Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

What are the hazards of social networking sites to minors' physical and mental health, and should their use of social networking sites be restricted? In the United States, the birthplace of social networking sites, state legislatures are quietly tightening regulatory requirements for minors to use social networking sites.

(whether minors' use of social networking sites should be restricted) the Utah state legislature passed two controversial Internet regulatory laws, HB 311 and SB152, this month to form the Utah social media regulation law "Utah Social Media Regulation Act".

The new law imposes a number of specific restrictions on the use of social networking sites for minors under the age of 18 in the state. it mainly includes: 1. Minors must obtain the explicit consent of their parents or guardians before they can register and use social networking sites; 2. Social networking sites must give parents in the state access to the content and private messages sent by their minor children. 3. Social networking sites shall not allow minors to log in from 10:30 to 06:30 unless their parents or guardians agree to change the default settings. 4. Social networking sites must ensure that minors do not bypass the restrictions on surfing the Internet without authorization. 5. Social networking sites shall not use design or algorithm functions that may lead to minors' addiction, collect minors' personal information, display targeted advertisements, or appear their information in public searches.

Utah is the stronghold of Mormonism and the most conservative part of American society. Two years ago, Utah issued a law requiring tablets and phones sold in the state to be pre-configured to block pornographic sites, in an attempt to prevent minors from accessing such content. However, after the enactment of the law, the state government was embarrassed to find that one state alone could not implement this requirement and had to wait for more states to move forward together.

On Thursday, the same day TikTok CEO week was funded to attend congressional hearings, Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, formally signed the new bill, which will take effect in March 2024. As a result, Utah became the first state in the United States to legislate to restrict the use of social networking sites by minors.

There is not much disagreement between Republicans and Democrats in Utah on the issue of protecting minors on social networking sites, and the bill was passed with the support of lawmakers from both parties. The bill is not an injunction against TikTok, but covers Meta's Instagram and all social networking sites such as Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube.

According to the regulations, the Utah Consumer Protection Bureau (Division of Consumer Protection) will be responsible for implementing the new law. If minors sign up to use social networking sites without their parents' consent, or surf the Internet secretly at night, social networking companies will be held legally liable. The Utah Consumer Protection Bureau will investigate and punish the complaint upon receipt of the complaint.

It is obvious that such a strict law on the Internet for minors has the support of the state's parents. Parents and lawmakers who support the bill argue that it is like parents accompanying underage children to drive, helping immature children avoid many of the risks of social networking sites. Utah law allows you to apply for a driver's license at the age of 16, but you need to be accompanied by adult relatives, you can't get on the highway at night, and you have to be 18 or above to drive alone.

In addition, social networking sites are not allowed at night in order to avoid minors' addiction and affect their work and rest health. According to a survey by Common Sense Media, a non-profit research organization on the relationship between children and technology, 22 percent of teenagers under the age of 16 visit social networking sites more than 10 times a day.

(a 13-year-old girl attends a legislative hearing on social networking sites in Utah) the current situation of teenagers surfing the Internet in the United States is worrying. Although the minimum age for legal registration to use social networking sites in the United States is 13, the major social media platforms have also set clear age requirements for registration. Minors under the age of 13 are refused to register independently. However, platforms such as Instagram and TikTok admit that minors may misrepresent their age and register to use social networks, and checking the actual age of users is a technical problem.

Some Internet companies also develop separate products for children under the age of 13, such as the children's version of YouTube Kids, but they can only be registered and used under parental supervision, and there is no social interaction. In a sense, the Utah law on regulating social networking sites for teenagers actually extends the original regulatory requirements for children under the age of 13 to minors under the age of 18.

The legal basis for the age limit of users in the United States is the Children's Internet Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which was promulgated in 1998. Under the law, Internet companies face stricter regulatory requirements and legal responsibilities to provide services to users under the age of 13. They need to get their parents' consent in advance to set up a "clear and complete" privacy policy to ensure the safety and confidentiality of the children's data collected.

For this reason, most social networking sites in the United States set the minimum age for registration at 13. Under the age of 13, you can only watch some strictly filtered health content on social media in the company of your parents. For teenagers between the ages of 13 and 16, social networking site user accounts are private by default, meaning that only users they allow can see themselves and send private messages.

