California Bill Would Require Parent Bloggers To Delete Content of Minors On Social Media

A California bill would let adults demand the removal of social media posts about them that were created by paid family content creators when they were minors. Supporters say Senate Bill 1247 addresses privacy, dignity, and safety harms caused when parents monetize their children's lives online. The Los Angeles Times reports: The legislation would require the parent or other relative to delete or edit the content within 10 business days of receiving the notification. Petitioners could take civil action against those who fail to comply and statutory damages would be set at $3,000 for each day the content remained online. Sen. Steve Padilla (D-San Diego), who introduced the bill last month, said it would help protect the dignity and mental health of those who had their childhood shared on social media. The measure was referred to the Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies and Consumer Protection Committee and is slated for a hearing on April 6.

"The evolution of these applications and technology is incredible," Padilla said. "But it's changing our social dynamic and it's creating situations that, while very productive for some folks, also need some guardrails." The bill would build upon previous legislation from Padilla that was signed into law two years ago and requires content creators that feature minors in at least 30% of their material to place some of their earnings into a trust the children can access when they turn 18.

Friggin' mommy bloggers

[ebunga]

They ruined blogging.

Good!

[Murdoch5]

If the child mentioned didn't give you consent to share details about them, don't. I don't name my daughters on anything, I use the term "daughters", and I don't share pictures without their consent, I don't take them either. I got annoyed with my mother who kept demanding to see a picture of my kids, if they don't want to be in a picture, and have it uploaded to your digital frame, I won't force them.

Oh boy, when the school uploaded details about my kids on Twitter, that was a bad week for the school and the board. We didn't authorize the school to do that, and, we're on record telling them they can never share the girls details on social media, without their explicit consent. They need explicit consent for every upload, even it's a re-upload, and surprise, my daughters don't want to be plastered all over social media.

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[cayenne8]

f the child mentioned didn't give you consent to share details about them, don't.

I thought it was generally accepted that children under the age of 18yrs could not give legal "consent" to anything....?

Until the age of 18, for the most part legally, can't parents speak for and act for their children....?

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[fropenn]

Until the age of 18, for the most part legally, can't parents speak for and act for their children....?

It depends on the state and it depends on the activity. For example, in my state children (of any age) can be put to work in a business owned by their parents but they cannot legally work in any other business, even with parental permission, until 14 (16 for some specific areas of work).

The question is whether parents an exploit their children for the parents' benefit. If you've ever watched behind the scenes videos of children / family / momma blogs or content creators, it is clear that the children are

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[Murdoch5]

In general, the parents have consent over the child, and in sometimes that makes sense. If my child doesn't want to get a vaccine, at age 4, it's not their call. If they don't want the vaccine at 16, well, that's a different story. We ask kids what they want for Christmas, Easter, birthdays, so I don't think asking them if you can violate them on social media is too much to ask.

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[fropenn]

Oh boy, when the school uploaded details about my kids on Twitter, that was a bad week for the school and the board. We didn't authorize the school to do that, and, we're on record telling them they can never share the girls details on social media, without their explicit consent.

I'm not sure why a school needs to have a Twitter account anyway?
The legality of sharing is a bit muddy, which is what this California law is trying to address one aspect of it. It does get complicated, for example, if the school took a photo of children walking to school (on a public sidewalk), there generally would be no means to demand that not be posted by anyone (no expectation of privacy in a public space). And even the school took a generic photo (e.g., welcome back 3rd graders!) with no names or ad

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[Murdoch5]

It's not simple, but it's also not complicated, just ask the student, and check with the parents. Our schools and board have Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and they actively post pictures of children to them. You could be standing in the hall, and have someone snap your picture, and up it goes. It could be a club, or a sport event, or even the teacher in class (holy bleep, another story). As you pointed out, the expectation of privacy in public is low, and I honestly can't object to having a public pi

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[fropenn]

The school has to respect that choice, what's the point of asking consent, teaching about consent, and then ignoring it outright?

