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Florida Lawmakers Pass Ban On Social Media For Kids (apnews.com) 114

Florida lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday that forces social media companies to keep most minors off their platforms. The Hill reports: The legislation, which passed the state House Thursday after earlier being approved by the Senate, now heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) desk, though he says he's not quite ready to sign on. DeSantis told reporters Friday that he thinks there needs to be a "proper balance" between government regulations and parental input on the social media issue. "We'll be wrestling with that," he said. The governor said he'll be assessing the final version of the legislation likely through the weekend. "Federal law says 13 and under can't have social media accounts. That's not really enforced," he said.

The lawmakers who championed the proposed social media ban, which would require platforms check the ages of users through a third-party source, argue it will make the online landscape safer for youths. The legislation passed 108-7 in the state House and 23-14 in the Florida Senate within a matter of hours Thursday.

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Florida Lawmakers Pass Ban On Social Media For Kids

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  • Would this bill ban minors from stuff like the now-defunct Club Penguin? Some stuff is designed for minors.

    • That does seem like a fairly obvious problem. But even if it was "designed for children" (a phrase that makes me shudder with the opportunities for data mining...), kids *should not be sticking their face into computer screens for any significant amount of time.

      • by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @09:22PM (#64264502)

        That does seem like a fairly obvious problem. But even if it was "designed for children" (a phrase that makes me shudder with the opportunities for data mining...), kids *should not be sticking their face into computer screens for any significant amount of time.

        I know a lot of people involved with social media marketing. Kids are neither valuable nor interesting. They don't have enough money for people to market to them. The prime audience is people with dual incomes and no kids...either they've chosen not to have any, don't have any yet, or theirs are financially independent. Parents have a habit of not buying too much they don't need. They either are lacking in time and sleep or broke because kids are expensive. Not as many moms of 2yos buy Gucci or dumb or overpriced things they don't need. By the time the kids have value to the economy, any data you've collected on them is generally too stale to be of much use.

        So while I want to "protect the children"...I have friends that are the "enemy" in this situation and either work for Meta or handle social media for small to mid-sized companies and I think of things from their perspective.

        The risk of bad PR for mining child data is huge and scary and the reward?...well...it's almost a negative reward. Collecting and analyzing data costs money.

        My 10 yo has no CC, so can't order anything on his own. He needs my approval or my wife's...so if someone wanted to sell something to my kid, they'd actually need to market to me and my wife.

        While I share your instinct to protect children from harm and I despise social media...I don't really see the motivation social media companies have to abuse children. According to every insider I've talked to on the subject, children are a nuisance....users who don't generate enough money to matter.

        • by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @10:40PM (#64264618) Journal

          Children might not matter to social media, but social media matters to children. They are affected by it, whether that's the intent or not. Maybe those employees you know consider it collateral damage. That takes balls though - more likely, they give the same litany of excuses you give.

          • by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @04:24PM (#64266034)

            Children might not matter to social media, but social media matters to children. They are affected by it, whether that's the intent or not. Maybe those employees you know consider it collateral damage. That takes balls though - more likely, they give the same litany of excuses you give.

            Know your enemy. Understand them. Attacking social media thinking that Mark Zuckerberg is cackling in his lair trying to get 10yos addicted to Instagram is just stupid. When terrorists attack the World Trade Center, you want to attack the terrorists and their backers...you don't go bomb Venezuela...as fun as some may find that.

            Social media sucks. I think it's quite reasonable to force people to be 18 to use Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. We're not disagreeing on the result...I am disagreeing with the poster's absurd statement that they're trying to mine data for underage consumers...risking breaking the law for people that have no money and offer little profit? WTF is that about?

            If you're an American over 40 or just like to read, you should be familiar with "Satanic Panic" from the 80s...or look up "Rainbow Party" We love to scare ourselves with absurd stories about the "enemy." Know your enemy...know them well...understand them...understand their motivation...and act accordingly.

