House lawmakers introduce bill to update children's online privacy law:
A pair of House lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill Thursday to update a decades-old law designed to protect children's online privacy. The bill comes amid growing concern that children are encountering increasingly sophisticated threats online.
The Preventing Real Online Threats Endangering Children Today Act (PDF), introduced by Republican Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan and Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, aims to strengthen the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) to address the ever-evolving digital landscape, the lawmakers said.
"Children today are more connected online and face dangers that we could not have imagined years ago," Walberg said in a statement. "While advancements in technology allows for many benefits, it also poses a risk for our kids."
The legislation would allow parents to force companies to delete any private information they've collected about their children. It would also raise the raise the age of parental consent protections from the current 13 years of age to 16.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday January 11 2020, @07:28PM (4 children)
You telling me that once we turn 18 we lose all rights to online privacy?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @03:12AM
Exactly. That's the main issue I have with this: That companies are allowed to conduct mass surveillance on everyone over a certain age, when they shouldn't be allowed to do so at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @03:23AM (1 child)
Well I'm in my fifties, but what if I identify as a 12 year old otherkin?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @03:44AM
Then you can have cyber sex with children and anybody who claims otherwise is a bigot.
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Sunday January 12 2020, @05:24AM
No, once you turn 13 you lose all rights to online privacy.
If the bill passes, then once you turn 16 you'll lose all such rights.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday January 11 2020, @07:28PM (3 children)
While the kids are still in the cages, it is nice to hear about this half-measure that sounds kindof nice, for the children's sake. Then you can email fb to politely ask them to erase some files, which surely were never copied to another location, and which they will surely just find right away at the support department in between accidentally copying their entire databases to private spy firms and fanatically religious foreign countries trying to dominate the world. They will feel so forced by this law I bet, they are shaking in their boots.
I made this one for moments just like these, https://archive.is/eSLh7 [archive.is]
The problem is much worse than this. Much worse.
This is what we are facing, to the extent you have any gifts in intelligence: https://archive.is/6uwoN [archive.is]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @11:15PM (2 children)
Just a personal note here:
I find some of your comments interesting or otherwise informative. However, a fair portion of the images you link to are either barely on topic or take more time to read than your comments.
The images are probably fun to make, but many hard to read. A fair portion are incredibly dense, data-wise. Some also have parts that are very low contrast(black text on maroon/dark red/brown background and such). This leads to the feeling that they are cluttered and raises the effort needed to read it.
Imagine that your audience just woke up and hasn't had their first cup of coffee. When I see a list of a half dozen links it immediately makes me think, "too much work to read all that." Try to keep it to a single info-graphic link per comment(maybe two).
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Sunday January 12 2020, @04:06PM (1 child)
I will take it into consideration. You say I share more ideas than you expect? That it jolts you out of a stupor in the morning, with a 'waking up' effect?
Music to my ears. I ere on the side of the meme, saying too much meme, faster rather than wait and see. It is part of this project because there is a clock on this. It's like the nutjob trend I was watching my entire life became real. Biff from Back to the Future did take over.
You can of course re-produce the meme to suit yourself and re-transmit, it is totally allowed and that is the spirit. Might want to beware of that, some younguns might say any complaint about a meme is like, 'why didnt you fix it yourself boomer, dont you have photoshop on your windows vista tower?'
What if I told you this very morning I spent at least half an hour tweaking some text so it was more readable, im working on it.
Hmm where is the new hotness and what context is this? oh here we go:
https://archive.is/Rdbj9 [archive.is]
https://archive.is/xPOYX [archive.is]
I think those fit your spec. Enjoy and as always share rapidly. I get banned everywhere because the overton window has shrunk so small I can't even find it. Well why not one more.
https://archive.is/2dt6H [archive.is]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @06:56AM
Perhaps I could have been clearer in referring to the audience. What I meant was, try to understand your audience has limited attention spans. They're less likely to click on more images if it takes too much effort to read them. The new examples are definitely easier to read, especially with regard to legibility.
As for the permissions to copy and modify the images, consider putting a license notification in a corner so people can know that. There are lots of options out there, but Creative Commons [creativecommons.org] is a popular choice. No permissions or rights can be assumed if there is no notice at all.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by exaeta on Saturday January 11 2020, @07:30PM (1 child)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @02:12AM
Shove some hairy dicks in their faces. It builds character.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday January 11 2020, @10:13PM (6 children)
If they don't enforce the existing laws, why would a new law be of any benefit?
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Saturday January 11 2020, @11:25PM (4 children)
It's beneficial for politicians. They get to point to something and say, "Here's what I've done for you! Vote for me!"
In fact, laws that aren't enforced lead exactly to this situation where people call for more laws, which perpetuates the cycle.
Virtually nobody else benefits except police and prosecutors who can add one more thing to hang over someone's head when they get hauled in for breaking some law or another.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Saturday January 11 2020, @11:30PM (3 children)
Forgot a couple of other groups that benefit. Large corporations and lawyers in general.
More laws mean higher barriers to entry for new competitors. Regulatory capture, etc...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @02:15AM (2 children)
COPPA 2.0 will hasten the death of YouTube and benefit the Russian and Chinese replacements waiting in the wings.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @04:53AM (1 child)
Does anyone provide their real age to youtube?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 12 2020, @05:50AM
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2019/11/youtube-channel-owners-your-content-directed-children [ftc.gov]
YouTubers are now afraid of getting fined $42,530 per video if the FTC determines it is improper content for kids. If you label it as kid content, features will be disabled and you can get fined. If you don't label it as kid content, you will get less monetization and you can get fined. More laws will make it more confusing.
YouTube is #1 but it will die if creators can't monetize their content.
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Sunday January 12 2020, @05:29AM
Consider alternatively.
Sites like Faceplant, TikTok, online forums, just about everywhere say "You're not welcome to use this site if you're under 13 years of age, unless you have a parent sign and return this form." They do actively remove accounts of such underaged people -- and this law is the reason why. It's everywhere.
What do you suppose will happen if this law is raised to 16 years? Is Faceplant going to chop off all their 13-15 users? Probably not. Are forums going to remove every -16 user? Probably. (Except Reddit?)
Having that one change will really cause online services to rethink their privacy as a whole, for a whole lot more people.