Proposed Texas Bill Aims to Ban Social Media for Children Over Mental Health Concerns After State’s TikTok Ban

[ThatRobGuy]

Without having seen the posts in question, my guess is that the account had curated a following among a certain demographic that took pleasure in posting hateful comments about the videos that were posted.

...but can one really control that?

The Occupy Democrats twitter page draws some pretty "interesting" comments aimed at the other side.

It's literally impossible to take one political stand or the other, build a large following, and not have your comments feed get spammed with some stuff that goes "over the line".

You do recall that these tweets were specifically ones that included nude photos of Hunter Biden posted without his consent, yes? That's in violation of Twitter's policy, and Biden's campaign staffers (this happened before the election) were well within their rights to request their removal.

I don't recall any of the nude ones...the only ones I saw involved a scarf underwear and some that included some drug usage.

However, it's the "connections"/"direct line" aspect that's makes it a bit of a double standard. Would someone who's not politically connected (top of the Democratic ticket) to the party that most staffers happened to be a member of have that kind of reach and turn-around time on their requests to get things removed?

And my understanding was that when the NYPost caught a ban, it wasn't due to any nudity in their article, it was a case where the Twitter team was trying to ban it under the "hacked materials" policy when that policy didn't apply.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Rather than saying what she basically said can you say what she actually said?

Are we just playing a circular logic game here to stall for time?

What I was linking was showing what the Twitter team said, not anything that she said.

Per the article, again...for the third time...

an internal SIP-PES memo from October 2022, after her seventh suspension, the committee acknowledged that “LTT has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy."

In internal Slack messages, Twitter employees spoke of using technicalities to restrict the visibility of tweets.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

The Occupy Democrats twitter page draws some pretty "interesting" comments aimed at the other side.

And they probably should catch a ban for that. I can't find anything that says whether or not they have.

Another factor is that people on the left seem to be more likely to seek out and report content that they find offensive.

I don't recall any of the nude ones...the only ones I saw involved a scarf underwear and some that included some drug usage.

That would still violate Twitter T&C. The policy actually forbids the posting of "private" photos without consent - they don't have to be nude. And he was nude in some of them - there's at least one that I've seen where you can clearly see his junk. Some people blurred it out, but poorly.

However, it's the "connections"/"direct line" aspect that's makes it a bit of a double standard. Would someone who's not politically connected (top of the Democratic ticket) to the party that most staffers happened to be a member of have that kind of reach and turn-around time on their requests to get things removed?

Is that really something that can be controlled though? Should social media companies be forced to hire an equal number of people from all political affiliations?

And my understanding was that when the NYPost caught a ban, it wasn't due to any nudity in their article, it was a case where the Twitter team was trying to ban it under the "hacked materials" policy when that policy didn't apply.

There was no political input on that decision. That one was 100% Twitter.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

That would still violate Twitter T&C. The policy actually forbids the posting of "private" photos without consent - they don't have to be nude. And he was nude in some of them - there's at least one that I've seen where you can clearly see his junk. Some people blurred it out, but poorly.

Thanks for that visual right before dinner lol

Is that really something that can be controlled though? Should social media companies be forced to hire an equal number of people from all political affiliations?

Not for all positions...for instance, I don't care about the political leanings of the "grunts"

However, if an organization is important enough that the leaders are getting called up to Capitol Hill (and getting invited to meetings with legislators) to discuss the best way to manage public health messaging (a function of government), then they're treading the line of becoming a state actor and are acting a quasi civil regulatory board, and the people deciding what other people are allowed to say should be a somewhat balanced entity. Not unlike the MPAA ratings board. They're a private entity, but they ultimately have a lot of say with regards to what people are allowed to see or hear.

The same I have issue with the twitter content moderation team to be 95% millennial leftists, is the same reason why I don't want the MPAA ratings board to be comprised of 95% 68-year-old evangelicals, and why I wouldn't want an influential environmental assessment review board to be comprised of 95% fossil fuel executives.

Any moderation entity that's entire premise is "looking out for what's best for everyone", by it's very nature, should be balanced.

 

[Diamond72]

The law of the land does not grant the government any power to encroach on my unalienable, God given rights;

Does God give TicTok the right to ban people?

 

[Diamond72]

he was nude in some of them

You can block that account, so you do have control over that.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

You can block that account, so you do have control over that.

Whether or not I can block the account has no bearing on violations of the terms of service. Twitter forbids the posting of private photos of individuals without their consent.

 

[Diamond72]

Twitter forbids the posting of private photos of individuals without their consent.

Actually, you need a written release form. Models have to sign a release if you want to use their photos. Once you let the cat out of the bag, it is pretty difficult to get it back in again. There are lots of photos on the internet that people object to, but there is not much they can do about it.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Actually, you need a written release form.

Yes, that's certainly one form of consent.