            Social media is here to stay and we're going to have to find a way to live with it. Regulations like this are perfectly reasonable, IMO. I am comfortable with lawmakers getting quite draconian on Facebook...because I don't like Facebook....but I dislike them for what they ACTUALLY do...or more specifically fail to take action on....we don't need to make up fake lies to make them look bad. They do a good enough job themselves.

            "Balls" are cheap and common...nearly every male has 2. I have far more balls than I or anyone needs...Brains are far more effective and much more laudable IMO. The USA has the best military in modern history...do the generals want balls?...no...they want brains...strategy...effective tactics...they could give a fuck about balls. Balls are what's needed when your planning fails. You want to tame social media?...you'll get a lot farther with brains than balls.

            • I think it's quite reasonable to force people to be 18 to use Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.

              I do not think it is reasonable. Additionally, I will fight you for trying to force your will. Who do you think you are? You think you understand the world so well that you can dictate to others what they should see? We are explicit enemies until you lose your arrogance. I can absolutely guarantee that you do not know what is best for others.

              "but they lack experience..."

              Fuck off, so do you.

        • That's not really how it works, though. Advertising through either normal channels or social media geared at kids are designed to get them to nag their parents and grandparents until they get what they want for Christmas or their birthday. Or, if you have annoyingly generous grandparents who spoil them rotten, Graduation and Easter as well.

          If you don't see that advertising as effective, you probably haven't been paying enough attention to your credit card statements around the holidays.

          • credit card statements around the holidays.

            I'd argue they need to pay attention constantly. You think that a kid can't copy their parent's CC info by taking a picture with their phone and then use it when the parents aren't looking? Hell, how does Florida expect this legislation to work? Oh yeah, by requiring CC / other PII to be uploaded to a random website. Let me guess how long it's going to take some kid to rig up a Vtuber app with an AI generated deepfake of their parent's face / voice.....

          • That's not really how it works, though. Advertising through either normal channels or social media geared at kids are designed to get them to nag their parents and grandparents until they get what they want for Christmas or their birthday. Or, if you have annoyingly generous grandparents who spoil them rotten, Graduation and Easter as well.

            If you don't see that advertising as effective, you probably haven't been paying enough attention to your credit card statements around the holidays.

            People advertise to children through legit channels, but few have much interest in marketing to them illegally. Toys are small potatoes.

            A single Lexus generates more profit than all the toys I buy my children in a year...and I buy them way too many and probably slightly more than most of their peers (I'm a kid at heart). Consider it from the advertisers' perspective. Does Mattell want to be associated with anything unsavory?...probably not...same for EA.

            Do an experiment...sign in from a new VPN pr

          • by mjwx ( 966435 )

            That's not really how it works, though. Advertising through either normal channels or social media geared at kids are designed to get them to nag their parents and grandparents until they get what they want for Christmas or their birthday. Or, if you have annoyingly generous grandparents who spoil them rotten, Graduation and Easter as well.

            If you don't see that advertising as effective, you probably haven't been paying enough attention to your credit card statements around the holidays.

            Christmas... Lugggsury... Now days they pester parent to buy them RoBux or whatever they're called now.

            Profit by gamification is pretty entrenched these days.

        • The risk of bad PR for mining child data is huge and scary and the reward?...well...it's almost a negative reward. Collecting and analyzing data costs money.

          That's outsourced to advertisers after the data is anonymized. So the social media platform gets paid for the ADs shown to the kids (which remember the "impression" from when they were young as they get older...), and the advertisers get data that they can claim as inconclusive / non-identifying in court / Congress and use fully when the kid gets old enough.

          Neither Congress nor the courts are going to hit the advertisers or social media companies with a big enough fine (100% of the proceeds + % based fin

        • Why do they currently mine so much data on kids, then?

        • by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @07:12AM (#64265128)

          They're lying to you.

          I worked directly in social media for several years. We didn't give a fuck if someone was underage. Our target was women 18-39 but the millions of kids we knew were in the site who somehow managed to click the "I'm over 13" button were worth money to advertisers and to us as it boosted our daily and monthly active user totals which were the key metric used to baseline ad costs.

