from Hacker News

Texas Bill Bans Children from Social Media Without Parental Consent

by bishopsmother on 6/15/23, 10:17 AM with 3 comments

• by jqpabc123 on 6/15/23, 12:07 PM

  In other words, Texas law mandates privacy invasion for all social media users. KYC (know your customer) is coming to social media.

  Without personally identifying all users, there is no way to verify any given user's age or location. Goodbye HN --- it was nice while it lasted.

  And by the way, children can easily circumvent this law --- just use their parents identity. Most parents don't hide their identity from their kids any better than they control their kids use of the internet. Apparently, these lawmakers figure kids in Tex-ass are too dumb to figure this.

• by jleyank on 6/15/23, 11:39 AM

  IANAL, so by the definition of terms in the law, is messaging social media? It can handle broadcasts, show pictures, …. What about video tools, as they’re capable of multiple participants? These are all things the larger tools like Facebook can do, and I assume grandstanding politicians aren’t knowledgeable or careful.

  Didn’t boomer kids back then talk dirty on their bedroom phone? That was all without (specific) parental permission. How about clusters of (pre) teens when the parents weren’t around. Is this why they’re putting malls out of business?!

• by eva_cananim on 6/15/23, 11:11 AM

  This appears to have been signed into Texas law, to come into effect in September.

  This applies to everyone under 18 in Texas.

  I think there is a fairly good chance that this will be ruled unconstitutional.

  At minimum, restricting the ability of 17 year olds to use a common means of communication is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech.