Kids under 13 would be banned from social media under new bipartisan bill. Here's what parents want.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

WASHINGTON — Your kids may finally have to put their phone down after a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to set age restrictions on social media.

The lawmakers introduced a bill Wednesday that bans children younger than 13 from using social media platforms and requires parental consent for those between the ages of 13 and 17.

The move is among the first major bipartisan effort in Congress to restrict platforms for children and comes after lawmakers have recently pushed to make online platforms safer for children, including efforts to ban TikTok and regulate Instagram.

However, parents told USA TODAY they are skeptical of the legislation and whether it would be effective in addressing the rapidly emerging concerns over minors’ use of social media.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kids-under-13-would-be-banned-from-social-media-under-new-bipartisan-bill-here-s-what-parents-want/ar-AA1avGtx

[Rebl2]

1. Well good

luck with that. Kids seem to always find a way. Said by someone who never had kids.

[Demsrule86]

3. I find that ridiculous...and those Democrats should not be involved in this.

[Buckeyeblue]

2. I think guns are a bigger issue

But what do I know?

[Rebl2]

5. Yes👍

[Ferrets are Cool]

18. Ding, ding.

We have a winna!!!

[JanLip]

37. Totally agree

Jan

[Stuart G]

44. Yes, Yes, and Yes..

[dalton99a]

4. 20 years too late

[Rebl2]

6. Definitely

Hard to put the genie back int the bottle.

[Ferrets are Cool]

17. If that is what YOU want to enforce with your kids, fine. Go for it.

Having legislation governing MY kids is government censorship.

[LostOne4Ever]

8. Dear Democratic Party members supporting this

Don’t. You are undermining our future voting base.

Sincerely,

One of many many democratic voters under the age of 80

[Scrivener7]

9. I'm the outlier here. I think it's a great idea.

[Dan]

10. How do they plan to enforce it?

Some parents have to ask their children how to do things on their phones, iPads, Computers…etc.

[orleans]

41. how would they enforce it? fine and jail parents if their kid is online? omg! lol!!! nt

[edisdead]

42. seriously?

Again how would you enforce it?

How old am I? Do you know?

Am I 12? 18? 37? 84?


How old am I? You want to force age identification? Probably no problems there huh?

[Raftergirl]

11. I don't have a problem with that.

The summer camp I sent my kid to from age 6 to 13, didn’t allow phones or any other electronic devices. The kids somehow managed to go for 7 weeks without them.

They actually had to use the phones in camp office to call home and were only allowed to do that once a week.

I was a pretty strict parent when it came to allowing my kid (who is now 29 so different environment then) to be online and I admit to cringing when I see very young kids with their faces buried in a smart phone.

I would probably be even stricter re phones/electronic devices if I were a parent of young children today.

[Ferrets are Cool]

16. How is this not government censorship?

What if my grandson wants to do nothing but go online and watch Pokemon videos? It is up to me or his parents to restrict porn sites.

[Raftergirl]

22. There are lots of things kids are not allowed to do by the government,

Buy cigarettes, buy or drink alcohol, buy firearms, drive a car, buy pornographic material, etc.

[Ferrets are Cool]

28. Yes, but what segment of alcohol, or firearms or driving a car or buying porn is

actually SAFE for a child? NONE OF IT. Your comparison is extremely flawed. There are LOTS and LOTS of segments of the internet that are safe for children...I would say MOST of it. Same can be said for social media. Sure, it has warts, but it MUST be up to the parents, not Government to supervise which ones are good for their child.

[Raftergirl]

33. I don't think children need to be on social media sites regardless of what the content is.

Just look what social media sites have done to adults! Most are cesspools of crazy people spouting nonsense.

We’d be a lot better off if none of us had access to social media sites.

I’ve binned Facebook and Twitter and never had TicTok, instagram or Snapchat.

Those sites are highly toxic at their worse and at best basically just a way to waste time.

You are free to have your opinion and I am free to have mine.

[edisdead]

43. How do you enforce it?

How do you enforce it without bringing about all sorts of other privacy issues?

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. What about Wikipedia? A similar bill in the UK may give everyone problems accessing it

UK readers may lose access to Wikipedia amid online safety bill requirements

Lucy Crompton-Reid, the chief executive of Wikimedia UK, warned the popular site could be blocked because it will not carry out age verification if required to do so by the bill.
...
“For example, educational text and images about sexuality could be misinterpreted as pornography,” she said.

She added: “The increased bureaucracy imposed by this bill will have the effect that only the really big players with significant compliance budgets will be able to operate in the UK market. This could have dire consequences on the information ecosystem here and is, in my view, quite the opposite of what the legislation originally set out to achieve.”

Rebecca MacKinnon, vice-president of global advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation, has said carrying out age verification would “violate our commitment to collect minimal data about readers and contributors”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/28/uk-readers-may-lose-access-to-wikipedia-amid-online-safety-bill-requirements

[quaint]

12. Drive kids under the covers.

[drray23]

13. bad idea. future voters. we don't want to be luddites.

It's up to the parents to regulate their child screen time. This could backfire mightily.