          Our costs per additional user once we were in the hundreds of millions total active per day was so low the senior execs didn't even look at that page in my reports. I move that and related data to the appendix by request so they could more easily ignore it.

          And in general if kids are worthless why is advertising to them and catering to their desires a multi billion dollar industry? The kids movie/toy industry alone is worth that.

          Your friends are lying to you because they're embarrassed to work in a toxic industry like social media.

        • The people you know are either incompetent or they're lying to you I'm guessing it's the latter. Children are incredibly valuable because between the ages of 4 to 14 you have virtually no self-defense against ideas put in your head by adults and you can instill brand loyalty at that age. Those children are going to grow up and if they grow up on Facebook sure they might not stick around Facebook but what they will do is be prime candidates to be shifted over to a Facebook owned subsidiary.

          And once those
        • > Kids are neither valuable nor interesting.

          Did you miss the ENTIRE last ~100 years of propaganda [youtu.be] such as Tobacco companies targeting young women, exploiting children developers [youtube.com], blatant product placment [wikipedia.org], the hyper commercialization of toys [esquire.com] such as May the Fourth [cbsnews.com] ???

          Kids are a HUGE untapped market because kids nag their parents to buy over-priced garbage.

      • But even if it was "designed for children" (a phrase that makes me shudder with the opportunities for data mining...)

        Collecting identifiable data on children under 13 is illegal: COPPA [wikipedia.org]

        kids *should not be sticking their face into computer screens for any significant amount of time.

        How much time kids spend with computers should be up to their parents, not politicians.

  • We don't allow them access to cigarettes and alcohol until they are adults. Social media is just another drug. Why should it be treated differently?

    • Money. We don't have child labor in this country but yet we have child actors working and getting paid. Two sets of rules. Always. One rule for me and one rule for thee.

    • We don't allow them access to cigarettes and alcohol until they are adults. Social media is just another drug. Why should it be treated differently?

      Negatively afflicting those with OCD is not a drug. Social media sucks, but it's no drug. It's a communication tool that a few people abuse, is legitimately essential for others, and entertaining for the rest of us. You're no more able to get addicted to social media than you're addicted to cars or gardening. If "anything" can be an addiction, you're really misusing that word. Social media is not addictive. It doesn't trigger addiction pathways in your brain.

      If you're "addicted" to anything that i

      • by Anonymous Coward

        It's as much an addiction as gambling or food so I guess it depends on which side you fall. It has been shown that social media provides at least some people with a dopamine kick. Just like gambling and food. However, the harm caused by a food or social media addiction isn't likely to get much attention because it mostly "only" causes mental illness (eg. mass shooters where the Internet seems to have broken their brain).

        Of course most people don't become hard core addicts to anything although I can see a da

      • by Anonymous Coward

        https://www.medicalnewstoday.c... [medicalnewstoday.com]

        You can't be addicted to social media, sex, exercise, video games, or anything that is not a literal drug.

        Your beliefs about what is and isn't addiction don't matter. Just because you think people can only be addicted to drugs doesn't make that so.

        Addiction is clearly defined as withdrawal from a pleasurable activity.
        OCD is a compulsion to perform an activity to feel normal.

        There's no reason some people can't be addicted to an activity and for others it can be an OCD. It depends entirely on how the their brain processes the experience.

        • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

          Addiction is clearly defined as withdrawal from a pleasurable activity.

          That can define everything and everyone. Even work and pain. So everyone is addicted. So addiction is normal and doesn't need treatment.

          Your beliefs about what is and isn't addiction don't matter. Just because you think people can be addicted doesn't make it so.

          According to you I'm addicted because I'm alive because I don't live for misery and my only cure is death. Every positive aspect of our lives brings us pleasure in some form or another.

      • It's not addictive. You can quit slashdot anytime you want; you just don't want to.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by quonset ( 4839537 )

      We don't allow them access to cigarettes and alcohol until they are adults.

