New Arkansas bill to keep minors off social media exempts most social platforms | Hacker News Reader

New Arkansas bill to keep minors off social media exempts most social platforms

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112 pointsdjoldman122 comments

I'm baffled by the general lack of absolute outrage around these recent bills requiring government issued ID to use the internet. Most of the comments here are discussing irrelevant nuances like "oh, well it seems to only apply to platforms above a certain size," while ignoring the atrocity that these bills represent for the freedoms and privacy that we've all taken for granted up until now.

Get your bloody hands off my internet was a common bond hackers shared when I was growing up and using this allegedly dangerous thing at the ripe age of 10. Did enough of us become disengaged parents who want the government to sanitize a beautiful sea of expression because we're too lazy to teach our kids about it? Do we not see the path that bills like this lead us down? I fear that the golden age of information is waning.

My only hope is that this kind of nonsense doesn't spread outside of the flyover states, where it might have an actual chance at needing to be implemented.

I'm just so angry and disappointed that no one is fighting this as hard as we should be. "Think of the children" is such a cheap parlor trick.

The cookie consent law followed a similar path: A lot of people saw the proposals and assumed it would only hurt the websites they didn’t like. Then the laws passed and now almost every website you visit comes with an annoying cookie pop-up.

I’m baffled by all the HN comments from people who think this will only apply to websites they don’t use. No, it’s going to become a miserable burden on the entire internet if it happens.

A remarkable number of commenters haven’t stopped to think about how all of these websites will only apply the laws to minors: The answer is that they’ll have to ID everyone. Either that, or it becomes a silly checkbox for kids to say that they’re over 18.

Can't sign up without a credit card, credit cards are issued to folks 18 and over. This is how they've done it up until this point (with little success). Making a "know your user" law like banking, no one will want to deal with the hassle and so only corporations (with big pockets to spend on this kind of Deloitte BS) will be able to compete on the internet.

It's a travesty.

Unless you’re parents co-sign for you in order to start your credit history early.

Credit cards can be given to 13 and above. I don’t believe there is an age tied the specific account number.

Hence the “little success” part.

>credit cards are [exclusively] issued to folks 18 and over.

This is not 100% true.

A child can have a credit card as long as they have an adult co-signer. A child can also be an authorized user on an adult's credit account and be issued their own card.

I didn't have a credit card myself as a child, but I DO know a few people who did.

Instead of “comes with an annoying cookie pop up”, please consider that the reason every website has this is that every website is installing persistent advertising trackers.

Pointing at kids is incredibly effective tool, no wonder it's utilized so often.

There is already growing momentum outside of flyover states and outside of social media, gaming platforms now are encouraged quite heavily to implement severe age verification systems, out of fear of being sued or having to deal with COPPA issues. Further, people will likely embrace any bills that encourage a standardized "encrypted" government ID system as being preferable to various platforms insecurely trying to get parents to submit identification documents. Meta has already announced testing of an age verification system in front of congress.

So your hope in that regard might already be smothered. I believe at this point there needs to be greater public awareness of what's happening, otherwise every time this is going to come up people are going to embrace it naively.

I also started using the Internet when I was around 10, in the mid-90s

I suspect Generative AI will accelerate the transition to real ID

There’s a new impetus to be able to tell who is real from who is not online

Younger me would probably be angry and disappointed at how I have all but accepted that it’s going to happen one way or another

Does real ID have some online component? I don’t follow the connection with real ID and generative AI.

making faking identity proofs harder to fake?

We require government ID for people to buy alcohol, because we don’t want children doing it. How is this any different?

I agree this law is ridiculous, though.

This is different specifically because many people do not want to prohibit their children from accessing online content or a government and GateKeeper.

For one, the scope is much more massive. One surrounds a single beverage category, the other basically every online communication platform. If the world wasn't more and more online, I could maybe consider the scope acceptable.

Another is how much it messes up the user flow. Buying alcohol? Hand over a plastic card to a cashier for a few seconds. Accessing a new website you want to try out? Scan your driver's license, upload to this random site, have it likely go through some black box algorithm that you hopefully don't get falsely flagged with no human response, and you're good. And that's the good flow. I don't want to imagine the headache of manual checking for every site.