[Clash City Rocker]

14. This would only keep the honest kids off the internet

Photo IDs can be stolen and copied. So what, they just ask the kid’s age and trust him not to lie?

Maybe they could quiz them…

What is a VCR?
What musicians were in The Rolling Stones?
What were the names of the main characters on the TV show “Friends?”

But kids could find out that information.

[RKP5637]

15. I don't get it, how do they know how old a kid is? Also, someone can have an account and give

it to a kid. Being from IT, the implementation makes no sense to me.

[maxrandb]

20. The folks proposing it think the internet is a "series of tubes"

Don't see how it is enforced, or implemented.

I guess the "parental control tools" available on EVERY "EFFING" phone, tablet and computer is not good enough.

It's the same with the school "what are they teaching my kids" bullshit.

Just join the PTA, attend parent/teacher conferences, review the fucking curriculum every school is required to provide, or, here's a novel idea...TALK TO YOUR KIDS!!!!!

JFC on a Trailer Hitch

[Johnny2X2X]

19. Government knows best

Parents don’t apparently. This is a terrible idea.

[Ms. Toad]

21. I no more want the government telling me what activities I can allow my children to engage in

than I want them telling me what books they can read.

Somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14 my daughter taught herself to code on Neopets.

She's not alone:

https://www.codecademy.com/resources/blog/learning-to-code-myspace-neopets-html-css/
https://girlknowstech.com/beginning-coding-career-neopets/

My spouse and I checked out Neopets before allowing our daughter to hang out there. My spouse created an account for herself and joined a group of other parents similarly keeping track of their children's online interactions.

My daughter did not have access to a cell phone until she turned 16 and needed to have the ability to reach us when she was out alone driving. She didn't have a data plan on her phone until she was old enough to buy one for herself - sometime in her 20s. She also spent plenty of time outdoors and with real-life peers.

There are benefits and dangers to allowing younger children to use the internet. It is a parent's responsibility to be engaged enough with their children and what they are doing to strike a good balance.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

23. This is a deeply shitty move.

[NullTuples]

24. The last thing fascists want is tech savvy youth. This is a gift to them for multiple reasons.

Let's say it passes.

How will they verify a user is under 13 or 17?

The only practical answer is "by banning anonymity online" and everything governmental and capitalist that goes along with such a move.

[VMA131Marine]

25. I don't see how this is enforceable

without making social media access much more involved for everyone else. Are people going to have to prove their age every time they log-in? How are they supposed to do that without providing sensitive personal information that is then vulnerable to theft?

[meadowlander]

26. Most of the platforms already have age restrictions that kids ignore or get around.

When I signed up for Facebook I had to give my year of birth and technically if you're under 13 you can't set up an account. Same with YouTube and Twitter from memory.

I guess it would give a prod to the platforms to take down more accounts and monitor more proactively but a lot of the privacy arguments go out the window when it's your parents that have been posting every intimate detail of your life online since the second you were born.

Probably better and more effective for parents to teach their kids how to interact with social media safely and responsibly than to try to ban it ineffectively and have kids sneaking around to do it.

[Initech]

27. This is an absolutely terrible idea.

[dawg]

29. And how, pray tell, are sites supposed to verify users' ages? You'll have to do it too.

Do you really want to have to submit documents to Twitter, Facebook, or even DU, to prove your age?

Meanwhile, you can still access hardcore porn by clicking a block that says "I'm over 18." Or so I've been told.

[JI7]

30. Provide more outdoor spaces for kids to play in

You will never be able to prevent them using social media with these type of laws.

But you can give them other things to do. Starting from an early age they can learn to enjoy outdoors so they won't have as much time for social media.

[Golden Raisin]

31. Kind of quixotic to say the least.

As far as kids are concerned I'd be more focused these days on guns and climate change --- both of which will or already impact younger generations.

[Autumn]

32. Ridiculous. They want kids to be safer they should ban guns. They can parent their kids

and leave the rest alone.

[edisdead]

46. It is NOT about the kids.

That is the cover story.

[Act_of_Reparation]

34. PMRC Part II

Sounds like a great way to alienate people.

[Captain Stern]

36. Just. No.

Leave this up to the parents.

Just because something is good, doesn't mean it's good to make a law about it.

[womanofthehills]

39. I guess they haven't seen recent pictures of toddlers at Disneyland

I would say half of the toddlers being pushed by adults, the babies were looking at cell phones. My friend babysits her 3 yr old granddaughter- and I’ve never seen the toddler in her car seat without her grandma’s cell phone. Easy way out for parents to keep kids busy. Not saying it’s good, but it’s reality.

At a restaurant, don’t want your toddler to throw a fit, give them your cell phone - Like parent - like child.

[dembotoz]

40. well then who will show me how the damn platforms work

they really do want stupid kids

[edisdead]

45. This has not a fucking thing to do with kids.

They want to use this to blow any remaining privacy measures away. They do not give a fuck about kids and you can tell from all of their other bullshit legislation and their agendas.

They want you an adult to have to show who you are when you want to access something. And that is a big fucking NO from me.


Don’t fall for this bullshit. Don’t want your kid to look at porn. Monitor them. Raise them correctly.