      And yet, at the age of 13 [cbsnews.com], they can be hired to clean dangerous equipment like head splitters and jaw pullers in meat processing plants during overnight shifts, or die at the age of 16 [npr.org] working at poultry plants cleaning machines.

      We even loosen child labor laws so younger and younger kids can work [theguardian.com], including operating heavy machinery and on demolition sites.

      But social media? No way! That's too dangerous [fsunews.com].

      • by ravenshrike ( 808508 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @10:17PM (#64264580)

        "Can be hired"
        looks at article 1

        illegally employed migrant children

        looks at article 2

        was too young to legally work at the plant

        Huh... funny that... it's almost like you decided not to READ YOUR OWN FUCKING ARTICLES.

      • Also, in what universe is a power saw heavy machinery? And "working on demolition sites"? You'll notice it doesn't say working with explosives.

      • None of what you posted is either addictive, self inflicted or in any way related to someone being under age. When someone dies in a workplace incident the fault goes to the employer regardless if the person is 16 or 61. The employer has a duty of care.

        No work should be so "dangerous" that you can't get an underage kid to do it. If that were the case you have inadequate protections in place for your workers and should be shut down by OSHA. (That's not to say an underage kid should be able to do every job, s

        • Everything can be controlled with another rule or regulation. Honest acts of god accidents never occur. Sigh.

          When I worked at a dangerous place with typically about 6 deaths a year out of 10,000 employees, it wasn't because we didn't have a rule for everything. Every single one was someone not following a rule. The place was so tight I got dressed down for running an extension power cord in an "unsafe" way. Yet 6 deaths a year was average.

          Life is dangerous. It can not be made safe. Only safer than no

      • It is not the first time that this country tries to get rid of child labor laws. They declared the 1916 Keating-Owens child labor act unconstitutional, then the New Deal reintroduced child labor regulations and protections, and now they are slowly trying to convince the people that we should go back to the times of 4yr old coal miners and child oyster Shuckers.
    • Why is the government getting involved in parenting?

      • Because the so called "parents" keep begging the government to do their job for them.
        • Because the so called "parents" keep begging the government to do their job for them.

          Nah, they literally want to roll back the clock to a time when teens weren't glued to their phones and LGBTQ+ youth stayed in the closet or killed themselves and it got labeled as an undiagnosed case of teenage depression. They probably also want cheap leaded gas too, but that's not coming back either.

    • by evanh ( 627108 )

      While I think that is a stupidly silly euphemism, to associate an activity as an addiction, I do think the social engineering used around social media is about as evil as it gets. The individual tracking alone needs to stop completely. I'd be okay if social media was banned from existence entirely. Not just for kids. Ie: No more Facebook, no more Snapchat, no more Weibo, etc. As for something like Youtube, it'd be okay modified into a library format - Attribution with no direct conversation.
      Twitter too

      • I'd be okay if social media was banned from existence entirely. Not just for kids.

        Tell me you hate the first amendment without telling me you hate the first amendment.

        • by evanh ( 627108 )

          Did that not exist before social media? I don't get why people keep linking the two.

          • The billions of dollars social media is worth to sleazy people is why.

          • Did that not exist before social media? I don't get why people keep linking the two.

            It did exist, but you had to either be wealthy, a famous author/media personality, or claim to be speaking for a deity to have any chance of your speech being disseminated far and wide. Social media finally gave average people a platform for their speech, for better or worse.

    • We don't allow them access to cigarettes and alcohol until they are adults.

      Actually, we don't even allow adults to buy cigarettes or alcohol anymore. 18 is an adult. You can vote, enlist in the military without your parents' permission, own property and run a business, but you can't legally have a smoke or buy a drink. Something to think about when you're being told the restrictions are ostensibly for the good of the children.

      Now don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff on the internet that isn't appropriate for children. The onus, however, should be on parents to put up the

      • The problem you note isn't that 18 year olds should be able to drink and smoke but the other way around. 18 year olds should not be allowed to vote or join the military.

