Under 14? No social media for you!

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, Godlygamer23 said:

How are websites going to "verify" age? The information is voluntary - if I really want to use a site that requires a certain age, I can just lie about it. 

The same way they verify age for COPPA, dont go around saying you are 12. Shockingly most 12 and under are dumb and freely give that info away so they get banned from any coppa complient service anyways.

However given that this is a florida only law, it likely wont hold much teeth. 
 

[Caroline]

That's cool but we all know teens will set their birthdates to 1/1/1900 to access "forbidden" websites.

 

44 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

The poisonous mindset that makes ppl into a smombie. No you dont have to be available at all times, no you dont have to reach anyone at anytime and instantly, and this is especially true for kids in 99.9% of the time. There is always a tomorrow and there is always a game they can play at home when for whatever reason they cant go outside.
Never had a phone as a kid until i got into middle school (even then it was some cheap basic one) and still survived and still had friends. And i mean real friends who help in trouble instead of running.

See? this is what I do. My shift begins when I clock in and ends when I clock out, as simple as that.

Got my first phone during my hs sophomore year because that's when we started doing extra activities that involved going outside the school building.... like swimming, track running, etc. and it's the same phone I still have today, a dumb sony ericsson brick. Makes calls, sends texts and plays music, that's all I need. Oh and takes pictures of light bulbs and wiring.

[Senzelian]

1 hour ago, zombiepunk10 said:

There is times when they cant just "play outside" together. Like, if the parent doesn't allow it, maybe its raining, maybe they wanna talk to someone outside of their town, you have to think about those things too.

Yeah, I wonder how people did that before the internet. I guess there really wasn't any other fucking way. 

[Fasterthannothing]

How about just ban social media easy

[WereCat]

2 hours ago, porina said:

I'm going to assume a check box that says "I'm over 13" isn't going to cut it, legally speaking. 

Almost no kids play games on Steam

 

[porina]

11 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Almost no kids play games on Steam

Need a little help relating that to what I wrote?

 

I was saying the current system which relies on the honesty of the user may not be sufficient going forwards.

[WereCat]

3 minutes ago, porina said:

Need a little help relating that to what I wrote?

 

I was saying the current system which relies on the honesty of the user may not be sufficient going forwards.

I'm just showing an example where you basically have a "checkbox" option to provide your age and almost everybody is over 18+... so I agree with your comment

[Lurick]

43 minutes ago, Fasterthannothing said:

How about just ban social media easy

Ah yes the old "ban things I don't like" method.

Define social media, please, and do it in detail.

Should we ban social gatherings in person as well because someone might get hurt?

How about we ban text messaging since people can still be attacked that way. While we are at it let's just ban all forms of communication and the internet as a whole because it's been shown nobody can use it responsibly....

 

OR how about we stop this "ban everything" horse crap and take a holistic approach to addressing the root cause of the damn issue? Because that's complicated and can't be used for political grandstanding. We need easy "wins" for the votes, not actual wins for the people.

 

This law reeks of nonsense, first it's "the parents should be in charge of their children and supervise them" and from the exact same fucking side its now "upload identity verification to a third party website if you want access to websites because the government needs to know you're safe". This will have the same impact as banning other things, it won't work, people will still get access, people will still be exploited, and nothing will change for the better in the end.

[Birblover12]

I wonder if TikTok counts as social media (at least as far as this new law is concerned)? Because honestly, I think that's done more actual damage then other sites have. The amount of "challenges" on there that I have seen that involve personal injury is shocking. Also, pretty sure TikTok by nature is inherently extremely addictive, so I'd be shocked if it didn't get included. 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Lurick said:

Ah yes the old "ban things I don't like" method.

Define social media, please, and do it in detail.

Should we ban social gatherings in person as well because someone might get hurt?

How about we ban text messaging since people can still be attacked that way. While we are at it let's just ban all forms of communication and the internet as a whole because it's been shown nobody can use it responsibly....

 

OR how about we stop this "ban everything" horse crap and take a holistic approach to addressing the root cause of the damn issue? Because that's complicated and can't be used for political grandstanding. We need easy "wins" for the votes, not actual wins for the people.

 

This law reeks of nonsense, first it's "the parents should be in charge of their children and supervise them" and from the exact same fucking side its now "upload identity verification to a third party website if you want access to websites because the government needs to know you're safe". This will have the same impact as banning other things, it won't work, people will still get access, people will still be exploited, and nothing will change for the better in the end.

True why would we ban alcohol and smoking for minors or people under 21. We should take a holistic approach to the problem. Parents should be the one preventing their kids from abusing alcohol or cigarettes. Why have any age restrictions on anything.

