Soon, you may not be able to lip sync or dance synchronized, or compare your body
negatively to heavily filtered influencers who do not eat food for a living,
or have access to adults who inappropriately slide into your DMs.
At least without your parents knowing about it, all about it.
Utah is now the first US state to require social media companies to get parental
consent for children to use their apps, or verify users are at least 18 years old.
Governor Cox, I like to pause after that name said he signed these
two sweeping measures with the goal of protecting young people.
The bills will give parents full access to their children's online accounts,
including posts and private messages.
The move comes amidst heightened concern over
the impact of social media on children's mental health, according to BBC news.
Ignoring the effect on children's mental health of your parents reading your DMs,
which arguably could be worse.
I would not enjoy that even today [LAUGH].
Under the measures enacted on Thursday, a parent or guardian's explicit consent
will be needed before the children can create accounts on apps such as Instagram,
Facebook and TikTok.
They obviously didn't have to include Facebook in that,
young people ain't going there.
The bills also impose a social media curfew that blocks children's access
between 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM unless adjusted by their parents.
Great to time block it, this way,
these young children cannot access these apps while they are sleeping.
So that's helpful.
Under the legislation, social media companies will no longer be able to
collect a child's data or be targeted for advertising.
Quote, it adds momentum for other states to hold social media companies accountable
to ensure kids across the country are protected online,
said Jim Steyer from Common Sense Media, their founder and CEO.
Smilar regulations are being considered in four other Republican-led states,
Arkansas, Texas, Ohio and Louisiana and Democratic-led New Jersey.
But Common Sense Media and other advocacy groups warned some parts of
the new legislation could put children at risk.
Ari Z Cohn, a free speech lawyer for TechFreedom,
said the bill posed significant free speech problems.
Quote, there are so many children who might be in abusive households,
who might be LGBTQ, who could be cut off from social media entirely.
There has been other US bipartisan support for
social media legislation aimed at protecting children.
President Joe Biden's State of the Union address in February called for
laws banning tech companies from collecting data on children.
Last year, California state lawmakers passed their own child data law.
Among other measures, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act requires
digital platforms to make the highest privacy features for
under-18 users a default setting.
Controversial stance to protect children as a default.
How dare they?
This of course comes at the same time that Congress is coming very hard or
just came very hard at the TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew,
during their hearing this week, which included the question.
Are you spying on US citizens on the direction of the Chinese Communist Party?
And his response was the underwhelming.
Well, I wouldn't call it spying.
So there's that.
It's a tough issue.
Cenk, what do you think?
>> Okay, not a good answer.
Okay, so this is an issue that goes in two completely different directions.
So let me explain.
First of all, unlike other bills proposed in red states,
there's actually some logic to this.
So a lot of times we'll be covering stories, they say, my God,
if you mention the word gay, Rumpelstiltskin appears in class and
hurts all the kids or something like it's absurd like,
they are trying to ban tampons and I don't, like insane stuff, right?
They've taken out books in Florida.
This is not insane.
And if you're trying to protect children, the drag queens are nearly 0% issue.
I think there is 0%, but if you're a Republican and you think, well,
I think it's actually a 0.1% issue, okay.
Well, the point we always make is dude, what difference does it make?
They could just go online and see everything, right?
And so at least this addresses that so there's a lot more logic to it, okay?
So that's fair is fair.
On the other hand, wait, that's weird.
Why is it mainly red states that are doing this?
And common sense media is not a conservative organization so
kind of weird.
Well, here's that explanation.
So Jamal Ben the other day was part of a press conference during this TikTok stuff.
He's a just Democrat so progressive congressman.
And he said part of the reason that they wanna block TikTok is because Republicans
ain't got no swag, and then people are like, that's funny, that's ridiculous.
Can you believe that?
No, no, that's true.
And so what that means is, almost all the young people that are on Tiktok and
these other social media are progressive, and it's driving the right wing crazy
that they can't shut it down like they do with mainstream media.
Mainstream media, they just yell at them and go, you are liberal.
I demand that you give 50% of your air time to lies, right?
And it's so easy to bully mainstream media, besides they're not really
bullying them, they're on the same team, they're all in favor of corporate rule.
So corporations and combined with Republican and Democratic politicians
are excellent at controlling mainstream media and right wing media.
They're all on the same agenda, and all of a sudden here comes these kids on TikTok
and Instagram and all these different places, and they won't shut up and
none of them are in favor of corporate rule, and it's driving them crazy.
So I will tell you right now, you will see so many more efforts from now for
years on end of Republicans trying to shut down social media.
And the number one reason is because it's getting out
a progressive message and they need to attack it and end it now.
It is a rare part of media that they cannot control, and
they must control the media, otherwise people would rebel against corporate rule.
