And don't think it would stop at 16 either! This is an express train, baby! That means 18 at the VERY least, then maybe 19 to "get it out of the high schools" (right!), and then eventually 21, using the drinking and smoking ages as specious justification (by 2030 at the very latest). Or perhaps 25, based on junk neuroscience, or maybe even a permanent "generational ban" like the UK just enacted for tobacco products now. All aboard the Overton Window Express!
They are currently strangely silent about age verification, but they shouldn't be. After all, it would be utterly toothless without it, and a privacy and cybersecurity nightmare for all ages with it.
To be fair, their "Kids Over Clicks" proposal is a "mixed bag" which includes a number of other things in addition to that, such as privacy by default and safety by design for all ages (which we certainly support!), a ban on surveillance advertising for all ages (now we're talking!), limits on data collection for children (good, now let's do it for ALL ages!), rules of the road for AI chatbots (probably good, but the devil is in the details), limited carveouts to update the Section 230 liability shield to make Big Tech pay for the damage they cause (again, devil is in the details, but could still be good if the carveouts are surgical), bell-to-bell cellphone bans in schools with limited exceptions (mixed feelings, and we don't endorse them unless they apply them to faculty and staff too, which you know they won't), and promoting the idea of a "smartphone-free childhood" until age 14 (meh, they likely drank the Jon Haidt Kool-Aid, but at least it's 14 and not higher, right?).
Ironically, if they did somehow get their entire wishlist granted, or at least the items that we support or largely support, then the 16 age limit would basically be redundant and unnecessary. There is really NO legitimate purpose to that age ban that could not be sufficiently served by other, less blunt, crude, and restrictive means. The problem of Big Tech is overall the sort of wicked problem that calls for a scalpel, NOT a sledgehammer, and yet they seem to simultaneously endorse both, because reasons.
Like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) advocates, we should adopt a "Privacy First" approach. Any sentence about tech policy that doesn't start with "comprehensive federal data privacy legislation for all ages," is an incomplete and incoherent sentence. That, plus adding just a little bit more "friction" back into the system, will throw the proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom for good. So what are we waiting for?
P.S. If they are really so serious about these social media platforms being so apocalyptically harmful for kids and teens, which would imply that they would still be quite harmful for adults too as they currently stand, then they should do a "safety recall" and summarily "quarantine" such platforms until they can be made safer. What's that? Don't like having YOUR rights taken away? Then don't try to take away anyone else's. Capisce?
