It is stunning to see a historically useful organization like the EFF to have been bought completely by the industry. We have seen similar issues in ACLU.
Teenagers don't need EFFing phones and certainly not "smart" phones.
Guess it’s that time in my lifecycle, but when I was a kid it was possible, nay probable, to accidentally stumble on some really horrific things on the internet, particularly on p2p sharing, and I’m fine (married, 3 children, no medications). I don’t see why kids need special protection from positive feedback loops. Parents need to be involved to turn this exposure from an affliction into an inoculation
it seems like this whole discussion, both the proposed law and EFFs full throated support for social media giants is getting lost in the weeds.
we used to have a small number of media outlets for structural reasons. and we were concerned enough about their ability to filter what everyone saw that we tried to pass some laws that's weren't very useful or effective
now that the structural barriers are gone, do we see a greater diversity of editorial decision making, a greater number of channels in which to learn about the world. we could easily have a world where every single person could parameterize their own agents or choose from sets of parameters to present customized views on the sea of information available.
instead we see a massive concentration of control. instead of trying to legislate the behavior of a company whose entire profit is based on manipulating the narrative we all see, shouldn't we be promoting alternatives? if we are going to legislate meta instead of picking one little aspect maybe demand instead that some of of the core functions like data and identity be open access?
I think we as a species underestimated the power of the network effect and scaling.
Most of humanity, especially the non technical wants to go where the people they know are. They also want it to be low friction, at least at first. Once they are there to get them to leave requires a lot of bad will by the site operators. Would things like open access actually push the dial any?
idk why Meta has to be one to decide. I'm not suggesting that everyone carefully curate their own feed rules, but we could certainly choose to adopt packages from people and institutions that we trust, and be able to revisit those decision later.
Meta is actually a horrible crime against humanity. They have immersive power be being the gatekeeper of all information. They did it by intermediating themselves in the relationships we keep with our families, our friends, and the institutions that are close to use like schools and churches.
I agree with you that any alternative has to be equally as convenient. Idk that open access is in and of itself a solution, but at least would provide a bridge to having alternate solutions. If the alternative is just to cede control of my information input to Meta forever, I can't fault any effort to try.
Yeah, I feel like the actual solution here should be regulating the companies that are allegedly causing the harm, not the victims of said harm. It says a lot about someone if they think the solution to "this giant powerful entity is taking advantage of you" is to restrict you they're than the giant powerful entity that's abusing its power.
I agree that this is a very blunt instrument rife with terrible potential, but I don't know what could be done in its stead. The EFF makes excellent points, but in my view the social media algorithms do way more harm than good, especially for minors. What would be the more ideal solution here? Clearly we can't do nothing, and time is of the essence for the current generation.
Why is that so clear? I can think of hundreds of real daily problems I'd rather my legislators be focused on than deciding how old my kids have to be before they're allowed on some website.
I would like affordable groceries and public transport, not whatever this is.
If they really want to "do something" then require an 18+ ID at a cell phone points of sale. That'll be something that won't affect me and actually will temper a ton of underage Internet use. Then they can study the actual effect of that and whether the harms were exaggerated after all.
And, reminder, so no one here loses the plot: this is a backdoor feel good measure lobbied for by big tech to push us into a world with mandatory device attestation so their ad impressions are worth more. They could care less about your kids.
Right? If I had to come to with like, five problems that I felt like they were both urgent enough and and significant enough that we should literally implement the least bad policy immediately rather than do nothing until we come up with something better, I don't think this would be on my list, and it definitely wouldn't be the top of my list if it was. There are things I think that are more harmful and have been going on a lot longer where people don't seem to have any desire to push back as hard against letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, so it's hard for me to take legislation like this at face value rather than suspecting that there's something less direct that the government is getting out of it (and I say this as someone who is pretty much invariably very far to the left and often in favor of heavier government involvement in various areas).
I have basically the same reaction to this framing: if I had to list the five largest threats to our functioning democracy in the US right now, social media use by teenagers would not make the list.
What are your five largest threats to functioning democracy in the US right now?