        And please note that car insurance rates don't normalize until age _25_.

        Why would that be? Because under 25 the average "adult" is still a thrill seeking moron.

        • I completely agree with your post, but the military is the reason we chose to view 18 year old kids as adults. The further into adulthood a person gets the less likely they are to volunteer for something stupid and crazy, like war.

        • And please note that car insurance rates don't normalize until age _25_.

          Why would that be?

          Because insurance companies do statistical risk analyses to maximize their profits. Unlike with the booze and smokes, it's not a law. In fact, despite it being proven that younger drivers are more dangerous on the roads, that's still an activity we allow kids as young as 15 to begin doing (with a learner's permit) here in Florida. Really. [flhsmv.gov]

          Funny thing about that is the age to use social media under this Florida law is 16. So at 15 you can get your learner's permit, but can't legally go on social media and

    • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

      and none prescription drugs were/are illegal for a very long time and yet only the ignorant thought it solved the problem. The fact is, and was, that access to alcohol and cigarettes laws were put in place to pretend we actually cared. It's been illegal for about 2 generations, or more, you would think that it wouldn't be an issue today. How are you going to stop a motivated child? So far I see a lot of talk but no proposed solution. Not even a solution that would even resemble a half reasonable attempt. No

  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @08:45PM (#64264404)
    The malicious compliance will likely result in all Florida residents getting asked to upload government ID as a proof of age.
    • Better yet, go full PornHub on them. The Internet as a whole would be better without Floridaman's BS all over it. Given Flordia's bookbans, stance on teaching psychology to AP students, and this current bill, it's painfully obvious that they'd like to ban their minors from finding "unauthorized" ideas on the Internet anyway. Everyone wins.
    • The malicious compliance will likely result in all Florida residents getting asked to upload government ID as a proof of age.

      And they can kiss my ass if have to hand over my drivers license or credit card to the likes of Zuck because my state's lawmakers are morons. Though, it feels really on-brand lately for Florida where you have to use a VPN to get around the idiocy of the state, as if you're living in a hot and humid version of fucking Russia.

      • The malicious compliance will likely result in all Florida residents getting asked to upload government ID as a proof of age.

        And they can kiss my ass if have to hand over my drivers license or credit card to the likes of Zuck because my state's lawmakers are morons.

        There is a plan for this : State run auth portals. When you go to Facebook, it will redirect you to the state-run auth portal where you will give the state your ID information and they will authorize you to access Facebook. See? So much better. Facebook doesn't have to know your ID... you just have to let the State link your ID to your Facebook account... And your PornHub activity... And your Slashdot activity... And... What could possibly go wrong with that? It's not like they would correlate tha

    • by 0xG ( 712423 )

      Not according to the AVPA https://avpassociation.com/ [avpassociation.com]
      This lobby group is the motivating force behind all of the stupid politicians.
      "It's easy, effective and safe."

      Yeah, right.

  • Ah yes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by technomom ( 444378 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @10:03PM (#64264570)

    The party of small government is at it again.

    • The 80s called. They'd like their talking points back.

    • The party of small government is at it again.

      Republicans *are* the party of small government. Democrats only go after businesses in general. Big wide reaching. Republicans only go after those that cross them, far smaller in scope ;-)

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      The party of small government is at it again.

      I pretty much read "Florida Government" as a more specialised and corrupt form of "Florida Man".

  • Congress permanently disinvited children from the Internet in 1998 when they passed the Thou Shalt Not Compete With Disney Act^H^H^H^H^H^H^HChild Online Privacy Protection Act.

    In so doing, Congress also permanently disinvited any new company from developing products for children, including games, comics, educational sites, toys, apparel, video, music, books, audio, collectibles, technology instruction, safety programs, educational supplements, worksheets, stickers, jewelry, shoes, safety equipment, plush to

    • I was in social media before/during/after COPA went into place. We put one of those "click here if you're over 13" things in place for new account creation. Law requirements satisfied.

