8 ms·

Two things are true: 1. this bill is trash, it couldn’t be enforced, it’s pandering. 2. Social media as it has existed for the last 5-10 years is harmful for

Two things are true: 1. this bill is trash, it couldn’t be enforced, it’s pandering. 2. Social media as it has existed for the last 5-10 years is harmful for teenagers. Instagram is making teens depressed and suicidal. TikTok videos have people celebrating mental illness like Tourette’s and has brainwashed impressionable kids into believing they too have tics or multiple personalities or Tourette’s. Something needs to be done. Not every corporate evolution is good or must be accepted as permanent. That’s corporate propaganda. Instagram needs a “taking the cocaine out of the recipe” moment if it’s going to survive as a reputable product.

colechristensen 4y ago
Why isn't it enforceable? State attorney general notices his kid's social media app is giving algorithmic instead of chronological results, subpoenas social networks for number of under-18s in Minnesota, files charges, court sets up enormous fine. Which part of this process is impossible?
- pokstad 4y ago
  If GDPR is possible, this is also possible.
  - ravenstine 4y ago
    Because that really worked out well?
    - marstall 4y ago
      I believe it has had an effect. As an example, I work for a European company whose product tracks people in an indoor space, as a byproduct of its main function. Our (German) CEO made it clear we were constrained in our product development by GDPR's stipulations around pseudonymous data and data retention.
    - 0des 4y ago
      doesnt matter that it worked well if it still happened.
- encoderer 4y ago
  Kids will lie about their age. They already do. You aren't supposed to sign up until you are 13. There are lots of pre-teens on Social Media. Stopping that would mean a KYC process for every social media signup. I don't think that works either.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    I certainly lied about my age to get my Hotmail account (which dates me fairly well). I'm sure there are plenty enough kids who accurately represented their age between 13-18 to make this quite enforceable. I probably said I was 13 when I was 12, or something close enough. Do a PSA campaign telling parents to make sure their kids' social media apps correctly represent their age to keep them safe. Would work well enough.
    - ineedasername 4y ago
      >Hotmail account (which dates me fairly well). Well, you might have been a precocious 2-year old Microsoft fan in 2012. So, depending on your timezone, you should be in bed young man! And what do you think you were doing on HN at the young age of 1?
  - _Nat_ 4y ago
    From the bill's text, as quoted by the article: > (b) The social media platform is liable to an individual account holder who received user-generated content through a social media algorithm while the individual account holder was under the age of 18 and was using the individual account holder’s own account, if the social media platform knew or had reason to know that the individual account holder was under the age of 18 and located in Minnesota. [...] Sounds like they're not requiring unreasonable knowledge of faked ages.
    - freemint 4y ago
      If they only upload videos taken with the selfie cam which look like a minor and seem to have a pre puberty voice and their locations are sometimes in Minnesota would that be enough to warrant: "had reason to know that the individual account holder was under 18 years"? If so that implies social network will have to scan every video for the age range of participants.
gorwell 4y ago
It may or may not be pandering. The cultural and corporate elites have been increasingly exercising control over speech on the internet the past few years, and now we have a Ministry of Truth in the government. More top down control is the natural progression of what we're already seeing.
acover 4y ago
Trends in teen suicide don't seem to have changed that much. 1991-2017 https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/suicidal-teens https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/suicidal-teens 2012-2020 https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/health-of-women-and-children/measure/teen_suicide/state/ALL https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/health-of-wom...
- taurusnoises 4y ago
  Not sure what you're looking at. There is a clear, sourced, and cited upward trend in teen suicides between 2012 and 2019.
  - acover 4y ago
    Yes, there is an trend upward since the mid 2000s. I was just expecting a 10x.
    - windowsrookie 4y ago
      So anything less than 10x means... "Trends in teen suicide don't seem to have changed that much." okay? I guess everything is fine then.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- dolni 4y ago
  Yes, "only" a 33% increase from 2012 to 2020.
  - Terry_Roll 4y ago
    Parents have a lot to answer for. The fact most kids dont have a relationship with their parents or guardians where they can talk to them about anything is highlighted with metadata like you have highlighted. The sophistication of manipulation and control is highly granular in todays world, even a keyboard typing pattern can give away emotion which some can exploit.
aasasd 4y ago
> Instagram is making teens depressed and suicidal. Pretty sure a whole lot of things are making adults depressed and suicidal.
helloworld11 4y ago
Oh please, social media may make teens depressed and suicidal, but so too has life in general for decades or longer. If anything, teens can more easily access social support from certain peers within the framework of social media when they do get into a bad spot. Teenage life has never been easy, but it has also never been easier than it is today. Your notion of social media causing some sort of enormously unique and enormous damage needs to be heavily qualified by real evidence compared to previous trends. I say all this, by the way, as someone who has enormous criticism for the intrusive, manipulative and heavy handed totalities of social media companies. However, it's one thing to hate them where they deserve hate and another to attribute very old problems of teenage life to them as if they were unique emergences today. It's popular on HN to hate on social networks (despite many people here very much being dependent on them for their large salaries) but some of this hate should be taken with a grain of salt and lots of qualification. edit: social media makes teens suicidal and depressed, but not inordinately more than many other things would in their lives in general. Being saturated by these networks is not obligatory in life. Even teens have plenty of agency and opportunities to learn about the dangers of not moderating involvement in certain things. Enough with the youth social trauma porn.
- encoderer 4y ago
  I’ll just say, you are acknowledging that social media does make teens suicidal but you are comparing it to the “many other things” in their lives that make them suicidal. Like what? Pressure to achieve? Being popular? Hormones? Social media is a product like cigarettes it can and probably should be regulated. You can’t mandate everybody to have friends but you can regulate Facebook and TikTok.
  - idea55 4y ago
  - orwin 4y ago
    Multiple things: identity crisis, fear of the future way higher than what was, even for millenials who ranked high on this scale 15 years ago. (edit: i agree with you by the way, it is to respond to your question)
smokey_circles 4y ago
Oh yeah. It's Facebook that causes kids to become depressed or attempt suicide. Nevermind the student loan debt crisis, the floundering economy or the authoritarianism sneaking in. Definitely social media. Spoken like the disconnected politicians creating these laws. Hilariously off the mark. Social media is as dangerous for kids as video games. There's an argument to be made for advertising but I sense that is far beyond the perception of the people blaming social media for the state of the democratic society they've participated in for the past few decades...
- javagram 4y ago
  High school teens don’t have a student loan debt crisis. The economy has been going gangbusters from 2008 to 2022. “Authoritarianism” predominately affecting teens, the most politically disconnected group aside from young children? None of your reasons make more sense than the social media theory (btw, the experience of “authoritarianism” is likely from social media/internet news as other than for some marginalized groups like undocumented immigrants, nothing bad has been happening directly to the majority of teens or their friend groups.)
dustincoates 4y ago
> TikTok videos have people celebrating mental illness like Tourette’s https://tourette.org/debunking-myths-misconceptions/ https://tourette.org/debunking-myths-misconceptions/ > Although often treated by psychiatrists, Tourette is not a mental or psychiatric illness. Rather, it is a movement disorder that often occurs along with other psychiatric conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, etc.
hemreldop 4y ago

