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The key element that makes it a different debate is the involvement of children. There is widespread precedent for children to have limited rights and responsi

by jl6 3y ago

The key element that makes it a different debate is the involvement of children. There is widespread precedent for children to have limited rights and responsibilities, and limiting what media they have access to is entirely commonplace and not done to curtail speech.

mindslight 3y ago
First, Reddit is used by plenty of children (regardless of COPPA). Many have tacit approval of their parents, who don't look too hard at what Reddit contains past the front page. And Reddit most certainly wants to be a place for children (age 13-17). So what children have access to is part of both issues. Second, does this "Florida issue" include provisions for parents of children that want their children to be able to access those books, to opt out of the restrictions in question? If not, then one can't say the topic is entirely limited to the traditional role of parents deciding what is right for their children. Rather it's also about about controlling what other people's children might read. Ultimately, both topics are about filtering distribution channels, based on criteria the distribution channel managers deem appropriate - with free speech concerns hinging on how much those distribution channels end up affecting what gets perceived as the total market.
- jl6 3y ago
  > Second, does this "Florida issue" include provisions for parents of children that want their children to be able to access those books, to opt out of the restrictions in question? Yes, it does: they are perfectly free to buy or borrow those books themselves. The law is about what’s available in a public school.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    That's not an opt out, but rather routing around. And you can make the same argument about online forums - forum owners' decisions are about what is appropriate for their desired audience, and users are perfectly free to seek out their desired type of comments from other forums. I'm not making an argument about what level of opinionated curation is appropriate or justified. Rather it's just disingenuous to say something is censorship when the other team nominally supports it, but then throw out specific reasons why your team's favored censorship shouldn't actually be considered censorship. There are always legitimate sounding reasons for centralized distributors to police the content of speech, and it's also always censorship.

by jl6 3y ago

mindslight 3y ago

First, Reddit is used by plenty of children (regardless of COPPA). Many have tacit approval of their parents, who don't look too hard at what Reddit contains past the front page. And Reddit most certainly wants to be a place for children (age 13-17). So what children have access to is part of both issues. Second, does this "Florida issue" include provisions for parents of children that want their children to be able to access those books, to opt out of the restrictions in question? If not, then one can't say the topic is entirely limited to the traditional role of parents deciding what is right for their children. Rather it's also about about controlling what other people's children might read. Ultimately, both topics are about filtering distribution channels, based on criteria the distribution channel managers deem appropriate - with free speech concerns hinging on how much those distribution channels end up affecting what gets perceived as the total market.

jl6 3y ago
> Second, does this "Florida issue" include provisions for parents of children that want their children to be able to access those books, to opt out of the restrictions in question? Yes, it does: they are perfectly free to buy or borrow those books themselves. The law is about what’s available in a public school.
- mindslight 3y ago
  That's not an opt out, but rather routing around. And you can make the same argument about online forums - forum owners' decisions are about what is appropriate for their desired audience, and users are perfectly free to seek out their desired type of comments from other forums. I'm not making an argument about what level of opinionated curation is appropriate or justified. Rather it's just disingenuous to say something is censorship when the other team nominally supports it, but then throw out specific reasons why your team's favored censorship shouldn't actually be considered censorship. There are always legitimate sounding reasons for centralized distributors to police the content of speech, and it's also always censorship.