Also nobody has thought about what the implementation will mean. I was 12 when COPPA went into effect and all the companies just deleted all my accounts: Email account, hosting, chat accounts, etc. It was easier than dealing with the logistics of getting parental permission (which I could have gotten, I started programming when I was 5 and both my parents were hacker types; I was supervised just fine). Which is that they're going to take the easy way out and a lot of people are going to get hit in the crossfire.

Also interesting that 'think of the children' always only means the stupid, unsupervised children. Children growing up with technologically literate adults who can actually parent and whose parents might want them to be exposed to things can just screw off, we guess. So can those parents' rights. "Well, we don't know how to do it, so you're not allowed to raise your children this way/let them use these things."

The revenue restriction might limit the damage. If the law only applies to high-revenue sites, they probably have the resources to implement a parental check. If the law applies to all sites, most will implement the much simpler ban.

> I was 12 when COPPA went into effect and all the companies just deleted all my accounts: Email account, hosting, chat accounts, etc. It was easier than dealing with the logistics of getting parental permission.

COPPA doesn't just require permission under 13, it imposes kinds of other requirements and prohibiting users under 13 is a way of avoiding thosr requirements.

I think people may be overlooking a bigger story here:

https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/FTPDocument?path=%2FBil...

  Reasonable age verification methods under subdivision (c)(1)
  of this section include providing:
  (A) A digitized identification card, including a digital
      copy of a driver's license under § 27-16-601 et seq.;
  (B) Government-issued identification; or
  (C) Any commercially reasonable age verification method.

  "Digitized identification card" means a data file available
  on a mobile device that has connectivity to the internet through a state
  approved application that allows the mobile device to download the data file
  from the Office of Driver Services that contains all of the data elements
  visible on the face and back of a driver's license or identification card and
  displays the current status of the driver's license or identification card,
  including valid, expired, cancelled, suspended, revoked, active, or inactive;

> Reasonable

No definition of that word matches their usage of it. Your papers, please.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_papers,_please

Yea that's BS. I didn't have any ID till I was 16 and got a driver's license. A lot of kids, like city kids, don't get one till years later. Are they planning to create a new type of ID for children? I wouldn't want my kids anywhere near social media either, but I wouldn't want to rely on the state to track and police their behaviour.

Another reason why a simple ID which only purpose is being an ID might be useful. No more non-driver drivers licenses

A lot of people do get those currently, just ID cards for non-drivers, also issued through the DMV. Adults need them for various things like voting, food stamps, etc. But I've never heard of a child needing an ID card (aside from travelling abroad), although they could probably (?) get one if they needed - maybe they don't issue them to people under 18 cause there hasn't been any need

In Haiti, you can only get an ID card when you become an adult at 18. Anything that requires identification would need your birth certificate and the presence of your parents as you can’t be bound legally otherwise.

Apparently you can also get those under 18. It just feels like a band aid fix, but it's probably good enough, so better spend the millions another ID would cost on actual problems

I’m fairly certain every state issues (non-DL) state ID at any age people want to apply for it (some, but not all, states require parental approval), but people rarely need them except as adults are maybe late teens (a working teen non-driver may need one.)

ISTR that like DLs, state IDs are a net revenue source, so bills that require more people to get them in practice are, in net effect, tax bills (and because they are closer to capitations than even a flat tax, are regressive tax bills.)

>But I've never heard of a child needing an ID card (aside from travelling abroad)

You've never heard of a child needing an ID? Really?

When I was a teenager, teenagers were expecting to earn an income and contribute some of that income to family expenses. To get a job you need and ID and working papers. You got both from the DMV.

Is the idea of a summer job really that outrageous nowadays?

Is that not the status quo? My DMV will absolutely issue me a non-driver ID card if that's what I want.

State ID's have all the same data as a drivers license. The only missing bits are the vehicle class endorsements.

Don't you have in the US an ID card separate from driving license?

New ID? Nothing new needed, anyone, child or adult, can get a non-driver's id from the DMV. Just need the proper paperwork.

People I grew up with generally started working at 14 and that's when they'd get one. A friend of mine has state IDs for all of her elementary aged children - I assume she needed them for some reason at some point.

I started working at that age too, but certainly didn't need an ID to get a job (and never have at any point in my life, afaicr - and I've never even heard of 'working papers'). Are you talking about in the states? Cause for jobs (at least those that aren't under the table) I've only ever needed a social security number.

