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Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

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Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#991

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That kids are not walking there is nothing to do with street design. Some state legislatures are pushing back against this. Utah passed a law in 2018 which amends the definition of neglect to exclude this kind of thing. https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html (c) "Neglect" does not include: [...] (iv) permitting a child, whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or…

Remember the first post that started this "require adults to secure the device before letting minors near them?" - if I have to secure all devices that means I can't let my kids out of my reach since they might find a device someplace. Raspberry pi's are cheap, you can dumpster dive old, but working devices. There is free wifi all over. In short the original post was subtly but very opposed to those very laws you are…

Right, my comment wasn't intended to be an argument against your points; quite the opposite, I was pointing out that many people see the value in letting kids be independent. Really, the context was that I had assumed the pull quote to be referring to over-protective parents and their ilk (the "this" in the first sentence) and I just wanted to show that some people have more sense, though I can see how it's not clear what I was getting at. Disallowing your kids from going outside for fear of potential danger is logically equivalent to disallowing them from using the internet for the same fear.

But now I wonder: I doubt the law would actually consider that you let your kids outside and thereby gave them access to the unsecured device they found in a dumpster. From what I understand of the CA law, you would not be the "operating system provider" in that context, because you do not develop, license, nor control the operating system. I think, at that point, a prosecutor would probably be looking at neglect (if they really want to go after the parent) as the most viable charge, which would be protected by the independent kid laws.

Still, to your point, that doesn't mean the OS law in question will be effective at what it's meant to do, so I similarly do not see a reason to support it. (One could assume "what it's meant to do" is remove liability from social media service providers, but that's not the ostensible reason even if it is the likely reason; regardless, I also wouldn't necessarily see that as a reason to support it.)

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#992

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the EU also doesn't have the same level of power as the US federal government. It's a loosely federated coalition of seperate nations, not one entity.

That was the idea of what the EU would be ... now it dictates what people can eat and do even though it is not actually a legitimate or sovereign government, while national/local elections are effectively meaningless exercises as even and especially in Europe, the local elected officials generally will be loyal to the party that can and will protect and bequeath benefits upon them over any local constituents. The EU…

Without even needing to engage with your argument it falls apart because nations can leave the EU at will. Without getting into the Brexit weeds its proof, we did it. Can't be a tyrant if people can just say no.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#993

I don't understand it . There are so many ways to child-proof a device . Google Family Link and the Apple equivalent . Use cloudflares Family dns (blocks porn websites etc ..) Instead of just creating a course that explains how to child-proof a device, we have to surveil everyone.

Do you have a child? Because I think the device makers haven't really done a good job, there are just too many workarounds.

If you give your kid a lighter and they proceed to set their clothing on fire, it's not zippo's fault. If you send them to watch TV and they switch to pay-per-view, it's not the TV manufacturer's fault, nor is it the network's fault. It's your fault.

Your 4 year old doesn't need a tablet any more than they need a lighter. Neither does your 14 year old. (If they "need" one for school, the school can provide it and monitor their use). If you give your child a computer, it's your responsibility to make sure they're using it properly, not the government's and not the device manufacturer's. The government's job is to make sure that you're not endangering your child and split you up if necessary. The device manufacturer's responsibility is to make sure it works and doesn't hurt you or anyone else in the course of ordinary use. Your responsibility is to not use it in such a way that it causes harm.

Allowing your child to go online is much like allowing them to go outside; you tell them what they're allowed to do, and if you don't trust them to listen to you then you don't allow them to do it. The act of having a child is taking on a full-time 24/7 job of ensuring they stay alive and unharmed until they're old enough to do it themselves. If you aren't up to that challenge, then you can't have that job and it should be passed on to someone else. You can't just shove your responsibility off to Google and Apple because you're too busy to be a parent any more than you could push it off on Sony (what you watched on TV growing up) or Macy's (what products you chose to buy). Being tech companies doesn't make them magically responsible for what you do.

If you insist on providing your child with a cellphone so you can contact them in seconds at any time of day, get them a feature phone. They offer numerous advantages: they cost less to buy, they don't break when you drop them, the battery lasts longer and charges faster, and the bill costs less (the phone is for you, not them. You don't need an unlimited plan).

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#994

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you questioned whether you might have been better off without seeing ISIS decapitation videos when you were a teenager (you might be too old for that though)? Or maybe that you have something that makes you more immune to this stuff? I think that I'm biased to think "it shouldn't be a crisis" because I saw that stuff as a kid and turned out ok, it's a prime example of survivor bias, maybe someone who saw that st…

> Have you questioned whether you might have been better off without seeing ISIS decapitation videos when you were a teenager (you might be too old for that though)? See, I have, and I think I am actually a better person for it. Videos like these show how humans are really just apes and can easily fall into doing heinous things. It helped harden my view that religion is a net negative for the world, made me a bit mor…

Do you understand how much you are talking only out of your experience? You aren't even considering that people will react differently to seeing that stuff, or that people might not find cynicism in the human nature (or realism as you frame it) valuable, and would much rather want to see the beauty, as naive as that may be.

