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Florida House of Representatives approves bill to ban social media for kids < 16

• akerl_ 3y ago
  This makes me think of how, as a child, every site asked “are you over 13”, and I diligently clicked “yes”. Some more clever sites asked for my birth year… forcing me to do the arduous work of taking the current year and subtracting 14. Though I suppose the real plan here is to pass the law and then have the government selectively prosecute social media companies for having users under 16.
  • ratg13 3y ago
    Just a guess .. but I get the feeling the 'law' is more to get this in the mind of the parents. It gives parents tools and guidelines that can help them direct their children. Whether this is a good approach or not, is a whole other argument.
    • akerl_ 3y ago
      The legislature is claiming out loud that the law is because parents don’t have the ability to do this on their own.
    • Consultant32452 3y ago
      It also gives the parents an excuse to limit their children. "I'm not being mean, it's the law."
      • mrguyorama 3y ago
        Anyone who turned on a dome light in a car during the night knows you don't need an actual law on the books to do that
  • tnbp 3y ago
    Some more clever sites asked for my birth year… forcing me to do the arduous work of taking the current year and subtracting 14. But why? You could have just picked a year that worked, and sticked with it. Obviously, there's no way of telling which year works, but you could have bruteforced that just once.
    • m2fkxy 3y ago
      probably the thrill of living on the edge.
      • shermantanktop 3y ago
        Arithmetic under stress is a helluva drug.
    • justinclift 3y ago
      > Obviously, there's no way of telling which year works Um, it's simple maths. Guessing you're meaning something else though?
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • Dalewyn 3y ago
    > have the government selectively prosecute social media companies for having users under 16. The US government is already legally mandated to prosecute companies known to harbor information, collected online, concerning minors less than 13 years old without consent from their parents or legal guardians.[1] It's why Youtube blocks comments and doesn't personalize ads on videos published for kids, to pick out a prominent example. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Prot... Obligatory IANAL.
    • lupire 3y ago
      Laws are getting stricter. Around the world, there is increasing regulatory requirement for businesses to actively investigate user behavior (tracking!) to identify and exclude underage users who are concealing their age.
  • idontwantthis 3y ago
    I think it’s better to give the media companies a requirement and let them figure it out rather than government mandate how they do it.
    • akerl_ 3y ago
      What if we didn’t give them a mandate and then they didn’t figure it out? The fix for social media is not “wait til 17 to expose kids to it”.
  • AlecSchueler 3y ago
    I don't think enforcement actually needs to be very tightly controlled. The barriers that are put in place like the one you describe are already enough to create a social milieu where parents and kids with think twice about these things and understand that there is a recognised harm potential. There's nothing stopping you pouring your youngsters a glass of wine with dinner, but as a society we've made the dangers of alcohol and similar things so well understood that no parent wants to.
    • WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      > as a society we've made the dangers of alcohol and similar things so well understood that no parent wants to. Unfortunately, as a society, we have a much harder time grasping social media threat data. I suppose some of that is due to how news orgs consistently+bizarrely+hugely overstating the actual harms in the data. https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/08/leading-save-the-kids-advocate-pushing-absolutely-dangerous-protect-the-california-ballot-initiative-that-will-do-real-harm-to-children/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/08/leading-save-the-kids-ad...
      • AlecSchueler 3y ago
        Oh totally! What I'm saying is that laws like this, even when not enforceable per se, can help move society towards that understanding.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
    • aidenn0 3y ago
      Judging by how many of my kid's friends under 13 have various accounts already, I'm not sure that's the case.
      • AlecSchueler 3y ago
        A lot of kids are given alcohol as well but I'm still happy to say that as a society we understand the danger of underage drinking.
  • riffic 3y ago
    it was always appropriate to lie and make up a fake age / date of birth on those signup pages.
  • rtkwe 3y ago
    If the year was a scroll box I was always about a flick and a half old which often ends up in the 60s so they had some odd age metrics.
  • ok123456 3y ago
    A small transaction would cover 99% of cases (e.g., pay a dollar that's immediately refunded). It would stop kids from casually creating accounts. The kids who can do this are already precocious enough to bypass any other verification steps you could come up with. Maybe if they use a profile pic that you algorithmically determine is someone underage, you could do some additional checks. The smart ones would learn not to utilize a profile pic of themselves, which would ultimately be better.
    • rndmnflnce 3y ago
      You could even shave a fraction of a penny off with each transaction and they would never notice!
      • bennettnate5 3y ago
        I understand the point you're trying to make with this (social media will definitely abuse the additional knowledge/opportunities they get by having compulsory credit card info), but chargebacks are actually a pretty effective incentive against this. Given that chargeback fees are ~$20-$100 per incidence, you'd only need 5% or less of users calling out the social media site's false charge for that company to be netting a loss. I would relish the opportunity to cost Facebook $20 because they gave back a couple cents less than they should have.
        • yuliyp 3y ago
          I think you completely missed the point of the post you replied to (a reference to the plot of the movie Office Space).
    • zamadatix 3y ago
      I wonder if it'd really cover anything remotely close to 99% of cases. Even if 100% of parents knew about it and watched their credit cards enough to notice a $1 refunded transaction it just takes something like one friend in high school with a credit card to sign up all their little brother's friends. It may even just cause more credit cards being shared around than kids it stops from getting to the site they want on. Then there'd be even more unintended consequence. Instead of sites you don't want kids creating accounts on you'd have sites selling 5 minutes of ads to create an account for them or increasingly shady stuff. Preventing this kind of site is the same as the original issue.
  • wrsh07 3y ago
    Lol I just always added 10 to my birth year
    • umvi 3y ago
      Why would you want to make yourself 10 years younger?
      • postalrat 3y ago
        Why would you want to be truthful?
      • wrsh07 3y ago
        I realized the error after submitting (added ten years to my age/subtracted ten years from my birth year), but I didn't think anyone would be confused by it so didn't bother correcting it
  • dotnet00 3y ago
    Yeah, similarly I had just gotten used to entering an elder sibling's birthday whenever asked. Adding these arbitrary age restrictions does nothing but make it increasingly obvious to kids how little our leaders and other supporters of these arbitrary age restrictions actually care.
  • Lerc 3y ago
    I remember my daughter at an astonishingly young age encountering a age-login screen, turning to me and asking "How would they be able to tell?" then merrily telling the system she was 18. https://fingswotidun.com/images/MelissaQuake3.jpg https://fingswotidun.com/images/MelissaQuake3.jpg
• pfdietz 3y ago
  I can't see how this could pass 1st amendment scrutiny.
  • goda90 3y ago
    How would it be different than age restricting voting, driving, or alcohol and tobacco sales? It seems there's precedent for treating minors differently than adults in many ways.
    • nickjj 3y ago
      > age restricting voting, driving, or alcohol and tobacco sales I think those things are a bit more black and white. How do you define social media? Is HN social media? You engage with others through comments, posts are ranked and it has voting elements as well as your profile has a gamified score for upvotes. Is a Disqus comment on any website social media if that's how we broadly define social media? Where do we draw the line? You could make a case that leaving reviews on a site are a form of social media too. You can post something there and feel like you need to check back in hopes someone leaves a like or replies. If it were a wearable item you might take a picture of yourself and now hope people engage with it.
      • bhpm 3y ago
        The social media platforms the bill would target include any site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload content or uses addictive features designed to cause compulsive use.
        • mccrory 3y ago
          Then they can say goodbye to most online gaming. I wonder how people will feel about this when they realize their kids can’t play games anymore?
          • Ekaros 3y ago
            Pretty good. Pretty good. I would go to argue that online games do more harm than good to children and teenagers. In many ways banning them from playing them might steer them to more productive use of time.
• goda90 3y ago
  I'm still on the fence about government doing a parent's job here, especially for kids under 13, but I can't stand that no one pushing these bills has come up with an actually reasonable age verification method.
