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 …

  • abhibeckert@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • Mossy Feathers (They/Them)@pawb.social
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      8 months ago

      It’s a, “we’ll use the kids to ban what we want” kinda law. It’s vague enough that it doesn’t just apply to social media, but can be applied to other areas as well. Additionally, the way, “harm towards minors” is defined gives states a lot of wiggle room on how they interpret it, which means they can (and will) attempt to use the law to ban things like LGBT resources, critical race theory, black lives matter, etc.

      Wikipedia has a summary of the criticism.

    • Fal@yiffit.net
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      8 months ago

      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.

      No, it’s rules like “homosexual content is harmful to kids so it will be banned”.

      And adults couldn’t possibly like strawberry. That MUST be about addicting kids! Not that that has fuck all to do with what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about banning kids from being able to talk about their sexuality and gender in safe spaces

      This is clearly not a blanket ban on social media.

      Not a blanket ban, just the likely result.

      • teichflamme@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        No, it’s rules like “homosexual content is harmful to kids so it will be banned”.

        That would suck

        And adults couldn’t possibly like strawberry. That MUST be about addicting kids

        It’s just easier to get kids addicted. That’s why they need special protection.

        Not a blanket ban, just the likely result

        Honestly, not the worst outcome. Social media appears to do more harm than good, especially for kids.