However, even under such a clear regulatory law, there are still some Internet companies that illegally collect data on minors for the sake of profit. In 2021, the US health app Kurbo was even found to have obtained the user data of the youngest 8-year-old child without the consent of its guardian, only to pay a $1.5 million fine and delete the user data and settle with regulators.

In 2020, Thorn, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting children, conducted a survey on the use of social networking sites among 2002 minors aged 9 to 17 in the United States, including 742 children aged 9 to 12 and 1260 children aged 12 to 17. The survey found that although social media companies have set clear age limits, most children still use these social apps (either under parental supervision or misstating their age).

Among children aged 9-12, the proportion of daily use of social networking sites is Facebook (45 per cent), Instagram (40 per cent), Snapchat (40 per cent), TikTok (41 per cent) and YouTube (78 per cent). Moreover, the survey found that 27% of underage users are actually using dating apps, and the minimum registration age for the latter is 18.

In addition, Thorn conducted an online harassment survey on 1000 minors aged 9-17 years, including 391 children aged 9-12 and 609 adolescents aged 13-17. The results of the survey are even more shocking: 16% of girls between the ages of 9 and 12 have been sexually harassed by adults, and as many as 34% of girls between the ages of 13 and 17 have had similar experiences.

So how do teenagers deal with these online harassment? 83% said they would block and report, and only 37% would tell their parents or relatives and friends. And many of the children interviewed said that even if they blocked and reported harassment, they would be harassed again by changing their accounts.

Among these sexual attempted harassment, Instagram and Snapchat are the most serious, with 26% of similar harassment taking place on these two platforms, followed by TikTok and Facebook Messenger (both 18%). Obviously, picture and video social platforms are the most vulnerable platforms for teenagers to be sexually harassed on the Internet.

(Hogan, the former product manager who exposed Meta's internal documents, attended a congressional hearing.) Meta has become a public enemy although Utah's new law restricting minors' access to social networking sites has won support from the public, especially parents, but it has also sparked controversy about minors' freedom of speech and privacy. Common Sense Media, a non-profit research organization on the relationship between children and technology, is in favor of pressuring social networking sites to take responsibility for ensuring the online security of minors, but also believes that letting parents check their children's private messages on their children's social networking sites invades their children's online privacy and discourages their children's enthusiasm to surf the Internet.

The Internet industry and freedom of expression advocates have even accused the bill of being unconstitutional. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which represents the Internet industry, had previously called on Cox to veto the bill, arguing that setting age and time limits violated the privacy and freedom of expression of minors. In addition, some technology industry lobbyists are considering filing a lawsuit alleging that the Utah bill violates the freedom of expression provisions of the first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

A spokesman for Meta said in a statement, "Meta has developed more than 30 tools to support minors and their families, including tools for parents and minors to limit time on Instagram, as well as technical means to verify the age of adults. In addition, after minors sign up for Instagram, their accounts are private by default, and the platform regularly reminds them to withdraw from the app temporarily to prevent indulgence. We will not allow the promotion of content about suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, and more than 99% of the content we take measures or delete has been identified before users report it. We will also continue to work with experts, legislators and parents on these important issues. "

However, not many people believe in the company when it comes to protecting teenagers' health online. They not only repeatedly leak hundreds of millions of user data, but also have a bad record in the problem of teenagers surfing the Internet. It is no exaggeration to say that the Meta social matrix has become the public enemy of the United States. This is also the main reason why Meta has used public relations tools to constantly play up TikTok national security threats over the past year, attacking competitors on the one hand and diverting media and public attention on the other.

In 2021, Frances Haugen, the former product manager of the cyber ethics department of Meta, exposed tens of thousands of pages of documents inside Meta and testified publicly in Congress, causing an uproar. Hogan accused the social networking giant of putting his own economic interests above the rights and interests of users, and insisted on not changing the recommendation algorithm in order to pursue network traffic and user stickiness, knowing that it might bring harm and adverse consequences. even push content to minors that they shouldn't have seen.

In October of that year, the US Congress held a special hearing and asked Hogan to come forward and testify publicly about Meta. "breaking up Meta doesn't help much," Hogan said at the hearing. "the crux of the problem is their recommendation algorithm. Even if Facebook and Instagram become two companies, they will still chase profits and harm the world." According to Hogan's evidence, Meta's interest algorithm even sends pictures of self-harm to minors and anorexia to anxious girls.