[Lurick]

9 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

True why would we ban alcohol and smoking for minors or people under 21. We should take a holistic approach to the problem. Parents should be the one preventing their kids from abusing alcohol or cigarettes. Why have any age restrictions on anything.

I didn't say that, but there have been dramatic differences between abuse by banning someone from having any exposure to something and taking a different approach where it's not presented as taboo their entire life and then suddenly BAM they have full unrestricted access. See certain countries in Europe where they will let younger people have wine and whatnot compared to alcohol abuse rates in the US.

[Caroline]

2 hours ago, WereCat said:

Almost no kids play games on Steam

 

So all the toxicity, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc. is coming from lame ass 30 yo men? ugh, for some reason that makes it worse than if it was coming from teens.

[thechinchinsong]

So now I'm going to have to give my personal information to whatever social media site that still wants to operate in Florida? I guess companies are just gonna move out of Florida instead.

[Brooksie359]

38 minutes ago, Lurick said:

I didn't say that, but there have been dramatic differences between abuse by banning someone from having any exposure to something and taking a different approach where it's not presented as taboo their entire life and then suddenly BAM they have full unrestricted access. See certain countries in Europe where they will let younger people have wine and whatnot compared to alcohol abuse rates in the US.

Letting kids have wine a meal vs Letting kids have unlimited access to social media are way different. Not only that I think parents could expose their kids to social media in small amounts even with this law in place so not sure it makes any sense to not allow the law. Also not sure what would be the healthy equivalent of social media use would even be for a kid. 

[wanderingfool2]

7 hours ago, RasOls89 said:

Social media is here to stay and we have to accept is even as much as we might dislike it. And of course the parents can't keep constant watch on their children. I just think that making it into law seems like the easy way out instead of putting forth laws that forces the website to moderate their content. 

Because website moderation laws are effectively a censorship nightmare.  Already we have social media companies that are removing certain content because governments ask for them to be removed; and adding in more laws to "protect the children" via moderation will only introduce more overreach.  As encrypted services will now have to be operated unencrypted or have some way of the company seeing the content. i.e. There will be abuse by officials if you go the moderation way, and it's also extremely difficult to judge what is and isn't "acceptable" then.  Case in point, there is a school district (maybe it was just a school) who has banned the word "bossy" because certain people were offended by it's use.

 

A lot of what also makes social media bad is how long they stay on it, see touched up photos, or glamor shots etc.  Things that moderation can't properly address, instead it's things that only parents could address and even then it can be difficult when they are in their early teen years...add on the fact that the parents that do let their kids use it more indirectly are putting pressure on the other parents to do so as well (because those who are on social media more would have a better social advantage at school).

 

7 hours ago, RasOls89 said:

The problem is that kids will be kids and even without social media they will do stupid things that puts them and/or others in danger so I just don't see it as a solution. Im also reminded of 

Yes, kids will do stupid things no matter what...but there has been too much abuse when it comes to social media and kids

 

4 hours ago, Caroline said:

That's cool but we all know teens will set their birthdates to 1/1/1900 to access "forbidden" websites.

But it also gives actionable stuff.  Teachers/parents see their kids on social media can report and then the social media sites take it down.  Will it catch everything?  No, will it stop all people nope...but it will at least be some form of almost filter where that moderates how many kids have it and how much it can be used.

 

3 hours ago, Lurick said:

This law reeks of nonsense, first it's "the parents should be in charge of their children and supervise them" and from the exact same fucking side its now "upload identity verification to a third party website if you want access to websites because the government needs to know you're safe". This will have the same impact as banning other things, it won't work, people will still get access, people will still be exploited, and nothing will change for the better in the end.

I do disagree with needing ID's and such to register, and I do think those kinds of things should be removed, but if they remove those I think overall it's fine to restrict the kids access.

[Kisai]

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The age verification I think is a bit troublesome.  The way I look at it that kind of activity most people want to stay roughly anonymous of, and having an age verification is just one hack away

from having that  information plastered around the internet with your real information.

https://avpassociation.com/find-an-av-provider/

Considering there is no standard and all of these are for-profit motives.

 

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Although IF there is a system that the government can come up with where you can have age verification without handing over your identity and without the government themselves tracking you [which is effectively impossible or I can't think of anyways with the way all governments operate] then I am okay with it.

 

Read the https://opale.io/en/our-solution/ 

 

It's just not clear how this is supposed to work when you certainly aren't going to want to pay for 50+ different states, never mind countries (Eg Canada has one coming down the pipe too) ways of verifying.

Quote

We enable the Double Anonymity principle, recommended by the French CNIL to guaranty privacy

Acting as a trusted third party, our platform ensures triple privacy protection in accordance with French CNIL’s recommendations:

• The website or service requiring age verification can confirm that the user is of legal age without accessing their identity.
• The age verification provider may potentially know the user’s identity but does not have access to information about the visited site.
• Our platform securely transmits age verification to the site without having knowledge of the user’s identity.

