Why did the US let a child safety bill for social media die?
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
> A central – and controversial – component of the bill was its “duty of care” clause, which declared that companies have “a duty to act in the best interests of minors using their platforms” and would be open to interpretation by regulators.
[…]
> Sensitive but important topics such as gun violence and racial justice could be viewed as potentially harmful and subsequently be filtered out by the companies themselves. These censorship concerns were particularly pronounced for the LGBTQ+ community, which, opponents of Kosa said, could be disproportionately affected by conservative regulators, reducing access to vital resources.
Sounds like it was an internet censorship bill. But lawmakers accidentally included some anti-algorithmic profiling stuff which would annoy their bosses, corporate lobbyists. I guess we’ll see a new version that only tramples the rights of normal people eventually.
How is giving users more choice "censorship"?
More like encroaching on big tech profits by empowering users.
Now where is this centralized database and who has control? How much does it cost for businesses or people to access it and how is their access limited? Are the identification requests being stored by any party?
There are many ways in which this ideal is not in line with a free society.
So there's really no way to reign in big tech on any of this?
How do you know who the children are? Age verification? Aren't we back to square one?
Fear of "algorithms" and such always turn into absurdist type laws.
Long ago, my state we had a law (quickly suspended and later struck down) that made it a felony to sell a minor a "violet" video game. I don't think making some poor store clerk a felon is solving anything...
It's solving the government's lack of power of arbitrary enforcement over a bunch of store owners.
the answer here of course is very simple, you teach your kid what she is or isn't allowed to do "online" just like you do IRL. and you verify by either sharing the account so you can see what is being installed and/or checking the device...
parenting ain't that complicated...
Is this method of parenting that you are advocating for working out okay for you or do you not have children?
Myself, I am childless and I do not like KOSA as I am unwilling to give up the anonymous internet to keep the kids safe. At the same time I do think there is room for some regulation here.
The problem - especially in USA is that whoever is in power when the "regulation" is added - whatever that regulation is - will be 100% political thing. And say 50% of people will not be happy about it. The power shifts, we either scrape or put other "regulations" in place to make the other 50% of people happy - ad infinitum... I am against regulations mostly because they are never about "protecting kids" or whatever the "spirit" should be - they are always political in nature (e.g. your kids should NOT read these books nonsense...)
Allowing minors access to addiction machines is like allowing them access to tobacco.
Generally, we say “fuck it” when it comes to addiction in adults. Personal choice or whatever - never mind the very definition of addiction undermines choice.
But with children, we at least try to shield them from things that they will be hooked on indefinitely. Try, I say, because we don’t do a great job. Just look at food.
I’m not in favor of child censorship type legislation because it’s almost always a poor excuse at authoritarianism and censorship. But, reframing algorithmic feeds as slot machines or cigs makes the position much more understandable.
You can use parental controls and block kirds access to sites you found objectionable in the past, just as you can keep your kids out of buildings you jave previously inspected for lead paint.
OTOH, I suspect people raising this objection (note that I am not, even if I think I have an understanding of how they might apply the analogy) would prefer to have some guarantee that people aren't doing the equivalent of repainting with lead paint after the parents have inspected, and would often even prefer not have to do the equivalent of inspecting every virtual building their children might enter for the digital equivalent of lead paint.
This isn’t hypothetical, right now there is a law in Florida where porn sites must verify the age of users. I’m sure you would be shocked to know that kids can still get to porn sites without age verification. Sites not based in the US just ignored the law.
However, you can still use parental controls to block those sites.
Would you buy your kids $150 Jordan’s or whatever the equivalent is today so they would be part of the in crowd? Say it’s okay to do drugs because if they don’t they won’t be part of the crowd?
Let me tell you a little story. Florida requires age verification for porn sites. Guess what? The internet is global. It might surprise you that since some of the biggest porn sites aren’t in the US, they just completely ignored the law.
However, parental controls still work.
Do you not have any control of what your children do?
Are you suggesting that adults should have to upload their ID to websites?
And you still didn’t answer the point about what you do about sites not hosted in the US - like the porn sites that are ignoring age verification laws in Florida.
You don’t see a problem with this?
I’m not saying there is a perfect solution. I’m saying the 1st amendment exists and you need to work within that framework. And I refuse to agree that the only choice is giving up being anonymous on the internet. It’s not even clear that KOSA could survive 1A challenges.
Regulate the issues causing the problems. Allow users to bring their own algorithms. Don’t allow algorithmic content/advetising on accounts marked as under 18. There are so many other things to try first. The issue is Big Tech owns the legislators and so we are stuck with nothing except them whims of the few powerful people at the helm of these ships.
This can be true about either side btw.
If courts can look at the statements of bills' sponsors when interpreting laws, it's not unreasonable for us to do the same when thinking critically about a bill's likely implementation.
For example, the censorship of any discussion of "illegal narcotics" - don't forget, all those state-licensed marijuana businesses out there are still illegal under federal law...
It was a bill that granted overboard powers to governments who were and still are actively salivating over the idea of weaponizing it to suppress speech they don't like. There's no more, "oh it's fine they won't really use it for that" discussion to be had because the current administration is just saying it out loud and publicly now. Social media sites sympathetic to the administration have already implemented the bits the opposition was worried about. The bill would make it so you can't just go somewhere else.
> Key provisions include requiring platforms to implement default safety settings for users under 17, provide parental oversight tools, and limit data collection and targeted ads for teens aged 14-15, who would also need parental consent to use platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X.
We may have dodged a bullet here. The big platforms would have (mostly) no problem implementing compliance, but smaller sites? Forget it. This would therefore be one more step toward squeezing small sites offline. No.
Not to mention there is no way to guarantee results from this.
> provide parental oversight tools
Good, but see my statement above. Implement this? Yes. MANDATE this? NO.
> limit data collection and targeted ads for teens aged 14-15
Explain to me how you prove that someone is 14-15?
This is a bunch of nonsense fluff and I'm glad it didn't pass.