More shockingly, from 2016 to 2019, Facebook paid $20 a month for 13-to 25-year-olds to install their own data collection apps through a number of test projects to get a complete picture of big data's use of their mobile network. The complete data of a large number of users are obtained at a very low price. Facebook knew that minors were involved, but he still collected it for three years.

Facebook first illegally collects user data through the VPN app, and after being forced off the shelves by Apple, Facebook bypasses the Apple App Store with the enterprise root certificate and collects online data of teenagers by paying for it. The scandal completely infuriated Apple, revoked the right to develop the enterprise version of Facebook at one point, and was the trigger for the deteriorating relationship between the two companies.

Because Facebook has so much black history, when Facebook announced plans to develop an Instagram for children under the age of 13 in May 2020, it met with unanimous opposition from US regulators and all sectors of society. From the Federal Trade Commission to members of both houses of Congress to various online rights protection agencies, have issued open letters urging Facebook to immediately stop the development of children's version of Instagram. The attorney general of 44 states in the United States also jointly pressed Zuckerberg, forcing Meta to announce the cancellation of the development of a children's version of Instagram.

Red and blue states have legislated to follow up despite threats from the technology industry and human rights institutions to file unconstitutional lawsuits, but the Utah government has ignored objections. "We will no longer allow social media companies to continue to endanger the mental health of our teenagers," Utah Governor Cox said when signing the bill. Utah is leading the way to let social media companies take responsibility, and we will not slow down. "

Cox said many studies have shown that children's time spent on social networking sites can affect their mental health. "because of social media companies, the incidence of depression and other mental problems among teenagers is on the rise. both the government and parents have a responsibility to protect our young people."

He also called on other states to join Utah in taking steps. "We believe that not only Utah but also other state legislatures across the United States will pass similar bills that will significantly change the relationship between our teenagers and these devastating social media applications. We are very optimistic about this."

It seems that minors' use of social networking sites has become a major concern for lawmakers and parents in the United States. In addition to Utah, which has passed the bill, other states are drawing up similar laws to make it mandatory for minors to use social networking sites and to create specific legal liability for social networking companies. These include not only conservative red states, but also liberal blue states.

The Ohio state legislature introduced a bill last month requiring some Internet companies to ban minors under the age of 16 from registering for use without parental consent. The Arkansas legislature also introduced a bill this week, SB 396, requiring social networking sites to confirm the age of users. The bill introduced by the Texas legislature, HB 896, is even more stringent, banning minors under the age of 18 from using social networking sites and requiring them to verify the age of users to ensure that each user is over the age of 18. In addition, the Louisiana legislature is also drafting a law requiring websites with adult nudity on their pages to verify that users are at least 18 years old.

The fact that Utah is the first to enact legislation will also prompt lawmakers in these red states to follow suit. The governors of Ohio and Arkansas have made clear their support for such a bill, which will be signed once Congress passes it. Blue states such as California and New Jersey, which are dominated by liberals, are also taking steps to pressure social networking sites to protect the interests of minors.

In September last year, both houses of the California Congress unanimously passed the California Age matching Design Act (California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act,AB2273), which clearly defines how social networking sites and Internet platforms should protect minors. This is the first law in the United States on how social networking sites should protect minors' personal information and online activities.

Specifically, the California law requires application and website developers to install "digital fences" for underage users under the age of 18 to analyze the harm their services may cause to underage users. take proactive measures to protect their personal information and web browsing data. The law explicitly mentions the recommendation algorithms commonly used on social networking sites and the function of finding friends, which are intended to improve user stickiness and increase usage time, but for underage users, these functions pose a risk of harassment and affect their physical and mental health.

At the federal level, legislative work is also under way. Last July, Congress pushed through two draft laws that explicitly prohibit Internet companies from collecting data on users between the ages of 13 and 16, except with the permission of their guardians. The draft of the Federal Senate's Children's Cyber Security Act (Kids Online Safety Act) specifically states that social media platforms must give minors the right to choose, allow them to opt out of the algorithm recommendation function, and block a lot of content that is not suitable for minors.

Perhaps, before blocking TikTok for political purposes, the US Congress should follow up the pace of legislation on social networking sites in various states to really ensure the health and safety of teenagers on social networking sites. In this respect, the harm degree and black history of Meta are far greater than those of TikTok. However, nearly two years after the internal documents of Meta were exposed, the US Congress still has no formal legislation to deal with the algorithm problems of social networking sites.

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