There's no downside to passing unconstitutional bills. They just need to become law and remain in effect long enough to be useful in electoral campaigns. When the courts strike the law down, they'll be painted as activist justices and yadda yadda we've seen all this before.

Here's the current status of state cases, if anyone's curious:

- "FIRE’s lawsuit asks Utah to halt enforcement of the law and declare it invalid. Other states — including New Jersey and Louisiana — are proposing and enacting similar laws that threaten Americans’ fundamental rights. In Arkansas and Ohio, courts have blocked enforcement of these laws."

https://www.thefire.org/news/lawsuit-utahs-clumsy-attempt-ch... ("Lawsuit: Utah’s clumsy attempt to childproof social media is an unconstitutional mess")

I.e. at least four states' legislatures have passed laws like this, federal injunctions have paused two. Two others (Utah, Louisiana) aren't in effect yet.

How would it be different than age restricting voting, driving, or alcohol and tobacco sales? It seems there's precedent for treating minors differently than adults in many ways.

> age restricting voting, driving, or alcohol and tobacco sales

I think those things are a bit more black and white.

How do you define social media? Is HN social media? You engage with others through comments, posts are ranked and it has voting elements as well as your profile has a gamified score for upvotes. Is a Disqus comment on any website social media if that's how we broadly define social media? Where do we draw the line?

You could make a case that leaving reviews on a site are a form of social media too. You can post something there and feel like you need to check back in hopes someone leaves a like or replies. If it were a wearable item you might take a picture of yourself and now hope people engage with it.

The social media platforms the bill would target include any site that tracks user activity, allows children to upload content or uses addictive features designed to cause compulsive use.

Then they can say goodbye to most online gaming. I wonder how people will feel about this when they realize their kids can’t play games anymore?

At the time, Fortnite and Minecraft (and more) were my son’s way to socialize with friends. That was how they hung out (pre Covid). I can honestly say it would have been detrimental to him from a mental health perspective if those outlets didn’t exist or if kids were blocked from them.

Drawing the lines between what types of media are and aren’t allowed is a major issue with this type of law, regardless of if you think it’s a good idea or not.

Pretty good. Pretty good. I would go to argue that online games do more harm than good to children and teenagers. In many ways banning them from playing them might steer them to more productive use of time.

Must children's use of time be "productive"? They have their whole lives to be productive - outright banning video games is not the solution in my eyes

According to another comment[1], video games are exempted.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39176380

This exempts almost everyone and everything. lol

That covers a massive range.

"I hope someone likes my review" is not that much different than "I hope someone likes my tweet" or "I hope someone replies to my IG post" or "I hope someone replies to my HN comment".

All 4 scenarios trigger the same thing which is setting up a future expectation that's hopefully met while you wait with anticipation of the event. Is that the process they are trying to get a handle on?

Personally I don't know how any of that could get enforced. Even making the internet read-only wouldn't work because that wouldn't stop people from internally comparing themselves to someone else who is allowed to post. Although that type of thing has been going on since advertising existed.

What products are children reviewing?

I would define it as a platform where the primary focus is for users post visual content of themselves.

You could come up with corner cases and odd delineations for those former examples too. Yet we all know the gist of the laws and manage to somehow, on the aggregate, prevent kids from engaging in said activity.

E.g. alcohol. How do we stop kids form drinking alcohol? How do you define alcohol? What about kids medicine that includes alcohol, what about medical procedures that insert substances with alcohol content. What about shops that get conned by kids with fake ID. What if the label gets scratched off and kid doesn't know it had alcohol. What if a parent gives their child a sip of beer. What about old home remedies that include whiskey. What about colic medicine that has alcohol, okay What about carving exceptions for babies, etc etc etc.

Granted some of those are contrived, but it's not as black and White as you think.

There's no constitutional right to drive, smoke, or drink alcohol.

As for voting, it's constitutionally mandated that 18 or older can vote, which implies there's no constitutional mandate for anyone younger.

Minors do not have full constitutional rights when it comes to free speech. We've had SC precedence for this for 50+ years, thanks to Ginsberg v. New York.

>"In Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968), the Supreme Court upheld a harmful to minors, or “obscene as to minors,” law, affirming the illegality of giving persons under 17 years of age access to expressions or depictions of nudity and sexual content for “monetary consideration.”

