Utah outlaws kids' social media addiction, sets digital curfew To protect children, Utah Governor Spencer Cox on Thursday signed two bills aimed at "holding social media companies accountable." The new US state laws are likely to be challenged by advocacy organizations and technology companies for denying the rights of young people and for imposing an age verification scheme that will …
Have another for caring about downvotes on an anonymous forum of a tech news site.
I see lots of posts like this from you regarding downvotes, but it still puzzles me why anyone cares. It’s not like the up to down ratio actually does anything.
Are you OK?
Aside from the vote count, the objective is science. Not emotions. If you only care about your emotions then watch Tucker Carlson and he can tell you what to think and how you should feel about it.
Given a 50/50 split in educated public opinion then the question becomes "Is our ecosystem healthy when the down votes for one view point always out way the upvotes for the opposing view?" Now I am not saying that some things aren't or are healthy by default. What I am saying is that the "drive by down votes" stop people from talking to one another and therefore stop people from learning.
It's not my ego here. It's the science of Sociology.
And so if you always down vote a person that says "X" then your are just a sock puppet who's head is your own hand clicking the mouse.
...many years ago the Editor of El Reg coined the term "Commentard"
Get over it and start being real. Otherwise those that know more than computers will always see you as a fool. Don't you get it? I get down votes from people like you because you don't want to do better. If all you have to give is nothing then save one one thousandth of a calorie and STFU while the adults talk.
To put this into simpler terms let me ask you: Do you masturbate every time you become aroused?
Best keep the answer to yourself.
> there are no caveats to protect the children from abusive parents.
If parents are using social media to abuse their children why would they need extra caveats compared to anyone else using the same social media to abuse the same children? Abuse is abuse, no matter the perpetrator.
Or are you thinking that legislation over social media must also carry some riders to extend its scope beyond social media?
I'm not going to be drawn into the whole up/down voting thing, really you need to grow up and understand forums such as this are not representative.
However, who gets to decide what is child abuse? It isn't a universal standard, it depends on the parent, the child, the community and broader societal standards. Parents will differ as to how much risk they will allow their children to take and again against each potential physical or moral harm.
Some parents are happy to see the kids leave the house and wander miles from home, climb trees to heights where a fall would be fatal. Others are so obsessed with stranger danger they can't go to the local playground without an escort, ideally they'd be in the front room on the PlayStation.
Equally there is the moral stuff. Some parents couldn't give a shit if their 12 year olds smoke. Others recoil in horror at the idea of their 15 year old going on a "date" to the cinema or whatever.
Who's right? You? With your particular values and prejudices? What gives you or anyone else the right to act as ultimate arbiter?
Ultimately you need to give any family quite a bit of slack and honestly subscribe to the belief that parents generally know what is best for their children. Of course child abuse exists but it must by necessity be the most extreme cases only, a middling set of values restricts freedom and liberty of both parent and child.
How do you encode that into law, especially on social media and not knowing either or the abilities or interests of that child?
Whilst I have upvoted you I sometimes feel that there should be an exam you have to pass (not a physical one - <dirty chuckle>) before being allowed to be a parent. One key component would be an unwillingness to have someone else do all the parenting for you.
"Equally there is the moral stuff. Some parents couldn't give a shit if their 12 year olds smoke. Others recoil in horror at the idea of their 15 year old going on a "date" to the cinema or whatever."
And then there's the type of parent that thinks a 500 year old statue, generally regarded as one of the pinnacles of Western classical art, representing a biblical subject no less, is nothing more than pr0n.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65071989
Having waded through your post and associated replies I have a vision of a new feature for the comment sections of ElReg. A button to collapse a thread (in the users browser only - wouldn't want to affect anyone else) so that all the wonderful commentary can be hidden and I can get on wasting my time on comments that are "worth" reading.
Spectacular idea! Here's a bookmarklet that I just threw together for myself to do the job. It adds an additional button to the left of the Reply button which hides the thread, and works on Firefox at least.
javascript:(function(){var a=[i=>document.createElement(i),'parentNode','setAttribute','appendChild','getElementsByClassName','addEventListener'];var h=function(t){var x=a[0]('li');var y=a[0]('div');var z=a[0]('a');z[a[2]]('href','javascript://unhide_post');z.innerHTML='unhide';y[a[3]](z);x[a[3]](y);z[a[5]]('click',function(){x[a[1]].removeChild(x);t[a[1]].style.display='';return false;});t[a[1]][a[1]].insertBefore(x,t[a[1]]);t[a[1]].style.display='none';};for(var i of document[a[4]]('post edited')){var r=i[a[4]]('reply_link')[0];var n=a[0]('a');n.innerHTML='Hide Thread';n[a[2]]('class','reg_btn reply_link');n[a[2]]('href','javascript://hide thread');n[a[5]]('click',(function(i){return function(){h(i);};})(i));n.style.marginRight='5px';r[a[1]].insertBefore(n,r);}})()
Basically, to work, their system needs to dispense with Anonymity.