Because I question any list that doesn't include a substantial chunk of voters being ignorant on concerns of critical importance to the country.
And if that's a problem now, as a result of a couple decades of low-brow, high-emotion 80s and 90s conservative talk radio and tv, then what do you think better-engineered algorithmic slop is doing to the next voting cohort's brains?
Democracies succeed or fail on the average voter's ability to somewhat understand matters.
Tell the big for profit social media companies to require id and leave it at that.
Why complicate things? Republicans had no problems forcing adult sites to require id.
If the for profit crap all needs id verification, people have the chance to opt out by avoiding those services. Stop acting like we need to be "fair" to social media companies just so they can steal more of our data.
Well, once a state passes a law we'll have plenty of data to actually conduct a meaningful measurement on the topic. We'll see how things change for these teens once the law goes into effect - do they report being happier? do they get better grades? etc.
Exactly, and let’s take away your internet access next and see if it improves the state of politics in this country. We’ll find out after the fact, but until then I’m sure you won’t mind.
All meaningful research on SM is highly gatekept by the industry. There is plenty of evidence from whistleblowers that internal assessments were that the services were causing harm.
Plenty of researchers study and publish on the topic of social media. You’re conflating internal processes/experiments where Meta was very likely damaging people with public research.
Products designed to be addictive are not a parenting issue. This is a product liability issue with a product designed to drive engagement. Products should be safe to use.
Parents cannot, and in some cases should not, prevent all harms. Learning to assess and deal with risk is part of growing up. No one wants a helicopter parent constantly trying to protect you from everything. You are calling for a nanny, just arguing about where it should be.
"Research has shown that young children—younger than 8 years—are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising.6–9 They do not understand the notion of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face value.10 In fact, in the late 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held hearings, reviewed the existing research, and came to the conclusion that it was unfair and deceptive to advertise to children younger than 6 years.11 What kept the FTC from banning such ads was that it was thought to be impractical to implement such a ban.11 However, some Western countries have done exactly that: Sweden and Norway forbid all advertising directed at children younger than 12 years, Greece bans toy advertising until after 10 pm, and Denmark and Belgium severely restrict advertising aimed at children."
This kind of advertising bypasses parents and creates desire in kids. You might not be able to control what your kid does at a friend's house or at school. Parents can't do it all and so society needs to support parents. Right now social media is setup against parents, we can change that.
I don't agree with your framing at all that we need to do something and it because to be done immediately, so it seems basically impossible to have any sort of reasonable discussion if things seem so dire to you that this seems self-evident rather than needing some further justification. In general I feel like any assertions about the need for something immediately like this should have a fairly high bar for justifying them.
Do you have teenage kids? It feels highly urgent to me because the generation of kids aged 12-21 are severely impacted by the harms and cultural distortion these services cause. I think it would be hard to imagine their hold on this generation and the impact without first hand observation.
I'd argue that any teenagers who go from having access today to not having it tomorrow are probably not going to magically become different in the ways you desire; it seems a lot more likely to have effects on kids who are younger and haven't already been influenced by it, but at that point we're actually talking about trying to make a structural changes to make things different in the long term. That type of thing seems very strange to enact by making a blanket regulation on the supposed victims of the harms than on the perpetrators of it.
Think of it like current kids being bombarded by cancer-causing radiation. The sooner you get them out of it the better. Yes, it is better still to never have been exposed, but the second best time to stop it is now.
That's basically the point I was trying to make with my initial response; I think any claim that something is so urgent that we need to act now even with a solution that everyone admits isn't great should be scrutinized pretty thoroughly, because historically calls like this are at least as likely to be a way of manufacturing consent as they are to actually be some emergency, especially when the emergency apparently is not apparent enough to be clear without needing a lot of explanation.
If you think the big social media companies are literally bombarding kids with radiation, I'm confused why you still don't seem to consider it at least as urgent to shut down the radiation-generating companies.
So the issue really isn't "social media", it's the blackbox personalized algorithmic feed.
So that is what we should be addressing.