  • bamboozled 3y ago
    You could say the same about smoking I guess ? For kids under 13 to see any of the content , ask them to enter a credit card ?
    • LeifCarrotson 3y ago
      Adults should not have to enter a credit card to, say, read HN. But kids should. And therein lies the problem...
      • thsksbd 3y ago
        Why not? Honestly asking here. Let's assume oposition to the law is a "progressive" position: If there is a constitutional right to absolutely 100% friction free access to information then what happens to all the barriers the government has erected to access covid, Trump, Russia and other "disinformation" progressive pushed for? (You can invert this example for a right wing if you want)
        • nickthegreek 3y ago
          Not everyone has a credit card. Some people cannot obtain a credit card. People under the age of 18 can also have a credit card. I do not trust random sites with my credit card.
          • thsksbd 3y ago
            So these are objections in practice, not principle. Important but consider: - Most states give free IDs - Your safety concern is addressed by other commenters here (see the verifying age anonymously)
• bedhead 3y ago
  Not sure how I feel about this, but I don't hate it, theoretically. I'm sure it's hopeless in practice. It might be a worthwhile experiment if nothing else. But a piece of legislation will never be an adequate substitute for good parenting.
  • stronglikedan 3y ago
    I'd like to see more science proving that social media is bad for kids before I see lawmakers enacting laws around the theory. That said, I think 16 is too high an age. Kids go into high school at ~13, so I think that would have been a more reasonable age to consider. The hard truth is that most kids don't seem to have access to "good parenting" by any reasonable standard, and parenting is hard with good parenting being harder (not an excuse).
    • brightball 3y ago
      I’d imagine that 16 is the age when most kids finally get a state ID.
    • dmm 3y ago
      > I'd like to see more science proving that social media is bad for kids before I see lawmakers enacting laws around the theory Is there science proving that porn is harmful for children? If not, do you see that as an argument for legalizing it?[0] The first restrictions on tobacco purchases for children were in the 1880s, long before the science was settled on the harms tobacco use causes. Science is slow, contentious, and produces limited results[1]. If we can only ban things that are scientifically proven to be harmful, what is stopping TikTok from slightly modifying their app and rereleasing it? I can easily buy products that are BPA free but that just means clever chemists have come up with even worse platicizers like BPS to use as substitutes. And software can be adapted way faster than chemistry. [0] I don't. [1] It's definitely still worth studying.
    • mbitsnbites 3y ago
      > I'd like to see more science proving that social media is bad for kids Smoking tobacco was allowed for children for hundreds of years before it was regulated. Today we can hardly fathom how stupid it would be to allow children to smoke. Social media is much more accessible than cigarettes, far more addictive, and rather than messing with your lungs it messes with your brain and personality. There are many problems with "waiting for the science". One is that it takes many, many decades to get reliable longitudinal studies on things like addiction and how the brain is affected. There are so many indications that social media is bad for children (including scientific studies), in many different ways. It really should not be controversial to limit use for children. It's not like it is something that they need. This book, "Smartphone brain: how a brain out of sync with the times can make us stressed, depressed and anxious" by Swedish MD psychiatrist Anders Hansen, brings up one of the aspects (unfortunately I don't know of an English translation): https://www.amazon.se/Sk%C3%A4rmhj%C3%A4rnan-hj%C3%A4rna-stressade-deprimerade-%C3%A5ngestfyllda/dp/9178871581 https://www.amazon.se/Sk%C3%A4rmhj%C3%A4rnan-hj%C3%A4rna-str... Here's a short video with Anders Hansen: https://youtu.be/DwAx2kRwCRI?t=112 https://youtu.be/DwAx2kRwCRI?t=112 Then there's is of course the question of how to limit the use. But that's another issue.
• mista2nith 3y ago
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• lsiunsuex 3y ago
  As a Floridian and someone in IT - I'm curious how this will be implemented I can't remember the last time I signed up for a new social network; do they ask age? Is it an ask to Apple / Google to add stronger parental approval? Verify drivers license #? We heard about this days ago on local news and I've been struggling to figure out short of are you 16 years or older how this is gonna get done and how do you fine someone if it's breached.
  • brightball 3y ago
    My guess is that it will be most easily enforced in school. After school is another story entirely.
  • thsksbd 3y ago
    (Putting aside if the law is good or bad and the constitutionality of it.) Put criminal penalties to the directors if no reasonable attempt to keep kids out. Plus corporate death penalty if they purposely target kids. Then how they enforce it doesn't really matter as long as there are periodic investigations. The personal risks are too great and the companies will figure it out.
    • djfdat 3y ago
      Excessive punishment with arbitrary enforcement? What could go wrong?
      • a_victorp 3y ago
        You forgot selective punishment as well
    • throwaway-blaze 3y ago
      The FTC already implements a "corporate death penalty" in the form of massive fines if an organization collects data on kids and uses it to target advertising (see COPPA)
  • alistairSH 3y ago
• newsclues 3y ago
  Government needs modern digital first ID/authentication services.
  • alistairSH 3y ago
    Probably, but that's a tough nut to crack. A significant chunk of the American public is insanely anti-federal ID.
    • newsclues 3y ago
      Doesn’t need to be federal, because it’s digital it can be distributed and portable instead of centralized. If it respects privacy, is secure and convenient and optional, people would love it.
      • alistairSH 3y ago
        That's true, however I'm not sure I trust "Big Tech" to self-manage this system. After all, "Big Tech" are the ones that forced us into needing this legislation in the first place. And they don't have a great track record at protecting PII. The federal government already has all the info it needs to run an ID program. But, I'd be open to debate on who should do it.
  • mindslight 3y ago
    First, we need privacy regulation (eg a US port of the GDPR) that stops the existing widespread abuses of identification and personal data, especially the abuses being facilitated by the current identification systems. Only after this is fixed does it make sense to talk about increasing the technical strength of identification.
• tzs 3y ago
  > The social media platforms the bill would target include any site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload content or uses addictive features designed to cause compulsive use. That does not appear to be correct. It says it applies if any of 3 conditions hold. The bill text says all of the conditions must hold (and there are 5, not 3). Here is what the current text says social media platform means: < Means an online forum, website, or application offered by an entity that does all of the following: < a. Allows the social media platform to track the activity of the account holde < b. Allows an account holder to upload content or view the content or activity of other account holders. < c. Allows an account holder to interact with or track other account holders. < d. Utilizes addictive, harmful, or deceptive design features, or any other feature that is designed to cause an account holder to have an excessive or compulsive need to use or engage with the social media platform. < e. Allows the utilization of information derived from the social media platform's tracking of the activity of an account holder to control or target at least part of the content offered to the account holder. There's also a huge list of exceptions. It says that it: < Does not include an online service, website, or application where the predominant or exclusive function is: < a. Electronic mail. < b. Direct messaging consisting of text, photos, or videos that are sent between devices by electronic means where messages are shared between the sender and the recipient only, visible to the sender and the recipient, and are not posted publicly. < c. A streaming service that provides only licensed media in a continuous flow from the service, website, or application to the end user and does not obtain a license to the media from a user or account holder by agreement to its terms of service. < d. News, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated, and any chat, comment, or interactive functionality that is provided incidental to, directly related to, or dependent upon provision of the content. < e. Online shopping or e-commerce, if the interaction with other users or account holders is generally limited to the ability to upload a post and comment on reviews or display lists or collections of goods for sale or wish lists, or other functions that are focused on online shopping or e-commerce rather than interaction between users or account holders. < f. Interactive gaming, virtual gaming, or an online service, that allows the creation and uploading of content for the purpose of interactive gaming, edutainment, or associated entertainment, and the communication related to that content. < g. Photo editing that has an associated photo hosting service, if the interaction with other users or account holders is generally limited to liking or commenting. < h. A professional creative network for showcasing and discovering artistic content, if the content is required to be non-pornographic. < i. Single-purpose community groups for public safety if the interaction with other users or account holders is generally limited to that single purpose and the community group has guidelines or policies against illegal content. < j. To provide career development opportunities, including professional networking, job skills, learning certifications, and job posting and application services. < k. Business to business software. < l. A teleconferencing or videoconferencing service that allows reception and transmission of audio and video signals for real time communication. < m. Shared document collaboration. < n. Cloud computing services, which may include cloud storage and shared document collaboration. < o. To provide access to or interacting with data visualization platforms, libraries, or hubs. < p. To permit comments on a digital news website, if the news content is posted only by the provider of the digital news website. < q. To provide or obtain technical support for a platform, product, or service. < r. Academic, scholarly, or genealogical research where the majority of the content that is posted or created is posted or created by the provider of the online service, website, or application and the ability to chat, comment, or interact with other users is directly related to the provider's content. < s. A classified ad service that only permits the sale of goods and prohibits the solicitation of personal services or that is used by and under the direction of an educational entity, including: < (I) A learning management system; < (II) A student engagement program; and < (III) A subject or skill-specific program. I hope they add 8 more exceptions. I want to see what they do when they run out of letters for labeling the exceptions.