Anonymity Speech is Free Speech.
Without Anonymity, you get Chilling Effects.
If you can't speak anonymously, then your employer and/or your Government may take action against you if they disagree with the opinions you have expressed.
What anonymity? Open an account with most big social media platforms and if you don't need to supply a phone number on signing up you will do fairly shortly after because your account suddenly exhibits "anomalous behaviour". There's also your IP address and contacts.
-> Anonymity Speech is Free Speech.
You are completely wrong. I wish that people would stop confusing this. Anonymous speech is anonymous speech.
Free speech means being able to put your name on your speech and not suffer consequences.
Let me rewrite your last sentence for you as again you are confusing this issue: If you put your name to your speech, then your employer and/or your government will NOT take action against you if they disagree with the opinions you have expressed.
If you posted with your real name, email, phone number, and address, your claim might carry more weight.
Apart from that, anonymity seems like a different topic. Social media companies are not anonymous, however, they are free from any liability for their content. Although a private person posting on social media IS liable. Furthermore, internet anonymity is hardly real - the OP you should not believe that it is. But it will protect the OP (and VOT) from random crazies
Free speech is exactly what it says on the tin.
In free societies, that speech won't be censored. In non-free ones, it will be, if it doesn't conform to the official line.
If you want to put a bullseye on your back (in either society), that is your choice.
However, free speech doesn't mean free from consequences (e.g. J.K. Rowling). It doesn't mean everyone accepts your views, only your right to express them.
"WILL" means 100% of the time and that's just not true, in 'The West' at least. The degree of leeway someone will get is related to their prominence and usefulness - the measurement, results and weighting of which are complex and varied.
This is provable by looking around any company/country and seeing lots of people 'getting away with it'.
"If you put your name to your speech, then your employer and/or your government will NOT take action against you if they disagree with the opinions you have expressed."
Constitutionally protected free speech means the GOVERNMENT cannot take action against you for your opinions. Your employer is not bound by the constitution to respect your freedom of speech and CAN fire you for stating an opinion they don't agree with (eg if you disparage any of their customers, even if you are completely right). However your employer IS bound by federal and local laws to respect certain protected characteristics. So your employer can't* fire you for expressing religious views, support for minority ethnicities or groups etc
* Actually they can, but you can sue them for it
Yes yes YES!
And furthermore (edited by me):
"Your [social media] is not bound by the constitution to respect your freedom of speech and CAN [block/censor/remove/delete] you for stating an opinion they don't agree with."
Anyone who argues that social media is a "public forum" akin to the town square (truly public/government-owned land) needs to check the list of shareholders.
(Anecdote: in my township and the surrounding ones, there is plenty of land with sidewalks in front of the township buildings to vent from, but not many folks are there because they truly want to be, idly. The best example of such a place is called Greenfield Village -- plenty of folks milling about -- but is owned by a nonprofit -- not government -- who could easily call Security and kick you out.)
It is worse than that, for this to work it not only needs to know who you are but geographically where you are, ie. Are you physically in Utah and under 18.
Obviously, this can only apply to Internet access within the state of Utah; travel outside and the under-18 should be able to full access to their account as permitted by the law covering the geographic locale they are in.
Naturally all this disclosure of personal information is to a US commercial entity who will use that data for commercial purposes they deem fit; GDPR doesn’t apply.
> the introduction of Facebook led to increased utilization of mental healthcare services.
This could be for (at least) two distinctly different reasons:
1) They learnt about the services on FB and were encouraged to seek them out, directly by concerned friends or indirectly by reading how others had gone and found the services useful, their publicising the issues helping to remove the stigma.
2) They encountered a torrent of crap on FB until they cracked and stumbled or were even dragged in.[1]
But what are the chances that such subtleties[2] will be ignored when trying to control Social Media? And then the good effect encouraged whilst the latter is (somehow) reduced?