Things like -> no personalized algorithmic feed for minors. The ability to disable algorithmic feed and revert to historical feed from contacts. Giving the user control over suggestions and feed via the requirement that it should be possible to switch to a "third party algorithm provider" or self-host, while still being able to have full access to the contents and social features of the platform.
> So the issue really isn't "social media", it's the blackbox personalized algorithmic feed.
> So that is what we should be addressing.
That is what the bill addresses. It bans providing an "addictive feature" to users under 16. It says it does not prohibit letting under 16 users use the service as long as it does not provide addictive features on those accounts.
It says addictive features are autoplay and addictive feeds.
Most of the bill is then defining what those mean. There's plenty to argue over in that, but the core is just what you've said is what we should do.
>particularly harming vulnerable youth and marginalized groups who often find safety in supportive online communities
This is debatable and may actually have a net negative effect on those groups. Not to say that this bill is desirable. Shouldn't they push for stronger/better/flexible parental controls in devices instead? Perhaps offering to set them up in OOTB experiences?
Spoken like someone who hasn't tried them on a real kid. Or perhaps someone who buys their kids porn and otherwise lets the kids do whatever and so doesn't need them (which is your choice but not most parents)
This smacks of "satanic messages in metal made my kids kill themselves" and of the PMRC. Of a trailer getting burned down cause kids watched Bevis yell "fire" one too many times.
Our modern society has fucked up kids, and I wont argue that tech isnt an enabler. But the fact that kids ONLY lens into the world independent of their parents is their digital life is PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Go back to the 80's and 90's we had to tell parents to do their job: "I learned it by watching you dad" and "its 10pm do you know where your kids are" ads probably need a modern refresh.
"You have been scrolling for 30 minutes... Do you know what your kids are doing on line" PSA's should probably be a thing. I say this as a parent whos kids were raised with devices, and despise social media, and only use it begrudgingly.
This is like telling people to drive better to prevent crashes.
It's considerably more effective to invent/mandate seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones and hopefully in the future some kind of automated magical computer system that takes driving completely out of the hands of meatbags.
At the end of the day, you're now telling someone else how to raise their kids. Because you know better? Because it has been determined that some kids are harmed by tech?
Let's just put flock cameras every where and send kids outside again. They will be safe under the constant observation of the state? Right?
Parents, Tech, Society (kids just cant really go outside unattended any more) have equal responsibility in all this. The compromise solution is NOT more tech, it's better warning labels on the device. It's telling the adults that they have a problem too...
"This subdivision does not prohibit a covered platform from permitting a user who is under 16 years of age to create or maintain an account on the covered platform if that user is not provided with any addictive feature"
They just need to take out the endless autoplaying shorts and other features that are, honestly, annoying in the first place. The main thing I would change here is that even adults must be provided with a setting to opt out of addictive features.
Would it destroy TikTok's business model? Maybe; maybe that's even a good thing.
All the things this article objects to in banning for children are things I find myself wanting removed from my own experience in social networks in order to make me want to use them at all.
Adults shouldn't own one either. The Internet isn't something that should follow you around regardless of how many perceived benefits you think it brings.
Almost. I would still want a location sharing app on my kids phones, a navigation app, maybe a sport tracking app. That would be a locked down smartphone with a few apps I would install and no browser access.
> These so-called "addictive features," are in reality the basic tools that online services use to identify what other user-generated content a particular user might want to see.
Are they for real?
Maybe underage kids can use, I dunno, a search box. Looks hard I know, but maybe it will help grow one or two neurons in their head
The EFF, just like social media, does more harm than good, and lacks imagination. It is possible to protect kids from social media and preserve our freedoms and privacy. The EFF is just too full of chicken-little boomers to see it. FOAD, EFF.
>cuts young people off from essential information and experiences, particularly harming vulnerable youth and marginalized groups who often find safety in supportive online communities they can't access offline.
>Far from protecting children
so both sides on this are framing that their positions protects children while framing that the opposing side harms children.
This sounds like a pretty reasonable bill to me. I like the implementation, I think it preserves privacy adequately.
