Wisconsin Pushing Bill That Requires Websites To Treat All Users As If They’re Children
from the the-internet-is-not-disneyland dept
I’ve talked before about the utter stupidity (and danger) of trying to turn the internet into Disneyland: a safe space for little kids, where they’ll never encounter any content that makes them upset, but plenty of states (and many people in Congress) are trying to do it anyway.
Wisconsin is the latest, and its Senate Bill 385 is pretty impressive in just how ridiculous it is. It literally requires websites to treat everyone as if they’re a child unless they’ve done age verification on you:
Under the bill, social media companies must ensure that all accounts created on or after January 1, 2019, are designated as a youth accounts that comply with the youth account requirements of the bill. A social media company may remove the youth account designation from an account if 1) the social media company estimates that the account holder is not a minor through employment of a process or program that provides a 95 percent accuracy rate of estimating age within 24 months of actual age; 2) the social media company verifies that the account holder is not a minor; or3) a parent or guardian of a minor account holder requests for the youth account designation to be removed from the minor’s account.
Basically, the internet must be Disneyland, unless you can show that you’re over 18, then you’re allowed to see controversial stuff… like detailing how Wisconsin legislators are foolish authoritarians who don’t understand how the 1st Amendment works.
Among the things that social media sites would have to do to anyone they haven’t age verified is… not allow them to use the site between 10pm and 7am. So, if you aren’t willing to give up your privacy, there goes the internet at night for you.
The nighttime lock-out is even dumber than it sounds:
ensure that the account cannot be used or accessed between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. The time of day under this paragraph shall be calculated on the basis of the Internet protocol address being used by the account at the time of attempted access. The social media company shall ensure that an account holder does not change or bypass the time restrictions under this paragraph.
So… if a teenager uses a VPN to shift the timezone of their IP address, then… the social media site is liable for failing to ensure that the account holder wasn’t able to bypass the IP-based time restrictions? Really?
On top of that, the bill would give parents of actual children a ridiculous level of access to their children’s accounts:
The bill also provides to parents of minor account holders certain access, including full access to the account and all its posts and messages, the ability to change the time limits on the account, and to opt out the minor’s account from the youth account designation.
As we’ve pointed out with other similar bills, this does not take into account what happens if a child is estranged from a parent. Or if a child and a parent don’t get along.
Not only is this bill making the internet treat everyone as elementary school children, it also teaches kids that “your parents will be spying on you all the time.” This is a dangerous combination, especially for kids in an abusive or dangerous household.
Look, we get it. There’s an evidence-free moral panic going around about how horrible social media is for kids, even if the actual evidence shows that that’s not true at all. But, really, these nonsense moral panic bills are looking dumber and dumber.
It’s just non-stop old people scared of the internet and ignorant of how the 1st Amendment (and the internet) work. Stop it.
Filed Under: age verification, moral panic, parental access, protect the children, sb 385, social media, time blocking, wisconsin
Comments on “Wisconsin Pushing Bill That Requires Websites To Treat All Users As If They’re Children”
Timezone issues
It’s worse than that. No doubt as you’ve pointed out here before, IP address blocks aren’t permanent assignments, and geolocation from an IP can return woefully stale and wildly inaccurate data. (In)Famously, at the start of the streaming era it wasn’t uncommon for US users to be geolocated somewhere else entirely. And apparently this is an ongoing issue for Starlink. Cruise ships and airplanes are likely to be using blocks that aren’t updated as they travel, so there’s that too….
Liability in such a situation would be interesting…
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Strangely, there’s one census block in kansas that has a population density greater than Tokyo, according to IP addresses…
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Yeah this is a big one. Even barring VPN usage, false IP identification has always been a real issue as long as I have been in the web business (since January of 95).
What happens when a Wisconsin resident near the border with Michigan, has a Michigan ISP IP address? What about Michigan residents near the Wisconsin border, who have Wisconsin IP addresses?
This effort would only cause more usability and liberty problems.
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What happens when a Wisconsin resident near the border with Michigan, has a Michigan ISP IP address?
They get charged with trying to bypass the law and evade detection, logic be damned.
What about Michigan residents near the Wisconsin border, who have Wisconsin IP addresses?
Collateral damage that they couldn’t give a shit about.
Because nothing is more important than having everyone else have to adapt to this bullshit because the ‘parents’ didn’t realize that there was this ‘parenting’ thing they were supposed to do, and didn’t factor in while they were in the backseat of their cars making fresh bastards.
Politicians want designated adults to supervise everyone else, while in reality they are the ones needing adult supervision.
It’s worth pointing out that this will also have chilling effects on LGBTQ+ kids who are trying to hide it from their bigoted parents.
I would hate to have a parent like some of the trolls around here who would rather hate their own children then support them.
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It’ll also have chilling effects on kids trying to hide their discussions of Bulemia, body-image issues, addiction, abuse, abortion, depression, illicit drug use, unfavorable political views, fanfic writing, gun purchases, and anime dependence.
