Proposed law in Minnesota would ban algorithms to protect the children

Proposed law in Minnesota would ban algorithms to protect the children(arstechnica.com)

12 points by Cyclical 4 years ago | 6 comments

I'm almost interested to backtrace and find out exactly when "algorithm" became the accepted abbreviation for "recommendation algorithm". Almost, but not quite.

Also, whenever I see anything about legislators trying to make laws about what can and can't be done to "children's accounts" online, I laugh. Surely no child would ever be able to click the "I am over 18" checkbox unless they were truly over 18, right? Nah, couldn't happen.

I think in some countries, those sites require a governmental ID number to prove your age or something, but... how hard is it for a kid to peek at their parent's card, or for a parent to make an account for a kid to use? Expecting any internet service can tell whether a child is currently using any given account is ridiculous without serious data collection and privacy violations.

vineyardmike 4 years ago | |

> Expecting any internet service can tell whether a child is currently using any given account is ridiculous without serious data collection and privacy violations.

There is the concept of "best effort" where if your customer lies to you, not much you can do. But eg. social media is popular among < 18yos. You can make an account and use it if you're young, but you get different feature flags. This is pretty common. Eg. You can use FB if you're less than 21, but no one can show you alcohol ads (fb enforces). So someone would have to actively lie to get an "algorithm" and they'd have to know they want it.

TLDR. Not crazy.

IceMetalPunk 4 years ago | | |

> So someone would have to actively lie to get an "algorithm" and they'd have to know they want it.

You mean like... many, many kids do when they sign up for any internet account, because they know their options will be restricted if they don't?

Hell, I did it when I was 12 in the early 2000s, I guarantee children who grew up in the social media age definitely do it all the time. It's not that they "want the algorithm" explicitly, they just don't want the restrictions that they know come with telling a website "I am a child".

erezyehuda 4 years ago |

Merits of the bill aside, I think the headline is spun in a way to make the bill seem totally witless, when it's not. There could be more specific wording, of course, and debating the actual merits of the bill is always fair game, but the title reads as if someone just said "Algorithms are bad for children!" and left it at that. The bill is clearly about content prioritization targeted at minors.

matt321 4 years ago |

Which algorithms? Better not ban any algorithms dealing with traffic lights!

erezyehuda 4 years ago | |

It says in the bill-

> (d) "Social media algorithm" means the software used by social media platforms to (1) prioritize content, and (2) direct the prioritized content to the account holder.