5 ms·

I'll be the odd guy out and say it should probably be illegal to attempt to enter a contract (AUP, privacy policy, etc) with a minor anyway (for a lot of reason

I'll be the odd guy out and say it should probably be illegal to attempt to enter a contract (AUP, privacy policy, etc) with a minor anyway (for a lot of reasons around exploitation), so I don't _really_ have a major issue with this at face value. I know the devil is in the details though, so kinda curious what the actual provisions are. The alternative is a free internet, where we don't need accounts to do things, because we're not building or storing advertising profiles on users. Hmmmm... imagine that.

tremon 3y ago
Plenty of other goods and services are used by children, even targeted at them, without them needing to enter a contract.
- poorlyknit 3y ago
  Would you mind expanding that? I always assumed that renting, lending or buying anything constitutes a contract technically.
  - tremon 3y ago
    If you want to be really pedantic, everytime a minor makes a purchase in a convenience store, that's technically a fulfillment of a contract. We still consider this a normal interaction and we don't consider the purchase null and void because one of the parties was underage. I was thinking more about sports clubs, or things like the scouts or church groups. Sure, the payment side requires parental supervision but none of them operate under dracionan "accept our legalese or we won't let you play"-style rules. There's a lot of difference between "we have an implicit contract that's based around common values" and "we deny you access unless you agree to be exploited". I felt that the blanket statement "it should probably be illegal to attempt to enter a contract with a minor anyway" was implying that therefore young people should have no agency. That's probably not what the GP meant, but I thought it needed stating explicitly that we do expect children/teenagers/adolescents to gradually take more control over their own life, and that we do expect society to allow for that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- alectroem 3y ago
  I think the OP was saying that having minors agree to a social media sites terms and conditions is them entering a contract. So if you're against minors entering contracts, its logically consistent to also be against holding minors to a websites terms.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > I think the OP was saying that having minors agree to a social media sites terms and conditions is them entering a contract. So if you're against minors entering contracts, its logically consistent to also be against holding minors to a websites terms. In which case we should ban children from using game consoles, computers, cell phones, ISPs, TVs, or anything that else that comes with a ToS/AUP/T&C
    - fragmede 3y ago
      Since when can children agree to legal contracts? don't you have to be 18 to get a cellphone plan or sign a contract with an ISP?
      - autoexec 3y ago
        Yet children have cell phones and use the internet right? Nothing (as far as I know) will stop a child from walking into a walmart and buying a pre-paid phone or a TV or a computer but all of those things will force you agree to their terms. How enforceable all of that is legally would be up to the courts, but that's true for social media sites too. If a 15 year old signs up for a social media site they're forced to agree to terms that might not hold up in a courtroom. None of that protects the child from having their data harvested, sold, and used against them for the rest of their lives. If we agree to ban kids from using social media on the basis of them not being able to legally enter into a contract, we'll have to ban kids from a whole lot more that social media since so many things in our lives require one. Even things explicitly made for children.
        idle_zealot 3y ago
- spicykraken 3y ago
  Children aren't allowed to play slot machines either and that's what TikTok (and Youtube Shorts, etc) sure feels like to me.
  - wvenable 3y ago
    It might feel that way but what's the real difference between TikTok and watching TV? Society has always restricted children's access to specific content but now we're restricting children's access to specific mediums regardless of the content itself. Why is TikTok or YouTube shorts not a valid way to consume media? It's a bit like arguing graphic novels are acceptable to children but short comics are not.
    - spicykraken 3y ago
      Graphic novels and short comics are a finite medium, they have a beginning and an end. There's not a very practical way to doom scroll away your entire weekend with comic books. You will eventually run out of comic books or run out of places to put them.
    - ricardobeat 3y ago
      The difference is massive. Your weird neighbour who has a feet fetish would never get to be a TV star, but he can amass 50k followers on TikTok, and request feet pics via private messages to them. Including underage children. Now multiply that by ten thousand. TV, by nature of being a group effort and holding a sliver of a monopoly for your attention, had a natural content filter (based on societal standards, for bad and good).
      - wvenable 3y ago
        I don't watch foot fetishists but I watch a lot of content made by people who would never get on TV on subjects too niche to ever get on TV. Also, if you want learn how to do anything, you can find someone online that will show you how to do it.
      - ok_dad 3y ago
ksherlock 3y ago
Generally speaking, in the US, contracts with minor (< 18) are voidable, that is, at any time the minor can break the contract. This creates a situation where no one would ever contract with a minor, which is obviously bad (how is an emancipated minor supposed to rent an apartment?) so there are statutory exceptions where the contract will be enforced.
- adventured 3y ago
  The minor gets a co-signer for the apartment. Why would anybody rent to a minor otherwise, regardless of the contract breaking issues. They are unlikely to have much credit history. To say nothing of the maturity / responsibility and income (+ wealth / cash savings) problems.
  - stonogo 3y ago
    The whole point of emancipating a minor is to empower them with legal decision-making power, in particular the ability to earn and retain wages. Furthermore it's really hard to interpret your sentence with a meaning other than 'poor people do not deserve housing,' which I have to assume is not your intent.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
enonimal 3y ago
how do you perceive privacy in such a world?
llm_trw 3y ago
>The alternative is a free internet, where we don't need accounts to do things, because we're not building or storing advertising profiles on users. Hmmmm... imagine that. Sure, so long as you pay for the service you're using. 10c per HN post, 50c per facebook photo.
- autoexec 3y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. The internet has and has always had plenty of sites (including social ones) that didn't charge money or spy on users. Just because many website would prefer to exploit their users for profit today, that doesn't mean that the internet can't exist without every website creator stuffing their pockets with cash.
  - llm_trw 3y ago
    There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you're not paying for a service you are the product. It just happens that for a bunch of old/small sites you were the product that the admin consumed to boost her ego when she banned you.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - autoexec 3y ago
      There's no doubt that a lot of free sites were put there because it gave something to the creator. Maybe it gave them an ego boost, maybe they felt a sense of accomplishment for creating something that became popular, or they got warm fuzzies from sharing something with others that they have a passion for. Free internet sites that don't exploit users don't require pure altruism. I assume nobody is paying you to contribute to this site, and I assure you that I'm not being paid for it, yet here we are. Sharing and offering something without hurting anyone or taking from them.
- mcmoor 3y ago
  Considering the real cost, it may be more accurate with 10^-5c per HN post, 10^-4c per Facebook photo (numbers made up). But they're a pain in the ass to pay, so we depend on people who do pay them in bulk, that is, the advertisers. But if we can invent any other method to properly trade this small amount of value, I think we can finally do away with them.
friend_and_foe 3y ago
That's an interesting thing regarding this law. This law is entirely unenforceable on sites that don't make their revenue by knowing exactly who you are. Any social network that allows pseudonymous accounts and doesn't require real identity information can easily be used by a kid, just click "I'm over 16" when the dialog pops up. But Instagram or Facebook is going to have a hell of a time convincing a court that they didn't know that Brayden who is posting pictures from school wasn't actually 40, or that he was in Illinois when all his contacts are from the same town in the Florida panhandle. So laws like this actually further the concept of a free internet without constant tracking, companies that track you have no plausible deniability.

