It's weak - but could easily be modified to a strong parental rights type law - companies have to verify in person parental approval for little kids to have social media, parent is then admin on account, and time limits must be settable by the parents for online account activity. And no vanishing text (snapchat etc).
The effect would likely be the same, but rules to protect kids have stood up pretty well.
Similar laws in states like Utah and Texas, focusing on adult content, ask websites to block any user who hasn't either submitted government ID, or been vouched for by an ID compliance provider who themselves are required to have seen your papers (an industry these laws created).
That seems like it would be a privacy violation waiting to happen. Especially in states like Utah, Texas, and Florida that don't have great track records on human rights.
Some of them are being challenged on the basis that they chill the free speech of adults by adding dangerous interactions with third parties to only some forms of expression.
That could prove to be an empty hope, considering the fact that kids already don't have second amendment rights. There is also a long precedent of allowing bans on the medium (spraypaint, public parks and megaphones) that do not mention anything about the specific message.
1. Government overriding parental rights in a state that is so proud of all possible "my rights"? I suspect some challenge in court for this law will happen sooner or later.
2. Closed circuit networks with some "private" server to chat between friends might get popular soon. There are enough quite capable 13y/o kids able to do so. Or 14yo, creating one for their little brother.
3. Not having a personal account might not prevent anything, as using parents' account is still possible.
4. Whole class on the same Signal chat room -- is it a "social media"?
5. Somehow parallels of Twitter getting banned during Arab Spring events come to mind.
Your claim that parents have clicked yes to authorize all the kids accounts and activities is a total joke.
When you say "parental rights" - the issue is that parents DON'T have admin rights to their kids social media stuff.
Most of these companies do some kind of checkbox the 13 year old checks that confirms that if they are under 13 their parents have approved. The idea this is "parental rights" has to be a sick sick joke.
NONE of these companies send anyone anywhere to actually check that the parents OK'ed going on omegle etc.
Tweak the law so that the companies have to actually verify parental approval. Ie, something in person with parent and the kid. And that parents then are the admins on the account and get both see all activity and also control minutes / week of activity on the platform.
>NONE of these companies send anyone anywhere to actually check that the parents OK'ed going on omegle etc.
Why don't we instead ask how many parents actually check? Instead of requesting Apple/Google/Microsoft to help parents see their kid's browsing history from the get-go, we seem to be working towards internet based controls that will also impact the privacy and freedom of adults.
About point 2: in my neighborhood there's half a dozen kids, all aged 5-8, all communicating constantly during weekends using cheap, loud FRS walkie talkies some parent bought in a 10-pack off Amazon.
My point being that even without internet, or even without knowing how to type and barely able to read, social networks just pop into existence.
Liability should be 100% on the parents. They are the ones who decided to have a child, and are the ones that are liable for any other type of neglect, such as not providing food or shelter, or letting them roam unsupervised. I don't know why it's different just because it's on a computer.
I hope you are not on a jury trying a child rapist and blaming the parents as 100% at fault.
Liability is obviously not always 100% on the parents. Sometimes you have to send your kid to school. If they are beaten bloody every day that's not necessarily 100% the parents fault - others can exercise some responsibility with respect to kids in our society.
The takes here on HN are frankly scary as a parent.
> I hope you are not on a jury trying a child rapist and blaming the parents as 100% at fault.
A result X may happen because of more than one entity A, B, etc. In this case: the rapist is obviously at fault. If the rape happens because the child was neglected/unsupervised, then the parents may be 100% at fault as well.
Similarly parents who give their children phones and are neglectful via not supervising them should be 100% liable for harm that is caused as well as the harm-causing entity. If they cannot supervise them they should not give them the phone. You wouldn't give an 8 year old a weapon and then divert blame from yourself if the child killed someone, so why is it really any different because it's a phone?
If your 10 year old makes a Facebook account, and Facebook doesn't delete it when knowledge of the user's age is known, Facebook is in the wrong, and the parent that didn't bother checking what their child is doing is also equally as wrong, and both should be fined equally.
