It's no secret that social media can be addictive. Every like and comment gives the user a little hit of dopamine, and we can't get enough.
Since other addictive substances and activities are age-regulated, there is a growing call to regulate social media to be adult-only as well.
The Florida House just passed a bill doing just that.
According to the bill, minors will have to be at least 16 to use any social media that tracks user activity, allows users to upload material and interact with others, uses addictive features, or uses algorithms to determine what content is viewed by the user.
House Bill 1, which is sponsored by Republican Rep. Tyler Sirois, passed with a 106-13 bipartisan vote. Supporters argue that children are more exposed to bullying and sexual predators on social media, and use can lead to depression, suicide and addiction.
"They're taking advantage of kids growing up. That's their business model. And why do they do it? To keep them hooked ... with the dopamine hits that the platform gives our children with every autoplay, with every like, with every push notification," Sirois said to The Associated Press.
In addition to requiring age verification and parental access to social media accounts for minors, the bill itself has a couple of interesting features.
First, there's a required warning that social media companies will have to display when signing up new members, just like a pack of cigarettes:
This application may be harmful to your mental health and may use design features that have addictive qualities or present unverified information or that may be manipulated by [insert platform name] or others for your viewing. This application may also collect your personal data to further manipulate your viewable content and may share your personal data with others.
Second, there's a feature that looks to be specifically aimed at restricting access to citizen journalists using social media to cover news the mainstream will not, as it carves out exceptions for social-media-like features on some websites, such as
News, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated, and any chat, comment, or interactive functionality that is provided incidental to, directly related to, or dependent upon provision of the content.
To permit comments on a digital news website, if the news content is posted only by the provider of the digital news website.
Other exceptions are
- Video games
- Direct Messaging
- Streaming Services
- E-commerce
- Photo-sharing
- Professional networks
- Community groups
- Career development
- Educational sites
If Governor DeSantis signs the bill, the Florida justice department can impose a $50,000 civil penalty for every infraction of the law.
A representative of Meta issued the following statement to the Florida House Judiciary Committee in opposition to the law:
Many teens today leverage the internet and apps to responsibly gather information and learn about new opportunities, including part-time jobs, higher education, civic or church gatherings, and military service. By banning teens under 16, Florida risks putting its young people at a disadvantage versus teens elsewhere.
As if teens use Facebook anyway.
Who knows how this will all play out?
Maybe someday, the War on Social Media will supplant the War on Drugs, and we'll have cyber cartels running reactions emojis and cat videos across state lines to sell to the social junkies.
Or, more likely, new technology will supplant social media and make the virtual hangout spots as irrelevant as Soda Shops, Drive-Ins, and Shopping Malls.
In that case, this bill won't even matter.
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