Utah Gov. signs laws requiring parental consent for minors to use social media | Hacker News Reader

Utah Gov. signs laws requiring parental consent for minors to use social media

nbcnews.com

36 pointsceejayoz11 comments

The law is pretty strict about age verification, it's not just going to be a checkbox, people will have to upload a driver's license or passport. That is, unless the law is ruled unconstitutional.

My most principled objection to this law is that it requires papers to participate in online discussions. This feels like a big step towards dystopia. I can't just have a nice anonymous conversation on a random forum anymore, not without my papers.

I've vented to family about this law and am frustrated by how little they care, how little sympathy they have. They use YouTube and Instagram, they are pure consumers, and so they'll only have to upload their personal documents to two large and reputable companies. For myself, who is more likely to use obscure forums, I will have to upload my papers to many different sites, many of which I've never heard of before. (Any site with over 10 million users who allows users to post or see the posts of others is social media according to this law, and would be regulated.) It's yet another step towards a consumer focused society.

It's also yet another example of the "think of the children" ploy. Utah media has said this bill is about allowing parents to control children's social media use, but the biggest every day effect, should this law be enforce, will be websites constantly asking to see the papers of every adult.

> My most principled objection to this law is that it requires papers to participate in online discussions

Agreed. Asking to provide identity documents to who knows what server is the worst.

America needs to get over intruding in people's lives. No one is committing a crime here. Stop trying to identify, track and harass people.

Predators go on social media sites to pass off as children in order to groom those children all the time. Don’t feign ignorance at the fact that age verification techniques helps site operators weed those weirdos out.

Is there nothing that cannot be justified by saying "think of the children"?

If this law is enforced, then I'm going to have to upload my driver's license to Hacker News, that is my complaint. And doing this isn't going to protect any children, predators aren't finding children on Hacker News. The law applies to all websites with more than 10 million users (HN is just barely there I think), and to even be able to see the content on HN I will have to submit my papers. If HN doesn't want to deal with that burden, they'll ban Utah IPs and it will become illegal for me to access Hacker News. Doesn't that seem like it's going to little to far?

Nice straw man, but I’m right here. Go see what I’m actually objecting to after reading my post a little more critically. Read the other post in this thread while you’re at it.

Anonymity is an extremely solid defense against any form of grooming. Age verification is the exact opposite.

Counter argument is how "dystopia" is overused to mean "restrictiond I don't like". And of course parental rights, adults are not affected and parents get agency on how their child is raised. Parents have every right to censor and restrict content from their children and raise them however they see it fit so long as there is no immediate harm to the child while under their care. In other words parents have every right to raise the next hitler or raise a stupid useless person or someone that will need therapy for the rest of his/her life because of the upbringing.

You don't have to like it or approve of it and the whole point of such liberties is for the government and society to tolerate people they don't agree with because that person enjoys a certain right. In this case a parent has the responsibility to pay for a child's safety, food,shellter clothing and other stuff and also that parent originated that human so they get to decide how that human is shaped into an adult for better or worse. When the child becomes an adult it will have to make decisions to continue to live according to the upbringing or not.

It's Utah so you can imagine they would want their kids to be very different than every other state (and I don't mean just the mormon stuff).

This isn't an argument that no actual wolf is present, just a reminder that others have cried wolf before.

>> And of course parental rights, adults are not affected

Adults are subject to age verification including the connection of their ID to their social media profile. Facebook thinks I'm 118, and when I get ads for hearing aids on news sites it's illuminating. I will never send my ID to Meta, Twitter, or any other similar company — which means I will simply be shut out of that realm of discussion.

If parents want to limit their kids' exposure social media (and I very much do), it's on them to manage. If the government has a case of "think of the kids" and wants to regulate something, might I suggest something further up the "what actually kills kids" list, like enormous lifted trucks & SUVs?

Anyone who’s looked critically at the studies of social media on teens, especially teenage girls, will observe how catastrophic its effects are on the mental health of the minors. It spikes anxiety, reduces confidence, and induces dopamine addiction, which hurts attention span and cognition. It’s a disaster, and I understand the intent of the bill on its face.

That said, I agree in principle that parents, for their children’s best interests, have a prerogative to control what their children are exposed to. Social media is absolutely within that domain. I’m inclined to believe anyone who disagrees with that principle is a potential predator who seeks to undermine that authority.

I do not think age verification with a government-issued ID is an effective way to do this. At least not as it is. There is undue risk exposing sensitive personal information. If the folks working in govt were more clever, they’d see that the verification would instead depend on some hash or digital signature and where the government would issue some certificate authority to mediate the legitimacy of the signatures. Zero-knowledge proofs are the answer here.

In all honesty though, I think the more appropriate solution is to simply have parents themselves (as opposed to governments) to moderate their children rather than control how content providers conduct their business. If their children cannot be trusted with a cellphone to keep away from tik-tok, then simply lock down their device or give their children a dumb phone. The margin of abuse and risk is far greater with a centralized power like the government. Governments turn corrupt all the time.

How is this NOT going to result in Facebook, et al, just banning logins from the state of Utah until it is resolved?

This law may get thrown out as unconstitutional, because it attempts to regulate commerce between Utah citizens and California companies. That's not something State law can regulate.

It could also get thrown out for 1st Amendment issues. Look at something like voting, people have a right to vote and requirements for ID cannot be too burdensome, although there can be some ID requirements. Requiring me to give my ID to every random social media site I encounter, including things like Khan Academy, LinkedIn, random niche forums, etc; that starts to become too burdensome. I shouldn't have to give my ID to 100+ companies to participate in free speech and free assemblage.

But as you say, the vindictive side of me would like to see Utah straight up banned, replace Instagram with a static page shaming the Governor and other legislators.

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