Utah law restricting youth social media use blocked by judge | Hacker News Reader

Utah law restricting youth social media use blocked by judge

reuters.com

So they're alleging that this law imposed a restriction on the speech of social media companies? Sounds like a tacit admission that these companies consider the content posted and displayed on these platforms to be their own speech.

Can't wait for them to be held liable for all the things they have said.

How would a restriction on minor usage of social media impact the "free speech" of tech companies?

And don't we recognize limits on the free speech of children in certain settings?

> And don't we recognize limits on the free speech of children in certain settings?

We sure do. No "Bong hits 4 Jesus" at school-supervised events, for instance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick

I find this Supreme Court case to have both an entertaining context and a quite relevant precedent:

> Because schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use, the school officials in this case did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending Frederick.

I'd appreciate it if any downvoters here wouldn't mind explaining their reasoning to me so that I may have a chance to address their concerns.

From the injunction...

NetChoice’s argument is persuasive. As a preliminary matter, there is no dispute the Act implicates social media companies’ First Amendment rights. 87 The speech at issue in this case— the speech social media companies engage in when they make decisions about how to construct and operate their platforms—is protected speech. 88 The Supreme Court has long held that “[a]n entity ‘exercis[ing] editorial discretion in the selection and presentation’ of content is ‘engage[d] in speech activity’” protected by the First Amendment.89 And this July, in Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, the Court affirmed these First Amendment principles “do not go on leave when social media are involved.” 90 Indeed, the Court reasoned that in “making millions of . . . decisions each day” about “what third-party speech to display and how to display it,” social media companies “produce their own distinctive compilations of expression.”91 Regarding the more pressing question—whether the Act facially violates social media companies’ First Amendment rights—the probable answer is “yes.” As explained below,

I'm not sure why Larry Flint had so many legal fights with a state that believes any kind of business has a first amendment right for interactions with children.

imo, algorithms/ranking/recommendation systems aren't "editorial decisions". They are automated and abstractions that should not equal or compare to an individuals free speech. Ya, I know, they're designed by humans. Social media companies need some serious lawfare.

How do you know that a social media algorithm does not contain editorial decisions specifically added by humans?

What they really needs is competition through the reduced cost of switching for users. Today, you lose your friends, follows, and history if you wanted to move to another social media app.

With Bluesky / ATProto, this is no longer the case. They have also made the algo and moderation pluggable, so you have choice before you feel the need to move. It's actually even better because all the apps store your content in your atproto database, each user has a dedicated sqlite

That is unfortunate. We have already ruined a generation of kids. There’s no need to continue stepping on the same rake. Kids already don’t have “freedom of speech”, and neither do companies when working with kids.

Kids do have the same First Amendment protections you or I do. What they don’t have is much political or financial power to protect it, so it only really gets asserted when parents assert it for them, and it does get balanced against institutional interests (“disrupting class”).

See: West Virginia vs Barnette: https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/west-virginia-v.-barnett...

And: Mahanoy Area School District vs B.L.: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/23/supreme-court-snapc...

Companies also just don’t automatically lose their constitutional protections either simply because they’re working with a specific class of society.

Awesome, an AR-15 for all children.

The rights of children to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

You’ve got the wrong amendment there, little buddy.

I mean, rights are rights. In that regard there’s no difference between the two. 2nd amendment does not specify the type of arms nor the age at which your right to keep and bear them begins. Indeed until 1968 there was no consistent age limit for gun ownership.

If the law and existing jurisprudence were “if A then also B”, you would be correct. However, that is not the case and guns are much more controlled than anything the First Amendment protects under the jurisprudence of 2024.

First Amendment:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment:

> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Note also that these are written two very different ways. It’s not “these rights are protected”, but in the one, there is a clear prohibition on the types of laws that Congress is allowed to pass. The second says the right of the people [to keep and bear arms] shall not be infringed. This is much more amorphous compared to the straight up prohibition on Congress and even under a loose constitutional gun control regime, allows for plenty of lawmaking with respect to firearms and their usage.

Plus the entire doctrine of incorporation kind of screws up any straightforward reading of these as applied to the States. We’re relying a lot on Federal judicial jurisprudence to apply any of the Bill of Rights against the States because without the 14th amendment, they wouldn’t be, but at least with the First Amendment, it’s much more straightforward and there’s a history of the Courts actually protecting the First Amendment rights of minors and affirming that they do have them.

Since this is HN, my first thought about your statement "We have already ruined a generation"

was that is implying "We" as in "Tech Companies" or whatnot..

but the statement may be more accurate to imply We as in 'Parents'

I'm still not sure what exactly that was meaning in so far as who 'We' is/were supposed to be.

Phones and other devices are basically a requirement from elementary school onwards. As a parent you can’t do anything about that. Contrary to popular belief children don’t just do what you tell them to do. They get addicted to this shit and spend hours every day watching bullshit on YouTube. When they’re little that’s solvable. But when a laptop is required for homework and school, you’ve lost the game.

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