FOR THE CHILDREN!!! Utah Gov. signs laws requiring age verification on Social Media

[mr moose]

23 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

 

 

Of course the data on everyone has value but the lawmakers making this law don't actually care about that. 

 

No one said they did.  Please read my posts (in context) if you are going to respond to them.

23 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

"Oh please won't you think of the children?" Is a line used to pass various restrictive laws forever.  It even has a wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children  that talks about how it's a logical fallacy.  We know this very well now in modern times. 

IT might be instructive to take a look back at when this happened before. 

 

Now that thought process has come once again to technology.   Remember how the weather was a big moral panic about the game mortal combat one when it came out? 

The marketing for it was like this.  in 1992

The fatalities were like this. 

Then the House and Senate of the United States of America had a whole entire hearings on this and considered outright banning of all such video games.  (NOTE: This is from 1993 ok.  Hopefully none of our friends think mentioning that the US has a lawmaking body is "political" especially in a instructive historical and tech related context.)

 

They blamed gaming for the violence in society in the 1990's (we now know the increased violence of the time was strongly (Brookings institute) correlated to the use of leaded gasoline (Forbes) ).  In the video you see Joe Lieberman blaming Mortal Kombat for violence against women, and crime, and every moral ill in society was because of video games.   Ultimately this resulted in the ratings system we have for video games now with the idea that parents would buy the games for their kids and so protect the children. 

This is exactly what they are doing with social media, forums, messaging apps, etc right now.   The "moral ills" are different but the playbook is the same.  "Oh won't you please think of the children."   Social media is making them depressed.  Social media is making them violent.  Social media is making them ..... insert other things here.  It's the second oldest play in the book.  To the extent there are "problems" now much like the leaded gasoline used into the 70's and 80's that lead to the higher crime of the 90's... this new technology is being blamed for things that it has little or nothing to do with.   

 

There were even scientific studies to cite back then based on the short term and relatively sparse data available that gave some support to the idea violent games resulted in violent acts in real life.   There were people who were very certain that games caused violence. 

However, now that we have more data we know that just isn't the issue. ( Violent video game engagement is not associated with adolescents' aggressive behaviour: evidence from a registered report Andrew K. Przybylski and Netta Weinstein Published:13 February 2019 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171474 ) To the extent there is an effect it is small. (Metaanalysis of the relationship between violent video game play and physical aggression over time
Anna T. Prescott, James D. Sargent, and Jay G. Hull https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611617114)

Speaking of video games.  DISCORD would certainly fall foul of these laws wouldn't it?   Even ones that limit these regulations to only the largest "social media".  Discord certainly would qualify.  How about say the social media internal to games like Grand Theft Auto V and online?  Any video game that has a chat function where you can friend people.  Gotta make sure to protect the children there too.  

I really don't know what any of that has to do with what I said. 

[kumicota]

On 3/24/2023 at 5:55 PM, Lurick said:

It's a first amendment violation plain and simple. Children still have 1A rights too.

One thing that people doesn't know is that the 1A applies just for government/public bodies not private ones

[starsmine]

3 minutes ago, kumicota said:

One thing that people doesn't know is that the 1A applies just for government/public bodies not private ones

This is government body in this situation though. 

Its children having the same scope of 1A rights that is questionable through precedent. 

[Uttamattamakin]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

I really don't know what any of that has to do with what I said. 

The old oh please won't you think of the children lying relates to this entire topic.  It's the whole reason for this topic.

 

Sometimes I quote someone respond to them and then expand on things i've seen in the rest of the thread without specifically directing at anyone. 

 

I'll bet a lot of people on this form are not aware of the history. 

[Jerakl]

On 3/23/2023 at 6:53 PM, The_Tuba_Titan said:

Totally not speaking from experience, kids will figure a way to bypass it lol

When I was a kid and I wanted to do things I wasn't supposed to I always found a way around.

I agree with the intent of the legislation but heavy handed "bans" of any sort never REALLY work.

[alextulu]

I think the actual problem is that most parents have never heard of parental controls.
Only the tech savvy know about parental controls.

Maybe the manufacturers should put information about parental controls on the boxes of every phone, tablet and computer.

It doesn't even have to be everything on the box. Just a "Scan this QR code to learn how to protect your child online" would be enough.

[Stahlmann]

On 3/29/2023 at 8:38 AM, Jerakl said:

When I was a kid and I wanted to do things I wasn't supposed to I always found a way around.

I agree with the intent of the legislation but heavy handed "bans" of any sort never REALLY work.

Any ban will work to some degree. There are always people that find a way around it, but most people will just let it go without second thoughts.

 

12 hours ago, alextulu said:

I think the actual problem is that most parents have never heard of parental controls.
Only the tech savvy know about parental controls.

Maybe the manufacturers should put information about parental controls on the boxes of every phone, tablet and computer.

It doesn't even have to be everything on the box. Just a "Scan this QR code to learn how to protect your child online" would be enough.

Sadly most parent's can barely use their own phone, let along setup a reasonable level of parental controls without making the device flat out unuseable.

 

I'd personally do my best to keep my children off social media as long as possible. This always online mentality going on is genuinely damaging to mental health.

[alextulu]

10 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

Sadly most parent's can barely use their own phone, let along setup a reasonable level of parental controls without making the device flat out unuseable.

Then maybe the government should tell Google, Apple and Microsoft to make parental controls easier to use.

There should be an option to just block all social media, or block all known porn sites, without the parent having to input every website by hand.

[Donut417]

11 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

always online mentality going on is genuinely damaging to mental health.

It already has. How many mass shootings are we up to in the US thus far? Because that’s proof that damage has already begun.