It might not be harmful on an objectively quantifiable measure, but it will have an effect on people and what that effect is depends on the person.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#995

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is not the way. > give parents the ABILITY to advertise the users age to browsers, apps and everything in between. Accounts and Applications to services that provide countent are set to a country-specific age rating restrictions (PG, 12+, 18+, whatever). That's it. None of the things you mentioned have any point to concern themself with the age or age-bracket of the user in front of the device. This can and…

Why should the applications get to decide if they are appropriate for a particular age? Shouldn't that be up to the parent? I shouldn't need to tell my kid: "Well, to use this compiler software, you need to set your age to 18 temporarily, because some product manager 3,000 miles away decided to rate it 18+. But, set it back to age 13 afterwards because you shouldn't be on adult sites." It's stupid.

I get what you mean, but I might have miscommunicated a bit.

Clarification: "are set to" means by the parent. "Accounts and Applications to services that provide countent" like media content providing apps like discord, netflix, etc. that ARE able and/or bound to rate their content.

Package Manager and Software Installation in general are usually locked behind root/admin passwords anyway. Especially on kids' devices their user should be non-admin, no?

So, when any piece of software is installed, it is by choice of the parent.

That's not unreasonable then?

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#996
post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing something? Perhaps. Pornography is a very convenient pretext. The real target is anonymity and pseudonymity. Both have been abundantly available on the early Internet. Both were and are being gradually squeezed out from it. Various law enforcement agencies would love to know more, always more. The more the users are required to identify themselves, link their online identity (maybe pseudonymous for other user…

incongruent. first you say "pornography is just pretext" then say "it's like real world now". where in "real world" can preteen kids go and see not just porn but people limbs removed and other stuff? pretending the actual issue doesn't exist will not help you stop laws like this

> where in "real world" can preteen kids go and see not just porn but people limbs removed and other stuff?

For thirty years now, preteens, whether alone or huddled with peers, have peered at computer screens and sought these things on the World Wide Web. In the 1990s, it was porno tapes the cool kid sneaked from her parents' closet and brought to the slumber party. In the 1980s, it was sticky magazines stolen from the newsstand or an older brother's closet. The technologies that made these things possible is part of the real world.

I can't even buy a sandwich in the "real world" without a computer's involvement in the transaction.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#997

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"bills trying to fix it are bad" != "the problem doesn't exist" if you agree that online safety problem exists then suggest better solution. if you disagree then keep on living in a fantasy world

Pretty sure Vlad the Impaler, Hitler, etc. did worse things to people than anything any of us saw on the internet. So, should we censor history books?

I think you underestimate what people can see on the internet

And history books present this in different context. They don't show a literal video of this execution and talk about it with a different goal in mind. Like if you get a drug in clean room for necessary medical purpose vs inject yourself dirty needles under the bridge because you like it, different things

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#998

Earlier quoted context omitted.

incongruent. first you say "pornography is just pretext" then say "it's like real world now". where in "real world" can preteen kids go and see not just porn but people limbs removed and other stuff? pretending the actual issue doesn't exist will not help you stop laws like this

> where in "real world" can preteen kids go and see not just porn but people limbs removed and other stuff? For thirty years now, preteens, whether alone or huddled with peers, have peered at computer screens and sought these things on the World Wide Web. In the 1990s, it was porno tapes the cool kid sneaked from her parents' closet and brought to the slumber party. In the 1980s, it was sticky magazines stolen from t…

> For thirty years now, preteens, whether alone or huddled with peers

This is so wrong I can't even. I recommend you to look some simple things like percentage of preeten internet users in 1996. For rare ones who had it at home think about how they used it. Even in US which was the first it was probably around 2 hours, not per day PER WEEK. Let alone the rest of the world. and on a bulky machine where it's way easier for parents to know when you are doing it.

and this material was very rare. with less people on internet and without total encryption (that was way pre https/tor/vpn) if a psycho criminal posts a video of doing something terrible he can be traced

> In the 1980s, it was sticky magazines stolen from the newsstand or an older brother's closet

The stuff we're talking about is not the stuff of erotic magazines.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#999

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the US, all you have to do is drive a truckload of cash into Mar-A-Lago and you'll get whatever you want.

Arabella Advisors is about the farthest thing from MAGA you can imagine.

What do Arabella Advisors have to do with it?

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#1000

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the amount listed change the underlying point?

This trick is called a Motte and Bailey fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy The fallacy starts with an extreme argument to hook people (the $2B number in the headline) but then retreats to a different argument when the hook is shown to be questionable or wrong. I do not support this law and I’ve been a spoken critic of age verification on HN. However I think articles like this are not helpi…

This trick is called a red herring fallacy.
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