I understand that someday (probably someday soon) some actors will try to ask for a worse version of this, one that doesn't respect privacy. And I remain ready to push back on that. This, though, I think is an adequate compromise.
Lost a bit of respect for the EFF with this. I can understand their dogmatism around not wanting to limit anyone’s electronic freedoms, but these are social media companies we are talking about. They aren’t there to provide a public service, but to , sell and serve ads, command attention, and create addiction to their service. Meta just agreed to pay $18 billion because it was harming its young users. It’s wild that the EFF who works very hard to defend the privacy of the users of the same corporations, is against a bill benefiting the same corporations.
It’s certainly more nuanced, but it’s like if children could smoke cigarettes being against laws to raise the smoking age. The arguments boil down to right of these kids to engage in practices they don’t understand the ramifications of, or putting it on the parents. I get there’s a libertarian argument that the government shouldn’t be limiting their citizens freedoms period, but this is California ffs, it’s probably the last state in the list for libertarian morals.
“nearly every major service relies on automated feeds, the ultimate result is that young people under 16 will still be locked out of major digital services as they currently exist.”
What an absurd stance. Carry water for big tech’s negligent, anti-consumer behavior in the name of… freedom? Sad times for the EFF.
The California version of "age verification" IS parental controls. There is no actual verification happening. The OS is required to have an age associated with a user, declared, but not proven in any way, at setup. That value is then accessible to handle age gating.
The argument is equally strong on the social media is incredibly toxic and damaging to young kids side. We made it all the way to 2011ish without social media. I find the essential access arguments to be very weak.
I don't like age restrictions because it can be abused in other ways, but there is absolutely a good reason to kill social media for kids.
> This well-intentioned, but deeply flawed piece of legislation, cuts young people off from essential information and experiences, particularly harming vulnerable youth and marginalized groups who often find safety in supportive online communities they can't access offline
How is this precluded by this bill? My understanding is that youth can still have social media accounts. The sites just have to not use autoplay on those accounts and not show them "addictive feeds". Here's how the bill defines "addictive feed":
> Addictive feed means an internet website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users are, either concurrently or sequentially, recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information provided by the user, or otherwise associated with the user or the users device, unless any of the following conditions are met: met, alone or in combination with one another:
> (1)The information is not persistently associated with the user or users device and does not concern the users previous interactions with media generated or shared by others.
> (2)The information consists of search terms that are not persistently associated with the user or users device.
> (3)The information consists of user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, technical information concerning the users device, or device communications or signals concerning whether the user is a minor.
> (4)The user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media or media by the author, creator, or poster of the media, or the blocking, prioritization, or deprioritization of that media, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the users device, except as otherwise permitted by this chapter and, if the media is in the case of audio or video content, is not automatically played.
> (5)The media consists of direct, private communications between users.
> (6)The media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively the next media in a preexisting sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source and, if the media is audio or video content, is not automatically played.
> (7)The recommendation, selection, or prioritization of the media is necessary to comply with state or federal law. this chapter or any regulations adopted pursuant to this chapter.
Chronological feeds are OK. Feeds showing the posts of people or organizations you are following are OK. This seems like everything needed for building a fine online support community.
66 comments
[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 15.9 ms ] threadTeenagers don't need EFFing phones and certainly not "smart" phones.
we used to have a small number of media outlets for structural reasons. and we were concerned enough about their ability to filter what everyone saw that we tried to pass some laws that's weren't very useful or effective
now that the structural barriers are gone, do we see a greater diversity of editorial decision making, a greater number of channels in which to learn about the world. we could easily have a world where every single person could parameterize their own agents or choose from sets of parameters to present customized views on the sea of information available.
instead we see a massive concentration of control. instead of trying to legislate the behavior of a company whose entire profit is based on manipulating the narrative we all see, shouldn't we be promoting alternatives? if we are going to legislate meta instead of picking one little aspect maybe demand instead that some of of the core functions like data and identity be open access?
Most of humanity, especially the non technical wants to go where the people they know are. They also want it to be low friction, at least at first. Once they are there to get them to leave requires a lot of bad will by the site operators. Would things like open access actually push the dial any?
