Why is that so clear? I can think of hundreds of real daily problems I'd rather my legislators be focused on than deciding how old my kids have to be before they're allowed on some website.
I would like affordable groceries and public transport, not whatever this is.
If they really want to "do something" then require an 18+ ID at a cell phone points of sale. That'll be something that won't affect me and actually will temper a ton of underage Internet use. Then they can study the actual effect of that and whether the harms were exaggerated after all.
And, reminder, so no one here loses the plot: this is a backdoor feel good measure lobbied for by big tech to push us into a world with mandatory device attestation so their ad impressions are worth more. They could care less about your kids.
Change my mind.
What this effectively does is disadvantage large corporate social media companies to the benefit of smaller, more decentralized alternatives.
To which the anarchist in me says: fuck yes.
This has never stopped anyone. For example, Climate change legislation makes little sense unless implemented worldwide. War crime or anti-terror legislation doesn't really make sense unless it's implemented across borders (and pretending doesn't count. Nobody's even talking about arresting Putin, or anyone else for that matter). Taxation ...
Where in the settings do I go to turn off every kid's access at once? As far as I know, that setting is only accessible through my legislative representative.
They don’t get a say in your kids diet or religion or choice of sport.
If you don't like it, contact your representative instead of spinning your wheels on HN.
I'd have to wipe entire years of experience raising my kids in a world of social media. How do you propose I do that?
If you're asking for evidence of people changing their minds, I've done that, though I will admit I haven't done it in the past page of comments on hackernews.
Normally it's not a wholesale change of opinion, but a shift in nuance or a changing of details.
But even if I found such a thing, that doesn't answer my question.
Most of my interactions in age gating discussions on HN have pushed me toward indignation, rather than nuance. It's arguing against someone's hypothetical dystopian nightmare. I'm tired of the game. If they want to affect change, they can do it financially as I am.
Looking forward to seeing this same treatment on the privacy folks and how they respond.
If Timmy is on Instagram, John’s health isn’t at risk. If Timmy comes to school with measles, John’s health is at risk, and vaccination has been shown to reduce the risk to both Timmy and John.
It might be worth re-reading this particular sentence again, out loud, and really consider what you're asking for here. And why stop at internet access once you're starting to think like this?
Incidentally, the bill doesn't even say they can't use them; it just says the platform has to tone down the Skinner box part for children.
> This subdivision does not prohibit a covered platform from permitting a user who is under 16 years of age to create or maintain an account on the covered platform if that user is not provided with any addictive feature.
So it's not a social media ban. It's an addictive features for children ban. And it seems kind of obvious that running an optimization algorithm with engagement/attention as the objective is going to be bad? If that optimization works, you would almost necessarily have to be detracting from other parts of the person's life (interfering with study, exercise, socialization, etc.), which seems to be exactly what we see in aggregate (lowering test scores, increased isolation, etc.).
If you don't teach them to resist peer pressure when they're younger then they won't know how to when they turn 16 or 18 either, and they'll end up as losers with an external locus of control who blame other people and apps for their own failures of willpower.
Just as the Framers intended.
I constantly find something as a parent where I can block way too much, or nothing at all. There is no middle ground. Mind you a middle ground for something the size of YouTube is probably impossible just because of the quantity of things there that I might or might not want my kids to see - but the current situation is not working.
The existing parental control features are deliberately mis-designed, because there's a lot of money at stake and Meta / Google aren't stupid.
Does anyone really think they didn't run uptake and engagement impact tests on various proposed parental control options... and then ship the one that impacted their revenue least?
The only reason there are controls, in any sense, is as a fig leaf when the lawsuits inevitably started flying (read: now), so they can say 'See, we take this very seriously...'
All of the "parent better" messages are useless (not to mention out of touch) when technical tools to do so are not made avaliable to us. And, of course, those tools are not given because YouTube wants to drop kids into the endless algorithmic feed of slop. The age verification laws are stupid, and will nowhere address the actual problem. YouTube (and the like) - not parents - will still have full control.
I'm not saying that social media can't be good, or shouldn't exist, or shouldn't be able to make money. Early-YouTube and early-Facebook and early-Twitter (and their fallen predecessors) were good communicative platforms. I used them, and by-and-large thought they made my life, and society at large, better.
It's the data-mining and algorithmic targeting / feeds that need to be regulated.
It's not that different from a school telling kids to smoke a cigarette as a homework assignment.
If my teenagers entire peer groups spends 90% of their waking life on addictive social networks and a ‘normal’ social life is impossible without it then the parent is faced with a Hobsons choice. It’s easy enough to band my 10 year old from social networks. It’s much more complex doing that to 14 year olds and potentially does have negative effects for them unless their friends are similarly limited. This is why we need regulation.
