it's extremely rare to see a study showing a positive correlational effect, though).

And where you get the most juice is looking at population level introduction of social media studies like those discussed here: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epi...

But even then it's very tricky, as those studies can't exactly be replicated, and we don't know whether changes will actually reverse the cultural artifacts

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#192

Post by duxup »

kgwxd wrote: post #189
duxup wrote: post #174

I remember when the advice was to NOT give out your personal information online. Now it's "present your personal info when demanded or else".

There's not a single point in history where everyone on the planet advised just one of those things simultaneously.

I don't know what that means.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#193

Post by ghusto »

If you want to stop this instance of "think of the children", build a working and cheap alternative that respects privacy. It is technically possible, so if you feel as strongly about it as your words suggest, do it. Once it's ready, spread awareness through old-media, new-media, politicians, everything and every means.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#194

Post by bastawhiz »

kgwxd wrote: post #189
duxup wrote: post #174

I remember when the advice was to NOT give out your personal information online. Now it's "present your personal info when demanded or else".

There's not a single point in history where everyone on the planet advised just one of those things simultaneously.

There's not a single point in history where everyone on the planet advised any one thing at all, ever.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#195

Post by ghusto »

viscountchocula wrote: post #117
dogcatdog wrote: post #50

That sounds like a reasonable aim. Online services should be responsible for implementing age verification checks on content that children shouldn't be accessing, just like vendors of alcohol and nicotine products are responsible for age verification. The EFF likes to frame everything that might even slightly rein in online service providers as being a terrible assault on online freedom and therefore, in their view,…

What content shouldn't children be accessing? Is the content a 7, 11 or 16 year old shouldn't access different between age brackets? Who makes that determination? Is this access restriction at the whole site level, or per-post? Does safe-harbor apply, or is a site-operator liable for age-inappropriate content it hosts for its clients? On S3, for example, is each object tagged with an age category, or would it have to…

It requires manual moderation. Companies like Facebook, Google, and co. have spent much effort telling you that's impossible. In fact, that is a type of half-truth that is a lie. The full truth is that it's impossible _at their scale_.

Their business models require little to no human moderation, because it simply doesn't scale (for their business to stay profitable).

Personally, my feeling is that if you can't take care of your product, you should go out of business.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#196

Post by matheusmoreira »

throw0101d wrote: post #68

We're approaching forty years of this: > The term was coined by Timothy C. May in 1988. May referred to "child pornographers, terrorists, drug dealers, etc.".[1] May used the phrase to express disdain for what he perceived as "think of the children" argumentation by government officials and others seeking to justify limiting the civilian use of cryptography tools. > The phrase is a play on Four Horsemen of the Apocal…

It's so tiresome. It never stops...

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#197

Post by michaelt »

jschveibinz wrote: post #182

I just listened to a radio program on my local NPR station about the topic of kids and social media. From what was presented, the research shows (longitudinal study) that there is very little evidence of social media impacting mental health--which is shocking because a majority of adults think there is a connection and the politicians are pushing that narrative. I have not personally vetted the research. Has anyone e…

There's quite a lot of statistics saying currently teens struggle with mental health even more than is historically normal for teenagers. [1, 2] Young people are also spending less time with friends, drinking less, and having less sex than ever before.

Obviously it's difficult to pin a 20-year trend on a single cause. But most parents have the sense their teens spend too much time on their phones; and with social media use as common as it is, almost every kid who commits suicide will have recently used social media. But it's not possible to prove causality in a way that will silence all objections.

I suspect it's particularly easy to convince politicians that social media is bad for mental health because of their lived experience. Consider the experience of being a professional politician on Twitter.

[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications... [2] https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/child-adolescent-and-yo...

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#198

Post by redwall_hp »

brettgo1 wrote: post #21
felooboolooomba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta has spent $2B lobbying for this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47410870

They're lobbying FOR it?! I thought this would hinder them along with everyone else

1. Don't assume Meta is anything other than a state propaganda and surveillance apparatus.

2. It's onerous for upstarts, so it entrenches Instagram and Facebook.

3. Guaranteed knowledge of who everyone is, and their web browsing activities, furthers their surveillance ends.

4. If you keep people off until they're adults and then throw them in with no guidance, they'll have an even worse time. Which is good for propagandizing.

5. They get to collect biometrics from everyone, even the underaged ones who attempt verification. All the better to build panopticon, along side Clearview and Flock.

6. The Heritage Foundation wants it, and everything else on Project 2025 has been proceeding as planned with lackluster resistance, so why would this be different? (Spoiler: the next part is calling everything they don't like, such as LGBT people being visible or alive, as "harmful" and using these new surveillance tools to deal with that.)

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#200

Post by redwall_hp »

dogcatdog wrote: post #77
kloop wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference here, in the US anyways, neither alcohol nor nicotine have first amendment protections. Basically all content delivered over the US does. That's a much thornier legal issue

But isn't putting something behind an age gate similar in concept to putting it behind a paywall? The speech is still there, whatever it may be, just has conditions for access.

"You can own a printing press, but we'll throw you in jail if you dare to show the printings to anyone."

The first amendment is a two way street. Everyone has an inalienable right to seek and read/view any media, and the government of the United States is forbidden from taking any actions that limit the mass dissemination of media.

The whole context of the amendment is existing governments preventing people from mass printing and distributing political pamphlets. "You can write something, but not distribute it" is entirely antithetical to the point of the amendment.

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