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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

#641

Post by mixmastamyk »

dahart wrote: post #170
aurareturn wrote: post #25

>Critics have said the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech and that parents, not the government, should make decisions about the online presence of their children of all ages. It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. This law should make it easier and it would put the work on Meta, Snap, Tiktok, Pinterest…

As a parent, I’m concerned about social media, and it has been more or less impossible to stop my teens from using it. They were jailbreaking and using VPNs and bypassing my parental controls a lot earlier than I expected. I did notice that whenever my kids didn’t have access to phones and games for several days for whatever reason, they were less grouchy and more willing to engage with us and do family or social act…

If there were anything else that harmed over 90% of kids while potentially helping a remainder we’d generally prohibit it.

I’ve known and worked with folks facing mental health issues over the decades and usually these kind of issues come from within. The idea that instagram is a cure-all for teen self-harm is not supported.

Anecdata—we knew a teen recently with very supportive parents and a smartphone and it didn’t stop a suicide attempt. Direct intervention did.

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

#642

Post by mixmastamyk »

bdw5204 wrote: post #72
aurareturn wrote: post #25

>Critics have said the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech and that parents, not the government, should make decisions about the online presence of their children of all ages. It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. This law should make it easier and it would put the work on Meta, Snap, Tiktok, Pinterest…

So you grew up without AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo accounts, web forums and MySpace? Or for the generation before that, Geocities and Usenet? The current form of interactive online platforms may be flawed but banning teens from using them is not the solution and any effective method of enforcing such a law is likely to run afoul of the 1st Amendment. Besides obviously the Tinker v. Des Moines precedent about how tee…

The Bill of Rights restricts Uncle Sam. It doesn’t guarantee minors the right to use a private computer system.

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

#643

Post by mixmastamyk »

anonfornoreason wrote: post #487
Buttons840 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. I'm trying to decide whether it's "extremely easy" or "extremely difficult" for parents to stop their children from having a cell phone. One the one hand, all you have to do is not spend money and not buy a phone, easy. And yet, almost every kid has a cell phone, so evidently it is hard for parents to say no…

From personal experience with a teenager - you can't stop it. They get a device from their friend, they are easy to find. They keep them hidden, and you only find them by being a total snoop and seeing new devices popup on your wifi network. Or, they only use them at friends houses on their wifi, etc. I don't think half the people commenting in this thread have even one single clue about any of this, from real world…

Yes, but I still disagree somewhat. I’m reminded of flip phones in prison—one scene in Orange is the New Black is funny… kept behind tile in the toilet.

Seeing things at friends’ house is expected. We used to look at Playboy magazines for example. But that’s still scarce and better than knee-deep in porn 24/7 at home.

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

#644

Post by cgearhart »

squigz wrote: post #640
cgearhart wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Privacy is important.

I strongly agree, but it needs to be balanced against being 14 on the open internet.

And you can't have it both ways here–it can't be "be a parent: control and limit your kids' on the internet" and "you have to give your kids complete privacy on the internet". My goal has always been to support their growth and development by giving them progressively more responsibility and autonomy as they grow up.

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

#645

Post by hn_acker »

Hey Reuters, no thanks for not linking to the Florida bill in question. The bill is CS/CS/HB 3 - Online Protections for Minors [1][2].

[1] https://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.as...

[2] https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/00003/

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

#646

Post by squigz »

cgearhart wrote: post #644
squigz wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we knew their account handles I would've taken offence to this bit too, FWIW. Privacy is important.

> Privacy is important. I strongly agree, but it needs to be balanced against being 14 on the open internet. And you can't have it both ways here–it can't be "be a parent: control and limit your kids' on the internet" and "you have to give your kids complete privacy on the internet". My goal has always been to support their growth and development by giving them progressively more responsibility and autonomy as they g…

> And you can't have it both ways here–it can't be "be a parent: control and limit your kids' on the internet" and "you have to give your kids complete privacy on the internet".

Well I don't think I said otherwise, but not only is this rather absolute, it's not true. I don't see how limiting screen time, for example, precludes respecting their privacy.

May I ask: Why is it important to know their account handles?

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

#647

Post by mixmastamyk »

ricardobeat wrote: post #473
tmaly wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know there is this big push to limit screen time for kids. I give screen time more as a reward for hard work and getting chores done. I use the screen time feature on Apple devices to limit my kids screen time and the type of apps they can access.

It doesn’t work though. Using instagram web bypasses the app limit. If you set a website limit, it only applies to Safari. If you block TikTok, they will find video compilations in Spotify, which shouldn’t have to be blocked. It’s a mess.

ST can work by time as well as app. Recommend revoking app install privileges. No one should have third-party corporate surveillance apps installed anyway.

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

#648

Post by mixmastamyk »

gnicholas wrote: post #385
aurareturn wrote: post #25

>Critics have said the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech and that parents, not the government, should make decisions about the online presence of their children of all ages. It's extremely difficult for parents to stop their children, especially early teens from using social media. This law should make it easier and it would put the work on Meta, Snap, Tiktok, Pinterest…

One thing I worry about, as a parent in Silicon Valley, is that my kid will somehow procure a phone and hide it from us. My kids don't have enough cash to go buy a new phone without us noticing, but used phones are pretty cheap. Also, a wealthy friend/boyfriend could buy a phone and pay for cellular (MVNOs are quite inexpensive these days), which would defeat router-based monitoring. My kids are currently too young t…

There’s a ton of old devices sitting unused in drawers that aren’t worth the time to sell.

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

#649

Post by wvenable »

scarface_74 wrote: post #613
wvenable wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some control over when certain apps can be used.

That has nothing to do with “protecting the children” from sites you don’t want them to see or apps you don’t want them to use at all.

But does have everything to do with parental controls.

Besides the easiest way to know what you kid is doing online is to watch them -- much easier to do if I control when they use it.

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

#650

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #447
d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws are often just social signals in writing. A law indicates that a large group agrees that something is bad. Often times people find it easier to just agree with a law rather than navigate the mental gray area around behaviors that aren't black and white.

Is that the case here? What is that large group and what is it comprised of? Does it represent all Floridians?

Of course it doesn't represent all mindsets. That's what elections are for. All Floridians participate in the vote to elect a desired philosophy into power and then the winning party hopes that philosophy will reflect in the laws and policies created in the near future. You elect a like minded leader to act on your interests so you don't have to micro manage the governance of a state.

The alternative could be to have every piece of legislation go to popular vote rather than elected officials. I feel this could be wrought with problems though as the public could get vote fatigue and weird laws would slip through simply through low turnout or "social media fueled" outliers for extreme turnout on specific bills.

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