New York Seeks To Limit Social Media's Grip On Children's Attention (nytimes.com) 23
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: New York State officials on Wednesday unveiled a bill to protect young people from potential mental health risks by prohibiting minors from accessing algorithm-based social media feeds unless they have permission from their parents. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Letitia James, the state attorney general, announced their support of new legislation to crack down on the often inscrutable algorithms, which they argue are used to keep young users on social media platforms for extended periods of time -- sometimes to their detriment. If the bill is passed and signed into law, anyone under 18 in New York would need parental consent to access those feeds on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and other social media platforms that use algorithms to display personalized content. While other states have sought far-reaching bans and measures on social media apps, New York is among a few seeking to target the algorithms more narrowly.
The legislation, for example, would target TikTok's central feature, its ubiquitous "For You" feed, which displays boundless reams of short-form videos based on user interests or past interactions. But it would not affect a minor's access to the chronological feeds that show posts published by the accounts that a user has decided to follow. The bill would also allow parents to limit the number of hours their children can spend on a platform and block their child's access to social media apps overnight, from midnight until 6 a.m., as well as pause notifications during that time.
The bill in New York, which could be considered as soon as January when the 2024 legislative session begins, is likely to confront resistance from tech industry groups. The bill's sponsors, State Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, said they were readying for a fight. But Ms. Hochul's enthusiastic support of the bill -- she rarely joins lawmakers to introduce bills -- is a sign that it could succeed in the State Capitol, which Democrats control. A second bill unveiled on Wednesday is meant to protect children's privacy by prohibiting websites from "collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data" from anyone under 18 for the purpose of advertising, unless they receive consent, according to a news release. Both bills would empower the state attorney general to go after platforms found in violation.
The legislation, for example, would target TikTok's central feature, its ubiquitous "For You" feed, which displays boundless reams of short-form videos based on user interests or past interactions. But it would not affect a minor's access to the chronological feeds that show posts published by the accounts that a user has decided to follow. The bill would also allow parents to limit the number of hours their children can spend on a platform and block their child's access to social media apps overnight, from midnight until 6 a.m., as well as pause notifications during that time.
The bill in New York, which could be considered as soon as January when the 2024 legislative session begins, is likely to confront resistance from tech industry groups. The bill's sponsors, State Senator Andrew Gounardes and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, said they were readying for a fight. But Ms. Hochul's enthusiastic support of the bill -- she rarely joins lawmakers to introduce bills -- is a sign that it could succeed in the State Capitol, which Democrats control. A second bill unveiled on Wednesday is meant to protect children's privacy by prohibiting websites from "collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data" from anyone under 18 for the purpose of advertising, unless they receive consent, according to a news release. Both bills would empower the state attorney general to go after platforms found in violation.
So you'll be protecting them how exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You could require age verification, and once that token is approved as underage, any and all other data collection must be stopped and whatever was collected except marking that session as "underage" deleted.
And once session ends, you delete that cookie, so you collected nothing.
Re:So you'll be protecting them how exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a simple way: prohibit website from spying on anyone; that will not only protect the children but protect me as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, yes, but you aren't a politician. Besides, a very similar law was recently passed elsewhere in the US, the state was sued, and the law was either struck down or stayed pending trial.
Stated goal is too specific (Score:4, Insightful)
I would much rather be reading only the words "New York Seeks To Limit Social Media's Grip", without the added words "On Children's Attention". I'm all for "think of the children", but to that end it's probably more helpful to "think of the society our children are growing up in". Getting rid of the business-as-usual normalization of corporate dominance, privacy theft, and environmental rape will do a lot more for kids than merely reducing the addiction factor of Facebook and the like will.
Kinda doubt it. Parents job is to protect kids. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
No, its not. It also no different from hammers, pencils, cars, baseball bats, and especially rocks. If you don't teach your children right from wrong, you deserve to suffer every time they hurt themselves.
Well you have all the means to get kids attention (Score:2)
Giant projected mommy milkers on every skyscaper.
