What is up with that title? I’ve read it three times and I still don’t understand it

I like this judge.

These moral panics are fodder for political primates in the Conservative party. When the Reagan Administration dominated the airwaves in the 1980s and started all this Christian Doomerism, the major media really sucked off the Reaganite platform.

I’d guess most of y’all are too young to remember the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Reagan worshippers were convinced that there was a nationwide secret Satanic plot to abuse and kill children taking place in basements and secret locations all over the U.S. There were only a few major media formats (CBS, NBC, and ABC mostly) and they all reported constantly on these secret Satanists and how they were hiding secret messages in music, invading the brains of children through Dungeons & Dragons, and abusing children in secret rituals. The Satanic Panic got endless news coverage, and good Conservative Christians everywhere were constantly vigilant against all the secret Satanism in their midst. They picketed school boards, scanned their children’s media consumption for secret subliminal Satanic penises (seriously), and so on.

And here’s the kicker … NONE of it was real. Hours of news coverage, daytime talk show discussions, pages upon pages of ink in major newspapers, and NOT ONE OUNCE of it had any actual evidence behind it.

This was the beginning of the political/media landscape we’re all trapped in now. The gameplan never changed.

p.s. and this was of course all topped off by major media news coverage that referred to AIDS as ‘gay cancer’ repeatedly, all in line with the anti-gay dictates of Reagan himself repeating that the U.S. was going to turn into Sodom & Gomorrah because of all the gayness hiding in suburban closets.

I don’t know why Techdirt is so concerned about the so-called “COVID denialism.” They call it themselves when they suggest it might be mocking. Judge Walker was an Obama appointee and has been remarkably sane in his judicial career, including on COVID. He is clearly trolling the state’s attorney at several points throughout, letting their previous positions hoist them on their own petard. I particularly like the point he raises about how Florida handles parental rights:

THE COURT: Well, we’ve empowered parents to control what books our kids read in school. Why is it far-fetched to empower parents and think they know best for their individual children about who they are engaging with socially on social media platforms?

MR. GOLEMBIEWSKI: Well, parents certainly have a role, but the key is these controls. And the controls have proven ineffective. So these platforms —

THE COURT: You are taking the control away. Because if I’ve got a 13-year-old child and I want him to — does my kid get to sign up if I want him to be able to sign up and have an account in a social media platform on Facebook?

MR. GOLEMBIEWSKI: You can register for an account and a kid can use your account, and you can monitor them. THE COURT: I don’t want to monitor them. Just like I want them to read the book about the two penguins raising an egg together. The two male penguins raising an egg together. I don’t want to sign up on my account. I want to have my own Facebook account. I want my kid — you’ve taken that choice away from me; right?

MR. GOLEMBIEWSKI: I just think it’s an irrelevant issue because their — I mean, the degree of control that parents have is irrelevant. What’s —

THE COURT: The point, Counsel — and I don’t think it’s particularly far-fetched — is the State of Florida picks and chooses when they want the parents to be making the decision. And when it suits their purposes, they do; and when it doesn’t, they don’t.

But I’ve got it. Fair enough.

It’s not that there’s no argument against letting children on social media. There are strong arguments, but the science is not mature maybe never will be, and the experiences parents permit their children to have can vary wildly. The point is that under the US system, you can’t make laws that limit free speech and private family behavior based on “this is probably not a great idea,” and if you can, then social conservatives will not always like where that leads.

MR. GOLEMBIEWSKI: Well, Your Honor, it is well known in this country that kids are addicted to these platforms. This is a mental health —

THE COURT: It was well known when I was growing up that I was going to become a Satanist because I played Dungeons & Dragons. Is that — I don’t know what really that means. You can say that there’s studies, Judge, and you can’t ignore expert reports that say X.

Delightful.

On one hand the Judge is right. On the other hand the lawyer is right. Then on two more hands, they’re both wrong.

Yes, it’s bad to legislate by moral panic. Yes, kids are addicted to social media. Those are both facts.

The reason age gating is a bad idea isn’t because of moral panic, or “the children”. It’s because we’re ALL addicted to social media. It isn’t just the kids, it’s adults as well. The problem is the intentionally addicting algorithms, meticulously engendered to keep us scrolling. I’m telling you in 50 years, we’ll know how all the social media companies were hiding and lying, about the addictive harmful nature of their business; Just like we know about tobacco and oil companies today.

The best solution I can think of, is to revisit Section 230. You can’t hold these companies responsible for what people post to their sites, but we can and must hold them accountable, for what they recommend! If you have a simple easily definable sorting or ranking system of what people choose to follow? You’re fine, no accountability for something bad showing up. If you have some black box algorithm of infinite scrolling, based on a complex criteria that nobody can really break down and explain exactly why a specific post was shown to a specific individual? Now you’re on the hook for what they see.

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