>Judge Fuld of the Nassau County District Court had convicted Sam Ginsberg, who owned a small convenience store in Long Island, New York, where he sold “adult magazines” and was accused of selling them to a 16-year-old boy on two occasions."

It's not good for kids to have unrestricted access to pornography in the same way that it's not good for them to have access to unrestricted social media.

I think the difference would be in enforcement and what that would imply. How do you verify someone's age online without exposing that person to unwarranted tracking? Do we want to just say social media anonymity is dead?

The legal restriction needs to be very specific and demonstrate a good trade-off between societal gain and harms on the individual's right, not something a clean cut like many folks misunderstand.

Alcohol and Tobacco are pretty straightforward in the public health context. And you probably don't want your toddlers to drive a car given the risk. The voting age is an exception as it's defined in the 26th amendment. I consider it as political compromise though.

I'm not sure 1st amendment legally applies to minors since they are legally under their parent's jurisdiction.

I can think of a few reasons. This doesn't prevent children from criticizing the government. The 1st amendment doesn't guarantee a platform. Children aren't legally the same as adults.

I'm confused, what does this have to do with freedom of speech?

Also, do kids even <<have>> freedom of speech?

Freedom of speech has ~2 definitions in the US... first, the legal definition (with the Constitution and related case law). A second, the general notion of being literally free to make speech however/whenever one wants without intrusion for anybody at all (government or otherwise).

In this case, we're sort of at the edge of the legal definition. Social media can be viewed as the modern version of the town square (can be, isn't 100% proven out in law yet). If one takes that statement as valid, then the government cannot regulate speech through social media without a very good reason.

But, minors don't have the exact same rights as adults for various reasons (guns, alcohol, privacy at school, etc).

My general impression (IANAL)... the government can likely limit minors' speech on media platforms, however that limit would have to very specific and tightly defined so as not to deny speech to adults. The devil is in the details (implementation)... the legality probably hinges on what method is required to verify age.

2nd amendment seems to already been over turned. Children cannot own for example fully automatic weapons. And in some states firearms in general.

> 2nd amendment seems to already been over turned. Children cannot own for example fully automatic weapons.

Just as the founding fathers intended, children brandishing fully automatic firearms. James Madison is turning in his grave!

The 2nd amendment is very much alive and kicking. Those of us that would like to defend ourselves will fight for 2A.

To your point, children cannot own weapons. Most states are a minimum 18 years old for if not 21.

Full automatic weapons have been banned from civilian production for decades now. Semi automatic weapons are not weapons of war; are not the death machines non-gun owners think they are.

I was very anti gun until we (the wife and I) had a need to defend ourselves. We were literally put in a self defense position. We're both all in now and actively train ourselves and educate ourselves. More so, friends that are anti gun are no longer anti gun once they go to the range with me and are educated on what a semi automatic weapon actually is.

TL;DR - anyone anti gun is simple uneducated in the matter.

Children don't have the same standing with the constitution as adults. I don't remember the exact term but children have their rights restricted all the time. They do not have free speech in school for instance. They certainly have limits to their second amendment freedoms. So I don't think this bill will have constitutional issues. Personally, I'm all for a federal restriction on addictive social media for kids.

So, a law preventing children from receiving religious instruction would also be constitutional, in your mind?

Spirituality (and religion) are personal choice. There is no "religious education" for children, only indoctrination. It may be legal, but it is in no way moral.

This is not an answer to the question I asked.

Minors don't have the same First Amendment rights as adults. For example, government-run schools can have speech codes that students must obey. Although I have not read this bill, the general notion blurs the line between speech and action a bit, which would make it easier to pass muster.

My understanding is that minors _do_ have first amendment rights, and school restrictions on speech can only apply to instances which disrupt the learning environment.

Yes, they do have First Amendment rights, just not to the same degree as adults. This is the same as other rights — they can't buy guns, vote, etc. either. The point is that it's definitely not a slam dunk case as claimed. I'd love to hear a constitutional lawyer weigh in, if there are any here. I used to be a lawyer, but this was never my specialty.

No way. They're essentially property.

If someone could extralegally ground me with no devices if I say something they don't like (provided that it's speech protected under the First Amendment -- since not all speech is), I essentially have no First Amendment right.

I’m not sure what you mean. Can you explain?