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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

#431

Post by _heimdall »

bradford wrote: post #247
okhuman wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats going on at Roblox? Curious, as a parent myself.

Highly addictive to my kids for reasons that I can't grok. Unfettered social interaction with other participants in an unmonitored environment that superficially 'looks' like a video game. This social interaction leads to bullshit purchases. Not purchasing the bullshit leads to peer pressure and bullying. Is it a technical problem? is it lack of content moderation? or do social networks that are catered towards child…

That sounds a lot like any other childhood in my opinion. Sure I wasn't feeling pressured to buy digital assets on an online game but I would noticed when half the school has the same LL Bean fleece jacket or backpack with their initials embroidered on it.

Was there peer pressure and potential for bullying based on what others had? Absolutely. Should a state have intervened with a required mandatory dress code and government-approved backpack? Hell no, there's always going to be peer pressure and bullying no matter how oppressive laws become.

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

#433

Post by _heimdall »

geraldwhen wrote: post #398
genewitch wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watch my son play Roblox sometimes. The chat is heavily censored. He also learned most countries, their capitals, and their flags. And that was just a few servers with "country balls". I find the YouTube videos involving those far more insidious, because children don't really understand biting sarcasm and satire as well as adults, and I'll often make him switch videos. But I haven't noticed anything necessarily har…

But have you actually played Roblox? It’s absolute toxic trash. Almost every single game is a front for purchases, and those that aren’t are barely games at all. Many Minecraft mods are one time purchases that are way, way better than anything Roblox produces, but Minecraft is so buggy that it’s truly not suitable for kids, or anyone for that matter. Minecraft will continuously corrupt saves, so you need to fully rei…

Sure sounds like a game that will suck and go unplayed if kids just aren't allowed to click the buy button. Children don't have to have access to spend money online and a parent is well within their right already to not add a credit card.

That one change would make Robolox a terrible game based on how you described it. Isn't that problem solved without the need for a complex law full of arbitrary definitions and one-off carve outs?

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

#434

Post by jart »

corobo wrote: post #406
7sidedmarble wrote: post #405

It absolutely boggles my mind how this website can purport to be about hacker ethos, and yet every time a thread like this comes up you get tons of commenters talking about how they are going to tightly control which games and websites there kids have access to, what kind of devices they have access to, when they have access to them, etc. Myself, I think like a lot of people on this website, grew up with basically un…

My parents and schools having an "I know better than you" attitude and blocking sites/access is how I learned how to bypass those restrictions in fairness. Within a year I knew more than they did about tech, and they could no longer block me without physically removing cables (good luck with that in a 5G-enabled world!) They're just setting up the next generation of hacker!

I got my mom to disable parental controls so I could do hacking. I showed her that the programming websites I wanted to access were blocked and so were the IRC servers where programmers congregated. She decided she didn't want to hold back my education. I don't think the people who build these things really mentally model for children that do more than consume Disney.

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

#435

Post by weberer »

mrcwinn wrote: post #110

The Democrats have their own flaws certainly, but I’m having such a hard time finding a consistent ideology among conservatives. Free speech absolutism, mixed with parent choice, no choice for women, censorship for some kinds of speech, anti-regulation limited government but strong regulation of tech products. I just can’t square any of this.

I don't know if there's a term for this fallacy, but I see it happening all the time. You're trying to break the world down to us-vs-them where "us" is a single narrowly defined group and "them" is everyone outside that group. In this case you're incorrectly grouping together classical liberals, neocons, Christian/Jewish/Islamic fundamentalists, Laissez-faire neoliberals, and paleoconservatives. Then being confused why they all disagree on different issues.

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

#436

Post by _heimdall »

Brybry wrote: post #269
judge2020 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s exceptions for email, Netflix, Amazon, news, traditional media kinds of sites. The fact that there are 20 categories of services exempted shows that this is a terrible bill that is based on punishing specific actors and not regulating data privacy or child wellbeing in a meaningful way. for reference, line 165 to 224 of that link are the exceptions: "Social media platform" does not include an online service…

Texas had to do similar exclusions for their "anti-censorship" anti-moderation bill. [1][2] [1] https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/872/billtext/html/HB00020F... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_House_Bill_20

The list of bills that don't require long lists of arbitrary definitions and exceptions is ridiculously small.

Making laws that cover millions of people is way too complex for something so detailed. There's no way around that complexity leading to a pile of garbage legal mumbo-jumbo as they realize it's nearly impossible to draw a neat line around the problem.

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

#437

Post by realworldperson »

morbia wrote: post #365
heavyset_go wrote: post #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 th…

Gay guy here. I have always said that these sort of laws designed to protect children will do precisely the opposite. An LGBTQ child is effectively forcibly outed by this law, potentially before they've come to terms with their sexuality / gender themselves. Whilst I don't doubt social media causes a lot of harm on children growing up, giving parents full access to your messages is not the solution. In my opinion, ba…

[dead]

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

#438

Post by nodemaker »

vineyardmike wrote: post #397
nodemaker wrote: post #364

As a tech pioneer and also an otherwise liberal person, I welcome this move. The company called Meta is doing extreme damage to society and needs to be stopped at all costs.

> needs to be stopped at all costs. I can think of a few prices I wouldn't be willing to pay. This bill is one of them.

Wait till you have kids who get their lives destroyed by Meta products.

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

#439

Post by shadowgovt »

14 wrote: post #126
shadowgovt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Hacker News had a good run. I'm going to miss it when it's decided that tracking enough PII on its users to be compliant with this law (and the ones that will follow) is more trouble than it's worth to Y-Combinator, but so it goes. The open forum era was a grand experiment, and the experiment is winding down.

Can you not just vpn in to Canada with me for the time being? I mean hopefully they don’t implement it site wide for all regions I can’t imagine them doing that.

I'm not sure how VPN'ing to Canada helps.

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

#440

Post by _AzMoo »

spoonfeeder006 wrote: post #383

I get that SM can have lot of bad effects on people But being controlled and micro-managed by your parents when you're at a stage to naturally seek independence and autonomy.... yeah, can't imagine how that would badly impact anyone of these kids. Like, at all. How about instead empowering kids to learn about the science of tech addiction, or addiction in general, and the science of how SM effects people...and also t…

In Australia lots of kids are already directly taught about the downsides of social media. My daughter is 16 and has had mandatory classes about it in school every year since she was 12. The problem is the kids don't give a shit and it's the parents that don't understand. This should be dealt with through education campaigns, but it's the parents who those campaigns should be targeted at. If somebody's parents group were going to gossip about them actively enabling their kid to get access to social media when we all clearly know the dangers of it then it would very quickly lead to a dramatic reduction in kids having access.
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