  • by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @01:58AM (#64264852) Homepage

    I think Mr. DeSantis's delay in signing the bill is more along the lines of shaking down social media companies to refill his coffers from his failed presidential run by buying his veto. It's always about the grift with these people. He didn't wait when he threw LGBTQ+ youth under the bus with the so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, because despite what alt-right conspiracy nutters believe, there are no moneyed interests groups trying to turn your kids gay.

  • by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @02:23AM (#64264864)

    That's not really enforced ...

    An adult owns the phone: Online accounts can be set to a 'child friendly' state but an adult or child has to do that. The first problem is, at 15 or 14 years, every child want to get into adult areas. Some start much earlier, in the 9-12 years, when they're more interested in getting attention than remembering they're breaking the rules. Second problem, as a recent child-abuse case demonstrated, a child using the phone can make new accounts with full adult privileges.

  • Every school (Score:5, Interesting)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @03:13AM (#64264936)
    Pretty much every school that has effectively banned (I'm not talking about weak rules that aren't enforced), they've seen marked improvements in attention in class, academic performance, pupil's reported well-being, behavioural issues, & bullying. The hard evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of keeping social media away from children. It should be regulated like we do other harmful things like tobacco, alcohol, & gambling, despite efforts from some to convince us otherwise or to blame parents.
    • Children can't defend themselves against people like. Tyrants who want to control the actual person. The children hate you. You are not doing them a service.

      Teach the child about the things they see in the universe rather than try to protect them from seeing the horrors of the universe. The horrors are there and will visit themselves upon the children, ask any child living in Gaza right now. I am sure they feel great about you preventing them from reading about the horrors of war. They feel so warm and fuzz

      • Is this an appeal to emotion? If so, it won't work. Also, it won't work because your arguments are non-sequiturs.

        If you're proposing to traumatise children with brutal distressing images of war, I'll urge you to get to grips with reality & think through what that actually means. I have the impression that you really don't know much about children or developmental psychology.
        • Is this an appeal to emotion?

          No.

          If you're proposing to traumatise children with brutal distressing images of war

          I am not.

          The control freak comes out in you here. You automatically think that not censoring content means force feeding content. Why are those the only two options? Where is the randomness of the Universe accounted for?

          You are likely the type of person to tell a child in Gaza that everything is going to be okay and mama will be home soon when the child just witnessed their mother getting raped and murdered. The Real World is ugly as fuck. Trying to hide the ugliness only ensures that the ugliness can gr

          • Is this an appeal to emotion? = This is an appeal to emotion... & you've done it again.

            Arguments that can be asserted without coherent reason can just be ignored.
  • can't be connected to the internet for offsite monitoring?
  • Computers, the internet, social media, etc. are now all fully ingrained and important parts of society. The kids need the skills to navigate and understand all that, including avoiding its traps. The sooner they get a head start on that, the better. Stoopid to restrict them from something that is going to dominate the rest of their lives. The stodgy old politicians can't figure it out and think they know what is best for everyone else so they try to block them from using what they are unable to understa
  • COPPA [ftc.gov] was supposed to take care of this years ago...yet we still see pre-teens routinely popping up on sites where they have no business being, often enabled by older siblings and parents. So, I ask this question:

    How do laws with weak enforcement mechanisms, or without any realistic enforcement mechanisms at all, do anything except weaken the entire structure of law?

  • Clearly it was passed with bipartisan support. Welcome to China folks.

    Why can't we do something real for kids like limit sugar in their diet? Stop vaping? Stop selling them guns? You know stuff that really affects them the rest of their lives and is killing them? Big sugar lobby, gun lobby, tabacco lobby already buy our kids health and future, so I guess these lawmakers pretend to care until the gravy train pays for their elections.

    I remember not too long ago the GOP complained about nanny government,
  • The only thing this ban stands to do is to TRY, and I mean TRY, to prevent kids from fact checking the bullshit the Florida school system is going to try and force feed them.

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