Re: Well you have all the means to get kids attent (Score:1)
"Privacy" (Score:4, Insightful)
>"A second bill unveiled on Wednesday is meant to protect children's privacy by prohibiting websites from "collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data" from anyone under 18 for the purpose of advertising, unless they receive consent, according to a news release"
Perhaps it might work for SOME of the big social sites. But if it is more broad than that, then ONLY way to comply with such laws would be to REQUIRE logins for ALL sites AND:
1) Age verification schemes
2) Which actually means positive ID schemes
3) Which leads to zero privacy online for EVERYONE
That that is on top of just outright censorship. It doesn't matter if it is coming from the Left or the Right. You simply cannot "protect the children" from the server-side on all sites without creating extreme negative consequences for adults and all of society.
Protecting children is the job of parents. If you want to do something positive, then empower parents to take that responsibility seriously and make sure CHILDREN have protection on the CLIENT side.... Devices that CANNOT GO to places they shouldn't or interact with people they SHOULD NOT (unknown or unapproved contacts, by the parents). Make locked-down, white-list, child-friendly devices and abilities easier and more prevalent. Allow sites to flag things instead of banning them or hiding them behind ID logins, that can be picked up by client devices, if configured to do so.
NOTHING will be perfect. But destroying privacy and freedom for adults should not be the answer to the problem.
"Algorithms"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
In their paltry minds, an "algorithm" is a mysterious black box that is designed to predict the future, so sorting doesn't really meet their naïve definition. If I could sort my feeds by "newest first," I would love to. Probably my most visited page of YouTube is "My Subscriptions" which is just a chronologically-sorted page of every video from the channel's I've subscribed to. The rest is just a crap shoot.
The problem with TikTok is that the content they're shilling is so short that you can just skip
Re: (Score:2)
Here's an algorithm, from partitioning. Assume a politician has ulterior motives.
This algorithm has a 98.7% accuracy rate.
On the one hand (Score:5, Insightful)
I think social media is evil, and anything that limits our exposure to addictive media is great.
On the other hand, WHY AREN'T PARENTS TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN BLOODY STUPID CHILDREN?? Why do we need a law to do what parents should be doing already? Fine the parents for not parenting!
History repeats itself (Score:2)
All of these arguments against social media are just a rehash of what previous generations made against television. And I'm sure the generations prior to them thought the same about movies, radio. and dime store novels.
Re: (Score:2)
All of these arguments against social media are just a rehash of what previous generations made against television.
And those who were pro-regulation emerged victorious at least until cable TV became a thing. You can't even say "fuck" over the airwaves. All because in America we have this strange persistent belief that parents should be able to give their kids a device intended for adults and then the parents are all surprised Pikachu face when the kids encounter content that is age inappropriate.
If we applied the same logic to driving, it would be like requiring all vehicles to be covered in Nerf foam and limited to a
New York Seeks To Limit Social Media's Grip On... (Score:2)
They used to say the same crap.. (Score:2)
Proof they're normal (Score:2)
Translation: We need to protect children from abusive adults.
While it's great that teens are avoiding the 'rabbit-hole', most of them have already learnt they can't tell their elders, "you're an arsehole". That 'world owes me' crap is aimed at self-deluded adults, it rarely works on hormonal teens. Teens need proof they're normal from other teens, not a rant promising that group of grown-ups are baby-killing satanist pedophiles.
Unfortunately, for the second time in a year, my state's dealing with tee
Wot? (Score:2)
What is this 'attention' you speak of?
They have none.
Impact (Score:1)
This is a skill children need to learn (Score:2)
Those children are going to grow into adults who live in a world full of things that desperately cry for their attention. The best time for them to learn how to deal with this is when they are children and have the most safety nets (and the most time they can afford to lose). This feels too much like the controversies about comic books, roleplaying, satanic music or rap music or, go back gar enough, even reading itself for me to take it too seriously.
Can social media have a negative effect on children's m