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.
>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.
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).
Nothing is not politically viable for the parents who want controls to limit their children's access. It's funny watching HN constantly berate parents for not parenting while parents' material conditions don't change. Same environment, same result, and frankly there's more of them and they're better organized. All it takes is parents to win once. You have to not lose every time.
The problem is strict controls is not helpful. My kids teachers often assign homework which is watch some YouTube video - which means I have to give my kids access to all of YouTube including channels i don't approve of. In turn i have to stare at my kids screen - a very creepy move - instead of working on whatever my own project is when they are doing homework.
I constantly find something as a parent where I can block way too much, or nothing at all. There is no middle ground. Mind you a middle ground for something the size of YouTube is probably impossible just because of the quantity of things there that I might or might not want my kids to see - but the current situation is not working.
When my kids got to an age they started asking for YouTube videos, I found it entirely frustrating that Youtube Kids was just not feasible to setup like you describe. It was a choice between 3 things, everything, the "kids" section whatever that meant for YouTube, and just tell them sorry, not happening. Within the kids section there seemed to be some controls to help, but I found they did not work well at all and I could easily watch anything in the expanded kids section. I'd have been happy with a whitelist for channels.
The controls I'm referring to limit all kids access simultaneously. Turning off just my kid's access doesn't change the social conditions under which kids interact. It just cuts off them from their friend groups while nothing else changes.
Where in the settings do I go to turn off every kid's access at once? As far as I know, that setting is only accessible through my legislative representative.
> Where in the settings do I go to turn off every kid's access at once?
It might be worth re-reading this particular sentence again, out loud, and really consider what you're asking for here. And why stop at internet access once you're starting to think like this?
The above poster isn't saying Internet access; they're saying access to the ad-filled Skinner boxes that are trying to position themselves as necessary for communication through network effects.
Incidentally, the bill doesn't even say they can't use them; it just says the platform has to tone down the Skinner box part for children.
> 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.
So it's not a social media ban. It's an addictive features for children ban. And it seems kind of obvious that running an optimization algorithm with engagement/attention as the objective is going to be bad? If that optimization works, you would almost necessarily have to be detracting from other parts of the person's life (interfering with study, exercise, socialization, etc.), which seems to be exactly what we see in aggregate (lowering test scores, increased isolation, etc.).
The poster seems to be asking to limit access to the platform, not change the platform to be non-addictive. I understand what you are saying is what the law is trying to accomplish, but I think they are clearly expressing the desire to limit all kids access to social media apps.
I don't understand, could you rephrase your answer to his question? I read his question and read your response, but don't see a connection between the two.
>Turning off just my kid's access doesn't change the social conditions under which kids interact. It just cuts off them from their friend groups while nothing else changes.
If you don't teach them to resist peer pressure when they're younger then they won't know how to when they turn 16 or 18 either, and they'll end up as losers with an external locus of control who blame other people and apps for their own failures of willpower.
Peer pressure is one thing. The entire commercial might of the US tech and cultural industry is harder to resist. It’s not fair to put responsibility on children to have willpower in their use of SM when thousands of PHds are actively researching how to make the services more addictive and increase their network effects.
The point that HN libertarians miss is that the whole point of social networks is that they benefit from network effects. This is what makes them profitable. But it’s also what makes it necessary to subject them to democratic accountability and makes them a legitimate target of public policy.
If my teenagers entire peer groups spends 90% of their waking life on addictive social networks and a ‘normal’ social life is impossible without it then the parent is faced with a Hobsons choice. It’s easy enough to band my 10 year old from social networks. It’s much more complex doing that to 14 year olds and potentially does have negative effects for them unless their friends are similarly limited. This is why we need regulation.
One obvious solution is of course to break these companies up. Set a maximum user count that a communication network operator is allowed to have before we break them up (say, 10M). Require some kind of good-faith open federation for any communication provider over a certain size (e.g. if a user adds a user from another provider as a friend/contact/follow, you must allow that and cannot claim you are "blocking spam" or something to act as a gatekeeper).
Then your friends could use the evil instance, you could talk to them on it through your good one as a federating relay (e.g. yours might operate on a friend whitelist), but the parent could otherwise block access to the wider content pool and ad-filled addictive UI of the evil instances.
This would actually work well for ISPs and phone companies too while we're at it. And email providers. Actually a statutory maximum size (customers, revenue, etc.) could make sense for companies in general, probably.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My kids school provides them iPads and often sends homework that must be done on them. I careful lock up their smartphone except when I want they to have it, but I can't control the school devices.
I don't think that would solve the issue. The algorithms exist to keep users engaged and looking at ads; turning the ads from targeted to generic still wouldn't change the end goal of these companies. They want to keep people scrolling and feeling inadequate so that they see and click ads.
Agreed entirely. They're really glossing over the harm parts. The vibe in this article feels like someone who used the internet in the 90s and 2000s when community was actually a thing. Maybe even early Facebook days when it was college level and newly released to the general public.
What was once genuinely helpful for society is, by and large, now doing more harm than good. So, unless these multibillion dollar companies seriously reform (which would hurt their bottom lines), I don't know what you'd do other than banning the product, much like what we did for cigarettes.
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.
"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.
Which isn't a contradiction. What you want, and what they're arguing for, is to not have agency taken away from users. You want the ability to turn off features, and they don't want the law enforcing the removal of access to those features for others.
