2y ago

Google urges US lawmakers not to ban teenagers from social media.

indusbusinessjournal.com /2023/10/google-urges-us-lawmakers-not-to-ban-teenagers-from-social-media/

Google urges US lawmakers not to ban teenagers from social media.::San Francisco– Google has asked the US Congress not to ban teenagers from social media, urging lawmakers to drop problematic protections like age-verification technology. The tech giant released its ‘Legislative Framework to Protect Children and Teens Online’ that came as more lawmakers, like Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), pushed for the Kids Online Safety Act, a …

37 comments

There's no way to enforce an age ban on anything Internet related without serious privacy violations.
- I believe the States have that already, with their age verification bullshit for porn. Doesn't seem like serious privacy violations are a concern for them.
  
  There's nothing like that in the US that I'm aware of, though some states have tried.
While I'm not really that fond of the government telling people what websites they can and can't visit, this would probably be a net good for kids. The fact that Google is against probably means doubly so.
- This is a response to the very bad kids online safety act. See EFF's post for details on why it is bad: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/kids-online-safety-act-heavy-handed-plan-force-platforms-spy-young-people
  EFF's article is better, but here are some of the details of why it is bad. The effect of kids online safety act will be censorship and tracking of kids online when research suggests that is counterproductive for the age group being added. Would require more detailed tracking of everyone, not just kids. Services likely would need to block certain content from everyone to reduce liability to a reasonable level. They would potentially be liable if kids got access to content even when it wasn't for kids no matter how the kids got access (lying, using someone else's account, bypassing filters, etc.). Content to be blocked is vague and open to be interpretation by the most conservative people in the US, which is obviously problematic. The previous COPPA needs updating, but the version of kids online safety act has so far been financially flawed.
- Yeah I’m not into the government limiting the internet at all. Also, sometimes the internet is a safe haven for people who are alone or have trouble with their peers. Anonymity can help also get things off your chest, and be yourself. Although the big social media players aren’t about anonymity.
  Young pre-Autism me was helped greatly by the early internet and chat rooms. And adult me really is surviving socially online due to living in an area hostile to me and and indifferent at best. Discord, Matrix, and IRC have great communities that have made me feel welcome and share interests. I’d be completely isolated and alone without them.
  But notice I didn’t say traditional social media. I don’t like algorithms manipulating and all the tracking.
  
  Yeah the obvious solution is to ban harvesting and storing of especially identifying data and the associated targeted ads etc but that will certainly never happen.
  
  Yeah, just like most things, banning kids from social media would be especially harmful to minorities, be they LGBTQ+, neuroatypical, what have you
  
  I suspect that if this does pass it will have about as much efficacy as preventing kids from looking at online pornography.
  Many of the more technical-focused communication tools like IRC and Matrix will probably not even notice the change
The legislation doesn't ban teens from social media. It adds rules social networks have to comply with so they don't harm teenagers.
- Yeaaahhh... Have you been missing all of the news around KOSA? Google is a broken clock in this instance. KOSA is another one of those, "we'll use the kids to ban what we don't like" kinda laws. Wikipedia has a general overview of the criticism against it. The gist of it is that it's not only limited to social media, and it's worded vaguely enough that it gives the states the power to decide what's harmful for children.
  Can you guess who's the most excited about it and why?
  
  I'm very disappointed that Warren is even part of this. Would be huge giveaway to pro-birthers and anti-equality people.
- Those rules are harmful to teenagers
  
  The rules include things like "do not run ads for strawberry flavored nicotine vapes that are blatantly intended to be sold to kids". That's not harmful to teenagers.
  There might be other rules that are harmful, I haven't looked over the whole thing, but if Google has a problem with them how about explaining that instead of making false statements. This is clearly not a blanket ban on social media.
  
  How so? Genuinely asking.
Without teens and boomers, social media would be dead.
- Good, ban boomers too, then.

37 comments