Seems like they are missing the most important step, which is verifying that those in the photo have consented! Sort of like keeping the car at the rental agency when I have a reservation...kind of the most important step.

I don't know what they would do if a parent signed the waiver but the child disagreed with the parent, or if the person taking the photo asked for permission on the spot and the child consented (even though they had a no photos status).

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[Murdoch5]

Let's assume one of the daughters consented on the spot, they would know they had, and would just tell us, problem solved. There is a problem when you consider if a child should be able to consent, not from a legal standpoint, from an education standpoint. My daughters know the dangers, I live in cybersecurity, they haven't been spared from reality. They know when the picture goes up, it's up, you can't get it back, just assume it gone forever, to be misused by anyone for any reason.

I like the Seinfeld

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[rta]

Well, if people know you then "daughters" doesn't pass as adequate anonymization.

And it's we take the moralistic line of TFA, then even your message here exploited them for credibility... and to have a post at all.

Also did your mother consent to being ridiculed in your content on slashdot? are you giving her a cut off your karma and earnings?

My point is that I agree parents and people should tread lightly in some ways, but this way of thinking would criminalize a lot of normal social communication.

it's a

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[Murdoch5]

Fair points, if you know me well enough to know my daughters, you know them. There's a difference between knowing who they are, and being able to actively engage with them via social media through exploitation. Just knowing me isn't enough to know who they are, I don't even introduce them, they have to introduce themselves, I'll just keep them anonymous. You would have no idea if one of the girls here was my daughter or their friend, unless we're close enough you've been introduced, and to me that about t

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[rta]

Did my mom give consent to be ridiculed, no, but you also don't know who she is, and the point of brining that up was to show that I don't mind who you are. No one has the right to exploit another person, just because they want to, ...

From the POV of old school anonymity and privacy i agree with you, but i'm also arguing about the fact that now more than ever everything is "content" and can therefore be "monetized" or exploited as such at least in theory.

So it's not JUST your daughters' and mother's NIL rights ( "name, identity, likeness" in the ncaa sense https://www.ncaa.org/sports/20... [ncaa.org]) that we're talking about, but also just their very activities as content. So your post here benefits from their actions in that it provides an an

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[Murdoch5]

Ya, it's a difficult question, but in any case the girls get a say in how their likeness is used.

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[Moridineas]

I wonder how this is different from....child actors and actresses? Child beauty pageants? Etc. Plenty of parents financially benefit in some way from their kids. Could, or should, Macaulay Culkin be able to get Home Alone taken down? I don't know.

I'm all in favor of allowing now-adults to clean the slate. I think your philosophy is a good one, and it's one I try to follow.

A guy I know has a troubled kid. He posted so many intimate details of that kid's life from birth through age about 15--everything from d

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[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Mostly just in the bulk, low barriers to entry, and pervasiveness(like a lot of things social media). The case of actors actually goes back a long way; state laws [sagaftra.org] regarding compensation of child actors were spurred by the case of one who was popular in the 1920s and litigated with his parents over where the money wasn't in 1939. That case doesn't provide for takedowns; but it's also the case that filmmakers are normally looking for children to play characters; rather than to do 'candid' intense documentarie

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[sabbede]

You won't send your own mother pictures of her granddaughters? That's messed up.

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[Murdoch5]

How's that messed up? The girls don't want their pictures sitting on a digital subscription-based frame, and I can't blame them. They've offered to be a still picture for her, but they don't want to be uploaded into the cloud for no reason. I also don't withhold her being able to come over, or stop us from going to see her, so there just isn't a good reason to submit to digital violation because my mother wants them to.

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[sarren1901]

I agree with your stance. Now here is a great opportunity for you to make your own digital frame, put intentionally taken photos on the SD card the device runs on, and away you go. It would make a wonderful gift, require zero Internet connection and unless your mother really understands the tech AND has no respect for her granddaughters privacy, those pictures should stay quite safe on the digital photo frame. It's a win win all around.