Everyone who works in the united states must fill out form I-9 to prove your eligibility for employment.

https://www.uscis.gov/i-9

Report card/school records is an option for children who don't have an ID. So ID doesn't appear to be strictly needed until one turns 18.

Working papers are permission to work as a minor - https://dol.ny.gov/working-papers this site says you get them from your school now. Back in the day when I got mine you had to go to the DMV.

Huh, I don't remember needing to get working papers, but I vaguely recall needing a parent signature - I was also pretty rural tho, so you kinda know most people around anyway. Presumably, social security card/birth certificate would be enough as well.

The law intentionally bans people under 18 (unless they get parental permission). So people under 16 not having IDs doesn't matter I don't think, since even if they did have IDs they would still be banned (unless they get parental permission).

The law prohibits people under 18 from being account holders without parental permission, but also requires “reasonable age verification” of all accountholders.

Being a minor and having parental permission does not bypass the age verification requirement (in fact, that’s how the platform identifies minors), which is what government ID is enumerated as a means to satisfy.

But, from a data security and privacy perspective its worse, because it maximizes initial distribution of PII by explicitly requiring use of a third-party vendor for age verification of all account holders, so you can’t limit use of platforms to vendors you trust, because they have to outsource age verification.

On the PII side, on the other hand, in what seems clearly to be a drafting error, as written, the law does not allow a social media company to retain “any identifying information of the individual” once access has been granted to the service, which... would be tricky to comply with.

I don't see any reason they would need to create an id for children because the purpose of this law is to block all children under the age of 18 from using certain social media. You would only need an ID to prove that you are 18 or older.

Yeah. A lot would depend on implementation, but it would concern me -- likely worst case being hack to access all SOS DL info..

> Any commercially reasonable age verification method.

Is being born in 1900-01-01 still reasonable? The linked document remains extremely vague about what is reasonable.

In particular I would like people to consider the implications of "state approved application"

It’s ludicrous that proof of ability to operate a motor vehicle is positioned as a prerequisite for using the Internet—- more so given the myriad of ways that a license can be suspended.

Where did you get that it has to be a driver's license? Just get a regular ID card if you don't need to be able to drive.

Two of the three options are driving licenses. It’s obnoxious that the third option is administered through the DMV. I’ve never understood why personal identification falls under that department. An affidavit with a notary’s seal should have been sufficient.

So, yes, you’re technically correct, but no, no one is bringing their kids to the DMV for photo ids and not driver’s licenses.

There is a whole process for it in many states that I know of (e.g., https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/drivers/id/child_id.html).

At least in the case of this law, your kids don't need an ID. They can't use the social media until adulthood.

Yes. YouTube already does this KYC verification with age restricted content. Not a big surprise reveal here.

Meta will probably follow suit with Meta Verified as well for both Facebook and Instagram.

> connectivity to the internet through a state approved application

I'm not sure how that will come together, but I hope that circumventing it causes the kids to learn something useful.

Is there a formal name to describe incumbents pushing for regulations in order to keep out new competitors? Something more specific than just “anti-competitive, monopolistic,” etc. This seems like such a common tactic that I’d expect there to be academic studies about it.

Regulatory Capture

Rent-seeking?

Neoliberal crony capitalism?

What makes lobbying to regulate your competitors out of existence neoliberal?

“It’s regulation”

Further, what exactly does this have to do with capitalism?

This is strictly a failure of government, and by extension the people.

It’s predatory incumbent firms and industries that seek to manipulate thru regulation, so it’s private sector first coming to utilize public sector for protections. So I’d say it’s pretty capitalist initially, and then a failing of government second.

> it’s private sector first coming to utilize public sector for protections. So I’d say it’s pretty capitalist initially, and then a failing of government second.

I’d say its just capitalist, period. The owners of capital, collectively and individually, using government as a vehicle to advance their interest is the whole origin and nature of capitalism.

“free markets”, etc., are post hoc idealistic rationalizations that were created to defend those interests by selling people on capitalism well after it existed, and do not reflect the reality of capitalism.

When your whole political system depends on donations from large corporations, the government becomes in service of capitalism. Sure a failure of government but when you have built every incentives to promote those behaviours, the opposite would be surprising.

