NetChoice Sues Virginia To Block Its One-Hour Social Media Limit For Kids (theverge.com) 30
NetChoice is suing Virginia to block a new law that limits kids under 16 to one hour of daily social media use unless parents approve more time, arguing the rule violates the First Amendment and introduces serious privacy risks through mandatory age-verification. The Verge reports: In addition to restricting access to legal speech, NetChoice alleges that Virginia's incoming law (SB 854) will require platforms to verify user ages in ways that would pose privacy and security risks. The law requires platforms to use "commercially reasonable methods," which it says include a screen that prompts the user to enter a birth date. However, NetChoice argues that Virginia could go beyond this requirement, citing a post from Governor Youngkin on X, stating "platforms must verify age," potentially referring to stricter methods, like having users submit a government ID or other personal information.
NetChoice, which is backed by tech giants like Meta, Google, Amazon, Reddit, and Discord, alleges that the law puts a burden on minors' ability to engage or consume speech online. "The First Amendment prohibits the government from placing these types of restrictions on accessing lawful and valuable speech, just in the same way that the government can't tell you how long you could spend reading a book, watching a television program, or consuming a documentary," Paul Taske, the co-director of the Netchoice Litigation Center, tells The Verge.
"Virginia must leave the parenting decisions where they belong: with parents," Taske says. "By asserting that authority for itself, Virginia not only violates its citizens' rights to free speech but also exposes them to increased risk of privacy and security breaches."
NetChoice, which is backed by tech giants like Meta, Google, Amazon, Reddit, and Discord, alleges that the law puts a burden on minors' ability to engage or consume speech online. "The First Amendment prohibits the government from placing these types of restrictions on accessing lawful and valuable speech, just in the same way that the government can't tell you how long you could spend reading a book, watching a television program, or consuming a documentary," Paul Taske, the co-director of the Netchoice Litigation Center, tells The Verge.
"Virginia must leave the parenting decisions where they belong: with parents," Taske says. "By asserting that authority for itself, Virginia not only violates its citizens' rights to free speech but also exposes them to increased risk of privacy and security breaches."
More serious question (Score:2)
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Those work so well too. Totally not trivial to bypass and a waste of everyone's time and resources.
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Sounds to me like Virginia is trying to give parents tools to enforce their decisions.
Both iOS [apple.com] and Android [google.com] have built-in parental screen time limit functionality. Why is the government getting involved?
Re: Flawed reasoning (Score:2)
If one wishes to play devil's advocate:
Because many parents don't do this. If the parents won't do a good job bringing up their kids, someone has to.
Is it the States' responsibilities to fix bad parents' choices? Very probably not.
Re: Flawed reasoning (Score:4, Interesting)
>"If one wishes to play devil's advocate:
Because many parents don't do this. If the parents won't do a good job bringing up their kids, someone has to."
There are so many other more effective things that could be done. Some examples that pop into my mind:
1) Spend some money on public service education that it is NOT OK to give children unrestricted or unsupervised access to the internet.
2) Incentivize development of additional age-controls and whitelisting functionality ON DEVICES, under parental control
3) Foster development of VOLUNTARY flags on sites so locked-down devices can detect inappropriate content and add to filters.
4) Make it an actual crime for parents/agents to give devices to children that have unrestricted access to the internet.
Of those, I think #1 is the most important. We need to change the culture and norms to be that parents/agents should be responsible and restrict children's devices. They will then be shamed by others, and probably seek out tools, and hopefully the market will respond with more/better tools.
Personally, I think giving children unrestricted/unsupervised access to the internet is child abuse, or at least child endangerment. Both of which are already ILLEGAL.
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Woohoo! And, how well do 'public service announcements' help with girls in high school or before getting pregnant? Same for smoking.
Maybe not give the kid an $800 cellphone... give'em a flip phone, and block their laptop and PS5/XBox from accessing social media at your modem... little Suzy can use the family computer to check Facebook where the parents can supervise stuff.
Back when we got the internet at home, that was the AOL 7 (that's what was available in my area) days... I had to have dad sign in so I
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>"Woohoo! And, how well do 'public service announcements' help with girls in high school or before getting pregnant? Same for smoking."
The service is targeted at adults, not minors. We know they are not effective on minors. Minors have poor judgement, focus, reasoning, wisdom, etc. Which is why they shouldn't be accessing the internet on unrestricted devices.
>"Maybe not give the kid an $800 cellphone... give'em a flip phone [...]"
Or a $200 phone/tablet, but with appropriate parental controls and wh
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Woohoo! And, how well do 'public service announcements' help with girls in high school or before getting pregnant? Same for smoking.
Odd to pick out two societal issues with rates at near historic lows. Public education campaigns paired with other interventions (e.g. tobacco advertising bans) can work.
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>"I'd say the biggest factor discouraging parents from being more involved in their kid's lives is time"
As far a devices, I think it is mostly just lack of awareness and available tools. I would like to see awareness rise a LOT and tools become more visual and available. A parent shouldn't need to know a whole lot of "tech" to get an appropriate device for their child. When they get a phone/tablet/whatever, it should ask if this is going to be used by a minor and walk the parent through setting up rem
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>"Sounds to me like Virginia is trying to give parents tools to enforce their decisions."
No it is not. It is usurping parents' abilities and at the expense of ALL adults while not actually protecting children. Parental controls need to be on the devices children use, not on all sites that any person of any age with any device might visit.