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[Murdoch5]

Funny thing, I did, it's on a Raspberry Pi, but my mother doesn't like it because the touch controls are different, and she has to use a SD card.

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[sarren1901]

Doh! That was literally the direction I'd of gone as well. I guess there is no pleasing some people.

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[thegarbz]

If the child mentioned didn't give you consent to share details about them, don't.

While I agree with you in principle (it's a horrendously bad idea to dox your kids online), the concept of asking children for consent is silly. The entire legal framework we have devised is one of authority over children.

A better answer would be just don't do it, and ban them from doing it too (as a good parent should). Their opinion or consent shouldn't come into it.

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[Murdoch5]

It's more important to us, they understand the real-world risks, and decide based off that. We still need to discuss things, but ultimately at their age, they'll do what they want, and so the best course is to educate them.

paid family content creators

[MpVpRb]

WTF?
This is one of the stupidest things I've seen
How stupid can stupid get before it all collapses into a black hole of stupidity?

Why only 'paid'?

[jenningsthecat]

A California bill would let adults demand the removal of social media posts about them that were created by paid family content creators when they were minors.

Before I rant, I'll just say that yes, I know there's really no effective way to put social media toothpaste back into the tube. Once it's out there, it's out there - the internet can have a pretty relentless memory.

Having said that, I now ask: Why are social and reputational matters being wedged into the context of, and made contingent on, fucking commerce?

ANY minor, upon coming of age, should be able to demand the removal of ALL social media posts made about them by ANYONE. That includes posts which they themselves made.

The presumption is that minors aren't capable of informed consent - because of lack of maturity, experience, and brain development. That lack of capability has nothing to do with whether or not the people who made the posts profited from those activities.

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[sabri]

ANY minor, upon coming of age, should be able to demand the removal of ALL social media posts made about them by ANYONE. That includes posts which they themselves made.

I don't know in which country you live, but here I live, there is the freedom of speech as recorded in an apparently little-known law called ... The First Amendment.

As long as you're not libelous/slanderous/violating secret clearances or gag orders, you can post anything the F you want.

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[sarren1901]

Hmm. Sorry. No. If I take a picture of you in public, I can post that anywhere I want and there is nothing you can do about it. Speaking strictly of adults in actual public locations.

With that said, I do feel children that come of age should be able to request this be taken offline. It's still out there as the Internet doesn't tend to forget, but it's a step in the right direction. Whether it was for money or not shouldn't matter.

So glad all my mom has are a couple old photo albums that never got digitalize

You sure you want to be doing this right now?

[karmawarrior]

Hey CA,

Listen, I'm not saying this is a bad idea. Parents should have some control here, and yes, them having some control over their kid's blogs makes a little bit of sense though I can see occasions in which it could be abused.

But do you REALLY want to be focusing on this right now rather than undoing the giant fuck up you did with parental controls? You had the germ of a good idea there (let computers be configured to have some control over what's visible) but you mandated the wrong people - operating systems to have the functionality, instead of apps and websites using the functionality with strict privacy controls on what can be asked for and how often.

So you already did a giant fuck up, swathes of the software ecosystem are now withdrawing and blocking CA, and you want to add more laws without (1) undoing the last one and (2) having some introspection and figuring out how you managed to pass such an ill thought out law in the first place?

Knock it off! You're supposed to be the non-fascist beacon in these depressing times and you're handling Palintir your entire citizenry on a plate because you can't think further than "but the children!"

 

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[jenningsthecat]

... you're handling Palintir your entire citizenry on a plate ...

Too late - they already handed the keys and the contents to Palantir a long time ago.

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[Powercntrl]

You had the germ of a good idea there (let computers be configured to have some control over what's visible) but you mandated the wrong people - operating systems to have the functionality, instead of apps and websites using the functionality with strict privacy controls on what can be asked for and how often.