Many countries ban donations from companies, doesn't let companies pay for politicians ads, etc. Doesn't mean it's perfect, government rely on jobs from companies to make their citizens happy, but it does help to make the politician a bit more independent from corporate interest.

It is simple government corruption and there is nothing unique about it to capitalism.

The same phenomenon occurs with other forms of government, such as Socialism or communism.

> When your whole political system depends on donations from large corporations,

Hmm, outrage sounding yet devoid of any meaning. No wonder populism is trendy. It invokes anger in people without viable solution.

Corruption exists all over the world regardless of political or economy system. If donation cannot be done legally, and documented, it will be done under the table. Qatargate is only a recent example, known because of its high profile, not because it being rare.

"Panzeri's group received payment in cash from Qatar, Morocco, Mauritania and possibly Saudi Arabia. The group are described as "shockingly amateurish", because they stored the money they received in bribes in their apartments, made hundreds of unencrypted telephone calls and held a "held a conspiratorial meeting in a hotel that was full of surveillance cameras". Nevertheless, they operated undetected for years. Green Party MEP Viola von Cramon-Taubadel said that Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia also "systematically purchased influence over an extended period"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th...

>Further, what exactly does this have to do with capitalism?

Well it clearly incentivizes regulatory capture, so there's that.

As Karl Marx correctly illustrated 150 years ago, a state under capitalism is merely a capitalist state.

It's a natural extension of capitalism into government.

Is that a failure? When you have no strong barriers keeping people and organizations from being able to buy politicians, practically no one with any power looking to change it, I would say that it isn't - at that point it's just working as intended.

Yes, the term you're looking for is "regulatory capture." Regulatory capture is a phenomenon where incumbent firms or industries manipulate regulations and regulatory bodies to create barriers to entry for new competitors, thereby maintaining or increasing their market power. This concept was first introduced by the economist George Stigler in his 1971 paper, "The Theory of Economic Regulation."

Regulatory capture can take various forms, such as influencing the creation of new regulations that favor incumbents, lobbying for selective enforcement of existing regulations, or even having industry insiders appointed to key regulatory positions. It's a well-studied topic in economics, political science, and public policy, and is seen as a form of government failure that leads to market inefficiencies and reduced competition.

This is already being attempted with AI, under the guise of "safety".

I thought you were talking about the comment, which either sounds like it was AI generated or pulled directly from a dictionary.

Known as barriers to entry: "Barriers to entry is an economics and business term describing factors that can prevent or impede newcomers into a market or industry sector, and so limit competition. These can include high start-up costs, regulatory hurdles, or other obstacles that prevent new competitors from easily entering a business sector." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/barrierstoentry.asp

Typically, that’s what almost all regulations actually do. Just pull the ladder up farther out of reach.

It’s the reason companies lobby for them.

You do realize there are thousands of regulations, related to everything from seat-belts to what chemical to use in hair coloring products. To say that "almost all regulation" comes from companies attempting "regulatory capture" seems simplified at best.

Lot of them surely come from pushes by companies, but if "almost all" is to believed, you're gonna have to cite something that shows this.

For fun, look up what Ronald Reagan did to protect car dealerships, specifically incumbent dealerships in California.

>Is there a formal name to describe incumbents pushing for regulations in order to keep out new competitors?

Regulatory capture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

So they exempt platforms with deep pockets ? So much for the "I like small business" meme politicians love to bring up.

They also exempt social media companies with less than 100 million gross revenue

So which ones does it apply to in the end?

Per the article, probably just Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Facebook and Twitter, I think.

> That may limit the new age restrictions to just Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

So pretty much it's a specifically worded bill to just hit those three.

Or alternatively Twitter and Meta are the only ones not successfully lobbying for an exemption. After all, the exemptions for everyone else seem to be various last-minute amendments.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

Well, from the article, if you make a mildly successful multiplayer game, you better allow players to share tick-tock style videos too, or it will apply to you.

But I have no idea if the article representation of it is correct (that would be a first), and no interest on reading the original.

Video games are also exempted.

Other way around. Only applies to big ones.

> That may limit the new age restrictions to just Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

It seems like TikTok and Google lobbied hard to escape.

Clearly, the point is to look good to some prospective voters that likely won't get legally rejected because it applies to no one. You can claim to have done something without worrying about a messy reality.

Welcome to most politics. Crime goes up, here's a new task force that has no teeth to make any real changes...but look we did something.

