Lawmakers seem to think they’re capable of solving every perceivable social media problem via legislation. Sometimes, the intents are pure but the execution is lacking. In many more cases — especially recently — the intent is to harm social media companies with legislation, all while pretending it’s about protecting “free speech” or the “children” or “stopping China” or whatever.
While this country is lacking in privacy protection laws, it’s probably not completely a bad thing. Look anywhere stringent privacy protections have been put in place and you’ll see a ton of collateral damage.
There’s less subtlety here in the US, thanks to our exceptionalism — something that allows lawmakers to target services they don’t like while pretending it’s all about something else.
As usual, it’s being pushed by people who just want to punish social media services and lawmakers who not only don’t understand the subject matter, but also strongly feel that their ignorance strengthens their arguments.
Somehow, a bill forcing social media services (if they fit the very vague description) to limit non-adults (how?) to one hour a day of access managed to make its way to the governor’s desk. And Governor Glenn Youngkin, despite his lack of relevant expertise in such matters, signed it.
Here are the cold, hard facts, as reported by WBOC:
New Virginia legislation requiring social media platforms to limit screen time for minors took effect Tuesday.
The law, signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in May, mandates that social media companies set a default limit of one hour per day for users under 16 years old.
First off, how? Second, also how?
The law demands things that have never been demanded of social media services. First, social media platforms must implement some sort of timer. Whether that time limit applies to time the app is active or whether it applies to any time the service is accessed, even if it’s in a tab/app idling in the background, is not discussed.
Nor are the difficulties of ascertaining the actual age of users in order to set this one-hour timer. Does the Virginia government want social media services to collect even more personal information about underage users? Because that seems like the sort of thing lawmakers shouldn’t encourage, even inadvertently.
Then there’s the definition of social media services in the law itself, which means a whole lot of services used by teens either won’t be affected or will be affected inadvertently to the detriment of teens who aren’t just spending hours a day doomscrolling their way into performative speeches given by representatives they’re not even old enough to vote for (or against!).
“Social media platform” means a public or semipublic Internet-based service or application that has users in the Commonwealth and that meets the following criteria:
1. Connects users in order to allow users to interact socially with each other within such service or application. No service or application that exclusively provides email or direct messaging services shall be considered to meet this criterion on the basis of that function alone; and
2. Allows users to do all of the following:
a. Construct a public or semipublic profile for purposes of signing into and using such service or application;
b. Populate a public list of other users with whom such user shares a social connection within such service or application; and
c. Create or post content viewable by other users, including content on message boards, in chat rooms, or through a landing page or main feed that presents the user with content generated by other users. No service or application that consists primarily of news, sports, entertainment, ecommerce, or content preselected by the provider and not generated by users, and for which any chat, comments, or interactive functionality is incidental to, directly related to, or dependent on the provision of such content, or that is for interactive gaming, shall be considered to meet this criterion on the basis of that function alone.
Given this definition, the usual suspects (Facebook, XTwitter, etc.) are the usual suspects. But minors can access DraftKings without a time limit because DraftKings may allow minors to use the service to make bets they’re not legally allowed to make, but the “interactive functionality is incident to” making bets. And the carve-out for online gaming seems especially weird, since that’s probably where the worst people a teen could ever meet reside.
On the flip side, services utilized by schools contain plenty of social media add-ons and interactivity which isn’t entirely “incidental” by design, like Teams meetings or Google Workspace hangouts where students work together on projects and interact socially. And that last part — the necessary interaction — might be enough to trigger a one-hour time limit on everyone involved.
Being denied access to school-related projects because of a badly-written, entirely stupid law obviously isn’t the intent of the law. But the intent doesn’t matter much when it’s doing real-world damage to online spaces shared by minors.
On top of that, there are the positive aspects of interaction, which allow people, who feel alienated in their own immediate social groups, to find support elsewhere. Should they only be allowed one hour of positive interaction per day just because a bunch of people with lawmaking power mistakenly believe too much internet is always a bad thing?
Then there’s this part of the law, which legislators apparently felt solved the whole “who is a minor” thing:
For purposes of this section, any controller or processor that operates a social media platform shall treat a user as a minor if the user’s device communicates or signals that the user is or shall be treated as a minor, including through a browser plug-in or privacy setting, device setting, or other mechanism.
The fuck does this even mean. If I spend a lot of my time playing games on my phone and searching for HBO-buried Looney Tunes, does that “signal” that I’m a minor? This is the least likely way to find minors using social media services. Anyone “signalling” that they’re a minor is either a cop or the current host of “To Catch a Predator.” Minors already know limits are placed on their interactions, thanks to efforts by most social media companies to comply with federal law. Anyone broadcasting their underage bona fides on main probably works for Sheriff Grady Judd.
In theory, the law being amended allows the state attorney general to attempt to collect $7,500 per violation from social media companies that the state thinks has violated this extremely stupid law. In reality, though, it’s nothing more than this: something for people like this lawmaker to point to when seeking re-election.
“We need to start thinking through kind of what are some proper regulations and guardrails that ensure that they’re using it, but it’s not tuning out these other things. That it’s not tuning out their academics, it’s not tuning out time with their friends and family,” said Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, who introduced the SB854.
He’s also a teacher and said he’s seen those negative impacts on some students firsthand.
“They spent 45 minutes in study hall just watching videos on TikTok, and in the meantime, they haven’t talked to anybody, they haven’t done any work,” he said.
Sen. VanValkenburg is eight years younger than I am and sounds 50 years older. Just because you’re not on the same wavelength as the young people doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Plenty of social interaction now comes via social media services, as do other things like discussions with family members, assistance with school work, and healthy interactions with people teens actually know in person. This is nothing more than a frustrated teacher trying to legislate kids into putting their phones down because he thinks that’s the way things should be.