This bill must be funded by VPN services because anyone who thinks teens won’t figure out a workaround has never tried to stop teens from anything. Disobeying is what they do on an evolutionary level.
Also using sites such as "This Person Doesn't Exist" to generate am AI pic of a human could be used for profile pics.
Good, the kids could use the tech experience
spot-on observation. always follow the money
Banning Social Media FOR KIDS. Is just a quick means to spy on what ADULTS are getting up to on the Internet. Right now if you don't want to ID yourself to go see cat pics/videos on Instagram/TikTok, you can just sign up for an account and go searching for cat pics/videos. With this bill, if you want to go find cat pics/videos on Instagram/TikTok in the state of Florida, you'll have to submit a government ID to verify that you're not a kid, and I'd believe for about as long as I can breathe water that the linking of my real identity/government ID with a social media account will have no negative real world outcomes.
Cybersecurity is something that almost nobody takes seriously. I used to say that nobody takes it seriously until they're hurt by their poor cyber hygiene, but these days the insurance policies pay the same either way so companies/people still do the bare minimum and call it a day.
I'd much rather pay a VPN provider to be out of that jurisdiction than ever give anyone anything that concretely ties my online persona to my actual identity and it's just incredible that lawmakers so fundamentally misunderstand how this all works that they don't know it's that easy.
Is this based on a gov ID? I didn't see that in the article.
How else do you think they'd do age verification? It's the same way they do it for porn sites, you upload you DL/passport/ID to verify your age. The difference here is that now these ~~data broker~~ social media companies now have a hard link to your identity instead of a pretty strong inference, and are able to shore up their advertising profiles in an unprecedented way.
Sounds totally enforceable!
It would also require that social media sites use "reasonable age verification methods" to verify users' ages.
Please no :/
That'll end well...
The smarter kids will just go in and change their bday or create a new account that has them old enough. The only way to prevent that is to make them verify ID on every single person logging in from a Florida based ip or is a resident. But, what about those who are traveling from other states, should they also be forced to upload ID? I'm going to say no.
NOBODY should have to to upload any sort of ID to use the internet. The issue began when corporations started getting involved. Fuck Ajit Pai, Ethan Zuckerman and the political world all tied to this. Amazon is trying to force people to upload ID for refunds.. pathetic.
Oh I wholly agree. The point of that was to illustrate what you have to do to enforce it properly. It's the same as trying to force porn sites to ID their users.
As for Amazon, I have not heard anything about this and I recently did a couple of returns with no request for my license. Also, you may not be aware but stores like home depot already require ID to return items and they (with the help of a 3rd party) keep a credit file of sorts on you and uses that determine who has been abusing the return process.
This is very obviously unenforceable
At least not without major violations to privacy.
It's a feature
Yep. It's a direct violation of freedom of speech fair one thing.
Sure it is. Platforms could for example close online sign ups and make people go to a physical location to open an account. Just like with banks. This of course will not pass but the issue is not that you can't enforce age limit. Banks do it. Online banks also do it. The issue is that enforcing this would kill the platforms.
No one should be banned from equal internet access for any reason. 🤦🤦🤦
See, this is why I hate DeSantis and the right wing. They crow about freedom of speech from one end and shit crap like this out of the other.
what a fucking dogshit state. not that social media is good for anyone, but restricting kids from one of their main forms of communication / news / outlet to the world is just designed to be obnoxious.
even best case scenario, active malice aside, these people somehow have zero memory of what it was like to be a kid; having to wake up for school at 6am and do endless homework for no material benefit, and now this
Wow, broken clock and all that.
Stopped clock, a broken clock may never be right.
A stopped clock is right specifically twice a day. Any broken clock is right eventually. the only way a clock can be never right is if it works properly and is only desynchronized.
A stopped clock could be stopped because it's broken
I can get behind the spirit of the bill, but I wouldn’t hold my breath when it comes to enforcement.
The spirit behind the bill is "We need more control over the children so we can indoctrinate them ourselves!"
And to stifle their voices
Or just let them discover random fucking propaganda on their own and bad examples on social media and become an Andrew Tate jr by the age of 17 or some extremist little fucker, or just be an indecent human being if you don't want such an extreme example.
This bill will do jack shit, but so are the parents who put smartphones in their kids hands as early as possible and let them browse the internet unsupervised.
Just to be clear I do not agree with the bill in this form and the whole "provide an ID" bullshit, but I really don't think young children should be allowed on social media.
Florida has been banning books talking about racism and LGBT people from school library. I guarantee to you, this is not about preventing anyone from becoming extremist fuckers.
I know you are right and they are just using the "save our children" sentiment to manipulate people. On the other hand I just really-really hate social media and the younger generation should be better off without it.
What really should happen is a very thorough widespread PSA campaign across all media including social media itself to educate parents about the risks of social media and how to set up filters so that children don't get to access just about anything on the internet.
why
What is Gaetz going to do?
Nothing will change. The adult filters didn't work 30+ years ago and they don't work now.
I see at least 2 ways around this depending on how it's implemented.
Or
This is just one more waste of time that will be struck down by a court assuming it makes into law.
He could try dating a little older. 17 for example
For once Florida is doing something good.
At least it would be if they weren't simply doing this to prevent kids from becoming more informed.
Eh… yes and no. On the one hand, kids are undoubtedly addicted to social media, and their screen time should be limited for the sake of their mental health.
On the other hand, this is absolutely not going to limit most kids time on social media. They aren’t idiots, and some of them are (properly) tech savvy. Meaning a bunch of kids are going to find an easy workaround, and spread that info around.
And this is almost certainly going to result in an ID requirement similar to the laws requiring ID for porn sites in certain companies. And unlike PornHub, I don’t trust that Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or the others are going to actually have integrity when it comes to ID laws.
I'd agree if the ban extended to news articles online.
It doesn't.
Bah they’ll just do it in secret instead of openly.
Ah yes, just what Florida needs: even more closeted everything.
Can't go on the Internet, can't go in public restrooms... Land of freedom.
First Amendment violation
Well, it's about 15 years too late, but I guess better to have this discussion now than never.
Why don't they just tax the websites you access? VPNs would go crazy
How?
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