Did someone just say blue ribbon committee? All my fears have vanished:D

It says this right in the article:

> That may limit the new age restrictions to just Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

It seems the purpose was to ban anything else other than TikTok.

So in Arkansas you are allowed to go work at age 13 without parental consent but not allowed to use social media? Got it.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/politics/sarah-huckabee-sande...

That seems completely coherent to me. Getting a job as a teen is good for you. It teaches delayed gratification, working with others, responsibility and it provides a measure of independence early.

Social media, on the other hand, will make teens depressed. The association of social media => teen depression is ~5x stronger than cigarettes => lung cancer, which is a completely unfair comparison for cigarettes because you get the lung cancer 50 years later and you get the depression today.

Kids should absolutely not be working until at least 18. It is not good for them at all. That's time that should be used for education, not throwing them into the meat grinder early.

Are you serious? I didn't have full-time jobs until after college but I absolutely had various part-time things on summer holidays, vacations, and in college.

What better education can a kid get in the summer then from a job?

Depends on the job.

The children yearn for the mines.

Not everything that is unpleasant is bad for you.

Mines definitely are both unpleasant and bad for you. And as I mentioned in my comment above, so are meat packing plants.

I think you are imagining some suburban kid getting a job at the local burger joint serving up burgers with a smile. Few 13 year olds are suited for service of office work.

You must view this in the context of the fact that Tyson, a fortune 100 company headquartered in Arkansas just got sanctioned for having underage child laborers working in their meat packing plants. If you have ever been in a meat plant, you would know that a child should never have to work in that environment. It is dangerous and unhealthy and not a suitable place for adults to work, much less a child.

I can't quite tell which social media sites this does cover...?

Right? They mention youtube and Instagram but those should be covered by the short dance video exception

Nice, Another MOAT added to social media platforms.

Big platforms like Facebook can spend a lot of money complying with the "law" whereas the startups disrupting it will die.

It's like an inverted bill of attainder.

> Nice, Another MOAT added to social media platforms.

Its an anti-moat, since it is crafted to apply only to a few leading platforms, and specifically excludes any platform with less than $100 million in current annual revenue.

It appears to exempt you if your gross revenue is less than $100m. So no Twitter but you can use Truth Social and Gab.

Does the bill actually apply to any social media platform?

The article notes that the bill exempts most platforms and any “social media company that allows a user to generate short video clips of dancing, voice overs, or other acts of entertainment.” You can generate those clips with TikTok and with Meta's tools, so they seem to be exempt.

Maybe the bill applies to Reddit and to Twitter?

So the handful of companies that are not exempted will simply add support for short dance videos thus guaranteeing that the Venn diagram of affected companies will include exactly no one. This is political theatre in its purest form.

Stop talking about it, just do it. Ban all social media. See what happens

not sure how to feel about this law in general.

absolutely do not want me grand kids on twitter or facebook and me kids even more against it.

but not sure how state can enforce and state should enforce. feel like 1984 book.

If it’s proven that is bad for them, I would not be so opposed. Same with alcohol or tobacco.

[gestures broadly all around]

That's a rather useless answer. You should link to some website for further reading or at least take a stab at what sorts of mechanisms cause harm if you really want to post something.

Driving is proven to be very dangerous but our government still encourages us to brave traffic every day.

With regulations, including government issued id and adult supervision of people under a certain age.

Driving in a necessity in most of America, alcohol and tobacco is not.

Driving is not “very dangerous”?

Odds are your grand kids wouldn't want to be caught on something as uncool as facebook anyway beyond at most a mostly stale profile to throw parents and grandparents off the scent, and might only marginally have any interest for Twitter. To my son, social media means Discord; in general any platform he's likely to find me on is automatically uncool.

Then it’s your responsibility as a parent to monitor their content.

kinda makes sense, it's addressing a very specific problem that mostly arises around instagram and tiktok.

But strangely TikTok seems exempt? Or maybe they rely on federal lawmakers to can it from the US altogether?

If they were worried about Tiktok they wouldn't have an exception written to protect any "social media company that allows a user to generate short video clips of dancing, voice overs, or other acts of entertainment"

So is the goal to prevent a new social media platform from gaining traction under the guise of "think of the children"?

Well no, because your revenue has to already be over 100m. Its odd.

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