[1] Sadly, I'm thinking this is the more likely scenario.
[2] Subtle! Those two examples?! I have no faith that legislators could understand the effects of, say, shyer college students seeing "**everyone* else" going wild without them, or that those posters are themselves "faking it 'til you make it".[3]
[3] Bugger, how I wish I could come up with a "more subtle positive" and not just two more negatives.
I'd like to think it was #1. Looking at UK suicide rates, things were a lot worse over here in the 80s, we had a steady downward trend until 2007, and it's been creeping back up, although not to the same levels yet. I doubt all of the increase is down to social media although it's probably contributed some, I would also imagine mounting student debt, job prospects, inflation, the economy, worrying about climate change etc also have a effect. If today's youth are seeking out counselling more, that's got to be a good thing.
and the cesspool much of it has become, but will concede that many populations (LGBTQ, minority religion in an enthusiastically other-religion country, women and girls in fundamentalist countries, &c) have found support and community where/when it otherwise would not exist. If, as the article suggests, these politicians are truly concerned about The Children, then redirecting effort to reducing deaths by firearm and by motor vehicle would be more productive. Yes, it will be unpopular to question Amurkins' two greatest loves -- their cars and their guns -- let alone dare to suggest anything that even smells like further regulation, but certainly The Children are worth it, yes?
For one, there is no concept of 'friends', 'followers' or 'groups' on El Reg's forums, so their social component is quite limited. It's not a coincidence that the term 'social media' appeared long after BBS and forums existed, but shortly after FB, TW et al.
-- have found support and community where/when it otherwise would not exist. --
Whilst I agree with this statement you're ignoring the fact that these groups (well some of them) often use social media as a club to beat up other people and also recruit new members
.. and some support / community "sites" might not be ideal for health.
e.g. anorexics - the community can easily become an "echo chamber" of the sufferers encouraging each other there's nothing wrong with life threateningly low weight (though these days anorexia forums seem less of a thing as trans seems to be the current big body damaging fad with plenty of echo chambers encouraging irreversible body modification ops ).
Let's also not forget there are plenty of definitely bad for some people communities out there e.g. pro suicide forums, these may be of use if you are elderly or with a terminal illness but can potentially have a bad effect on a confused / depressed teen.
But legislation will achieve nothing, there are always ways around it, better option is that parent(s) have reasonable involvement in what their kid(s) are doing online & shock horror - maybe talk to them a bit more
The article says AND I QUOTE "Based on 2020 data, the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the US is firearms." But no, the ACTUAL study really says "firearm-related deaths of all types (suicide, homicide, unintentional, and undetermined)" That means gang shootings, oopses, ignorance of firearm safety. Here's the actual list of ICD-10 codes from the study quoted by the article, which itself quotes a CDC study:
Overall Firearm Mortality: W32-W34; X72-74; X93-X95; Y22-Y24; Y35.0; U01.4
Firearm Suicide: X72-X74
Firearm Homicide: X93-X95, Y35.0, U01.4
Unintentional Firearm Death: W32-W34
Undetermined Intent Firearm Death: Y22-Y24
Yeah, there WERE some suicide deaths by firearm, but you can't determine if that was 2 kids or 2000 based on the data because it's all mixed in together with the gang shootings, accidental discharges, etc.
Use critical thinking, and educate oneself about suicide. People rarely kill themselves on a lark. Almost universally, they have to talk themselves into it, hype themselves up, etc.
So someone does that. They're at the precipice. 'Oh, we don't have a gun in the house? Well drat. I guess I will have to live.' People did and do kill themselves with many more things with guns.
Actually, scientifically, this is very relevant and interesting, but from a sociological perspective. Put two statistics together, imply (but don't conclude) a causal link, and see how many people fail at reading into statistics or using critical thinking. Helps a bunch as a 'skip anything else person says as a waste of your time.'
(1) A burner phone (you know, cash at a convenience store for a SIM and some minutes)
(2) Use Tails
(3) Use a free VPN service while at an internet cafe.....
(4) Set up multiple pseudonymous email addresses (www.mail.com can help with this)
(5) You are now all set to set up completely anonymous accounts on FB, WhatsApp and so on.....
......even if service providers need email or mobile phones for "authentication"......
......and lawmakers think that "age verification" is something service providers can implement.......Really?
......but then lawmakers are just writing words on paper so they can say "we are doing something".......when in fact it's all just window dressing!!
