Florida already passed a similar law. Nice to see both left and right can agree that some things are common sense.
As someone with a troubled teen and a witness to numerous other parents dealing with troubled teens, it's virtually impossible to prevent them from doing whatever they want these days unless you literally lock them up 24/7. Even then they will weaponize reporting you to CPS with lies about abuse. Many of these kids are growing up in perfectly decent homes and taught well by their parents, but they get influenced by their peers to cause trouble.
You should’ve been more involved earlier on if your kid is getting involved in gang violence, getting weapons, and is going to be out there shooting people. You failed big time.
A lot of these kids don’t grow up in good homes - the parents are negligent and incompetent. They play dumb just like you are doing.
Provide evidence for your claims, please. Having troubled children is bad enough without having to deal with this type of ignorance.
Can social media be addictive? Yes. Should we trust the government when it claims it wants to "protect the children?" Absolutely not.
This will end up being about enabling surveillance, harassment of minorities and policing political wrongthink, like every other such initiative. And it's kind of sad that Hacker News, which is usually critical of the motives of government almost to a fault, is willing to let its hatred of social media excuse naked and authoritarian power grabs like this.
Like y'all rise up if Apple tries to track CP on people's phones but if someone declared all social media illegal tomorrow most people here would have a party.
Used to be, you could buy a newspaper and print your viewpoint, but everyone could see it.
Now, you can trivially individually target users, invisible to any oversight.
How is that not an existential threat to democracy? (Whether from a foreign nation-state or anyone else is immaterial)
Western governments do a pretty good job of protecting kids from labour exploitation, for example.
But that's because it's relatively easy to enforce. Protecting them from other harms is more difficult and involves tradeoffs with personal or parental freedoms.
I really don't think these initiatives are intentional power grabs... although you're correct that opportunist entitites will exploit these regulations to empower themselves.
The moment I hear a politician say "protect the children" is the moment that I want to know what kind of garbage they're trying to pull under our noses. It rarely comes across as being little more than a pretext to pass some other agenda through.
Also, it shouldn't be the role of social media to ensure the existence of Israel, even if one assumes that opposition to their actions in Gaza is de facto opposition to their existence as a state, which I wouldn't.
Also what you're describing immediate, unfiltered journalism which provides one of the strongest arguments against having social media be regulated by governments. Seeing the cruelty and violence of government unfiltered by media gatekeepers and in realtime is a good thing. Americans should have the opportunity to question their government's unwavering support for Israel and the consequences of their own imperialism.
Of course social media can also be just as much a platform for propaganda and misinformation as traditional media, but it's also easier to undermine than traditional media. We need a way for the masses to be able to publish to the masses, and social media is currently the best option to allow that, even with its downsides.
Sorry I call bull on this. In the first part of your comment you say 'agree 100%' and in the latter part you yourself say 'how low support has plummeted' and imply social media is to blame. In what way is 'low support' == 'agree 100%' ? It sounds like you're calling for some form of censorship to enforce 100% agreement.
Legislators want it, site owners want to be able to prove their users are real people, advertisers, as well, etc.
And yes, I'm mostly referring to Republican lead legislation that encourages or enforces conversion therapy, minority disenfranchisement (Haitians most recently, but also black, mMuslum, and Palestinian groups), and anti-LGBTQIA+ (more specifically anti-trans) actions.