colechristensen 4y ago

Why isn't it enforceable? State attorney general notices his kid's social media app is giving algorithmic instead of chronological results, subpoenas social networks for number of under-18s in Minnesota, files charges, court sets up enormous fine. Which part of this process is impossible?

pokstad 4y ago
If GDPR is possible, this is also possible.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  Because that really worked out well?
  - marstall 4y ago
    I believe it has had an effect. As an example, I work for a European company whose product tracks people in an indoor space, as a byproduct of its main function. Our (German) CEO made it clear we were constrained in our product development by GDPR's stipulations around pseudonymous data and data retention.
  - 0des 4y ago
    doesnt matter that it worked well if it still happened.
encoderer 4y ago
Kids will lie about their age. They already do. You aren't supposed to sign up until you are 13. There are lots of pre-teens on Social Media. Stopping that would mean a KYC process for every social media signup. I don't think that works either.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  I certainly lied about my age to get my Hotmail account (which dates me fairly well). I'm sure there are plenty enough kids who accurately represented their age between 13-18 to make this quite enforceable. I probably said I was 13 when I was 12, or something close enough. Do a PSA campaign telling parents to make sure their kids' social media apps correctly represent their age to keep them safe. Would work well enough.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    >Hotmail account (which dates me fairly well). Well, you might have been a precocious 2-year old Microsoft fan in 2012. So, depending on your timezone, you should be in bed young man! And what do you think you were doing on HN at the young age of 1?
- _Nat_ 4y ago
  From the bill's text, as quoted by the article: > (b) The social media platform is liable to an individual account holder who received user-generated content through a social media algorithm while the individual account holder was under the age of 18 and was using the individual account holder’s own account, if the social media platform knew or had reason to know that the individual account holder was under the age of 18 and located in Minnesota. [...] Sounds like they're not requiring unreasonable knowledge of faked ages.
  - freemint 4y ago
    If they only upload videos taken with the selfie cam which look like a minor and seem to have a pre puberty voice and their locations are sometimes in Minnesota would that be enough to warrant: "had reason to know that the individual account holder was under 18 years"? If so that implies social network will have to scan every video for the age range of participants.