Commentards here talk about "IP addresses" or "mobile phone numbers" as pointers to identity. Really? And what about "age verification"? A day dream!!
There is merit in needing parental permission to sign up for a social media account under a certain age, the mechanism to check the age of a subscriber is fraught with problems. It might be better to look at delisting accounts if a parent logs in (without needing an account) to revoke a minor's account or place locks/limitations on it. It's not that hard to correlate IP addresses or the parent could do it from the child's phone showing identical MAC addresses or other fingerprints. It IS the parents job to monitor their kids and set boundaries, not government. I don't see it as a good thing to clog up the courts with cases over whether some service is 'addictive' to children. Maybe it is addictive as the child gets no attention at home. Whose to say that a kid that's a straight A student can't spend more time than average online if their grades don't suffer?
In the mean time, the road my house is on looks like it was transplanted from a war zone after some recent rains. A child on a bike might go missing in a few of the bigger potholes. Perhaps government should work more on that. I've been going around the long way so I don't break my car through failing to dodge one of the holes.
Those silly boomer lawmakers should learn a thing or two about how young people actually use the internet. Kids slip on and off of the darknet, where Utah's laws are meaningless, that they will just laugh and ignore these new laws. None of the red states have power in the cyberspace they wrongly think they own.
If you want kids to grow up and not be a bunch of incel basket cases, don't be a bunch of repressed, bigoted, bible banging, book burning, neo-nazi parents. Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Montana - all really FUBAR states who's problems are just beginning, not close to ending. Because the grownups were also raised by a bunch of repressed, bigoted, bible banging, book burning, neo-nazi parents.
" Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Montana - all really FUBAR states who's problems are just beginning,"
There's a large dose of opinion if I've ever seen some before. Do you know that a large chunk of eastern super-lib Oregon would like to break away and join Idaho which is much more conservative and likes having a proper number of police on the streets and less government intrusions into people's lives?
Utah is run by the LDS mob and no doubt. They can be quite rigid and restrictive, but I'd rather live in Orem than Seattle. The Mormons are very nice people on average. I know a bunch. I also know people in Utah that aren't Mormon and don't find it oppressive.
Don't hear much from Montana. MSM doesn't mention them at all that I can recall. Lots of agriculture and anything that puts steak on plate is ok with me. Steak from cows, not "long pig". The people that think we'll all be eating bugs real soon should go look at the price of a packet of dried bugs. You can get them on Amazon. After that exercise, worry about odd looking cuts of meat being advertised as pork.
While I understand where this law is coming from, I've always been of the opinion that it should be up to the parents to educate their children and teach them boundaries and balance rather than foisting that responsibility onto lawmakers who may or may not have the kids' best interests at heart or who have marginal knowledge on the subject and just create some kind of knee-jerk law that carpet bombs an entire lifestyle choice or aspect of technology.
I know this is a super edge case, but in a country where even seeking out abortions or the "morning after pill" can come loaded with criminal baggage in certain parts of the land, isn't it important that young adults have anonymous access to information regarding what options are open to someone who has made a mistake and needs help?
If you have to opt in to named account and that information can and will be handed over to local law enforcement then I forsee this having quite a serious impact on the willingness of young people to ask for advice on reproductive health, a subject which can be difficult enough to broach at the best of times.
"If you have to opt in to named account and that information can and will be handed over to local law enforcement then I forsee this having quite a serious impact on the willingness of young people to ask for advice on reproductive health"
Can't have people using the internet to get around the anti-abortion laws (Utah has those). The stated reasons for the law are a lie (so it doesn't even matter that they make no sense), it's all about controlling the masses.
Or had a wild facebook session. Am I missing out... Am I curious?
Naw, load of shit.
The problem is people not feeling good enough about themselves and trying to give themselves some self worth.. Hence crap like people filming car crashes where someone is still trapped inside. I've seen that.
The whole "entertainment" industry needs to look at itself.
Sorry but the whole "follow the cool" thing stinks.
Its purely for political points. If they wanted to protect and help children, they would make sure none went hungry or sick in this country.
Since that is a major concern that cost money to fix and you can't post political memes doing it.
Which I find all the more funny since it is from Utah.
Utah...Where people go to Evaston, WY for Booze, Wendover, NV for Gambling, and Grand Junction, CO for Abortions.
They are already used to getting around the rules there. This will just be one more of many they will work around. I serious doubt the law will work the way tey want, but the Mormon Church, I know they don't like that name, has way too many hooks into the politicians there to stop them.
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