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

reuters.com

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

#631

Post by iteygib »

anon373839 wrote: post #495
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let the experiment take place, I say It is an unconstitutional law; it is following the path of similar unconstitutional laws¹²³. Where is the experiment? ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan... ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_v._American_Civil_Liberti... (sections about minor access to indecent material struck down) ³ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/ohio/oh...

I only see these as approximate precedents in the rough sense that they involve limiting minors’ access to speech. Otherwise, factually, I can see several distinguishing features: - social media being optimized for addiction - social media potentially compromising minors’ physical safety - social media use having documented adverse mental health outcomes for minors - the fact that social media use requires an ongoing…

Those aren't factual though, those are one just one side of an opinionated argument. Social media can also be argued to have positive values. IE, I would argue that most kids use social media not because of being addicted, but because they find and form new types of communities:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK594763/#:~:text=Social...

Given it's Florida and the political leanings of it's governor, I would argue the law is more in line with CCP/Communist values: attempt to disrupt the communication networks of a demographic that is highly against you.

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

#632

Post by jachee »

notyourwork wrote: post #617
t-writescode wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would the internet be a better place with people being identified? No. Marginalized groups __need__ their anonymity to be safe. Should a teenager in Utah be doxxed by a message board where they're working through their gender identity? What about a kid in Georgia that's working through whether or not they believe the religion they were raised in? How about a wife who is beginning the research process and asking que…

You bring up a good point. How were these problems addressed before the internet?

They weren’t.

Kids and wives were beaten into line.

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

#633

Post by redserk »

thepasswordis wrote: post #506
redserk wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer so I'll happily accept a more thorough analysis. My quick reading of the bill leads me to think that smaller forums might actually qualify -- unless I missed a section on size of social network. This bill says: (I apologize for the incredibly bad formatting below, I've edited a few times to try to get things right) > A social media site must fufill the criteria: > ... > 2. Ten percent or more of the…

Neither HN, nor forums would qualify for this. Reddit would. Afaik, HN does not tailor the front page per user (log out then log back in. The FP is the same)

It doesn’t seem to specify if it needs to be tailored to a specific user or not, hence my concern about Hot/Active sorts.

Though, say this is for targeting specific users, I wonder if a workaround would be to batch users into groups and cater information to generalized groups…

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

#634

Post by squigz »

ericmcer wrote: post #303
squigz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you cant just tell kids they are doomed Lying to them when they can see the evidence to the contrary is better?

I approach life thinking that I should do the best for myself and my family regardless of what broad societal problems are. I want to raise my kids to be the same way. There is no way I am going to raise them thinking they should just quit. It isn't a lie, I don't know what the future will be but I know there will be people who thrive and people who wither.

> There is no way I am going to raise them thinking they should just quit.

I'm not sure it's a choice between telling them they're doomed and should quit, and misleading them (if not lying), is it?

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

#635

Post by sen »

notyourwork wrote: post #617
t-writescode wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would the internet be a better place with people being identified? No. Marginalized groups __need__ their anonymity to be safe. Should a teenager in Utah be doxxed by a message board where they're working through their gender identity? What about a kid in Georgia that's working through whether or not they believe the religion they were raised in? How about a wife who is beginning the research process and asking que…

You bring up a good point. How were these problems addressed before the internet?

Anonymous phone lines. There was (and still are) many services you can call up anonymously for help. If you’re worried about it being traced back to your phone then you’d just go for a walk and use a pay phone.

The internet made it a lot easier though, and lets people get a lot more help from a wider variety of services (and communities).

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

#636

Post by squigz »

Zpalmtree wrote: post #620
squigz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you cant just tell kids they are doomed Lying to them when they can see the evidence to the contrary is better?

They are not doomed.

I don't think so either. Perhaps I shouldn't have quoted this particular bit. All I meant was, ignoring the reality is worse than facing and dealing with it.

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

#637

Post by hn_acker »

anon373839 wrote: post #607
MeImCounting wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only that last feature seems relevant IMO. I think that the rest of the points you brought up are cultural problems and therefore not in the purview of legality

Well, the test courts use when they evaluate the constitutionality of a law that curtails a fundamental right (such as speech) is twofold: 1) Does the law serve a compelling government interest? 2) Is the law narrowly tailored to serve that interest? The features I listed all relate to “protecting the children” in some way, which is why I thought they could be the basis for courts to distinguish previous case law reg…

> Well, the test courts use when they evaluate the constitutionality of a law that curtails a fundamental right (such as speech) is twofold: 1) Does the law serve a compelling government interest? 2) Is the law narrowly tailored to serve that interest?

Almost right. Strict scrutiny has a third factor [1]: Does the law use the available method which is least restrictive of speech?

An alternative method to banning young children on social media could be to apply the caretaker-consent-or-ban condition on social media only for students on the physical premises of public schools while having the public schools teach students the pros and cons of social media (hopefully noting that social media is more helpful than harmful for most teenagers [2]). Enforcement would fall on parents and public school teachers. That's less restrictive of minors' speech rights because the ban doesn't apply everywhere, and also less chilling of social media sites' speech rights because having to collect more of users' personal information for age verification is burdensome. Not saying that my example method is a good one, just more likely to pass strict scrutiny.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny#Applicability

[2] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/18/yet-another-massive-stud...

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

#638

Post by reticulan »

nicoburns wrote: post #343
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sound like incompetent business proprietors. When did having a website become something exclusively for old people? Millennials are in their 30s and 40s.

> When did having a website become something exclusively for old people? It's more that having a website never became a thing for many businesses in the first place. 30 years ago they might have had a listing in the phone book. Nowadays that kind of business might have a facebook page, or more recently an instagram account. Creating a website (even with something like wix) requires a level of skill and effort above t…

Idk how something like a cafe would necessarily benefit the business to have a dedicated website. A facebook (or google maps) page presents relevant info such as location/hours/menu in a predefined schema, so neither the owner or the customer need to worry about formatting it (or understanding the format).

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

#639

Post by squigz »

jrflowers wrote: post #514
ericmcer wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I approach life thinking that I should do the best for myself and my family regardless of what broad societal problems are. I want to raise my kids to be the same way. There is no way I am going to raise them thinking they should just quit. It isn't a lie, I don't know what the future will be but I know there will be people who thrive and people who wither.

I’m trying to imagine, as someone that was an adult for the 2008 crash, saying “the economy will always be good for people that work hard and smart” out loud with a straight face. It would have to be either a) a complete fabrication or b) a little play on words where “working smart and hard” is the load-bearing bit of phrasing that implies that any negative impacts from economic downturn would strictly reflect on a p…

Relevant to b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy

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

#640

Post by squigz »

cgearhart wrote: post #501
squigz wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They went wild on social media once they were set loose Do you think keeping them away from it initially drove them to this faster?

I have wondered about that, but we didn’t keep them strictly from it. They had Instagram and a couple other things—with screen time limits and we knew their account handles. That was apparently enough friction for them to find a workaround. “Went wild” in this context means they signed up for dozens of accounts on dozens of different services—SnapChat, Discord, Instagram, and others I’d never heard of at all.

> we knew their account handles

I would've taken offence to this bit too, FWIW. Privacy is important.

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