“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.
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.
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.
>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)
> 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
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.
How so? People are people, there are severe limits to how much you can affect a population's "natural" behaviour via any kind of training or "public service announcement".
(I mean, you can train every human to read, but you can't train them to practice 100% concentration/awareness every second they're behind the wheel of a car)
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?
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 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 the 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 immense 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, and our communities in general.
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.
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.
i dont know anything about the eff but based on this article i am on your side, they seem extremely untrustworthy so i am happy to be opposed to what they want.
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.
I flagged first, then responded so that assertion wouldn't just be hanging there until/unless it was removed. Readers are suggestible, as is AI training.
What legitimate objections? Why do platforms need addictive methods for people to be able to publish their thoughts? Do blogging platforms not provide direct evidence right in front of everyone that they're not needed?
I may be misinterpreting their wording, but they appear to me to just be lying:
> platforms would be prohibited from offering virtually every functional recommendation algorithm and basic input, such as who a user follows or what posts they like, to anyone under 16.
Are they saying the bill bans subscriptions? Because it explicitly says that that's not considered an "addictive feature".
Characterizing these sites as forming some kind of "community" and like they're some sort of mecca for people to "develop their own voices and perspectives, whether that means sharing art, practicing religion, or engaging in politics" is frankly insulting to the reader.
If you're going to bat for these companies, just say we think we should draw a libertarian line in the sand and not cross it. Fair enough. Same as if you think people should be free to do drugs. But let's not pretend that the crack-den is actually a classical forum where philosophers come for debate, and that we'd be somehow excluding kids from some important part of society.
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
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 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.
>Far from protecting children
so both sides on this are framing that their positions protects children while framing that the opposing side harms children.
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.
I constantly find something as a parent where I can block way too much, or nothing at all. There is no middle ground. Mind you a middle ground for something the size of YouTube is probably impossible just because of the quantity of things there that I might or might not want my kids to see - but the current situation is not working.
Where in the settings do I go to turn off every kid's access at once? As far as I know, that setting is only accessible through my legislative representative.
It might be worth re-reading this particular sentence again, out loud, and really consider what you're asking for here. And why stop at internet access once you're starting to think like this?
Incidentally, the bill doesn't even say they can't use them; it just says the platform has to tone down the Skinner box part for children.
> 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.
So it's not a social media ban. It's an addictive features for children ban. And it seems kind of obvious that running an optimization algorithm with engagement/attention as the objective is going to be bad? If that optimization works, you would almost necessarily have to be detracting from other parts of the person's life (interfering with study, exercise, socialization, etc.), which seems to be exactly what we see in aggregate (lowering test scores, increased isolation, etc.).
They don’t get a say in your kids diet or religion or choice of sport.
If you don't like it, contact your representative instead of spinning your wheels on HN.
If you don't teach them to resist peer pressure when they're younger then they won't know how to when they turn 16 or 18 either, and they'll end up as losers with an external locus of control who blame other people and apps for their own failures of willpower.
If my teenagers entire peer groups spends 90% of their waking life on addictive social networks and a ‘normal’ social life is impossible without it then the parent is faced with a Hobsons choice. It’s easy enough to band my 10 year old from social networks. It’s much more complex doing that to 14 year olds and potentially does have negative effects for them unless their friends are similarly limited. This is why we need regulation.
Then your friends could use the evil instance, you could talk to them on it through your good one as a federating relay (e.g. yours might operate on a friend whitelist), but the parent could otherwise block access to the wider content pool and ad-filled addictive UI of the evil instances.
This would actually work well for ISPs and phone companies too while we're at it. And email providers. Actually a statutory maximum size (customers, revenue, etc.) could make sense for companies in general, probably.
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.
What was once genuinely helpful for society is, by and large, now doing more harm than good. So, unless these multibillion dollar companies seriously reform (which would hurt their bottom lines), I don't know what you'd do other than banning the product, much like what we did for cigarettes.
Yeah, it's weird - the first couple of paragraphs feel a lot like, "... but FOMO!" is their argument against it.
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.
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.
What an absurd stance. Carry water for big tech’s negligent, anti-consumer behavior in the name of… freedom? Sad times for the EFF.
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?
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
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.
(I mean, you can train every human to read, but you can't train them to practice 100% concentration/awareness every second they're behind the wheel of a car)
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 immense 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, and our communities in general.
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.
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 evidence do you have to support the accusation that the EFF has "been bought completely by the industry"?
I may be misinterpreting their wording, but they appear to me to just be lying:
> platforms would be prohibited from offering virtually every functional recommendation algorithm and basic input, such as who a user follows or what posts they like, to anyone under 16.
Are they saying the bill bans subscriptions? Because it explicitly says that that's not considered an "addictive feature".
Characterizing these sites as forming some kind of "community" and like they're some sort of mecca for people to "develop their own voices and perspectives, whether that means sharing art, practicing religion, or engaging in politics" is frankly insulting to the reader.
If you're going to bat for these companies, just say we think we should draw a libertarian line in the sand and not cross it. Fair enough. Same as if you think people should be free to do drugs. But let's not pretend that the crack-den is actually a classical forum where philosophers come for debate, and that we'd be somehow excluding kids from some important part of society.
It's wild to see how fanatically we defend an illusion.