Then your friends could use the evil instance, you could talk to them on it through your good one as a federating relay (e.g. yours might operate on a friend whitelist), but the parent could otherwise block access to the wider content pool and ad-filled addictive UI of the evil instances.
This would actually work well for ISPs and phone companies too while we're at it. And email providers. Actually a statutory maximum size (customers, revenue, etc.) could make sense for companies in general, probably. Revenue above 0.1% of GDP? Breakup.
Social media, as currently implemented, directly harms that.
Because I question any list that doesn't include a substantial chunk of voters being ignorant on concerns of critical importance to the country.
And if that's a problem now, as a result of a couple decades of low-brow, high-emotion 80s and 90s conservative talk radio and tv, then what do you think better-engineered algorithmic slop is doing to the next voting cohort's brains?
Democracies succeed or fail on the average voter's ability to somewhat understand matters.
On the other hand, let's not fall into the common political trap of: We must do something. X is something. Therefore we must do X.
Parents cannot, and in some cases should not, prevent all harms. Learning to assess and deal with risk is part of growing up. No one wants a helicopter parent constantly trying to protect you from everything. You are calling for a nanny, just arguing about where it should be.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-told-to-change-ads...
"Research has shown that young children—younger than 8 years—are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising.6–9 They do not understand the notion of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face value.10 In fact, in the late 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held hearings, reviewed the existing research, and came to the conclusion that it was unfair and deceptive to advertise to children younger than 6 years.11 What kept the FTC from banning such ads was that it was thought to be impractical to implement such a ban.11 However, some Western countries have done exactly that: Sweden and Norway forbid all advertising directed at children younger than 12 years, Greece bans toy advertising until after 10 pm, and Denmark and Belgium severely restrict advertising aimed at children."
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/118/6/2563/6...
This kind of advertising bypasses parents and creates desire in kids. You might not be able to control what your kid does at a friend's house or at school. Parents can't do it all and so society needs to support parents. Right now social media is setup against parents, we can change that.
What was once genuinely helpful for society is, by and large, now doing more harm than good. So, unless these multibillion dollar companies seriously reform (which would hurt their bottom lines), I don't know what you'd do other than banning the product, much like what we did for cigarettes.
Yeah, it's weird - the first couple of paragraphs feel a lot like, "... but FOMO!" is their argument against it.
So that is what we should be addressing.
Things like -> no personalized algorithmic feed for minors. The ability to disable algorithmic feed and revert to historical feed from contacts. Giving the user control over suggestions and feed via the requirement that it should be possible to switch to a "third party algorithm provider" or self-host, while still being able to have full access to the contents and social features of the platform.
> So that is what we should be addressing.
That is what the bill addresses. It bans providing an "addictive feature" to users under 16. It says it does not prohibit letting under 16 users use the service as long as it does not provide addictive features on those accounts.
It says addictive features are autoplay and addictive feeds.
Most of the bill is then defining what those mean. There's plenty to argue over in that, but the core is just what you've said is what we should do.
These platforms are so profitable because of targeted advertising. And most of the harm of these platforms comes from privacy invasion (tied to advertising) and the need to juice engagement numbers by manipulating emotions (also tied to advertising). A subscription model would not have the same problems.
There are serious first amendment concerns with attempting to regulate the presentation of websites and apps.
Your child has a right to an education. School administrators cannot force parents to enter into contracts with companies as a condition for their child to receive an education.
For an extra solid case, insist that you have a sincere, deeply-held conviction against the use of these devices and any attempt to force their use or deny your child the right to an education due to your refusal is a violation of the First Amendment.
Why do parents just surrender and do whatever school admins want?
>>> Ban smartphones for kids.
>>> But the school gives my kids homework on them.
>> Then tell the school you and your kid won't use them; they still have to educate your kid.
> But I want my kid to use them. I just don't like what they allow my kid to do.
If they allow your kids to do things you don't want your kids doing, then don't let your kids use them! That's parenting 101.
It's very frustrating how many parents want to Nerf the world and destroy freedom and privacy, all so they can offload some of the essential duties of parenting to the state. Usually this is combined with a heaping helping of learned helplessness and lemming-like groupthink.
"But everyone is using smartphones; I couldn't deprive little Timmy! And it's modestly inconvenient to be a stick in the mud! Lawmakers, help! I demand that everyone has to do a face scan to authenticate every TCP packet--just think of my children!"
We didn’t have computers in class and it didn’t stop me or my peers from learning how to use them. And it didn’t infringe on freedom of speech or compromise individual privacy, as this proposed law would.
Why complicate things? Republicans had no problems forcing adult sites to require id.
If the for profit crap all needs id verification, people have the chance to opt out by avoiding those services. Stop acting like we need to be "fair" to social media companies just so they can steal more of our data.