Rick. >> Okay,
I'm gonna go further in a second but considering you are the only one on
the panel who has children, do you think this is a good idea?
And like, would your kids be, I'm curious from a parental perspective and
someone who actually has kids, like, how do you honestly feel?
>> I think that totally fine for other parents to say, no, I like this.
This is a reasonable regulation, etc.
So I'm not hating on people who say, I'm worried about my kids being online.
This reason for me.
No, I don't think these things are gonna help, once they get to teenager years,
there's no force on earth that can stop a teenage boy from finding a way to
get online.
Okay, and it doesn't matter what time of the day it is,
there's no question they're going to get online.
Okay, you can't.
So what you have to teach them is you have to teach them personal responsibility and
you have to teach them all the right lessons.
So that when they encounter the world, which they will inevitably encounter,
they are ready to make the right judgments about it, okay?
Because you can't block them from the world forever.
That's why you have to, but parenting is hard, right?
And turning something off is easier.
But I'm not trying to judge, people but parent in different ways.
>> Right, okay.
So here's what I'll say about this.
We are dealing with so many different pandemics,
I guess you could say, like COVID is still here.
Climate change is wreaking havoc on us.
From a sports perspective, many outdoor sports are gonna go bye bye.
And the number one cause of death in children is not TikTok.
We have a smart audience.
I know you guys know.
The leading cause of death is guns, it's guns.
And here we are fighting against a social media app.
I agree with Cenk, but I'll go further.
It is because we are coming together and dispelling different notions.
I would argue TikTok is for Republicans.
Largely to blame why we didn't have the big scary red wave in the midterms.
Because there was mobilizing from a younger base and
that block of the voting demographic which skews younger,
that saved Democrats in the midterms.
Every study reviewing the numbers shows they voted against Republicans and
for Democrats because Republicans are trying to loosen gun laws,
don't care about the climate.
What have you.
Do I think this is going to work.
No.
But what I will say is, they have a year to figure this out.
This doesn't go into effect until March of 2024.
So what they're doing is setting the precedent to open up negotiations and say,
okay, well, how can we tinker with this a little bit here and there?
Ben also said something very accurate.
They're putting these hours in place although it's, U 18, so
technically 17 year olds could stay up that late.
I stayed up that late and played PS2 when I was that young.
But like, a majority of these kids are not gonna be up at 12:30,
1:30, 2 AM watching TikTok for the most part.
I think this is going to backfire, but
I also don't think that it's that big of a deal because if you think about it,
the lobbying that's going on with other companies that have put these people
in these positions of power to have this mindset to go against TikTok.
It's pretty hypocritical in the end.
>> My concern with it is that they are designed to be so addictive.
I'm addicted to them the amount of times I logged my weekly so
I just automatically by wrote pick up and open instagram is insane.
And for a child, that's much more difficult.
And recent statistics from the CDC I believe said that that 60% of young girls
have experienced severe depression or at least feelings of strong inadequacy.
1 in 5 teen girls has had suicidal thoughts or actions and so
I don't like anything that amplifies that in an uncontrolled way.
But on the flip, the algorithms that I decry sometimes for squelching content,
they also do feed you a lot of positive bite size kid consumable memes and things
that can change your perspective on things and can help you through hard times.
It's worked even for me and so it's a hard issue.
>> The Chinese government are having access to the information
is a legitimate issue.
I'm not minimizing that.
But at the same time, they will shut TikTok down the minute that a progressive
wins a primary cuz a lot of kids from TikTok drove progressives out to
a primary against the Democratic candidate.
Then the Democrats will go.
I don't want this.
The kids are so progressive.
I'm gonna lose my seat.
Then the Democrats and the Republicans will agree.
Let's shut down the rascally kids on our lawn who are so progressive,
>> The TikTok block.
>> Yeah, that they won't let us do our fake phony corporate rule anymore.
So beware of these bans or these laws.
I think that there's a political part of this that is really dangerous.
>> I agree that it's somewhat of a security concern.
But again, it is very hypocritical to say that this is the only
company that is selling our data.
There are other social media conglomerates that are massive in this country that
have been selling our data.
And we also hate to say it, know and
have come to accept that they're selling our data to foreign entities.
>> The TikTok CEO through Cambridge Analytica right in Congress's face.
>> He did, he did and it was great.
Now the problem is they can't control the message.
They want us to stick to what we have right now.
And this is getting out of control which Cenk and Ben rightfully pointed out was
pushing more establishment people into retirement or
into a different sector completely and not being a lawmaker anymore.
It is the mobilization of the younger voting bloc with progressive values,
corrupt free values for the most part that are having the largest say, and
having a coalition and a place to go to organize.
That is the problem.