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Subject:\[EXTERNAL\] Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs bill that bans children under 14 from
having social media accounts/, more than 200 organizations sent a letter urging
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vote on the Kids Online Safety Act,
Warning: This email originated from outside the City of Anaheim. Do not click links or open
attachments unless you recognize the sender and are expecting the message.
04-23-2024
(P.R.D.D.C.)
PARENTS FOR THE RIGHTS OF DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED CHILDREN
CRAIG A. DURFEY FOUNDER OF P.R.D.D.C.
U.S. HOUSE OF CONGRESS H2404 - HONORING CRAIG DURFEY FOR HIS FIGHT AGAINST AUTISM
... Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2003-03-27/pdf/CREC-2003-03-27.pdf
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To whom it may concern.
Recently book published title The Anxious Generation How the Great Rewiring of
Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. By Jonathan Haidt.
Screen time is the amount of time spent using a device with a screen such as a
smartphone, computer, television, or video game console.
The concept is under significant research with related concepts in digital media use and
mental health. Studies show that screen time directly impacts child development, and
mental and physical health. The positive or negative health effects of screen time are
influenced by levels and content of exposure. To prevent harmful exposure to screen
time, some government. how does screen time affect your health - Search (bing.com) as
well CA SCR 73 Blue light 2019 causing mental Illness, sleep deprivation, myopia.
The State of California has yet recognized the harm below represents In December, more
than 200 organizations sent a letter urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-
N.Y., to schedule a vote on the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, which seeks to create
liability, or a “duty of care,” for apps and online platforms that recommend content to
minors that can negatively affect their mental health.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs bill that bans children under 14 from having
social media accounts.
March 25, 2024, 12:18 PM PDT
By Kalhan Rosenblatt
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday that will prohibit children younger than
14 from joining social media in the state. Those who are 14 or 15 will need a parent’s
consent before they join a platform.
The bill, HB3, also directs social media companies to delete the existing accounts of
those who are under 14. Companies that fail to do so could be sued on behalf of the child
who creates an account on the platform. The minor could be awarded up to $10,000 in
damages, according to the bill. Companies found to be in violation of the law would also
be liable for up to $50,000 per violation, as well as attorney’s fees and court costs.
“Ultimately, \[we’re\] trying to help parents navigate this very difficult terrain that we have
now with raising kids, and so I appreciate the work that’s been put in,” DeSantis said in
remarks during the bill-signing ceremony.
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DeSantis previously vetoed a more restrictive version of the bill that would have banned
social media accounts for kids under 16. That bill also required Florida residents to
submit an ID or other identifying materials in order to join social media.
HB3, which is slated to take effect in January 2025, comes as efforts to regulate social
media continue to ramp up across the U.S. amid concerns from some parents that the
platforms don’t do enough to keep their kids safe online.
In December, more than 200 organizations sent a letter urging Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to schedule a vote on the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA,
which seeks to create liability, or a “duty of care,” for apps and online platforms that
recommend content to minors that can negatively affect their mental health.
In January, lawmakers grilled CEOs from TikTok, X and Meta about online child safety.
The tech executives reaffirmed their commitment to child safety, and pointed to various
tools they offer as examples of how they are proactive about preventing exploitation
online.
Florida House Speaker Paul Renner and other advocates of the new law argue that social
media use can harm children’s mental health and can lead to sexual predators
communicating with minors.
"None of us can afford to be on the sidelines when it comes to social media," Renner said
in remarks made at the bill signing.
Several states that have enacted similar laws to limit teen social media — including Ohio
and Arkansas — have been challenged by Net Choice LLC, a coalition of social media
platforms whose members include Meta, Google and X, among others.
TECH NEWS
Meta is putting AI front and center in its apps, and some users are annoyed.
Florida’s law is also expected to face legal challenges over claims that it violates the
First Amendment.
“We’re disappointed to see Gov. DeSantis sign onto this route,” Carl Szabo, vice
president and general counsel for Net Choice, said in an email statement, calling the law
"unconstitutional." “There are better ways to keep Floridians, their families and their
data safe and secure online without violating their freedoms.”
Both DeSantis and Renner alluded in their remarks to the potential legal hurdles ahead.
"You will not find a line in this bill that addresses good speech or bad speech because
that would violate the First Amendment," Renner said. "We've not addressed that at all.
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What we have addressed is the addictive features that are at the heart of why children
stay on these platforms for hours and hours on end."
He specifically called out Net Choice, saying, “We’re going to beat them, and we’re never
ever going to stop.”
DeSantis argued the bill is constitutionally sound.
“Any time I see a bill, if I don’t think it’s constitutional, I veto it,” he said. He described
the bill as "a fair application of the law and Constitution.”
And: I Changed My Mind About Kids and Phones. I Hope Everyone Else Does, Too.