It doesn’t matter what the secret is. Sometimes the child is justified keeping the secret. Sometimes the parent is justified in discovering the secret. And it also depends on the parent’s reaction upon discovering the secret. Do they beat the gender dysphoric kid, or do they seek help for them? Do they advise the kid on how best to hide their guns, or call the cops on them for threatening their school?
You can’t know until the secret is in the open. And even then, it’s still up for grabs.
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There’s no such thing as an “LGBTQ+” child, groomer.
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Stfu anti lgbtq loser
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You know asexual people and aromantic people fall under that category too, right?
“Look at the depravity of these people, they don’t want to have sex or relationships! It’s not natural! They have to want to fuck and be with someone, that’s just human!”
For all the shade people throw at the idea of sex, they sure do get upset when people don’t want it. Rather hypocritical, especially given vows of chastity.
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Makes sense, given that all the sexual repression is just a means of social control.
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Groomer?? You’re mistaken, I’m not a catholic priest.
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So how old are we when we notice we’re “different” from others?
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You are one of the reasons that children need privacy online.
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There’s no such thing as an “LGBTQ+” child, groomer.
Ah, as if ending that statement with ‘groomer’ changes the inbreeding that caused the retardation prevalent in you people.
Hmmm. Then I guess the only sane option for websites is shutdown, or deactivate accounts created on on or after Dec 30th, 2018 (because where does the Jan 1st 2019 start?). “Want an account on this site? your only choice is time travel to 2018 or earlier”
Also I about curious about option #3. How will they verify the minor is THIS minor, and that the parrent in question is attached? What if there is one kid who has a “lax” parent, and all the kids pretend to be that kid (and the parent then turns around and requests minor status removal).
You know who else has rules like this for the internet???
China.
Is Wisconsin trying to join the CCP?!!?
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I propose a law banning elected officials from using social media between 4AM and 11:59PM. Only late night, ambien-induced posts will be allowed so that we can be sure politicians are being genuine when they post on social media.
Also voters will have to ratify politician’s social media privileges by a 60% majority.
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A much better law would be that every time they use the internet they have to prove that they understand the 1A and how the internet works.
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After some Dems said openly they LIKED how China cracks down on these things…
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Both sides like patrolling people.
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Both sides like surveillance.
So… the ability to make the limits even more restrictive, but not less?
How does the provider know who the parents of the account are to start with? Is every account that doesn’t do age verification required to provide names/account information of one or both parents?
How many time zones does Wisconsin think it owns?
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Time zones don’t exist on a flat Earth.
What about emancipated youth?
Orphans being raised, but not adopted, by other family members, foster care, or family friends?
Children of divorced parents?
What rights would non-custodial step parents have?
Isn’t every child in Wisconsin accessing websites from Wisconsin’s timezone? Who is this geolocation supposed to protect? Sounds more like it’s just supposed to be uncompliable with.
If they do that they also need age verification to watch television.
Sometimes privacy can be the difference between safe and not
Every time I read about a politician pushing a ‘parents should always be able to know what their kids are saying/doing online’ bill my first thought is ‘there’s someone who either didn’t even think of the existence of LGBTQ+ kids, doesn’t care about them or wants to see more of them abused, homeless and/or dead’.
I propose a bill to treat all Wisconsin Senators as if they are children until they prove otherwise and until then they are restricted from passing laws between the hours of 7am and 10pm.
welcome to china! oop's! CCCP. no, no that isn't it ether....must be USSR!
censorship by any name is still “censorship!”
the only reason the criminals masquerading as government are pushing the right’s violating BS! is because master tugged on there puppet strings making them dance to there tune! now if we had politician’s that could think for them self. they may know that there is that pesky 1st amendment thing and actually be in favor of the people! not the all mighty $$$$!
how to tell the difference when a politician writes a bill and when they don't!
if a politician write a bill. it will be sloppy and full of errors! the ones (which is most of them) they don’t write have been written by a team of lawyers for big corps! and will generally be 50+ pages long! with a short 1-2 page highlight for the criminal masquerading as a government official to read…..
No more hypocrisy.
It’s time for the politicians who push these bills to sit in a high chair, wear a diaper, and eat baby food.
End of the Internet
If individual American states go down this route, then it’ll be the end of the internet. Western governments seem determined to break the internet’s global reach by imposing their own local version within their state/national boundaries.
Traveling? Businesses?
What if we’re visiting the state or driving through it? Would my Google Maps shut off on the interstate while driving?
My place of work has offices in WI. This would be an interesting this for us to have to deal with.
The preliminary injunction hearing for Arkansas is today. Anybody monitoring in real time? Do we have a decision from the court? How hard did the judge press each side?
Only two solutions
Either we release a national RealID free to all citizens and legal residents. Easy id based verification via NFC or BT or WFD
Or
We simply wait until every state has the internet use cutoff by the big companies. People riot in the streets. Mass bloodshed as …