Florida banns social media for minors. (2 Viewers)

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KitaYama

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In Florida, as of January 1, 2025, children under 14 are barred from establishing social media accounts under a new law enacted by Governor Ron DeSantis.

The legislation requires 14- and 15-year-olds to obtain parental consent to maintain accounts on social media platforms equipped with algorithms and ‘certain addictive features.’

Some comments from Instagram :
-But they can still play with guns.​
-I will decide what's best for my family not the government.​
-How to lose all future elections​
-I don’t disagree with the idea of this but I disagree with giving the government. This kind of control over social media platforms.​
-whether they need it or not is irrelevant. It's still not the government's job to come into my home and dictate what I do or what I allow.​
-This will save millions of children from the LGBTQ​

nypost.com

Ron DeSantis signs law banning Florida kids under 14 from social media, restricts access for under-16s

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis approved legislation Monday prohibiting minors under the age of 14 from using social media and mandating 14-and-15-year-olds obtain parental consent before logging on.
nypost.com nypost.com

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moke123 said:
In reading the text of the law , it appears only the social media company faces sanctions, not the kid or parents.
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How they can confirm the age of a member? All you need to join is a phone No.
How the law expects them to delete existing account? They may find a way to ask for confirmation of age on creating new accounts, but there's no way to check the age of existing accounts owners. And how to limit it to Florida?

Are you sure the law sanctions the social media companies and not parents?
Because if it's what you say, it makes no sense. There are a million way to bypass that.
 
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KitaYama said:
How they can confirm the age of a member? All you need to join is a phone No.
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And therein lies the problem - verification is not possible unless you have some kind of usable video camera or require an ID from another source. But when you do, there goes personal privacy right out the window - because that is how hackers get in and steal your identity. The social media sites, because they are web-based, HAVE to allow people web access - it's their business model. But web-sites are inherently easier to hack and thus require more stringent ID methods to prevent hacking, which sends privacy out the window. And you DO have privacy in the penumbra of "no unwarranted search and seizure" - though it wasn't enough to maintain Roe v Wade.

Some lawyer posted something a long time ago and I didn't understand it so well then. Don't remember who posted it, but what they said was something like: The REAL work of law comes on the fringes between rights.
 
The_Doc_Man said:
And therein lies the problem - verification is not possible unless you have some kind of usable video camera or require an ID from another source.
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I don't know how things work over there. But here, purchasing a mobile needs ID cards even for kids. So the ISP knows the exact age of the owner. Apps on mobiles owned by a kid behave differently. Instant messaging apps are built in a way to sensor pre defined words, phrases, etc. The web browsers don't connect to porn sites or sites that's not supposed to be visited by minors. There are a lot of other limits to the apps on phones owned by kids. The mobile itself, is a normal mobile, but it's the apps that control the use (hours being on social media, the sites the owner visits etc).
Once you are over a certain age, every limitation is dropped.

These limits, has nothing to do with the company that runs a site, It completely depends on owners and their parents.
If what @moke123 says is correct, I don't know how anyone can confirm if the law is followed? A simple vpn is all they need to bypass everything.
 
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So you have ID from another source. But here in the USA we have 50 states with 50 different sets of laws on IDs. And kids have ALWAYS founds ways around their parents' restrictions. Further, once the kids have found that way around the blocks, they will get apps that aren't so restrictive. It is a basic principle of computer security that it doesn't really exist when the goal of the computer-based company is to have customers. You HAVE to let people in, and that selectivity of access is the chimera. Once one kid on TikTok finds a hack, how long do you think it will take for every kid to have it?

It is not in the best interest of businesses to restrict access, so you have yet another conflict on the fringes - between protection of kids and protection of a business that has a legitimate (if sometimes slightly shady) self-interest in whatever it is they advertise, present, or sell. This question is caught in the fringes. And just to add two more fringes, this issue is ALSO caught between parental interests and the absolutely natural, predictable, and unquenchable desire of kids to push back on every boundary as they explore their world. This is now, every day and in every way, a losing battle that still has to be fought. We are actually just talking about family dynamics in the modern era where young but precocious kids are part of the family.
 
The sign-up (social media) is a contract that minors can't legally enter into without parental permission in most states. So it's kind of moot.
 