• causal 3y ago
  I might be the only one here in favor of this, and wanting to see a federal rollout. It is not reasonable to expect parents to spontaneously agree on a strategy for keeping kids off social media- and that kind of coordination is what it would take, because the kids + social media companies have more than enough time to coordinate workarounds. Have the law put the social media companies on the parents side, or these kids may never be given the chance to develop into healthy adults themselves.
  • andy99 3y ago
    I'm in favor of kids not using social media, but not of the government forcing this on people nor spinning up whatever absurd regulatory regime is required. And the chance of actually enforcing it is zero anyway. It's no more realistic to expect this to work than to expect all parents to do it as you say. It's just wasted money plus personal intrusion that won't achieve anything.
    • soco 3y ago
      Is there an alternative? Self-control - as we have now - brought us here. If the government shouldn't step in then the only other option left (only I can see) is magic. And we have a bad record with magic.
    • JoshTko 3y ago
      I used to want no govt intrusion for this. Then I understood how there are teams of PHDs tweaking feed to maximize addition at each social network. I think there could be even limits, or some sort of tax on gen pop.
      • protocolture 3y ago
        It would be less imposing on the populace if you just demanded a government hit squad kill those PHD's instead of demanding everyone submit to some onerous government crapware to access the internet.
        • 3y ago
• insane_dreamer 3y ago
  As the parent of an 11 year old, I wholeheartedly agree. The science is pretty clear that social media has had a very detrimental effect on teens' mental health. We should treat it like we do other substances that are harmful for teens; once they're older they are better able to make wiser decisions as to if, when and how they want to consume social media. It may be impossible to enforce outside school, but so is the 13-year old limit on opening accounts (my kid's classmates all have accounts; they just lie about their age). But that's not a reason not to have it on the books, as it sets a social standard, and more importantly puts pressure on social media companies.
  • jeffbee 3y ago
    The evidence is not all that solid. The most demonstrable link is between use of portable devices at bedtime and poor sleep quality. Everything else has mixed evidence.
  • coolbreezetft24 3y ago
    Seems like it does even more harm to adults, so much of the "content" is just a cess-pool of conspiracies and vitriol
• k12sosse 3y ago
  Does this mean Florida will be the first state off the Internet? If traffic source is Florida, redirect to null Easier than implementing an ID verification platform that isn't a massive tracking anklet for a 3rd party or government.
• spacebacon 3y ago
  I would like to see regulation on notifications to address reaction driven addictions as opposed to an outright ban. Classical conditioning is clearly the issue at hand but opponents are not referencing the proven science enough. If we don’t teach children how to use these platforms in moderation now they will certainly not be educated on how to use them responsibly in adulthood. I’m not against an outright ban totally but we are missing educational opportunities with what is likely an unenforceable attack on the problem.
• jshaqaw 3y ago
  Does YouTube count? Yes I think TikTok is largely a hellscape for my daughters around this age. But one of them learns all sorts of crafting projects via YouTube and the other has taught herself an incredible amount on how to draw. Would be a shame to throw away access to resources like this with the bath water.
  • pavlov 3y ago
    The law has a list of applications that are specifically excepted. User tzs posted it in this thread. It seems like YouTube would be covered by the ban because it doesn't fall under any of the exceptions. The closest one is this: "A streaming service that provides only licensed media in a continuous flow from the service, website, or application to the end user and does not obtain a license to the media from a user or account holder by agreement to its terms of service." But of course YouTube does "obtain a license to the media from a user or account holder", so it's not covered by this exception.
  • AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Does she need her own account in her name where she can upload though?
• Ekaros 3y ago
  I would prefer it to be straight 18. Much more reasonable limit and I think 16-18 is very vulnerable group from effects of social media.
• captainmuon 3y ago
  I guess for me it depends on what the law considers "social media". Is something like the bulletin boards we used to have around the late 90s/early 2000s social media? What about chat rooms? Local social web sites for the school or your city? I think a lot of these things can even be beneficial, if I think about my own experiences as a somewhat introverted teenager. And what about things like Netflix, Youtube, Podcasts? They can be just as harmful as TokTok and Instagram. Especially on Youtube you have a lot of similar content. I've found accounts that claim to be official accounts of children's shows - maybe they even are - and which are full of nonsensical videos, just randomly cut together action scenes of multiple episodes. It's like crack for children. Of course YouTube doesn't do anything, they want you to pay for YouTube kids. And the rights holders want you to buy the content, so they leave the poor quality stuff up. The thing is, exploitative content is always going to be created as long as there are incentives to do so. You can ban stuff, but it's whack-a-mole, and you are going to kill a lot of interesting stuff as collateral damage. The alternative is much harder, change the incentives so we can keep our cool technology and people are not awarded for making harmful stuff with it. But that would require economic and political changes, and people don't like to think about it.
