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Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

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Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#31
post #7

I can't see how this could pass 1st amendment scrutiny.

Children don't have the same standing with the constitution as adults. I don't remember the exact term but children have their rights restricted all the time. They do not have free speech in school for instance. They certainly have limits to their second amendment freedoms. So I don't think this bill will have constitutional issues. Personally, I'm all for a federal restriction on addictive social media for kids.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#32
post #14

Not sure how I feel about this, but I don't hate it, theoretically. I'm sure it's hopeless in practice. It might be a worthwhile experiment if nothing else. But a piece of legislation will never be an adequate substitute for good parenting.

I'd like to see more science proving that social media is bad for kids before I see lawmakers enacting laws around the theory. That said, I think 16 is too high an age. Kids go into high school at ~13, so I think that would have been a more reasonable age to consider. The hard truth is that most kids don't seem to have access to "good parenting" by any reasonable standard, and parenting is hard with good parenting be…

I’d imagine that 16 is the age when most kids finally get a state ID.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#33
> The social media platforms the bill would target include any site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload content or uses addictive features designed to cause compulsive use.

That does not appear to be correct. It says it applies if any of 3 conditions hold. The bill text says all of the conditions must hold (and there are 5, not 3). Here is what the current text says social media platform means:

There's also a huge list of exceptions. It says that it:

I hope they add 8 more exceptions. I want to see what they do when they run out of letters for labeling the exceptions.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#34
post #24
post #7

I can't see how this could pass 1st amendment scrutiny.

2nd amendment seems to already been over turned. Children cannot own for example fully automatic weapons. And in some states firearms in general.

> 2nd amendment seems to already been over turned. Children cannot own for example fully automatic weapons.

Just as the founding fathers intended, children brandishing fully automatic firearms. James Madison is turning in his grave!

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#35
post #9

I'm still on the fence about government doing a parent's job here, especially for kids under 13, but I can't stand that no one pushing these bills has come up with an actually reasonable age verification method.

I'm still on the fence about government doing a parent's job here, especially for kids under 13, but I can't stand that no one pushing these bills has come up with an actually reasonable age verification method. How do you anonymously verify someone's age?

Anonymous credentials. A central authority with verified age information of each person grants credentials that verify the age to third parties, but the authentication tokens used with the third party can't be used by the third party nor the central authority to identify anything else about the credential holder.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#36
I might be the only one here in favor of this, and wanting to see a federal rollout.

It is not reasonable to expect parents to spontaneously agree on a strategy for keeping kids off social media- and that kind of coordination is what it would take, because the kids + social media companies have more than enough time to coordinate workarounds. Have the law put the social media companies on the parents side, or these kids may never be given the chance to develop into healthy adults themselves.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#37
post #7

I can't see how this could pass 1st amendment scrutiny.

I can think of a few reasons. This doesn't prevent children from criticizing the government. The 1st amendment doesn't guarantee a platform. Children aren't legally the same as adults.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#38
post #29
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social media platforms the bill would target include any site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload content or uses addictive features designed to cause compulsive use.

Then they can say goodbye to most online gaming. I wonder how people will feel about this when they realize their kids can’t play games anymore?

Pretty good. Pretty good. I would go to argue that online games do more harm than good to children and teenagers. In many ways banning them from playing them might steer them to more productive use of time.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#39

As a Floridian and someone in IT - I'm curious how this will be implemented I can't remember the last time I signed up for a new social network; do they ask age? Is it an ask to Apple / Google to add stronger parental approval? Verify drivers license #? We heard about this days ago on local news and I've been struggling to figure out short of are you 16 years or older how this is gonna get done and how do you fine so…

My guess is that it will be most easily enforced in school. After school is another story entirely.

Re: Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

#40
post #9

I'm still on the fence about government doing a parent's job here, especially for kids under 13, but I can't stand that no one pushing these bills has come up with an actually reasonable age verification method.

I'm still on the fence about government doing a parent's job here, especially for kids under 13, but I can't stand that no one pushing these bills has come up with an actually reasonable age verification method. How do you anonymously verify someone's age?

Third party, perhaps. You sign up for service A. Service A queries service B, which knows who you are and provides a one-time ack of your age.
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