gizmodo Bill Could Allow Parents to Sue social media companies that actively try to addict their kids

[UltraMega]

Quote

The Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act passed the state assembly on Monday and now goes to the state senate. The bill cites the framework of the existing California Consumer Privacy Act, which restricts companies from selling personal information of young people under 16, to impose a “duty not to addict” young users under 18. A successful lawsuit could equal up to $25,000 in damages.

 

The bill only applies to companies that made $100 million in revenue over the past year, and it also excludes streaming services as well as apps that only allow email or text messaging. Everything else is fair game.

 

Lawmakers pointed to the Facebook Papers, where internal documents showed workers at the social media company were concerned about the impact they were having on youth. Whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist, said the highest rate of addiction on their platforms was with 14-year-olds.

 

California Bill Could Allow Parents to Sue for Their Kid's TikTok Habit

GIZMODO.COM

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More young kids are using social media than ever before, but companies said they would have to disable California...

An interesting bill. I don't think a bill like this could ever pass if not for the leaked information proving that these companies know what they're doing is harming kids while still doing it anyway. Will be interesting to see where this leads. 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by UltraMega

[Sir Beregond]

Here's an idea. Maybe parents should be more active in controlling screen time, and what their 14 year old does online.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Sir Beregond

[PCSarge]

6 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

Here's an idea. Maybe parents should be more active in controlling screen time, and what their 14 year old does online.

sadly alot of todays parents use online social media and games as a babysitter, schools arent doing much better handing out tablets and laptops at a young age either.

Edited May 30, 2022 by PCSarge

[bonami2]

Everyone is disconnected these days.  People are getting so dumb all they know is facebook,youtube,tiktok and tinder.

 

All those fake video should be illegal too   I blocked over 100 page on facebook of fake video.

 

The kid these days all they see is fake stuff online. I wonder what gonna happen with this gen.

 

And what about Steam Card and in game money Addiction...

Edited May 30, 2022 by bonami2

[UltraMega]

Both my parents worked, and I wad the youngest of 3 kids. There's probably not a lot my parents could have done to keep me off short of getting rid of any computers. Back then tho, there wasn't anything out there carefully designed to build a pavlovian addiction cycle to keep me engaged.

[pio]

This is such a tough topic.  Of course the companies know what they're doing is harming people, kids included.  There's many adults too however, whom are just as addicted, and believe everything posted to facebook is real, and its ridiculous.  But to say that we can sue the company for our own actions?  It's not the companies fault, but I can't 100% say its the parents at fault either.  Especially when we have our schools handing out tablets, laptops, and sometimes even cell phones.  We're too reliant on social media and the internet in general, we've lost focus with reality as a collective whole.

 

Nowadays its common practice to site Wikipedia blindly for example as a reference source, without ever even making note of where the sources for the Wikipedia article even came from.  I've seen articles used as a reference source, that literally site a nobody "who" person on twitter as the source for that whole article!  That's acceptable these days as a common source of accurate information?  What happened to picking up a book, written by people that actually know whatever the subject is, and reading your information directly from the source?  There's certainly places online that can fill that void, such as here for tech subjects as a great example.  Collectively, we are an expert in this field.

I really don't know the answer to this problem.  On one hand if we start slapping at the hands of the companies like this, then the companies will just restrict the access further or whatever other measure they'll take.  Then we'll have people complaining even further of censorship, which certainly is already a problem anyway.  On the other hand, if we blame the parents, what are they to do when they're both at work 60 hours a week just to put a roof over their heads?  I blame everyone.  Everyone sucks. -_- lol.

EDIT:
Personally, I say stop with rediculous rules on social media sites, and maybe put a general age restriction of "adults only" if we're to have adult type situations and conversations on there (with no rules that would happen).  Not this 13+ thing like Facebook has.  If you have a child, stop letting them on these sites.  There's no reason a child needs to be on Facebook.  If they want to interact with their peers, they need to learn how to do so.  Not on a screen.  They can have their addictions when they're adults, same as cigarettes and beer.  I'm not saying its necessarily on the companies to fix it, or just the parents.  I think we as a society need to recognize an addiction when we see it, and invoke ourselves into rehab.

Edited May 30, 2022 by pioneerisloud

[Diffident]

I don't see this happening.  Social media's success comes from narcissism. Also the goal of any business is to produce a product that people like so they can sell as much as they can.

[iamjanco]

4 hours ago, Diffident said:

I don't see this happening.  Social media's success comes from narcissism. Also the goal of any business is to produce a product that people like so they can sell as much as they can.

If I could have given you 100 thumbs up for that, I would have.

 

Add the extremely excessive use of texting, selfies, and video captures to that list. Some of that is useful of course, but if horses did what a lot of smart phone users do with their phones, I'd say shoot them. 

 

[UltraMega]

I don't think the ideas that parents should do a better job monitoring their kids behavior and that social media companies should have some safe guards when it comes to the algorithms they use to keep minors engaged are mutually exclusive. Both are good things here. 