  • scythe 3y ago
    > I guess for me it depends on what the law considers "social media". It's a bill written by the Florida House of Representatives, so there's a definition there. Mind you, it's the Florida House, which has put out some extremely bad laws in its current session -- from "Parental Rights in Education" to the Disney speech retaliation. But given that this is a less ostensibly partisan issue, there are reasons for hope. The definition seems narrowly tailored. I think that part (d)1d is a questionable choice, since most social media platforms will probably argue that they are not really "designed" to be addictive (for various definitions of "designed" and "addictive"). It appears that specific exemptions were made for YouTube, Craigslist and LinkedIn (without mentioning those companies by name), and algorithmic content selection is part of the definition. This is one of the better versions of this law I could imagine being written by a state legislature, though it isn't without its faults. It's nice to see my home state in the news for something good for once. I agree that YouTube is a particularly difficult case. But part of the problem comes from using it as a digital pacifier, rather than peer pressure. There's no particular reason why the technology market should produce a free stream of child-appropriate videos. Ad-supported media has its ups and downs, but when the targets of those ads are young children, it's much harder to defend. And parents have more control over the behavior of their 4-year-olds than their 14-year-olds. Here's the definition: >(d) "Social media platform:" >1. Means an online forum, website, or application offered39 by an entity that does all of the following: >a. Allows the social media platform to track the activity of the account holder. >b. Allows an account holder to upload content or view the content or activity of other account holders. >c. Allows an account holder to interact with or track other account holders. >d. Utilizes addictive, harmful, or deceptive design features, or any other feature that is designed to cause an account holder to have an excessive or compulsive need to use or engage with the social media platform. >e. Allows the utilization of information derived from the social media platform's tracking of the activity of an account holder to control or target at least part of the content offered to the account holder. >2. Does not include an online service, website, or application where the predominant or exclusive function is: >a. Electronic mail. >b. Direct messaging consisting of text, photos, or videos that are sent between devices by electronic means whe re messages are shared between the sender and the recipient only, visible to the sender and the recipient, and are not posted publicly. >c. A streaming service that provides only licensed media in a continuous flow from the service, website, or application to the end user and does not obtain a license to the media from a user or account holder by agreement to its terms of service. >d. News, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated, and any chat, comment, or interactive functionality that is provided incidental to, directly related to, or dependent upon provision of the content. >e. Online shopping or e-commerce, if the interaction with other users or account holders is generally limited to the ability to upload a post and comment on reviews or display lists or collections of goods for sale or wish lists, or other functions that are focused on online shopping or e-commerce rather than interaction between users or account holders. > f. Interactive gaming, virtual gaming, or an online service, that allows the creation and uploading of content for the purpose of interactive gaming, edutainment, or associated entertainment, and the communication related to that content. > g. Photo editing that has an associated photo hosting service, if the interaction with other users or account holders is generally limited to liking or commenting. > h. A professional creative network for showcasing and discovering artistic content, if the content is required to be non-pornographic. > i. Single-purpose community groups for public safety if the interaction with other users or account holders is generally limited to that single purpose and the community group has guidelines or policies against illegal content. > j. To provide career development opportunities, including professional networking, job skills, learning certifications, and job posting and application services. > k. Business to business software. > l. A teleconferencing or videoconferencing service that allows reception and transmission of audio and video signals for real time communication. > m. Shared document collaboration. > n. Cloud computing services, which may include cloud o. To provide access to or interacting with data visualization platforms, libraries, or hubs. > p. To permit comments on a digital news website, if the news content is posted only by the provider of the digital news website. > q. To provide or obtain technical support for a platform, product, or service. > r. Academic, scholarly, or genealogical research where the majority of the content that is posted or created is posted or created by the provider of the online service, website, or application and the ability to chat, comment, or interact with other users is directly related to the provider's content. > s. A classified ad service that only permits the sale of goods and prohibits the solicitation of personal services or that is used by and under the direction of an educational entity, including: > (I) A learning management system; > (II) A student engagement program; and > (III) A subject or skill-specific program.
• tokai 3y ago
  Its impressive how people here, that should know better, are cheering this on - just because they are parents themselves. Even disregarding the legality, its not going to work technically. The perceived safety of ones kids really crosses some wires in parents.
  • efields 3y ago
    It’s good to have this conversation. I don’t think anyone here wants the bill enacted as-is (did anyone actually read it? I didn’t, and I don’t live in FL). Of course this is technically unenforceable. There will always fbe workarounds. You could smoke as an 11 year old if you were determined enough. But we need more pushback and dialogue on social media’s role in the common discourse. For a while, nobody talked about smoking being bad and it became normalized while killing a lot of people. Seatbelts. Dumping waste in the river… most people go with the flow of common consensus until that consensus is scrutinized.
  • syrgian 3y ago
    It would definitely work if a parent could report the accounts of all the kids involved and their tiktok/whatever accounts got deleted + their phone numbers and emails got block-listed for the service. Even more if the system worked in a centralized way: this email/phone is used exclusively by a kid, so now all on-boarded companies must delete their accounts and not allow them to register again.
    • voidwtf 3y ago
      Herein lies the rub, every time I've seen this happen in the past companies just applied blanket wide bans to accounts. Sometimes retroactively for accounts that were illegal at the time of their creation regardless of the users current age. Both Google and Twitter did this to users who created accounts before they were 13 but were then adults. If you're going to introduce legislation like this, then it needs to include provisions that it will not permanently bar those users access to the services once they are of age. I manage my children's social media interaction (near 0 with the exception of YouTube), if their accounts get permanently disabled that would be unfortunate in the future when they are old enough.
• exabrial 3y ago
  I fail to see how anyone under 18 can legally agree to any kind of contract without a parental co-signature. This should be enforceable without new laws, but I'm glad to make it explicit: progress over perfection.
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• rpmisms 3y ago
  This is good. Seriously, the damage it does is massive, kids should not be on Instagram, Snapchat, or Tiktok.
  • ibejoeb 3y ago
    I have a hunch that you're right, but there are a few other things that coincided with the rise of social media, so it's hard to tell what has driven the change in kids' psyches. Among them is the explosion of pharmaceuticals that are routinely prescribed to kids.
    • rpmisms 3y ago
      I think these things are linked. Either way, kids are having serious issues, so let's roll back the clock and see what innovation causes it. Kids were fine before social media, arguably better.
    • owisd 3y ago
      The pharmaceuticals thing is unique to the US, but every country has seen a simultaneous rise in kids mental health issues, so that rules out pharmaceuticals.
  • anshumankmr 3y ago
    What about an Instagram for Kids type thing? Like there is YouTube for kids, Make it ad-free (I know this is a pipe dream, but at the very least it should have ads from companies that do not sell gambling apps), scrolling time limits (that actually work which should be a bare minimum), chronological time feed
    • rpmisms 3y ago
      No. I'm not talking about the content itself, I'm talking about the firehose of useless garbage, appropriate or not, that's frying their dopamine receptors.
    • ryandvm 3y ago
      Great idea. We could also give them clove cigarettes until they're old enough to smoke!
• yieldcrv 3y ago
  control behavior by regulating the intermediary this is a strategy that works under any governance system on the planet. so to actually make an enforceable law don't try to impose restrictions on the action, provider, or users of the action, instead you should think about things they rely on and restrict those. this law doesn't do that. but it would be fun to think of things that would. can we take something away from social media users? can we incentivize non-social media users? maybe we can leverage our disdain of data brokers into a partnership where data brokers can't serve companies that have children's data just spitballing, I don't actually care about this law or any of those proposals, just noticing the current state of the discussion lacks... inspiration.
• tapoxi 3y ago
  Is Hacker News considered social media?
  • riffic 3y ago
    yes
  • tzs 3y ago
    For this bill, no. It does not meet conditions (d) and (e) of the 5 conditions a site must meet in order to be a social media platform. I've quoted the relevant part of the latest bill text in this prior comment [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39176380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39176380
• dvngnt_ 3y ago
  i don't know why people are cheering for this? the government shouldn't take the place of the parents. I think the real reason is they don't like how tiktok is creating activists out of the next generation of voters. we should demand better from big tech but banning does nothing to improve platforms. so many adults here were on forums, 4chan, mmos, ventrilo growing up, even Facebook which was useful keeping in touch as a kid.
  • causi 3y ago
    All those things were horrible for us. I can't imagine the nightmare of combining that with the use of my real name. Like yeah, I want a free for all, but how bad does something have to be before we say no way?
    • tstrimple 3y ago
      > All those things were horrible for us. Except that they weren't. My life would actually be substantially worse now without most of those apps / websites. I was just another loser growing up in a rural trailer park with no real prospects before I got interested in programming and taught myself employable skills in those online forums and chat apps. It's insane to me that anyone could call themselves a part of a "hacker" community and complain about kids having access to information and wanting legislation to restrict it.
  • mminer237 3y ago
    I agree it's the parents' responsibility, but I don't know that the government can't prevent things it deems harmful just because parents are okay with it. It also often makes things easier for parents by being able to require service providers to work with parents and limit their sales to children. I'm fine with the government enforcing curfews, smoking, and drinking laws on children even if their parents disagree. I don't think any of the things you listed, except probably Facebook would qualify as a social medium under this law. I'm honestly very thankful more manipulative social media didn't exist when I was a teen. My life probably would have been better if I didn't have access to as many as I did even.
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• joshuaheard 3y ago
  I support this. Normally, I think government intervention is bad and parents should be in control. But, as a parent myself, it was hard not to allow my child to have a phone when she kept saying, "Everyone has one. I'll be the only one without a phone". No one wants their child left out or left behind. This will remove that rationale.
  • frumper 3y ago
    This wouldn't stop your kid from wanting a phone. They'll all still want phones for games, chatting, cameras, videos, comment sections, forums. Of course many parents won't care if their kids sign up to social media sites through some workaround, so the pressure will still be there to join social media sites.