Thus, none of the parties involved possess both the user’s identity and the details of the visited site. We utilize the concept of group signatures, developed as an open-source solution by CNIL’s digital innovation lab, to further enhance data privacy.

 

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

For the kids under 14, I'm mostly okay with that although maybe it should be 13 (like so many other sites already implement)...but I agree with this in general because there are too many kids at the moment who have to have social media in order to "keep up with the Joneses".  It creates an issue for parents who don't necessarily want their kids on social media but the lack of social media greatly impacts their lives.

 

With that said, I do feel there should have been something instead where kids under a certain age could have a parent curated account.

 

There simplest solution is to run back to the "credit card requirement" check but this time have CC vendors able to "refuse as the card holder is a minor" error code.

 

 

[StDragon]

The addiction is real, I've seen it. Adults are in denial about their own addiction to social media, but kids embellish it.

 

I'm not going to get into the debate of public policy (because that's political). But suffice to say parents face an uphill battle in keeping their children away from devices they themselves don't own (but friends do), let alone the devices they do. It's a bit difficult to criticize an era in which this "great experiment" has never occurred in human history on such an epic scale, but it's long overdue to turn the page and be done with this zeitgeist.

Take the phones away from students while in school, and parents, lock devices down and whitelist apps and sites they can visit. Once they're 18, they can make their own decisions.

[GoStormPlays]

good thing i turn 15 a month from today

[starsmine]

3 hours ago, Caroline said:

So all the toxicity, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc. is coming from lame ass 30 yo men? ugh, for some reason that makes it worse than if it was coming from teens.

yea, all the people that grew up with gamergate still exist. 

[djksm]

hmmpph. i will use vpn

no jk i dont go on those websites

i play project flight on roblox and butter ryan air plane which never happens in real life

[TetraSky]

Well, that's a legislation that will totally work because kids would never lie on their age.

[GoStormPlays]

Just now, TetraSky said:

Well, that's a legislation that will totally work because kids would never lie on their age.

no we never do

 

I'm 32 btw

[Bitter]

Rather than making everyone jump through hoops and ID themselves and the content they're viewing online, how about we fix the actual problem which is the purposefully harmful and addictive highly profit driven social media? Oh no we can't do that. We can pass laws that legislate what an individual can do but how dare we pass laws that might legislate what businesses can or can't do.

 

Spoiler

These laws are never about protecting children, they're about matching up people to what they're doing so that marginalized and minority communities can be targeted as 'boogeymen' to rally the political masses against to distract them from the real problems. It's happened before, it's happening now, it'll happen again. Divisive politics, divide people into stereotyped faceless groups that are always the 'bad ones'. It's an age old tactic and one used in the 1940's to whip up nationalist sentiments and stoke fear and hate of 'the other'. Until one day suddenly YOU are 'the other'.

 

[Mark Kaine]

11 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

How are websites going to "verify" age? The information is voluntary - if I really want to use a site that requires a certain age, I can just lie about it. 

nope. retina scan. (gets repeated randomly once per minute to verify) 

 

glad i could help!

 

 

[RasOls89]

8 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Because website moderation laws are effectively a censorship nightmare.  Already we have social media companies that are removing certain content because governments ask for them to be removed; and adding in more laws to "protect the children" via moderation will only introduce more overreach.  As encrypted services will now have to be operated unencrypted or have some way of the company seeing the content. i.e. There will be abuse by officials if you go the moderation way, and it's also extremely difficult to judge what is and isn't "acceptable" then.  Case in point, there is a school district (maybe it was just a school) who has banned the word "bossy" because certain people were offended by it's use.

 

A lot of what also makes social media bad is how long they stay on it, see touched up photos, or glamor shots etc.  Things that moderation can't properly address, instead it's things that only parents could address and even then it can be difficult when they are in their early teen years...add on the fact that the parents that do let their kids use it more indirectly are putting pressure on the other parents to do so as well (because those who are on social media more would have a better social advantage at school).

 

Yes, kids will do stupid things no matter what...but there has been too much abuse when it comes to social media and kids

 

Yes I know there is a high change of it becoming a censorship nightmare. Im not sure where you live but here in the EU they had a whole controversy regarding this. I have seen some of the messages that some adults sends to minors. To be honest I think that some sort of verification is needed but not to ban kids from social media but rather to make sure that adults are restricted from contacting minors. 

 

One possible problems I can see is that children who manages to sneak onto social media and are subject to abuse will be too afraid to tell anyone about it if they are not supposed to be there.