And when public schools create an account on Google for a child? And require active use of the account as a condition for receiving an education?
Is the school responsible for that?
The state I’m in guarantees the right to a free state education. If that right is predicated on my child having a Google account, is that my fault as a parent?
It's a massive infringement of your natural rights to be forced to create a Google account for your child. That said, I don't see why that's a reason to keep someone else's 13 year old off Twitter.
> I hope you are not on a jury trying a child rapist and blaming the parents as 100% at fault.
I just want to remind everyone else that saying something like this to another human being is an incredibly ugly thing to do, and it is only because the bar for "acceptable discussions" online is so low (that it's underground) that people feel comfortable saying crazy things like this to each other.
Like, I'll be honest, if someone came at me with this "child rapist" line after I said "Liability should be 100% on the parents", that would be my cue to immediately stop interacting with that person. Less reasonable people would throw their drink in your face for saying something like this, some people would even punch you.
Talking to other people like this is not okay, there are better ways to make your point.
(And no, I do not believe "Liability should be 100% on the parents", but I would never accuse someone of letting a predator off the hook just because they have that opinion.)
The idea that liability should be 100% on the parents is an absolute horrific ugly hacker news only type take.
Hackers love to argue these sort of points into the ground. I'm sick of it. They take these points to absurd lengths.
And yes, these arguments overlap with child protection issues. I'm not a "protect the children" political type, but these types of arguments and derivates show up in a fair bit of ugly stuff.
And no - someone like this who does not believe in third party liability with respect to children should not be on a jury.
Isn't that a problem with the school, for allowing your kid to do dangerous things when you're not allowed to watch? They could just as well be giving your child unsupervised access to dangerous chemicals while the chemistry teacher is absent from the classroom, or letting them play in a woodshop.
You generally can't supervise them 100% of the time, and that would also be harmful to their development.
It's almost impossible to control what your kid can do or see or who they interact with once they get on the internet. I had long conversations with my son about the dangers, and thankfully he seems to have absorbed them, but not all do.
I wish there had been safe, non toxic areas, equivalent to playing in the back yard, for kids.
For the record, I don't think banning social media for under 14s will work particularly well. It's more about providing safer places than banning existing ones IMHO.
Ignoring the entire discussion of whether young children should use social media for the moment, this is hilariously unenforceable, which in an odd way makes me in favor of it. Telling children they "can't" do something, and then not doing anything to stop them from doing it is a great way to ensure they learn how to get around these kinds of barriers.
Laws that make everyone (or in this case, every social media company) guilty aren't unenforceable, they're super-enforcable and result in a constructive ban.
This is either going to result in the total end of libertarians, or a wave of libertarianism in about twenty years like the US has never before imagined. ;)
38 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] threadThe effect would likely be the same, but rules to protect kids have stood up pretty well.
1. Government overriding parental rights in a state that is so proud of all possible "my rights"? I suspect some challenge in court for this law will happen sooner or later.
2. Closed circuit networks with some "private" server to chat between friends might get popular soon. There are enough quite capable 13y/o kids able to do so. Or 14yo, creating one for their little brother.
3. Not having a personal account might not prevent anything, as using parents' account is still possible.
4. Whole class on the same Signal chat room -- is it a "social media"?
5. Somehow parallels of Twitter getting banned during Arab Spring events come to mind.
When you say "parental rights" - the issue is that parents DON'T have admin rights to their kids social media stuff.
Most of these companies do some kind of checkbox the 13 year old checks that confirms that if they are under 13 their parents have approved. The idea this is "parental rights" has to be a sick sick joke.
NONE of these companies send anyone anywhere to actually check that the parents OK'ed going on omegle etc.
Tweak the law so that the companies have to actually verify parental approval. Ie, something in person with parent and the kid. And that parents then are the admins on the account and get both see all activity and also control minutes / week of activity on the platform.