  • tstrimple 3y ago
    Just to be clear, because parenting is hard you want to legislate how other parents are able to raise their children so that it's easier for you to get the behavior you want? I think all parents should take this approach. * Having trouble getting your children to go to church because their friends don't? Let's just legislate mandatory church attendance so that will remove the rationale for kids whose friends don't attend! * Having trouble getting your kids to eat healthy because all their friends get to eat and drink whatever they want? Let's outlaw sodas so kids won't have to feel peer pressure! * You think your kid is playing too many video games? Why not just pass legislation that restricts all video game usage so your kid doesn't feel left out! Telling your kids no is part of being a parent. Explaining to your children why they aren't allowed to do some things that other kids do is part of being a parent. It seems we have an abundance of parents who don't want to actually be a parent and would rather legislation was passed so they don't have to say no to their kids.
    • joshuaheard 3y ago
      It's not my deficiencies as a parent that make me support this law. It's the need for a reverse network effect. That's how social media works. If everyone else has it, your kid wants it. If no one else has it, your kid doesn't want it. Social media has been found harmful to children, like smoking or alcohol. For many reasons, it should be limited for children.
• deleted 3y ago
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• TheCaptain4815 3y ago
  I don't agree with any type of "outright ban". However, having EXTREME restrictions on these social media sites for children seems so obvious. I'd prefer a complete restriction on any content outside of friends groups, any algorithm restriction, etc.
• bilsbie 3y ago
  I don’t know where I saw this idea but instead of banning just force these companies to make their feed algorithms open source. It would be much less heavy handed and would freedom increasing instead of decreasing. It would work because There would be enough outrage over seeing nefarious topics being pushed that the companies would refrain.
  • mindslight 3y ago
    I agree with where you're coming from, but publicly documenting their feed algorithms (which is what a call for "open source" effectively is) wouldn't change much. What is actually needed are open API access to the data models, so that competitive non-user-hostile clients can flourish. I believe this would be legally straightforward by regulating based on the longstanding antitrust concept of bundling - just because someone chooses use to use Facebook's data hosting product, or their messaging products, does not mean they should also be forced to use any of Facebook's proprietary user interface products. This would not solve the collective action problem where it's hard for an individual parent(/kid) to individually reject social media, but I also don't see this bill doing much besides making it so that kids have to make sure their fake birthday is three years earlier than the one they already had to make up due to COPPA. Of course the politicians pushing this bill are likely envisioning strict identity verification to stop that, but such blanket totalitarianism should be soundly rejected by all. Unfortunately the larger problem here is that the digital surveillance industry has been allowed to grow and fester for decades with very few constraints. Now it's gotten so big and its effects so pervasive that none of the general solutions to reigning it in (like similarly, a US GDPR) are apparent to politicians. It's all just lashing out at symptoms.
  • dartharva 3y ago
    Is the feed algorithm the only problem that is harming children? Not the concept of a social network in general, the entire point of whose is to publicise lives and keep its users stuck onto their screens for as much time as possible? The entire fault of social networks is that it is hampering children's development by keeping them online. Trying to improve those services by making the algorithms better will worsen the situation. You want to make children lose the appeal of social media, not increase it!
• manicennui 3y ago
  Perhaps a better solution is to allow children on social media, but drastically limit how companies are allowed to interact with such accounts. Random ideas: no ads, no messages from people they don't follow, limit ability to follow other accounts in some way.
  • djfdat 3y ago
    Can I have that as an adult please?
  • dartharva 3y ago
    Children are not as much at danger from falling for online advertisements as they are for the overall detrimental effects of social media in general. Social networks are inherently bad for kids; they are addictive and directly harm children by constantly dosing them with dumb entertainment and cutting off their attention spans.
• tamimio 3y ago
  This is idiotic, they will find a way to watch and be on social media regardless. Also, I don’t see how social media is bad but MSM that brainwashed generations is any good, are they going to enforce the same rules on other forms of media? Or is it because “we can’t censor XY social media” so we are gonna ban them all?
• AniseAbyss 3y ago
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• Sneasel 3y ago
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• mullingitover 3y ago
  Florida House essentially breaking out the classic: “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”
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• ecocentrik 3y ago
  This might be the first bill approved by the Florida legislature in the last 8 years that I agree with. I like it in spite of all the reasons these people voted for it. And I like it in spite of the absolute horror show of an enforcement dilemma it's going to impose on the residents of Florida. Will it force all Florida residents including children to use VPNs to use the internet? Yes it will.
• arrosenberg 3y ago
  Social media exclusively uses a predatory pricing model and the companies should be forced to stop subsidizing their products with targeted ads. The algorithms drive max engagement because that drives max impressions and cpcs. The algorithm doesn't care that its' making people angry and divisive - it's optimizing revenue! All of the other evils stem from this core issue - Meta, et al. makes money off of their customers misery. It should hardly surprise anyone that children are affected much more strongly by industrialized psychology.
• HumblyTossed 3y ago
  > The social media platforms the bill would target include any site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload content or uses addictive features designed to cause compulsive use. So, is ClassLink exempt? This seems pretty broad.
• brocklobsta 3y ago
  This is a very complex problem. Its not just social media, but porn and other content that is not intended for young eyes. One issue I have is with the age verification system. This will either be totally ineffective or overly effective and invasive. I feel legislation is drifting towards the latter with the requirement of ID. One idea I had is a managed dns blacklist of inappropriate content. The government can have a requirement that a website register their site in this list to operate, otherwise they are subject to litigation for their content. At the same time have isps and network gear support this list in a 1 click type fashion. I have multiple dns blacklists I use at home. I know this may be a little more technical for the parents and guardians, but that is the world we are living in. Limitations being: Section 230 - user posts explicit content and the site isn't in the blacklist. Network scope - This blacklist will have to be added to all networks accessed by children. What about public wifi? coffee shops? IDK, I love being able to be anonymous online, but I do see the negative effects of social media, porn, and explicit content on our youth. I don't really trust the government to solve this effectively.
  • cheschire 3y ago
    What qualifies for the blacklist? It's a moral question. What happens when the blacklist maintainer's morals differ from your own? Sure, in the U.S. it seems fairly uniform that most people do not want children having access to porn. But what about women having access to information about abortion? Or information about suicide? The use of drugs on psychological conditions? Vaccination efficacy? Really sucks when someone that controls the blacklist decides you're on the moral fringes of society.
    • brocklobsta 3y ago
      Agreed, some are easy to classify like nude content, but what about a website about war history, that content is simultaneously factual and explicit. This is why I say its up to the website owner to register for the blacklist. That in itself has an incentive to reduce the surface of liability of the website. Social media is a hard problem. What is exactly the issue? Is it creating a larger social hierarchy than children can cope with? Is it meeting and interacting with strangers? Is it reinforcing dopaminergic pathways from superficial digital content and approvals?
• carabiner 3y ago
  It's crazy how in 2017, YC was proposing a social network for kids as a startup idea: > Social Network for Children: This is a super tough nut to crack. You have to be cool and offer a safe and private environment for kids to communicate with each other while enabling trusted adults to peer in/interact, etc… The company that can build something that is used and useful for all parties can build something of great value throughout a person’s entire life. - Holly Liu, Kabam/Y Combinator https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/13-startup-ideas https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/13-startup-ideas There was very little notion that a social network, no matter how safe, was inherently detrimental to childhood development. Like cigarettes initially, it just seemed to be mostly positive with some niggling annoyances. I wonder what other current YC ideas will be considered horrible 7 years from now.
• deadbabe 3y ago
  I have no idea how this would be enforced but I agree with the spirit of the law. We either live in a world where children are hopelessly pressured into joining social media early in life and suffering its effects, or we ban them from it all together and allow them to have something that still looks like a childhood.