AccessBlaster said:
The sign-up (social media) is a contract that minors can't legally enter into without parental permission in most states. So it's kind of moot.
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Problem is that the only repercussions are against the website, not the kid or their parents. Kudos to porn-hub for blocking access to texas in response to their law. Wait till facebook, tiktok, and the rest block Florida's access.
 
I recently read a YouTube article regarding how many people rely on the Internet to communicate because letters, postcards, greeting cards, and even phone calls are a thing of the past. One of our friends depends on Facebook to keep in touch with her friends in the other states where she has lived. If any of the relevant states blocked access, she would be distraught to near panic. @moke123, I think this is one of those things that will result in the old adage being proven correct again: The only really rich people these days are politicians and lawyers. They make money when and where no one else can.
 
The_Doc_Man said:
If any of the relevant states blocked access, she would be distraught to near panic.
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And like many people she probably has no clue what a vpn is.

In the porn-hub instance, i would think that they would be insulated against punishment by the user making an affirmative act of bypassing the IP block with a vpn.
 
Parents should be making these decisions about what's proper in terms of their children's well-being. I view this law in Florida to be a stunt by DeSantis.
 
Like many laws, they mean well but are either unenforceable or otherwise poorly conceived.

What is the real problem?

The real problem is that we do not value our children the way that the Chinese do. The Chinese do not allow TicToc or any other social media platform to feed their children garbage that will harm them emotionally or physically. Whether TicToc, the Chinese company, would have done this of their own volition or they are as evil and greedy as most American companies, we'll never know.

If we valued our children above all else, that would permeate the culture and we would not have to pass laws to protect our children. Companies would go out of their way to do it for us because it affects their children also. Disney used to be such a company before they lost their way. We used to be able to trust Disney. We used to be able to trust our school librarians. These people/institutions are no longer deserving of our trust. Hell, we used to be able to trust 60 Minutes. Not any more.

The evil is that FB, and the other Social Media companies do not do this of their own volition. From their perspective, they need to sell ads. The more ads they sell, the more money they make. They need to get users. The more users that use their platform, the more personal data they can collect and sell. This selling of personal data should have been squashed as a money making option from the beginning but it wasn't. Europe has made inroads into protecting user data but we haven't. Therefore, FB and the other SM platforms strive to be as addictive as possible. They don't care whether they are addicting adults or children. Their objective is to keep you locked in as long as humanly possible and to keep you coming back. Look around a restaurant. Are the people engaging with their dining partners or playing with their phones?

Keep in mind that the creators of this new narcotic do not allow their own children to partake. They protect them from what they personally know is an evil objective.
 
Pat Hartman said:
The real problem is that we do not value our children the way that the Chinese do.
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Mothers these days are too quick to fob off their children to any Tom, Dick or Harry to look after whilst they go to work because they love the fact that someone else brings up the kid. Any mother who passes their child around like a bag of sweets must to be seriously deranged.
They happily employ nannies / housekeepers, often on less than minimum wage (so they get a second job, often in the lucrative sex industry) whilst the parents coin it in without the hassle of child rearing - which after all is a mother's job in life. Of course the kid grows up with no real guidance of life, so again, the mother allows the kid to run riot and does things like smashing up Congress building for a laugh.
If parents can't afford the kid, keep your legs together or get an abortion.
Col
 
ColinEssex said:
If parents can't afford the kid, keep your legs together or get an abortion.
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I don't say anything to answer to what you said about mothers who take their kids to daycare centers (nannies) to be able to work, but I won't because I think it can not change your mind. So I bypass that section.
But I'm curious about the above statement.

Do you really think that having children should be limited to the wealthy layer of a society? And how you draw the line? For example according to your idea, from how much annual income a couple in UK can say : Well let's have a child.
 
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KitaYama said:
Do you really think that having children should be limited to the wealthy layer of a society? And how you draw the line? For example according to your idea, from how much annual income a couple in UK can say : Well let's have a child.
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Only the parents can decide if they can afford to raise a child properly. It's a big responsibility not to be taken lightly in a fit of passion. Women are designed to raise children, if they can't do it responsibly they should think twice.
Col
 
I think it's OK. We ban kids from many other things, in fact liberals are just as often the ones doing it - banning from Juul, banning from cigarettes, banning from no helmet riding, etc. etc.

If we can ban them from buying nicotine, why can't we ban them from entering into one of the most emotionally destructive things on the planet - social media? I don't have it myself, it's so damaging, and I'm not a child. At least in terms of the facebook, insta-compare, and stuff like that.
 
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