tremon 3y ago

Plenty of other goods and services are used by children, even targeted at them, without them needing to enter a contract.

poorlyknit 3y ago
Would you mind expanding that? I always assumed that renting, lending or buying anything constitutes a contract technically.
- tremon 3y ago
  If you want to be really pedantic, everytime a minor makes a purchase in a convenience store, that's technically a fulfillment of a contract. We still consider this a normal interaction and we don't consider the purchase null and void because one of the parties was underage. I was thinking more about sports clubs, or things like the scouts or church groups. Sure, the payment side requires parental supervision but none of them operate under dracionan "accept our legalese or we won't let you play"-style rules. There's a lot of difference between "we have an implicit contract that's based around common values" and "we deny you access unless you agree to be exploited". I felt that the blanket statement "it should probably be illegal to attempt to enter a contract with a minor anyway" was implying that therefore young people should have no agency. That's probably not what the GP meant, but I thought it needed stating explicitly that we do expect children/teenagers/adolescents to gradually take more control over their own life, and that we do expect society to allow for that.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
alectroem 3y ago
I think the OP was saying that having minors agree to a social media sites terms and conditions is them entering a contract. So if you're against minors entering contracts, its logically consistent to also be against holding minors to a websites terms.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > I think the OP was saying that having minors agree to a social media sites terms and conditions is them entering a contract. So if you're against minors entering contracts, its logically consistent to also be against holding minors to a websites terms. In which case we should ban children from using game consoles, computers, cell phones, ISPs, TVs, or anything that else that comes with a ToS/AUP/T&C
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Since when can children agree to legal contracts? don't you have to be 18 to get a cellphone plan or sign a contract with an ISP?
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Yet children have cell phones and use the internet right? Nothing (as far as I know) will stop a child from walking into a walmart and buying a pre-paid phone or a TV or a computer but all of those things will force you agree to their terms. How enforceable all of that is legally would be up to the courts, but that's true for social media sites too. If a 15 year old signs up for a social media site they're forced to agree to terms that might not hold up in a courtroom. None of that protects the child from having their data harvested, sold, and used against them for the rest of their lives. If we agree to ban kids from using social media on the basis of them not being able to legally enter into a contract, we'll have to ban kids from a whole lot more that social media since so many things in our lives require one. Even things explicitly made for children.
      - idle_zealot 3y ago
spicykraken 3y ago
Children aren't allowed to play slot machines either and that's what TikTok (and Youtube Shorts, etc) sure feels like to me.
- wvenable 3y ago
  It might feel that way but what's the real difference between TikTok and watching TV? Society has always restricted children's access to specific content but now we're restricting children's access to specific mediums regardless of the content itself. Why is TikTok or YouTube shorts not a valid way to consume media? It's a bit like arguing graphic novels are acceptable to children but short comics are not.
  - spicykraken 3y ago
    Graphic novels and short comics are a finite medium, they have a beginning and an end. There's not a very practical way to doom scroll away your entire weekend with comic books. You will eventually run out of comic books or run out of places to put them.
  - ricardobeat 3y ago
    The difference is massive. Your weird neighbour who has a feet fetish would never get to be a TV star, but he can amass 50k followers on TikTok, and request feet pics via private messages to them. Including underage children. Now multiply that by ten thousand. TV, by nature of being a group effort and holding a sliver of a monopoly for your attention, had a natural content filter (based on societal standards, for bad and good).
    - wvenable 3y ago
      I don't watch foot fetishists but I watch a lot of content made by people who would never get on TV on subjects too niche to ever get on TV. Also, if you want learn how to do anything, you can find someone online that will show you how to do it.
    - ok_dad 3y ago