gorwell 4y ago

It may or may not be pandering. The cultural and corporate elites have been increasingly exercising control over speech on the internet the past few years, and now we have a Ministry of Truth in the government. More top down control is the natural progression of what we're already seeing.

acover 4y ago

Trends in teen suicide don't seem to have changed that much. 1991-2017 https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/suicidal-teens https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/suicidal-teens 2012-2020 https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/health-of-women-and-children/measure/teen_suicide/state/ALL https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/health-of-wom...

taurusnoises 4y ago
Not sure what you're looking at. There is a clear, sourced, and cited upward trend in teen suicides between 2012 and 2019.
- acover 4y ago
  Yes, there is an trend upward since the mid 2000s. I was just expecting a 10x.
  - windowsrookie 4y ago
    So anything less than 10x means... "Trends in teen suicide don't seem to have changed that much." okay? I guess everything is fine then.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dolni 4y ago
Yes, "only" a 33% increase from 2012 to 2020.
- Terry_Roll 4y ago
  Parents have a lot to answer for. The fact most kids dont have a relationship with their parents or guardians where they can talk to them about anything is highlighted with metadata like you have highlighted. The sophistication of manipulation and control is highly granular in todays world, even a keyboard typing pattern can give away emotion which some can exploit.

aasasd 4y ago

> Instagram is making teens depressed and suicidal. Pretty sure a whole lot of things are making adults depressed and suicidal.

helloworld11 4y ago

Oh please, social media may make teens depressed and suicidal, but so too has life in general for decades or longer. If anything, teens can more easily access social support from certain peers within the framework of social media when they do get into a bad spot. Teenage life has never been easy, but it has also never been easier than it is today. Your notion of social media causing some sort of enormously unique and enormous damage needs to be heavily qualified by real evidence compared to previous trends. I say all this, by the way, as someone who has enormous criticism for the intrusive, manipulative and heavy handed totalities of social media companies. However, it's one thing to hate them where they deserve hate and another to attribute very old problems of teenage life to them as if they were unique emergences today. It's popular on HN to hate on social networks (despite many people here very much being dependent on them for their large salaries) but some of this hate should be taken with a grain of salt and lots of qualification. edit: social media makes teens suicidal and depressed, but not inordinately more than many other things would in their lives in general. Being saturated by these networks is not obligatory in life. Even teens have plenty of agency and opportunities to learn about the dangers of not moderating involvement in certain things. Enough with the youth social trauma porn.

encoderer 4y ago
I’ll just say, you are acknowledging that social media does make teens suicidal but you are comparing it to the “many other things” in their lives that make them suicidal. Like what? Pressure to achieve? Being popular? Hormones? Social media is a product like cigarettes it can and probably should be regulated. You can’t mandate everybody to have friends but you can regulate Facebook and TikTok.
- idea55 4y ago
- orwin 4y ago
  Multiple things: identity crisis, fear of the future way higher than what was, even for millenials who ranked high on this scale 15 years ago. (edit: i agree with you by the way, it is to respond to your question)

smokey_circles 4y ago

Oh yeah. It's Facebook that causes kids to become depressed or attempt suicide. Nevermind the student loan debt crisis, the floundering economy or the authoritarianism sneaking in. Definitely social media. Spoken like the disconnected politicians creating these laws. Hilariously off the mark. Social media is as dangerous for kids as video games. There's an argument to be made for advertising but I sense that is far beyond the perception of the people blaming social media for the state of the democratic society they've participated in for the past few decades...

javagram 4y ago
High school teens don’t have a student loan debt crisis. The economy has been going gangbusters from 2008 to 2022. “Authoritarianism” predominately affecting teens, the most politically disconnected group aside from young children? None of your reasons make more sense than the social media theory (btw, the experience of “authoritarianism” is likely from social media/internet news as other than for some marginalized groups like undocumented immigrants, nothing bad has been happening directly to the majority of teens or their friend groups.)

dustincoates 4y ago

> TikTok videos have people celebrating mental illness like Tourette’s https://tourette.org/debunking-myths-misconceptions/ https://tourette.org/debunking-myths-misconceptions/ > Although often treated by psychiatrists, Tourette is not a mental or psychiatric illness. Rather, it is a movement disorder that often occurs along with other psychiatric conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, etc.

hemreldop 4y ago