• einpoklum 3y ago
  I'm willing to buy an argument that certain kinds of "social media" have negative impact on kids under 16; but I'm absolutely not willing to buy an argument for a world in which the government is able to ban your communications with other people because you're under 16.
• nerdjon 3y ago
  I feel like I can almost guarantee that this bill has nothing to do with protecting children and has more to do with brainwashing children and restricting their access to opposing viewpoints, especially given this is Florida. That being said, I am not strictly opposed to a bill like this. But 16 is way too old. I feel like likely somewhere within the 10 to 13 range since most don't allow for under 13 anyways would be fine. But then if they all block under 13 what is the point of the bill?
  • mrangle 3y ago
    Restricting social media use is tantamount to brainwashing? I don't see the connection. As for restricting access to "opposing" (opposition to what?) viewpoints, what children can be exposed to has long been restricted. But since there isn't a syllabus for what children will be presented on social media, I don't see the viewpoint restriction angle either. In fact, that position is illogical to the point that it raises the question of whether or not people concerned with it have an agenda to expose kids to "viewpoints" that their parents would disapprove of. Under the radar of supervision. Going only on my experience with social media, a valid and more plausible reason for this restriction would be that social media seeks to optimize the feed of users for engagement. In a manner that "hacks" psychology in a way that makes it difficult for even adults to disengage. Given that minors do not have fully developed brains, the ability to disengage may be even more hindered. Television programing has long sought this goal as well and with some success. While that use isn't restricted, there is theoretically a red line. Florida may see it in social media use.
    • nerdjon 3y ago
      > opposition to what? This is coming from the state that is trying to ban books based on some backwards concern of a white kid feeling bad. (for the record I am white). I don't care what side of politics you are on... you know what opposition I am talking about. Whether you are for or against it. > not people concerned with it have an agenda to expose kids to "viewpoints" that their parents would disapprove of. Yes! Because otherwise the parents are brainwashing their kids into their viewpoint not allowing them to see the real world. This isn't a hard concept to understand here. I mean I am liberal and atheist. But even I have wondered if I ever have kids if I don't expose them to the choice of religion if that is brainwashing of its own. I may try to justify it with the harm that religion has caused, but I am still denying my kid another prospective that is different than my own. Edit: To clarify here. If this was a state that was not actively removing opposing viewpoints from their libraries and teachings than I may buy that they actually care about their kids. But it's not, it's Florida. The beacon of being scared of their kids knowing anything about the real world and daring to have compassion for someone different than them.
• geogra4 3y ago
  I remember when I was 10 years old at a computer camp during the summer at a local college. They had me set up my first email account with hotmail. They all asked us to lie about our age. I think even then they had restrictions that you had to be 13 years old. But - that was over 25 years ago. The internet was a much different place.
  • CalRobert 3y ago
    Might be thinking of this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Prot... I remember joining ebay (well, auctionweb - aw.com/ebay, IIRC) and it not even being an issue that I was around 14, we mostly trusted each other, and just mailed money orders around. A different time.
  • mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Fast forward to today. Ours came home with a google account in the 5th grade I think. Something I explicitly did not want. They didn't send a permission slip home like they do for everything else either. Another teacher around the time had the kids set up on GoodReads. They were under 13 and there was a TOS at the time restricted to 13+. Mostly adults on that site. Not happy with the school to say the least.
    • judge2020 3y ago
      > Fast forward to today. Ours came home with a google account in the 5th grade I think. Something I explicitly did not want. They didn't send a permission slip home like they do for everything else either. Google Workspace accounts, especially those for education[0], have Web & App Activity, as well as Location History, automatically turned off. It's just a tool for schools to get free/cheap email, storage, and classroom tools. For your child under 13 to be able to use it compliant with COPPA[1], your school must have either used some level of blanket consent, or the school didn't bother to actually get the parental consent Google requires. 0: https://edu.google.com/intl/ALL_us/workspace-for-education/editions/overview/ https://edu.google.com/intl/ALL_us/workspace-for-education/e... 1: https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/coppa https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/coppa
• nojvek 3y ago
  What if the social network is created by kids? I guess I need to write to my representatives. It's funny that the Republicans tout they are the party of "freedom", yet restrict the liberties. Why not let parents decide how they want to raise their kids?
  • deleted 3y ago
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• soared 3y ago
  Technical implementation looks like a good use case for this, morals/etc aside - https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/protections/private-state-tokens https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/protections/pr... Private State Tokens enable trust in a user's authenticity to be conveyed from one context to another, to help sites combat fraud and distinguish bots from real humans—without passive tracking. An issuer website can issue tokens to the web browser of a user who shows that they're trustworthy, for example through continued account usage, by completing a transaction, or by getting an acceptable reCAPTCHA score. A redeemer website can confirm that a user is not fake by checking if they have tokens from an issuer the redeemer trusts, and then redeeming tokens as necessary. Private State Tokens are encrypted, so it isn't possible to identify an individual or connect trusted and untrusted instances to discover user identity.
  • jvanderbot 3y ago
    Yep - one of those "it's possible but do we want this" situations. Something feels a bit slimy about government-approved browser tokens. Like, "We're sorry, your revocation appeal is taking longer than expected due to ongoing unrest in your area - please refrain from using internet enabled services like ordering food, texting friends, uploading livestream videos of police, giving legal advice, finding directions to your employer - a nonprofit legal representation service, or contacting high-volume providers like the ACLU. Have a nice day!" But it could just be "Please execute three pledges of allegiance to unlock pornhub"
  • solarpunk 3y ago
    you've posted this in a few threads, but i dont think i understand what the scenario it is used in would be? every user of social media in florida now has to visit a third party (who?) that sets a cookie (private state token?) on their browser that verifies their age?
    • soared 3y ago
      Correct - ISP requires you to visit Florida.gov (or realistically a company the government trusted to set up verification) to set your token if you’re an adult. Then each social media site checks whether a visitor is from Florida, and then if they have a valid token. If valid, load like normal. If not valid, don’t load the site.
• tempestn 3y ago
  16 seems ridiculously old for such a ban. Especially if sites like YouTube count as social media (and I can't imagine how it wouldn't, given most of the content is identical between the short video platforms).
  • ChrisLTD 3y ago
    Why does 16 seem ridiculously old?
    • tempestn 3y ago
      Because 15 year-olds are the prime audience for a lot of social media. And while much of it is a waste of time at best or actively harmful at worst, a lot of it is also engaging or even educational content that high school students should be allowed to access. And will access regardless; it'll just be a hassle for them or their parents to have to jump through hoops to get to it.
      • Izkata 3y ago
        > or their parents There doesn't appear to be a parental approval exception, it's just a straight ban. So kids will apparently be responsible enough to drive a car but not make a Facebook account.
        • tempestn 3y ago
          Yes, I mean the parents will help kids circumvent the ban.
• jay_kyburz 3y ago
  A much better better move in my local state, they banned all phones in school up to year 10. https://www.act.gov.au/our-canberra/latest-news/2023/december/new-mobile-phone-policy-for-act-public-schools https://www.act.gov.au/our-canberra/latest-news/2023/decembe...
• TriangleEdge 3y ago
  What's an enforcement mechanism that works for this? My concern is that teenagers are going to learn yet another way to be dishonest.
• iosystem 3y ago
  The tech industry needs an association similar to how doctors join the American Medical Association, where they can collectively agree on ethics and guidelines that must be followed. Any person in tech is behaving unethically if they assist in implementing software to restrict children in Florida from accessing information on the internet that their peers in other states can access. Florida shows little concern for the potential harm to children resulting from information restrictions. Kids in abusive environments greatly benefit from the social connections online communities provide, as well as the diverse information and perspectives from other people. Florida has created this bill as a means to censor content it deems immoral, whether it be abortion information for girls, understanding sexuality, the existence of trans kids, or any other topic arbitrarily designated as immoral by the ruling political party. It is disconcerting to target the rights of children, who have the lowest chance of having the resources needed to challenge something like this bill in court, which should happen under the first amendment.