We have age gating at the website level here in Florida. Some adult sites complied by blocking Florida IP addresses from accessing the site, some sites actually are doing the age checks (which is a potential privacy issue), and since the internet is worldwide with site operators being unaware of individual state laws (or just not caring since they're outside of Florida's legal reach) - there's also adult sites that are just ignoring the law.

Yours is the first I've seen of someone actually praising this mes

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[Powercntrl]

There's no strawman here. Your proposal requires the individual adult app and website vendors on the global internet to comply with state laws requiring they do $THING. We can argue all day long about how you want to define $THING, but ultimately the flaw rests in the belief that you'll be able to get a myriad of different companies to implement any form of age gating in a privacy-respecting manner.

Again, at the OS level, all three major commercial OS vendors are US-based companies operating under then ju

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[karmawarrior]

Why are you still lying about what I wrote? And now what you wrote?

I propose:

1. Requiring only that third party apps and websites respect a mechanism built into the OS if available.
2. Placing strict privacy controls on that mechanism.

You claim that this means:

1. Requiring third party apps and websites use invasive third party age verification systems or block justisdictions
2. Claim you didn't say the above when in fact you did. You wrote: "We have age gating at the website level here in Florida. Some adult

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[Powercntrl]

I propose:

1. Requiring only that third party apps and websites respect a mechanism built into the OS if available.

And how do you plan to enforce this? If it's just a toothless guideline, you may as well skip the disingenuousness and say that no new legislation is necessary.

if a company wants to do business in CA, it has always had to obey the local laws. That didn't change because of the Internet.

It did change with the internet, because unless your state firewalls off everything that doesn't follow the local laws, you're going to run into situations like with 4chan. [techradar.com] Ironically, 4chan could possibly end up getting blocked in the UK for exactly this reason.

Now, this time I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt this time and not assume

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[karmawarrior]

Moderators are, for some reason, modding my post down pointing this out, so once again:

The above comment is a complete misrepresentation of what I said. A lie indeed. In no way can my original comment be interpreted as meaning that I am in favor of Florida style age verification laws.

Powercntl doubtless has his own reasons for claiming that. But it's quite simply a lie. I proposed nothing more than CA mandating that if an OS has an optional age verification feature be there, it be used by apps and web sites

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[sarren1901]

(2) having some introspection

We're talking about politicians here. Introspection has no part in what they are doing. I've never heard or read of one ever accepting they might of possibly, maybe, on the off chance, could have ever made any kind of mistake ever.

who has to do what?

[kencurry]

which parent of whose kid has to do what by when? It's got more prepositions than 8th grade language class.

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[thegarbz]

It's got more prepositions than 8th grade language class.

Hey as long as don't got pronouns all good!

People are leaving this state

[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

and moving to Texas and Florida, and the politburo doesn't understand why. They just can't understand.

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[fropenn]

Texas and Florida are bad places to be a child.

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[noshellswill]

Who would live anywhere, but Jacksonville ? Dirt cheap, while Talbot Isle Park has Big Sur vibes and ... the savages are controlled !

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[sarren1901]

That literally sounds like California.

Those who live near the coast, and those that live in the shit-hole that is the rest of the state.

Ironically, I find both the rural areas of both states rather nice and peaceful. I've lived in both. I prefer the dry heat over the wet heat, so I stay in California. I really miss all the greenery in Florida and all the lakes and what not. We do have lots of cool mountains and deserts here in SoCal, but it's all pretty much a blend of brown colors that gets old after a while. Still, humidity is terrible.

Huh

[cascadingstylesheet]

Do I have to burn their physical snapshots and portrait photos too?

I'm not sure this has been really thought through ...

monetize their children's lives: AKA exploitation

[Fly Swatter]

I think there may be existing laws for this - try to enforce them or something.