[PCSarge]

39 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

I don't think the ideas that parents should do a better job monitoring their kids behavior and that social media companies should have some safe guards when it comes to the algorithms they use to keep minors engaged are mutually exclusive. Both are good things here. 

the problem is informing these younger parents who are glued to it themselves, thats its not healthy for thier children. a good portion of them are in denial, but look to social media for approval of people on a daily basis. children learn to mirror the behaviour of thier parents at a young age. so if not being liked on social media makes parents angry or depressed, the children will get ahold of it and do the same eventually. its a vicious cycle that needs to be stopped before we get multiple generations into this problem.

[pio]

1 hour ago, PCSarge said:

the problem is informing these younger parents who are glued to it themselves, thats its not healthy for thier children. a good portion of them are in denial, but look to social media for approval of people on a daily basis. children learn to mirror the behaviour of thier parents at a young age. so if not being liked on social media makes parents angry or depressed, the children will get ahold of it and do the same eventually. its a vicious cycle that needs to be stopped before we get multiple generations into this problem.

QFT

[Sir Beregond]

2 hours ago, PCSarge said:

the problem is informing these younger parents who are glued to it themselves, thats its not healthy for thier children. a good portion of them are in denial, but look to social media for approval of people on a daily basis. children learn to mirror the behaviour of thier parents at a young age. so if not being liked on social media makes parents angry or depressed, the children will get ahold of it and do the same eventually. its a vicious cycle that needs to be stopped before we get multiple generations into this problem.

100% right.

[Avacado]

I've been reading what you all have been saying and you are all making good points. It's time we all realize just where we are today.

 

 

Being a parent of a teenager and a four year old, while working a full time job changes my lens just a smidge. Now while I 100% agree with regulating social media exposure to your children, there are two points I think of often. I grew up with an analog childhood and a digital adulthood. I still have values and tendencies towards face to face interaction and less reliance on technology. That simply will not be my children's world experience and I feel that I would fail them if I did not prepare them for that future. Do I want my kids to be self-absorbed, vain and zombified? Of course not. But this exposure to the world they will inherit does require parental guidance.

 

No generation ever understands the ones that follow. I spend a great deal of time trying to put myself in my children's shoes, but they never fit. At the end of a 12 hour day, am I going to put my daughter on an iPad to watch PBS kids? YEP, I'm also cooking dinner and contemplating life decisions. My kids never did come with their manuals from the manufacturer....

[Sir Beregond]

1 hour ago, Avacado said:

I've been reading what you all have been saying and you are all making good points. It's time we all realize just where we are today.

 

 

Being a parent of a teenager and a four year old, while working a full time job changes my lens just a smidge. Now while I 100% agree with regulating social media exposure to your children, there are two points I think of often. I grew up with an analog childhood and a digital adulthood. I still have values and tendencies towards face to face interaction and less reliance on technology. That simply will not be my children's world experience and I feel that I would fail them if I did not prepare them for that future. Do I want my kids to be self-absorbed, vain and zombified? Of course not. But this exposure to the world they will inherit does require parental guidance.

 

No generation ever understands the ones that follow. I spend a great deal of time trying to put myself in my children's shoes, but they never fit. At the end of a 12 hour day, am I going to put my daughter on an iPad to watch PBS kids? YEP, I'm also cooking dinner and contemplating life decisions. My kids never did come with their manuals from the manufacturer....

 

Yeah, I am not suggesting that people don't have lives within some digital spaces, but I think it definitely behooves parents to make it healthy time spent.

 

But as someone without kids myself, this is just me talking. I generally err on the side of less regulation and more personal responsibility in most things in life. Not saying that doesn't result in most of society going down the wrong path sometimes.

[Cerberus]

is this now a idiocracy gif thread? yes.

[Avacado]

31 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

is this now a idiocracy gif thread? yes.

[bonami2]

[Sir Beregond]

[Avacado]

[Sir Beregond]

[Avacado]

[Sir Beregond]

Brian Regan making this face feels appropriate for the thread.

[Snakecharmed]

[Avacado]

[PCSarge]

On 31/05/2022 at 09:50, Avacado said:

I've been reading what you all have been saying and you are all making good points. It's time we all realize just where we are today.

 

 

Being a parent of a teenager and a four year old, while working a full time job changes my lens just a smidge. Now while I 100% agree with regulating social media exposure to your children, there are two points I think of often. I grew up with an analog childhood and a digital adulthood. I still have values and tendencies towards face to face interaction and less reliance on technology. That simply will not be my children's world experience and I feel that I would fail them if I did not prepare them for that future. Do I want my kids to be self-absorbed, vain and zombified? Of course not. But this exposure to the world they will inherit does require parental guidance.

 

No generation ever understands the ones that follow. I spend a great deal of time trying to put myself in my children's shoes, but they never fit. At the end of a 12 hour day, am I going to put my daughter on an iPad to watch PBS kids? YEP, I'm also cooking dinner and contemplating life decisions. My kids never did come with their manuals from the manufacturer....

your kids came with a manual, but your wife hid it from you. its how she keeps you on edge.