ksherlock 3y ago

Generally speaking, in the US, contracts with minor (< 18) are voidable, that is, at any time the minor can break the contract. This creates a situation where no one would ever contract with a minor, which is obviously bad (how is an emancipated minor supposed to rent an apartment?) so there are statutory exceptions where the contract will be enforced.

adventured 3y ago
The minor gets a co-signer for the apartment. Why would anybody rent to a minor otherwise, regardless of the contract breaking issues. They are unlikely to have much credit history. To say nothing of the maturity / responsibility and income (+ wealth / cash savings) problems.
- stonogo 3y ago
  The whole point of emancipating a minor is to empower them with legal decision-making power, in particular the ability to earn and retain wages. Furthermore it's really hard to interpret your sentence with a meaning other than 'poor people do not deserve housing,' which I have to assume is not your intent.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

enonimal 3y ago

how do you perceive privacy in such a world?

llm_trw 3y ago

>The alternative is a free internet, where we don't need accounts to do things, because we're not building or storing advertising profiles on users. Hmmmm... imagine that. Sure, so long as you pay for the service you're using. 10c per HN post, 50c per facebook photo.

autoexec 3y ago
That's a false dichotomy. The internet has and has always had plenty of sites (including social ones) that didn't charge money or spy on users. Just because many website would prefer to exploit their users for profit today, that doesn't mean that the internet can't exist without every website creator stuffing their pockets with cash.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you're not paying for a service you are the product. It just happens that for a bunch of old/small sites you were the product that the admin consumed to boost her ego when she banned you.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - autoexec 3y ago
    There's no doubt that a lot of free sites were put there because it gave something to the creator. Maybe it gave them an ego boost, maybe they felt a sense of accomplishment for creating something that became popular, or they got warm fuzzies from sharing something with others that they have a passion for. Free internet sites that don't exploit users don't require pure altruism. I assume nobody is paying you to contribute to this site, and I assure you that I'm not being paid for it, yet here we are. Sharing and offering something without hurting anyone or taking from them.
mcmoor 3y ago
Considering the real cost, it may be more accurate with 10^-5c per HN post, 10^-4c per Facebook photo (numbers made up). But they're a pain in the ass to pay, so we depend on people who do pay them in bulk, that is, the advertisers. But if we can invent any other method to properly trade this small amount of value, I think we can finally do away with them.

friend_and_foe 3y ago

That's an interesting thing regarding this law. This law is entirely unenforceable on sites that don't make their revenue by knowing exactly who you are. Any social network that allows pseudonymous accounts and doesn't require real identity information can easily be used by a kid, just click "I'm over 16" when the dialog pops up. But Instagram or Facebook is going to have a hell of a time convincing a court that they didn't know that Brayden who is posting pictures from school wasn't actually 40, or that he was in Illinois when all his contacts are from the same town in the Florida panhandle. So laws like this actually further the concept of a free internet without constant tracking, companies that track you have no plausible deniability.