Age Restrictions on Social Media

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32660028

by chayesfss • 4 years ago

15 8 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

As some of my kids grow older and create accounts on different platforms I've tried to make them understand they're being directly marketed to. I'm sure it's overwhelming for them to understand without the foundational knowledge. My questions is this, every one of these platforms has age restrictions yet they knowingly have millions of accounts and data related to people they know are under whatever that age is. Why have we not just told any site collecting data on people they know who to be under said age needs to comply with something like COPPA? Instead we're satisfied that if they're alerted they'll delete the account. If not alerted by any outside party they'll just file it under the 8-13 year olds and market/sell all that data including potential mental health related data?? It makes no sense that we're not doing a good job keeping our younger generations data out of the hands of those who have no moral compass. Where's the MADD group related to their kids online data security?

ChicagoBoy112• 4 years ago

I'm a school admin who works in this space so I know this well.

First, sites do have to do exactly what you mention and if they knowingly collect info from 13 year olds and younger, they must implement all sorts of additional privacy controls. Google, for example, was sued (but paid a puny fine) for really not doing anything at all to ensusre it was heeding to this in YouTube. If you've ever uploaded a YouTube video, for instance, you'll now always be asked to confirm of whether or not its target audience is children, the impact of which has to do with how YouTube is able to monetize or provide advertising with that content.

But the gist of it is this: Between people just lying and a non-trivially large group of parents just simply not caring, the problem is quite unsolvable. I literally do several workshops and also meet with parents individually to discuss their child's development as it relates to technology. I preach the almost comical inadequacy of giving your 7yr old a smartphone, talk about COPPA and related laws, and explain what we know about young children and mental health when it comes to social media. With YouTube, we've presented numerous articles talking about how the automated algorithm not only hijacks their child's attention for the pure intention of generating profit but also has been shown to be a tool that can easily lead to radicalization.

They don't care. I don't think I'm THAT bad at my job, but the reality is there is a small group of like-minded families who independently share this view, but the other 95% do not care. At all. The economics of it, in the real world, just don't work out in favor of people who, like you and me, think this a serious issue.

chayesfss2• 4 years ago

Yea I don’t think you can easily explain the problem, I might not have done it here myself:) Age appropriate content totally aside, it’s the data they collect and sell that I have a problem with.

ChicagoBoy112• 4 years ago

Sure, and the restrictions in place should prevent a lot of that data from being collected in the first place. For instance, as a school, we provision google accounts for kids under 13, but unless we manually go in and override it, it essentially disallows our kids from using YouTube. My point was only that out in the wild, the vast, vast, vast majority of parents simply just go ahead and do that.

wilde2• 4 years ago

CA literally just passed the bill you want.

That said, the problem is that sites don’t know for sure who is over and who is under 13. And more robust age proofs have lots of problems: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/29/california-legislators-s...

Even if they did, many parents strongly disagree about what content is age-appropriate. When I was growing up my mom was shocked that other 10yo were allowed to view James Bond films.

So while you might be able to set some baselines, parents still need to do a lot of the legwork to make sure kids are ingesting media that’s aligned with their values. This was true on older media and it’s still true today.

qzx_pierri• 4 years ago

I’ve always wondered how feasible it would be for a government contractor to run some type of SSO system using “pins” mailed to every citizen over 18. That way, sites could authenticate users without knowledge of the users true identity. The site would just get some type of response code indicating the user’s age. This would also allow sites to reject signups for underage users. IIRC, this is how it’s done in South Korea.

wilde2• 4 years ago

What stops me from using the first over-18 pin I can find? It only relates to age so there’s hardly any incentive to keep it secret.

Are all non-citizens banned from services now? As a tourist in your country, how do I access services?

Like I said, lots of problems. :)

chayesfss2• 4 years ago

Is that how Canada's epost system kinda works? Edit:The costs of the us gov running everyone through kyc isn’t going to happen, didn’t they outsource part of that to private sector already? These companies know the age range of their users. It’s no doubt one of their most lucrative.

Age Restrictions on Social Media

Related Stories