  • tmpz22 3y ago
    The AMA has many problems but Ill just mention one - they artificially restrict the number of graduates each year WHILE reporting nation wide shortages. Its not a silver bullet for ethical behavior or efficient economics.
• deleted 3y ago
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• 0xbadcafebee 3y ago
  Great! Now can we ban it for those over 16?
• spdustin 3y ago
  I truly don't understand how the party of small government and parental rights of determination can justify passing this. Perhaps more relevant to HN, it seems to me that any solution here would be a dramatic loss of agency, privacy, and anonymity.
  • Smeevy 3y ago
    I'm in agreement with you. I'm amazed at how many people that do I do can look at this myopic, sanctimonious rage bait and immediately start figuring out how to implement it with an encrypted token exchange. This is still awful no matter how much crypto you throw at it. The end result of solving this little puzzle of a problem is that everything is worse shortly afterwards. Congratulations to them, I guess.
  • djfdat 3y ago
    They've never been the party of small government and parental rights. That's just their sanctimonious tagline they use when convenient.
    • mlrtime 3y ago
      The reddit /r/politics trolls are entering HN. If you want to criticize something, better to understand it first. Small Federal Government, more local government control. Let local communities decide for themselves what is important. Now I know your first thought is to ignore what I'm saying to find examples that prove this wrong. But this is the conservative approach in general. NY and CA are never going to pass a bill like this, if having your kids on TikTok is important, move somewhere where you are with like minded people.
      • reducesuffering 3y ago
        > more local government control. Let local communities decide for themselves what is important. Do you hear yourself, when commenting on a bill that is a ban in an area of 21 million people? Hey, I think this bill is bad and should be legislated at the county level. I'm now more conservative than you.
• bentt 3y ago
  I am here to report as a parent of children that I have been able to keep them off of social media by not getting them phones, controlling the Internet in the house, and paying close attention.
  • munificent 3y ago
    How has it impacted their social life? My experience with my kids (middle and high school age) is that online is "where" most kids socialize today and if I don't let my kids go there, I am socially isolating them.
    • bentt 3y ago
      We allow my son to be online via his computers. He has a Macbook and a desktop PC. He's on Discord and a Slack. He can iMessage friends via his Macbook. The thing about a phone is that there's a data plan and it's out of your sight a lot. But to be fair, my son is mostly fine with sticking to these channels for talking to friends. So, it is particular to the kid. It doesn't hurt that we live in a tight nit community where he can walk to friends' houses, school, etc. My daughter is younger and probably will want to get a phone more than he does, when she is old enough.
  • zamadatix 3y ago
    My (non-technically inclined) nephew age 14 managed to get caught with an old Wii u from a friend and was using it to browser the net at 3am via the friend's (neighbor) Wi-Fi. I don't think paying close attention, as much as it should be done, is really the be and end all answer for everyone to know their kid is never on social media or sites they shouldn't be on. Beyond this example unless you're home schooling them in remote isolation with regular prison level searches there are going to be other ways your kids do things you wouldn't like them to. If you are talking about that kind of setup I'm more worried about that in society than Facebook. That doesn't mean parents should not pay attention or give them easy access but I'm not sure the proud proclamation is really solving or responding to the conversation at hand. Most likely, IMO, it's a problem without a single golden solution.
• redder23 3y ago
  I am all for it but the question is how will this be enforced? If they use this to require government ID on every other website now and crack down on semi anonymous accounts and go full surveillance I do not like it. You might say "they do know you are when you make any account" and it might be true, well if I would use a VPN all the time and really no let any info slip maybe not. I just to not like the total deletion of privacy.
• jokethrowaway 3y ago
  I don't like it's mandated by law (id check on the internet is a identity fraud disaster waiting to happen), but I'm copying this for my kids
• kmeisthax 3y ago
  My impression of these bills was that none of them had survived contact with SCOTUS. What is going to make this bill any different? And why aren't we just passing a proper damned privacy law already? All of the addictive features of social media are specifically enabled by their ability to collect unlimited amounts of data. Yes, I know, the NSA really likes that data thank-you-very-much, but SCOTUS isn't going to be OK with "censor children" to protect that data flow.
• aktuel 3y ago
  I would ban it for everyone under 21. It is certainly not safer than alcohol.
• swozey 3y ago
  I wonder what this would affect culturally. There is a LOT more to this that will happen than just keeping children off of social media. The USA exports its culture/pop/etc all over the world. I don't follow teenager arts/music/etc sources but a lot of musicians start in middle school and have so many mix tapes online and get known around their cities from using social media. Artists find other artists, learn other styles, etc. I got into programming through IRC as a kid, which maybe that's like tiktok nowadays, I don't know a good comparison. I learned so much through sites/apps I could "upload content" and "tracks user activity." So, what happens when every kid-teenager in a nation thats the worlds biggest culture exporter isn't getting their culture out? I can't believe this got 106 to 13 with the "Regardless of parental approval."
• financypants 3y ago
  This is such a silly issue on a governmental level. Shouldn't the parents, who spend more time around their children than the Florida House of Representatives does, worry about and monitor their own children?
  • it_citizen 3y ago
    Should we apply the same reasoning for banning kids from buying alcohol or firearms then?
  • arijun 3y ago
    Off the top of my head, I can think of two reasons why it might be preferable to have the government intervene. 1) We are happy to have the government intervene in other cases for the sake of children; I would be pretty upset at any politician who espoused removing age restrictions on cigarettes. I don’t know that social media is as bad but it certainly has some of the addictive properties 2) An argument from tragedy of the masses: if all kids’ social lives currently revolve around social media, unilaterally disallowing one child to use it could result in alienation from their peer group, which might be worse for the kid than social media. A government mandate would remove this issue.
• deleted 3y ago
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• paxys 3y ago
  Is this a real bill or another one of those performative ones that they know will get deemed unconstitutional by a court?
  • PM_me_your_math 3y ago
    [dead]
• int0x21 3y ago
  Ahh yes. When you can't parent, let the government do it.
• shuntress 3y ago
  Everyone here seems to be forgetting the root of this problem: Algorithms that select content (including ads) need to be treated as publishers rather than platforms. "facebook.com/users/my_friend/posts_in_cronological_order" is a platform "facebook.com/my_feed" is a publisher
  • stavros 3y ago
    That doesn't sound like a bad distinction. If you're shuffling the stories around to maximize some metric, you're no longer an impartial carrier, you're actively biasing what someone sees.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    Wasn't this how things were before Section 230? If your act as a dumb pipe then you're a provider and if you curate then you're a publisher.
    • shuntress 3y ago
      There wasn't much Internet before Section 230. At that time, it was still kind of an open question.
• proc0 3y ago
  I'm calling it now, this is like the War on Drugs. Banning it will only create an underground environment with even less oversight, not to mention the burning desire kids have for doing things they should not be doing, which is guaranteed because this is not even remotely enforceable.
  • seattle_spring 3y ago
    It's so, so obvious. Also strongly reminiscent of the "satanic panic" and the war on violent video games.
• wan23 3y ago
  I'd like to see a federal law mandating that any future law or regulation that restricts what children are allowed access to makes the parents solely liable if the children gain access. There should be a standard way to declare pages are age restricted, and the browser on the child's phone or computer should check it. But if the child bypasses that somehow, that's on the parents.
  • seattle_spring 3y ago
    So some loon bans Call of Duty for anyone under 18, but 16-year-old Jonny figures out how to log in anyway at his friend's house. You're championing for a way to indict Jonny's parents on federal charges? If I'm off base, can you clarify exactly what you would like to see instead?
  • djfdat 3y ago
    So, we don't trust parents to monitor their children's online activity the way the government finds acceptable. So now we will punish parents for their inability to monitor their children's online activity the way the government finds acceptable?