On the issue of kids, smartphones, and social media, a vibe shift is happening, and it’s
happening on the left, right, and in the center. Here’s a survey of recent anti-phone
discourse on the topic in politics and culture in recent weeks and months: The TikTok
“ban” (don’t call it that) garnered bipartisan support in the House, and Gov. Ron DeSantis
signed a bill making it illegal for people under 14 to have social media accounts in
Florida.
“People are so unwilling to blame iPhones as one of the main culprits in a variety of
social ills but graphs like \[these\] are revealing. It’s obviously the phones,” zillennial
writer Magdalene Taylor tweeted, semi-virally, attaching that infamous “teens today
aren’t hanging out” graph. Hosts of two podcasts enjoyed by Very Online left-ish
millennials, TrueAnon and Time to Say Goodbye, devoted episodes to making
freewheeling arguments against the use of social media by kids.
(Tyler Austin Harper, a professor at Bates who has written for Slate, even suggested on
the latter show that smartphones should be made illegal for use by people under 18.
Tyler! A take!) A trend piece in the Daily Beast uncovered interviewees from Gen Z who
said that when they had kids, they certainly wouldn’t be letting them be “raised by”
iPads. “Get offline. It is not alcohol, it is not porn, it is not weed, it is not blah blah, it is
being online. Get offline,” wrote a Reddit user on
Not so long ago, the default position, if one were an internet-savvy older person
beginning to feel queasy when noticing groups of kids bent over their phones, was to say
to oneself, “Well, that’s life; once, Socrates feared print’s effect on memory, and now, I
fear this.” One definitely didn’t say out loud, online,
“The kids shouldn’t have phones,” unless one were writing for the Atlantic. A weary “it
has always been thus” pose toward the topic was in order—television, Walkmans, rock
music, the youths are always up to something the adults think is stupid. Some of the
resistance to wagging a finger at kids and phones was a totally fair allergy to
generational analysis; another part of it was probably self-defense.
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“Some of us really don’t like our screen time habits criticized,” Taylor wrote in a follow-
up Substack analyzing the replies to her recent “it’s the phones” provocation on X.
“Others may think they appear smarter by highlighting other issues, that they can see
above the fray and observe the macro trends that are really shaping our lives, not that
stupid anti-phone rhetoric we hear from the Boomers.” It’s not the phones; it’s the lack of
third spaces, the omnipresent car culture, the inequality. That defensive pose? I know it
well, because I was adept at it—in 2019 I described concern over teens and social media
as “alarmist.”
Things are different in 2024. Yes, we have new data on the shape of the mental-health
crisis among teens, and especially teenage girls, and how it’s worsened since phones got
front-facing cameras and platforms became dominant. But the biggest shift doesn’t come
from looking at new data; it’s from experience.
More and more people have a boomer relative who was radicalized on Facebook, a
grandma who won’t look up from her phone during family visits, or a Gen X partner adept
at the art of phubbing. We, who are supposed to enjoy grown-adult levels of impulse
control, have had trouble sleeping due to doomscrolling, spent Zoom meetings looking at
Instagram, or gotten into weird fights with strangers on Reddit that derailed us
emotionally for far too long.
We, ourselves, with our developed brains, have felt like flies on sticky paper when it
comes to social media; of course, children, still forming their selves and navigating the
pitfalls of pre-adulthood, may be affected by it too. “Kids probably shouldn’t have
smartphones” has lost its generational sting. It has come to look more and more like
common sense.
Into this apparently promising moment comes social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new
book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic
of Mental Illness. Its compact thesis: We’ve overprotected kids IRL and under protected
them online. In the book’s first chapters, Haidt rearticulates a very familiar set of
arguments about American kids’ lack of physical freedom.
Playgrounds used to be more dangerous! Kids used to roam the woods! Why is everyone
always at scheduled activities run by adults?! The kids never get a bruise or bump, and
how will they learn to self-regulate this way? None of this will be new to anyone who’s
kept up with popular parenting books in the past few decades. Haidt’s innovation lies in
connecting this now-well-articulated picture of overprotected childhood with what
happens when those same kids get on phones.
The Anxious Generation, he hopes, will be part of a larger collective movement, one he is
actively trying to incite by publishing a companion website full of evidence, discussion
guides, and sample petitions, and funding billboards and public art in major cities. On his
Substack, he wrote recently: “By the end of 2025, we will roll back the phone-based
childhood.”
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"President John F. Kennedy said technology ‘has no conscience of its own. Whether it
will become a force for good or ill depends on man.’ Yet swayed by digital-age myths, we
are providing our children with remarkably little guidance on their use of technology.
Request letter of support since it takes a village to save a child. Quotations by John F.
Kennedy, “Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the
future.
Thank You
Craig A Durfey
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