Why don't we instead ask how many parents actually check? Instead of requesting Apple/Google/Microsoft to help parents see their kid's browsing history from the get-go, we seem to be working towards internet based controls that will also impact the privacy and freedom of adults.
My point being that even without internet, or even without knowing how to type and barely able to read, social networks just pop into existence.
“The Solution” is to set parents up as universal admins.
This obviously isn’t it. But this issue can’t be dismissed, and we can’t wait until a perfect law either.
Liability is obviously not always 100% on the parents. Sometimes you have to send your kid to school. If they are beaten bloody every day that's not necessarily 100% the parents fault - others can exercise some responsibility with respect to kids in our society.
The takes here on HN are frankly scary as a parent.
A result X may happen because of more than one entity A, B, etc. In this case: the rapist is obviously at fault. If the rape happens because the child was neglected/unsupervised, then the parents may be 100% at fault as well.
Similarly parents who give their children phones and are neglectful via not supervising them should be 100% liable for harm that is caused as well as the harm-causing entity. If they cannot supervise them they should not give them the phone. You wouldn't give an 8 year old a weapon and then divert blame from yourself if the child killed someone, so why is it really any different because it's a phone?
If your 10 year old makes a Facebook account, and Facebook doesn't delete it when knowledge of the user's age is known, Facebook is in the wrong, and the parent that didn't bother checking what their child is doing is also equally as wrong, and both should be fined equally.
Is the school responsible for that?
The state I’m in guarantees the right to a free state education. If that right is predicated on my child having a Google account, is that my fault as a parent?
I just want to remind everyone else that saying something like this to another human being is an incredibly ugly thing to do, and it is only because the bar for "acceptable discussions" online is so low (that it's underground) that people feel comfortable saying crazy things like this to each other.
Like, I'll be honest, if someone came at me with this "child rapist" line after I said "Liability should be 100% on the parents", that would be my cue to immediately stop interacting with that person. Less reasonable people would throw their drink in your face for saying something like this, some people would even punch you.
Talking to other people like this is not okay, there are better ways to make your point.
(And no, I do not believe "Liability should be 100% on the parents", but I would never accuse someone of letting a predator off the hook just because they have that opinion.)
Hackers love to argue these sort of points into the ground. I'm sick of it. They take these points to absurd lengths.
And yes, these arguments overlap with child protection issues. I'm not a "protect the children" political type, but these types of arguments and derivates show up in a fair bit of ugly stuff.
And no - someone like this who does not believe in third party liability with respect to children should not be on a jury.
She is required to have a laptop, she is required to have a Google account, and must have internet during school hours.
We cannot attend class with her - this is illegal.
The amount of sh*t a kid can get into using only *.google.com domains is nuts.
And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Google is falsely marketing its products. YouTube Kids has extremely toxic stuff on it. Google Classroom allows extremely toxic stuff as well.
Google markets this as safe for kids. It’s not. That’s false marketing.
It’s a lot like Chrome Incognito. It doesn’t help much with privacy, and last I checked Google was getting I some kind of trouble over that.
Google certainly deserves condemnation for this.
Yes I’m agreeing the school should not be doing this.
My relationship with the public school is mandatory. It’s a state institution.
Even if she went to private school or was homeschooled, she would still receive some services through the school district, as she is special needs.
You generally can't supervise them 100% of the time, and that would also be harmful to their development.
It's almost impossible to control what your kid can do or see or who they interact with once they get on the internet. I had long conversations with my son about the dangers, and thankfully he seems to have absorbed them, but not all do.
I wish there had been safe, non toxic areas, equivalent to playing in the back yard, for kids.
For the record, I don't think banning social media for under 14s will work particularly well. It's more about providing safer places than banning existing ones IMHO.
And just like that, a million angsty '90s kids vanished in a puff of legislative logic.
(It me. I'm the cringey '90s kid.)
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/3/BillText/er/PDF