  • mlrtime 3y ago
    Let me guess, you don't have children... It's painfully obvious the people commenting here who have vs don't have kids. The most vocal [and the most absurd ideas] are sure from people whom this will not affect at all as they don't have kids.
• bandyaboot 3y ago
  I’m no fan of some of the things that have been happening in FL, and I’m not sure that a simple outright ban on “social media” for <16 is the way to go, but at the same time, I think it’s a good thing they’re pushing this because the conversation needs to happen and with more urgency.
  • djfdat 3y ago
    We really need to find a better way to have these conversations as a society.
• notnmeyer 3y ago
  impossible to enforce, but i dont hate it. im thoroughly convinced that history will see social media as a net negative for society.
• zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  Yet they just eased restrictions on child labor
• billfor 3y ago
  And we still have film ratings. A kid isn't supposed to go to R rated movies if they're under 17....
• whatasaas 3y ago
  I don’t want to verify myself and I don’t trust the government to not work with Facebook to say they are doing some “zero knowledge proof” and still map us all. Implement a fine for parents in Florida. Let it stay Florida’s problem. If the Amish were in charge we would all be in trouble. Raise your own kids.
• standardUser 3y ago
  We've got to stop crafting a special world for children that is disconnected from the adult world. We should be moving in the opposite direction, lowering the voting age for example, allowing toplessness in appropriate places and allowing children in non-sexual adult spaces when with a guardian (like bars). How have we not yet learned that repressing kids is counterproductive?
  • reactordev 3y ago
    Religion… it makes certain people think the world is full of bad people. While there are bad people, the vast majority of people are good people. Our policy here is to protect the children from X. Whatever X is at the time. Right now it’s wokeism.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • insamniac 3y ago
    To what end exactly?
    • standardUser 3y ago
      To create well-rounded human beings who don't grow up with weird issues around nudity and drinking, for example. And who feel like that have some skin in the game and are actually part of society, not victims of it.
• nanolith 3y ago
  The bill is pretty broad, with oddly specific carve-outs. I did not think that I would need to pay for a VPN service to avoid weird legislation in my state, but here we are. The sad thing is that, with the exception of the occasional comment on Slashdot / HN and my LinkedIn profile, I'm barely active on social media anymore. Still, I'm not giving PII to sites that this bill considers "social media" sites, just to prove that I'm over 16. That's absurd.
  • seattle_spring 3y ago
    > I did not think that I would need to pay for a VPN service to avoid weird legislation in my state Why not? Were the book bans not a sufficient warning signal?
    • nanolith 3y ago
      A warning signal for what? To need a VPN? I was hoping that our current legislators would be unable to spell "Internet", to be honest. Unfortunately, Florida has gone crazy over the past twenty years. I'd vote with my feet, but this is where my family lives. So, I have little choice but to hunker down and contribute what I can to destabilize the dominant QAnon aligned caucus in the legislature, and hope that in 2026, we get a governor who doesn't play to this nonsense.
• notbeuller 3y ago
  One possible result of this that sounds dystopian cool - script kiddy kids < 16 spinning up mastodon server instances and creating their own very leaky insecure rolling social networks. Unless it suddenly becomes illegal to run a server without a license.
  • Buttons840 3y ago
    Kids could use a social network hosted in another country. Imagine how quickly the US will erect a national firewall, especially since they can plausibly say it's to protect the children.
• neutralino1 3y ago
  I often draw the parallel with cigarettes and alcohol. Kids need to produce an ID to purchase them. Sure they can fake it, but then they are breaking the law, and that still raises the barrier. But that's likely not enough. In addition, there should be public health campaigns to warn against the risks. Cigarette use has plummeted since the 90's, so something must be working.
  • zmgsabst 3y ago
    I like to compare it to gambling — another real gated isdustry, due to using professional psychology to engineer super stimuli for the purposes of addiction. Social media should be regulated for the same reasons gambling is regulated.
• neilv 3y ago
  What is "social media", and how much are they actually banning communications, speech, association, organizing, political activity, etc. by young people? Plus a backdoor way to promote surveillance tracking to communications for everyone, by the likely mechanisms to be used in practice for excluding those under 16.
  • jackvalentine 3y ago
    Definition with inclusions and exclusions is in the bill: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1/BillText/e1/PDF https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1/BillText/e1/PDF
    • neilv 3y ago
      Interesting. To meet their definition of "social media platform" requires that it "Utilizes addictive, harmful, or deceptive design features, or any other feature that is designed to cause an account holder to have an excessive or compulsive need to use or engage with the social media platform." Also, they have a large list of exclusions. Some of the phrasing sounds like under-16 people are mostly limited to person-to-person messaging, consuming content produced by others, and being able to access certain services that got exclusions. Being able to speak publicly is sometimes expressly not allowed in these exclusions, but it is at least implied in other exclusions (which I guess might have originated to allowlist specific companies). Teens who care to observe the law at all (many will not) will quickly realize that they can figuratively drive a truck right through some of those loopholes. (Example: a "photo editing & hosting" service with accounts and likes and comments is pretty much Twitter or Facebook, once an exodus of kids from "social media" starts congregating there. Bonus rebelious vibe, and the freedom/coolness that your parents and grandparents, and mean school principal haven't yet discovered it.) If I had an online service that had under-16 among its users who were doing public expression/communication/content, and my business wasn't already clearly excluded, I would be scrambling to lobby for an exclusion. (I would also be discouraging this particular formulation of law, in the public interest, but remiss if I didn't have a backup plan for my immediate business in the case that it passed.)
• plorg 3y ago
  Excited to see how Gab users react to having to provide a government ID to use it.
• BadHumans 3y ago
  Go after advertising and data collection and the problem solves itself.
• apapapa 3y ago
  I think that instead of banning it all together, they should ban practices within those platforms.... Wtf Florida, this sounds life something CA would do... It's almost as if they banned all speech because some speech is hurtful
  • djfdat 3y ago
    How does this sound like something CA would do? This sounds exactly like something Florida would do.
    • apapapa 3y ago
      Because CA bans everything? Pretty much every causes cancer in Cali, for example.
      • djfdat 3y ago
        Are you trying to suggest that the warning label that CA added is more similar to the banning of social media for students than banning books in schools, and banning the discussion of certain topics in schools?
• xbar 3y ago
  "Florida Sneaks into Requiring Everyone to Have an Internet License"
• seattle_spring 3y ago
  An extremely transparent attempt to ensure Florida children do not have access to news and information that goes against a very particular narrative. It's all about the control of information, which sure is ironic coming from "the party of small government" and self-proclaimed "free speech absolutists." Absolutely disgusting. It would be fantastic if social media companies instead simply blocked all access to IPs located in Florida regardless of age.
• MrYellowP 3y ago
  The current generation is already heavily manipulated by it, which means the next generation - their children - will also be heavily manipulated by it regardless of consumption or lack thereof. Mindless parents -> mindless children.
• mnky9800n 3y ago
  What happens if a 14 year old goes to florida for summer vacation, posts tiktoks, then some how is found responsible for violating this ban?
• maxslch 3y ago
  govts are soo behind the tech curve and everything they do now only decelerates our progress and creates more problems
• andreygrehov 3y ago
  Whatever happens in Florida, HN doesn’t like it. Why? Because of the distorted perception about FL driven the mass media. A couple years ago I made a decision to move to FL from NY. I’ll say it out loud, FL is ahead of NY. They just have bad marketing skills.
  • zaccusl 3y ago
    I feel like there is no good way to market the fact that some school districts are banning the dictionary to comply with all the "word" and "thought" ban laws. Like how do you spin that so it's a good thing that some teachers can't even have books in their classrooms to avoid running afoul of the law? How do you spin book bans as a good thing in any circumstance? How do you spin the laws that remove parents rights to make medical decisions for their children when the medical decisions conform with the current state of the art and evidence based treatments? Other than that, I think most people just treat Florida as a meme thanks to the Florida man stereotype.