"Social Media" isn't even defined in the bill/law. There are going to be many MILLIONS of inappropriate sites that children will STILL be able to access that are tota
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So... the parents can do the parenting thing after both get back from their jobs at 6:30, the parents have dinner (Burger King), Bobby is busy killing everything possible in CoD, and Suzy hasn't put her phone down since school got out.
Sure, the parent(s) can turn on the parental controls on the device, except the kids are smart enough to figure out how to bypass them.
I hope NetChoice wins (Score:5, Insightful)
>"NetChoice is suing Virginia to block a new law that limits kids under 16 to one hour of daily social media use unless parents approve more time, arguing the rule violates the First Amendment and introduces serious privacy risks through mandatory age-verification."
I hope NetChoice wins. These laws popping up in various states absolute put ridiculous burdens on "social media" when that responsibility should be on the parents. And those burdens will DESTROY privacy of everyone, most importantly adults. We should not have to supply PROOF POSITIVE of our identities to use websites. And that is exactly what most of these laws indirectly require.
You can hand-wave and try to invent in your mind some type of "age only" verification, third-party, trust whatever that acts as a middle-man. It is already too late. And I doubt it would actually be trust-worthy.
And have you read the bill? It doesn't even DEFINE what "social media" is. The only part of the bill I agree with is this:
"For purposes of this section, any controller or processor that operates a social media platform shall treat a user as a minor if the user's device communicates or signals that the user is or shall be treated as a minor"
In most cases, that shouldn't be needed, since children should be using locked devices that access only white-listed-sites/apps. Still, it could be useful for older children, where some sites could be appropriate if they have specific age-related/sensitive controls. Plus any voluntary tools to help parents control children's devices, I support.
Re:I hope NetChoice wins (Score:5, Insightful)
We're sliding down the slippery slope.
A few states already did the age check thing with porn, and the SCOTUS ruled that was just fine by the 1A. Now comes the ID just to prove you're not a kid, in order to participate in social media.
It's never been about protecting kids, it's about being able to eliminate online anonymity.
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Re: I hope NetChoice wins (Score:2)
It's never been about protecting kids, it's about being able to eliminate online anonymity.
Slashdot itself has had a bevy [brave.com] of articles over the years (such as
this [slashdot.org]) about the harms of social media to developing adolescents.
Is Slashdot part of the propaganda campaign to wipe out digital anonymity?
The data on harms is at least a big chunk of the motivation. Maybe the response to it is a moral panic or maybe the response is proportionate to the evidence. But I think it's going to win out in terms of policy.
If you don't like the proposed solution, I think you better start promoting a better way to impl
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It's never been about protecting kids, it's about being able to eliminate online anonymity.
Slashdot itself has had a bevy [brave.com] of articles over the years (such as this [slashdot.org]) about the harms of social media to developing adolescents.
Is Slashdot part of the propaganda campaign to wipe out digital anonymity?
The data on harms is at least a big chunk of the motivation. Maybe the response to it is a moral panic or maybe the response is proportionate to the evidence. But I think it's going to win out in terms of policy.
If you don't like the proposed solution, I think you better start promoting a better way to implement this kind of intervention that still preserves the protections you care about.
Or people are going to go with the not-better way.
The real solution is for parents to actually parent. I understand the lure of the digital babysitter, but handing children an unlocked device with no web filter *AND* spending zero time helping them navigate what they may find is just plain shit parenting. I'm sorry if that hurts someone's feelings, but it's true. I totally understand that life moves fast, and it's hard when both parents work real jobs and still need to take care of the home to actually be a parent, but when you have children, you have to f
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We're sliding down the slippery slope.
A few states already did the age check thing with porn, and the SCOTUS ruled that was just fine by the 1A. Now comes the ID just to prove you're not a kid, in order to participate in social media.
It's never been about protecting kids, it's about being able to eliminate online anonymity.
Google, at least in my state, is asking for "verification" that I'm allowed to use the internet as an adult. It asks that I upload a state issued picture ID, a selfie to verify it's me, and a credit card to further verify. We're seriously one step removed from "give us you DOB, social security number, and all valid financial information to proceed."
Thus far I've refused to do it. On the bright side, I see a lot less political bullshit in my youtube feed now.
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>"What undue burden? most social media isn't even readable now without creating an account for each platform. As part of their required account creation they can add a verification feature."
Creating an account is one thing for them, and quite easy. Trying to validate actual identity/age for every user is a whole other complicated and expensive process. I run a web forum. Is that "social media"? I wouldn't begin to know how to "verify" people (and certainly would never try to).
>"they [social media
"restricting access to legal speech" - Hypocrites. (Score:2)
What about my privacy and security? Hmm?
Oh I see Discord is a member of NetChoice, now the hypocrisy runs really thick.
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Bullshit, as an adult many of these platforms like X, Facebook, and Instagram don't let me even view content unless I create an account with them. Where's my access to valuable free speech huh? Fucking hypocrites. What about my privacy and security? Hmm? Oh I see Discord is a member of NetChoice, now the hypocrisy runs really thick.
I'm not sure exactly what you're saying...are you trying to claim that voluntary decisions made by private companies is the same thing as government mandated restrictions on speech?
If this is not what you're saying, would you mind explaining what you do mean?
Crack dealers sue Virginia /s (Score:2)
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. [harvardpublichealth.org]
Yes but all of you are evil so there is that. (Score:2)