The legislation would also prohibit cellphone use during the school day.
genuine question but can i ask why restricting minors from social media is such a bad thing? im obviously not as educated so im viewing this surface level, but wouldnt this theoretically lead to better overall outcomes? i feel like social media has done a decent amount more harm than good, no?
the reason why it's bad because it will make everyone have to verify their age to use social media which can create bad privacy risks such as having their ids exposed on the internet, putting people at risk for identity theft.
no, the reason it's bad is that social media is a huge part of how people communicate with friends and family, express their ideas and beliefs, form and sustain community, develop individual and group identities, and participate in democratic society, and children have the right to do all of those things because they are human beings.
these laws are not bad (just) because of their side effects, they are bad because their stated goals are immoral.
and are there risks for children? yes.
but also.
here is a fact: kids want to connect to people.
and right now, the only real way to do that, for many, is online.
it's not just the unwalkability of us neighborhoods. it's not just the restrictions by parents on where and how their kids can move.
first of all, offline spaces for kids are few and far between, and when they do exist, kids are often prohibited from accessing them by parents. i wasn't allowed to walk to my local library on my own until i was twelve or thirteen. (to be clear, it was under a mile away, i had the ability to contact them via a smart watch, and i'd been there before.)
and in the us in particular, there often aren't things within walking/biking distance. that library i mentioned was all of one room, was typically unaccessible (open tuesday, thursday and saturday; twenty-one hours a week, with 14 hours and 10 minutes, tops, being actually accessible given the high school hours). glancing around the neighborhood now, i could walk to such exciting places as (checks google maps) a notary, several places to do one's taxes, a gas station, or a paint store. to be fair, there is also a walkable playground, more pizza places than seems possible for a town of that size to support, and a swimming pool, but on days with bad weather (and this is pittsburgh, so a fair number of days) that aren't tuesday and thursday, a kid growing up there, even if allowed, and even if there are sidewalks, wouldn't be able to do much (not without the relentless shadow of consumerism hanging over them at the pizza places, anyway.)
now, let's compare my grandparents' home when i was growing up. glancing around on google maps, it looks like there's even less. seriously, it looks like a soulcrushing dystopia from above. where the fuck is a kid who lives there supposed to go to hang out with friends? walgreens?
meanwhile, for many queer kids, access to online spaces is a lifeline -- literally, sometimes. being able to know you're not alone is incredibly powerful, being able to know that there are words for what you are beyond whatever slurs your parents/society calls you is powerful.
people don't tell the stories of those kids, because it's in no one's interest. the big corporate companies don't want to offend anyone, so they're not going to highlight the story of the queer kid who realized they were queer via social media. and goodness knows the parents aren't going to be publicizing that story.
are there real and valid dangers social media poses? yes. absolutely.
i said this in the tags of another post, and i'm slightly reworking it:
if you're a queer kid in a queerphobic environment, the internet can be incredibly helpful. furthermore, the way these rules work, either only big tech will be able to afford age-gating, or people will migrate to smaller forums and then the lawmakers will panic and extend it over them as well. and I'm younger than some of the big tech companies. I don't remember an era without social media. the first website where I really interacted with other people in a way that wasn't specifically aimed at kids, I was probably twelve, and it was the comments section of a website went down about six months after I joined. it was a tiny community, the posts were infrequent, and it was held together, so far as I can tell, by sheer optimism. I loved it. fuck, I still do. I adored it. it showed me what the internet could be.
yeah, maybe the space wasn't intentional. yeah, maybe it wasn't made for human connection. so what? that's the beauty of those spaces. human communication networks are like dandelions -- they spring up, and, no matter how hard people try to get rid of them, they just. keep. coming. they will grow from a crack in the sidewalk.
and there will always, always, be a crack in the sidewalk.
anyway, as dragon-in-a-fez mentioned somewhere else, enjoy Ageless Linux.
Go forth and break the law, California children!
Also, gonna put this out there: About ten years ago, I met someone on Tumblr who was in an extremely bad situation. We're talking neglect and abuse on the level of "I'm hoarding food from school in my room because sometimes my parents don't feed me as punishment." Corporal punishment (already not great) severe enough to leave bruises. Fourteen years old. She was afraid to talk to a school counselor because if there was even the slightest suggestion she herself had gotten CPS involved, and they didn't immediately remove her from the home, there'd be hell to pay. ...so I asked if she'd like me to call her school, because as an adult I might be taken more seriously, and that way there'd be a chain of custody for the report that led away from her. (This is not something I encourage except in dire circumstances. Anyone who casually asks for identifying information this personal online should not be trusted. And yes, I did make it clear to her that I was only asking because her physical safety was at risk and that under normal circumstances I would absolutely not.) She said yes. I did. I heavily impressed upon her principal her fears that she might suffer harm if her parents believed she'd pulled the metaphorical trigger. The principal was a mandatory reporter, and now an outside adult was involved, so a report was going to be made. She was removed from her parents' house and put into foster care. Still not a fantastic situation, but she was safe and fed. It was better than it had been. What might have happened to her if she hadn't had access to an adult who could say "no, what you are going through is not normal and it's not okay, and I can provide a shield of deniability to get you the fuck out of there"? Kids who are abused need a safety net and are often isolated from others. It's far from a desirable situation, but sometimes the internet is where they find that safety net. And yes, that comes with risks as well, and that fucking sucks. But if your kid is in such dire straits that they're willing to say "yes, please call my school, I'm afraid" to a stranger online, there is a far bigger problem than your kid talking to strangers, and that problem is that they are so isolated there is absolutely nobody they can turn to for help in real life. They don't need to be isolated further.
Also, anybody thirteen and under is already effectively banned from social media, because no social media site is willing to do the extra work involved in complying with COPPA re users thirteen and under. Which invites the question of, what is this bill really trying to accomplish, that they think they can get away with if it's presented as necessary for protecting children?