Meta is actually a horrible crime against humanity. They have immersive power be being the gatekeeper of all information. They did it by intermediating themselves in the relationships we keep with our families, our friends, and the institutions that are close to use like schools and churches.
I agree with you that any alternative has to be equally as convenient. Idk that open access is in and of itself a solution, but at least would provide a bridge to having alternate solutions. If the alternative is just to cede control of my information input to Meta forever, I can't fault any effort to try.
Why is that so clear? I can think of hundreds of real daily problems I'd rather my legislators be focused on than deciding how old my kids have to be before they're allowed on some website.
I would like affordable groceries and public transport, not whatever this is.
If they really want to "do something" then require an 18+ ID at a cell phone points of sale. That'll be something that won't affect me and actually will temper a ton of underage Internet use. Then they can study the actual effect of that and whether the harms were exaggerated after all.
And, reminder, so no one here loses the plot: this is a backdoor feel good measure lobbied for by big tech to push us into a world with mandatory device attestation so their ad impressions are worth more. They could care less about your kids.
Social media, as currently implemented, directly harms that.
Because I question any list that doesn't include a substantial chunk of voters being ignorant on concerns of critical importance to the country.
And if that's a problem now, as a result of a couple decades of low-brow, high-emotion 80s and 90s conservative talk radio and tv, then what do you think better-engineered algorithmic slop is doing to the next voting cohort's brains?
Democracies succeed or fail on the average voter's ability to somewhat understand matters.
Why complicate things? Republicans had no problems forcing adult sites to require id.
If the for profit crap all needs id verification, people have the chance to opt out by avoiding those services. Stop acting like we need to be "fair" to social media companies just so they can steal more of our data.
Parents cannot, and in some cases should not, prevent all harms. Learning to assess and deal with risk is part of growing up. No one wants a helicopter parent constantly trying to protect you from everything. You are calling for a nanny, just arguing about where it should be.
https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-told-to-change-ads...
"Research has shown that young children—younger than 8 years—are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising.6–9 They do not understand the notion of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face value.10 In fact, in the late 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held hearings, reviewed the existing research, and came to the conclusion that it was unfair and deceptive to advertise to children younger than 6 years.11 What kept the FTC from banning such ads was that it was thought to be impractical to implement such a ban.11 However, some Western countries have done exactly that: Sweden and Norway forbid all advertising directed at children younger than 12 years, Greece bans toy advertising until after 10 pm, and Denmark and Belgium severely restrict advertising aimed at children."
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/118/6/2563/6...
This kind of advertising bypasses parents and creates desire in kids. You might not be able to control what your kid does at a friend's house or at school. Parents can't do it all and so society needs to support parents. Right now social media is setup against parents, we can change that.
On the other hand, let's not fall into the common political trap of: We must do something. X is something. Therefore we must do X.
So that is what we should be addressing.
Things like -> no personalized algorithmic feed for minors. The ability to disable algorithmic feed and revert to historical feed from contacts. Giving the user control over suggestions and feed via the requirement that it should be possible to switch to a "third party algorithm provider" or self-host, while still being able to have full access to the contents and social features of the platform.
> So that is what we should be addressing.
That is what the bill addresses. It bans providing an "addictive feature" to users under 16. It says it does not prohibit letting under 16 users use the service as long as it does not provide addictive features on those accounts.
It says addictive features are autoplay and addictive feeds.
Most of the bill is then defining what those mean. There's plenty to argue over in that, but the core is just what you've said is what we should do.
This is debatable and may actually have a net negative effect on those groups. Not to say that this bill is desirable. Shouldn't they push for stronger/better/flexible parental controls in devices instead? Perhaps offering to set them up in OOTB experiences?
This smacks of "satanic messages in metal made my kids kill themselves" and of the PMRC. Of a trailer getting burned down cause kids watched Bevis yell "fire" one too many times.
Our modern society has fucked up kids, and I wont argue that tech isnt an enabler. But the fact that kids ONLY lens into the world independent of their parents is their digital life is PART OF THE PROBLEM.
https://abcnews.com/GMA/Family/mom-arrested-after-son-report...