Models have to sign a release if you want to use their photos. Once you let the cat out of the bag, it is pretty difficult to get it back in again. There are lots of photos on the internet that people object to, but there is not much they can do about it.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. The context of this discussion is that nude photos of Hunter Biden taken from his laptop were posted on Twitter without his consent. This is violation of Twitter's policies, and therefore it would be reasonable for people to request that Twitter remove the posts. How widely something has spread on the internet is irrelevant to Twitter's policies

 

[HARK!]

Does God give TicTok the right to ban people?

I don't see how this is relevant to the OP.

 

[Diamond72]

taken from his laptop were posted

As far as I know every photo I take with my phone goes to three different places on the cloud. Any photo in reality are public domain. So if you do not want the public to have them, don't use your phone. Use a camera and leave them on the disk. Even then there is a risk because I had a camera stolen from me.

That dugger guy had something like 60 photos on his computer and he was sentenced to 12 years. So people do get arrested and put in jail for that stuff. I am sure they are not making announcements about it.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

As far as I know every photo I take with my phone goes to three different places on the cloud. Any photo in reality are public domain.

That's not how it works. At all. Your cloud storage is still considered a private space.

So if you do not want the public to have them, don't use your phone. Use a camera and leave them on the disk. Even then there is a risk because I had a camera stolen from me.

A stolen photo is by definition not in the public domain. It is stolen property. If a photo gets leaked or released publicly, even without your consent, then yes, it's pretty much impossible to stop it from spreading, but it also does not become public domain and it does not change the fact that it is a private photo that you never consented to release publicly. You can still request that it be removed from sites that do not allow the posting of such material (which is most of them - many states and countries are implementing so-called "revenge porn" laws that impose strict legal penalties for posting or distributing explicit content of a person without their consent).

That dugger guy had something like 60 photos on his computer and he was sentenced to 12 years. So people do get arrested and put in jail for that stuff. I am sure they are not making announcements about it.

Yes, the penalties for possession of child pornography are very steep - for good reason. Those photos were found thanks to a police search warrant and are not public.

 

[Diamond72]

Your cloud storage is still considered a private space.

You believe what you want, I am not taking any chances.

 

[NxNW]

Your cloud storage is still considered a private space.

That's what Jennifer Lawrence was thinking.

 

[Hazelelponi]

A North Texas lawmaker filed a bill that would require all social media users to be 18 years of age to create an account.


The bill, HB 896, (pdf) which was proposed by state Rep. Jared Patterson, will force social media sites to verify a user’s age with photo ID and allow parents to request that their child’s account be deactivated.

Proposed Texas Bill Aims to Ban Social Media for Children Over Mental Health Concerns After State’s TikTok Ban

www.theepochtimes.com

I don't need the government's permission to exercise my constitutionally protected rights.

I am not obligated to identify myself to exercise my freedom of speech.

The law of the land does not grant the government any power to encroach on my unalienable, God given rights; because some parents have neglected their God given responsibility to raise their children.

Well - the states can tell you you can't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes before the age of majority - 18 or 21 years old.

If parents don't care the parents can always be the ones to create an account for their children... Same as they can supervise and allow their own kids to have a glass of wine with dinner.

This bill just gives a lot more control over what children do online to the parents themselves really.

It doesn't sound like the bill is that bad. There's numerous studies showing us how dangerous social media can be for kids - think Zuckerberg allows his own kids on Facebook? Think again - he doesn't allow his own kids on his own website!

 

[HARK!]

Well - the states can tell you you can't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes before the age of majority - 18 or 21 years old.

If parents don't care the parents can always be the ones to create an account for their children... Same as they can supervise and allow their own kids to have a glass of wine with dinner.

This bill just gives a lot more control over what children do online to the parents themselves really.

It doesn't sound like the bill is that bad. There's numerous studies showing us how dangerous social media can be for kids

Again, no law can stop anyone from viewing the content.

think Zuckerberg allows his own kids on Facebook? Think again - he doesn't allow his own kids on his own website!

Probably to protect himself from what they might repeat.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Buried lede in the OP is that Abbott banned tiktok from all state computing devices. This has now reached the state universities, which are now also banning Tiktok traffic on school-owned networks.

On Tuesday, University of Texas and Texas A&M University were among Texas colleges that announced a ban on the video-sharing app TikTok on school devices and campus, part of an effort led by Governor Greg Abbott. The move left some questioning the schools' priorities, according to students who spoke to Insider.

• UT Austin and Texas A&M announced a ban on TikTok from school WiFi and devices this week.

 

[FireDragon76]

But you do need the permission of the owner of the private company to participate on a social media platform.

Free speech has nothing to do with social media, but social media has everything to do with the glories of capitalism.

I agree 100 percent. Social Media being a "public square" is libertarian techno-utopian nonsense. In reality, it's corporations making money exploiting people.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

That's what Jennifer Lawrence was thinking.

And, from a legal perspective, she was right. Someone hacking your cloud storage does not move it into the public domain - It's still your content and you can issue takedown notices to any site that hosts it without your consent.