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Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

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Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#301
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very weird feeling I have here, in China. For once, I feel it's the americans following us. What's next, limiting online video game time ??

Limiting the platforms of celebrities and influencers?

Oh no, that'd be limiting Freedom Speeches™.

But the US Constitution doesn't guarantee anyone will be listening.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#302
post #16

Whether this is a reasonable law or not, my big problem with it is that it puts the burden of enforcement on tech platforms rather than the kids' parents. There is no way for any company to check for something like this without also affecting every other user of the site, whether they are in Utah or not and whether they are a teen or not. What do they do exactly, start collecting government IDs from us before every v…

I would say that anonymity on social media currently has a serious, real-world price to pay. Teen girls and Instagram don’t mix - the numbers reporting depression and suicidal thoughts since it took off is heartbreaking. They made us wear masks due to a threat to our physical health. Social media is currently having extremely acute effects on the mental health of a generation. It may have reached the point that losin…

> Teen girls and Instagram don’t mix - the numbers reporting depression and suicidal thoughts since it took off is heartbreaking.

This has been a claim for a long time. Esp with self esteem and teen mags or the beauty industry. Unfortunately, social media is the greatest prison people created for themself.

> losing anonymity and requiring ID is better than suicides and depression

Mr gjsman-1000, is this a reasonable claim? SM that advocates free discussion in a mostly anonymous forum [HN].. is that causing the issue that we're discussing? [My stance is engagement oriented industries are causing this at the benefit of profit]

> outside of SV, only a few percent even know parental controls exist, let alone how to use them effectively without loopholes.

This sounds like a great acknowledgement of a problem that can be fixed.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#303
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17.

> I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17. I'm sure many of us didn't have any access to StackOverflow and GitHub when we were around 17 years old, because StackOverflow and GitHub didn't exist yet. For several of us, git didn't exist yet. Heck, for some of us, the web didn't exist yet! Kids these days...

Wow I'm almost 50 and I have been interacting through forums (first one on minitel when I was 12), bbs, newsgroup since I was a young teenager. Maybe github or stackoverflow didn't exist but they were plenty of cool places where to exchange.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#304

Is it a bad time to mention that sites like stack overflow, discord, sub stack, medium, Reddit, hacker news, GitHub, YouTube, and so forth have the same traits - the same identifying markers - as what we consider traditional social media sites? How the bill defines social media: 10) (a) "Social media platform" means an online forum that a social media company 160 makes available for an account holder to: 161 (i) crea…

Yes, and a 13 year old should absolutely not use any of those services. Discord in particular has become known as “groomercord” for it’s open pedophilia.

Discord is where my friend runs his youth DM games where he carves out a safe space for teens to dip their feet into playing D&D and having healthy interactions with adults on his discord server. We keep it PG-13 and it’s fun. I’ve been giving a kid pointers on AI art generation.

It’d be sad if all them got run off because of hysteria about them being “groomed”.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social media, crypto, gambling and the cigarette industries should be legislated away. Yes. Ironically posted on a social media site (Hacker News has the characteristics of "Social Media Site" under this definition). Reddit would also be gone. It's funny to read all the comments from people who think "social media" just means "sites I don't like"

I'm always very unimpressed by this kind of argumentation. There's a clear difference in kind between Hackernews, Reddit, Instagram, and TikTok. Sure, they all feature user-submitted content, but to pretend that there is any meaningful similarity beyond that seems silly.

In the eyes of the law, they are essentially the same.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#306
I feel like this is a response to the exponential popularity of sites like r/exmormon among younger generations. For example, look at these exceptions. It seems like organic, unapproved discussion between users is what the bill is trying to stifle:

> (D) news, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated, ... (Q) to permit comments on a digital news website, if the news content is posted only by the provider of the digital news website,

If this law was in place when I was growing up, my life would probably look very different, and not for the better. My interests, hobbies, profession, my sense of humor etc, all have deep roots in the online communities I participated as a kid. More importantly, those communities gave me a sense of hope when I didn't have much.

Parental approval does nothing to stop the real harm that social media can cause, nor does this bill provide incentives for platforms to improve past that potential for harm. It's about ensuring that kids aren't exposed to their peers, or ideas, that might disagree with what their parents believe.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#307
post #235
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17. I'm sure many of us didn't have any access to StackOverflow and GitHub when we were around 17 years old, because StackOverflow and GitHub didn't exist yet. For several of us, git didn't exist yet. Heck, for some of us, the web didn't exist yet! Kids these days...

I’m kind of surprised but also not surprised in the outrage over the “draconian bulls*t.” The problem I have as a parent is that I can see it causing real social damage to adults around me, my own kids, and kids around my kids. Anti-social behavior, Disrespect for authority, extreme violence is easy to see and normalized (stuff that would normally be considered traumatic), wokeness and anti-wokeness is normalized (mu…

Regardless of your ethical stance on the subject, it would be a good exercise to consider who you're ok with determining what kind of content your children can view. Allowing a government to step in to pass laws like this is a draconian step too far.

As a parent do you not already have all the tools you need to ensure your children don't use tik Tok? From the light touch and mundane, using the built in features of the operating system (parental blockers and app timers are available on Android and IOS) to the heavy touch of not allowing your kid to have a smartphone.

Why do you want the government taking over this role for you? Maybe there's some parents who don't care if their children are on tik tok. Why should they follow the same parental strategy you have?

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t consider Reddit, HN, etc. to be social media, at all. There might be media, but there is no social. Social requires a network of real people. You can’t prove that anyone on these sites is a real person, other than yourself. Maybe I, and everyone else on here, is a bot. When everyone is anonymous, there is no network. And, not only is everyone anonymous, but there are no connections. To the best of my knowledg…

Interesting argument. Can a site without discrete named accounts, where everyone is called 'Anonymous', claim that there's no way to verify whether the content is generated by humans? It's basically the 4chan model.

Thank goodness teeangers will still be able to frequent 4chan just like I did when I was a teen.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#309

A Utah resident connects to a server in California, controlled by a company in California. This seems like interstate commerce to me, and is thus regulated by federal law, not the laws of individual states. Consider Wickard v. Filburn[0], in which the courts ruled that a farmer growing crops on his own land, to feed to his own animals, all within a single state, was participating in "interstate commerce". Given this…

Assuming they acknowledge this at all, more and more laws are being written and passed knowing full well they violate federal law and will be challenged. The intent is not regulation of society, it’s political visibility and winning “points” among your electorate. Whether the law stands scrutiny is irrelevant

Don't forget trying to tee things up for our extremist leaning SCOTUS bench.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#310
post #245

The idea that nobody is entitled to privacy until they turn 18 is crazy. I shudder for all the LGBT kids whose parents all now have a (state enforced!) right to snoop on them. (Honestly headline should be: “Utah bill gives parents full access to their children's online accounts, including posts and private messages”)

Children are not entitled to autonomy - they do not have freedom of movement in general, freedom of employment etc... Privacy, like any other form of autonomy, is in control of the parent and should be given out as part of the educational process. 18 perhaps is too old for the state to grant independence, but that's a problem in general and not restricted to privacy.

> Children are not entitled to autonomy

Counterpoint: Of coursw they are.

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