Go back to the 80's and 90's we had to tell parents to do their job: "I learned it by watching you dad" and "its 10pm do you know where your kids are" ads probably need a modern refresh.
"You have been scrolling for 30 minutes... Do you know what your kids are doing on line" PSA's should probably be a thing. I say this as a parent whos kids were raised with devices, and despise social media, and only use it begrudgingly.
It's considerably more effective to invent/mandate seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones and hopefully in the future some kind of automated magical computer system that takes driving completely out of the hands of meatbags.
At the end of the day, you're now telling someone else how to raise their kids. Because you know better? Because it has been determined that some kids are harmed by tech?
Let's just put flock cameras every where and send kids outside again. They will be safe under the constant observation of the state? Right?
Parents, Tech, Society (kids just cant really go outside unattended any more) have equal responsibility in all this. The compromise solution is NOT more tech, it's better warning labels on the device. It's telling the adults that they have a problem too...
Is the science 100% settled? No. Is this the best possible way to regulate this? No. But it's sure better than the current state of things.
"laws such as A.B. 1709, as passed by the legislature, function as a ban on social media use for people under the age of 16"
That's not my reading of the bill, specifically 22683. (a) (2) on https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
"This subdivision does not prohibit a covered platform from permitting a user who is under 16 years of age to create or maintain an account on the covered platform if that user is not provided with any addictive feature"
They just need to take out the endless autoplaying shorts and other features that are, honestly, annoying in the first place. The main thing I would change here is that even adults must be provided with a setting to opt out of addictive features.
Would it destroy TikTok's business model? Maybe; maybe that's even a good thing.
Are they for real?
Maybe underage kids can use, I dunno, a search box. Looks hard I know, but maybe it will help grow one or two neurons in their head
>Far from protecting children
so both sides on this are framing that their positions protects children while framing that the opposing side harms children.
I understand that someday (probably someday soon) some actors will try to ask for a worse version of this, one that doesn't respect privacy. And I remain ready to push back on that. This, though, I think is an adequate compromise.
It’s certainly more nuanced, but it’s like if children could smoke cigarettes being against laws to raise the smoking age. The arguments boil down to right of these kids to engage in practices they don’t understand the ramifications of, or putting it on the parents. I get there’s a libertarian argument that the government shouldn’t be limiting their citizens freedoms period, but this is California ffs, it’s probably the last state in the list for libertarian morals.
What an absurd stance. Carry water for big tech’s negligent, anti-consumer behavior in the name of… freedom? Sad times for the EFF.
If people can't figure out parental controls, maybe they can buy a phone plan that has it already set up in advance. We don't need laws for this.
I'm still bothered by that data being available on a child's phone. I guess we'll see what people decide.
How is this precluded by this bill? My understanding is that youth can still have social media accounts. The sites just have to not use autoplay on those accounts and not show them "addictive feeds". Here's how the bill defines "addictive feed":
> Addictive feed means an internet website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users are, either concurrently or sequentially, recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information provided by the user, or otherwise associated with the user or the users device, unless any of the following conditions are met: met, alone or in combination with one another:
> (1)The information is not persistently associated with the user or users device and does not concern the users previous interactions with media generated or shared by others.
> (2)The information consists of search terms that are not persistently associated with the user or users device.
> (3)The information consists of user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, technical information concerning the users device, or device communications or signals concerning whether the user is a minor.
> (4)The user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media or media by the author, creator, or poster of the media, or the blocking, prioritization, or deprioritization of that media, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the users device, except as otherwise permitted by this chapter and, if the media is in the case of audio or video content, is not automatically played.
> (5)The media consists of direct, private communications between users.
> (6)The media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively the next media in a preexisting sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source and, if the media is audio or video content, is not automatically played.
> (7)The recommendation, selection, or prioritization of the media is necessary to comply with state or federal law. this chapter or any regulations adopted pursuant to this chapter.
Chronological feeds are OK. Feeds showing the posts of people or organizations you are following are OK. This seems like everything needed for building a fine online support community.