
How 13 Became the Internet’s Age of Adulthood - tysone
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-13-became-the-internets-age-of-adulthood-11560850201?mod=rsswn
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SllX
Even in 1998 such destinations as Neopets had graduated age-gated permissions.
I was technically in one of the youngest age groupings, but in order to get
full access to the website, I either had to get my mother to fax a permission
slip in, which sounded like a hassle for both of us, or I could just create an
account with an email address and claim I was 18+.

So I created my first email address and did that. Wasn’t even a hassle, and
bonus: I had an email address now. My mother didn’t even have that yet, and I
don’t think she had one of her own till 2006 when I signed her up for Gmail.

Whether or not it makes sense for the age gating to be 13 or not, I couldn’t
tell you, but whether it is 13 or 30, kids at whatever age we define them to
be at will do as they wish one way or another. Given reality on the ground,
additional legislation to try to force the reality we want is more likely to
have additional costs rather than additional benefits so rather than centering
our laws around age, we might want to try and center them around privacy for
_everyone_.

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dudul
"At 13, kids are still more than a decade from having a fully developed
prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in decision-making and
impulse control. And yet parents and educators unleash them on the internet at
that age"

Very first sentences and I can't help but think: well, if this whole "need 10
more years to make real decision and control their impulse" is true, why can
they drive at 16 and vote at 18?

~~~
Nasrudith
Really the prefrontal cortex is used mostly as a rationalization for what
society is comfortable with as opposed to guidance.

Look at "charged as an adult". Suddenly a 12 year old stabbing someone is
mature enough to stand trial when they can't even register on a forum without
parental permission. I satirically suggest that any minor tried as an adult
should retain all attendant adult status for sake of consistency. Which means
that any minor charged as an adult who was acquitted or had their case
dismissed should be able to vote against the DA.

~~~
mc32
Don’t felons lose the right to vote?

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mokus
“who was acquitted or had their case dismissed”

~~~
mc32
I missed that qualifier. Seems a fair trade they get to vote in local
elections.

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judge2020
It is a tough problem to solve. Many middle schoolers' lives live on Instagram
and snapchat, and getting COPPA to protect 13-15 would only introduce
operational problems for the existing users. Twitter already has this problem
for when you change your birthday to something that shows you signed up before
you were 13, and just recently started getting those accounts un-locked (which
means they didn't even immediately delete the data of those used-to-be-12 year
olds)[0].

Perhaps the above would depend on the text of the bill, ie. existing 13-15
year olds can continue to use the services without interruption. That would be
up to the lawmakers.

And, as per the article, lying about the child's age is a norm to get them on
the internet as early as 10 or 11. I have a few friends who were fine telling
their children to lie about their age to get them on instagram and snapchat.
As a service there's not much you can do about this unless you require every
sign-up to go through the COPPA parent verification process (where the most
popular method is credit card verification), so COPPA being changed to "you
can be penalized if they're under 13 even if they say they're over that age"
wouldn't be a solution.

0: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/14/after-year-long-lockout-
tw...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/14/after-year-long-lockout-twitter-is-
finally-giving-people-their-accounts-back/)

~~~
rock_hard
My sister created herself a Facebook account when she was 6.

And remembering my childhood self, there is nothing that would have stopped me
from getting one.

Being a parent now myself also in fact would probably even assist my kids to
get whatever accounts they want...better to have it happen under my
supervision than in secret.

As always, lawmakers are a little out of touch with reality

~~~
falcolas
You, a parent who would provide supervision, are not representative of all
parents. As such, the “village” must step in and ensure that children with
parents _who are not like you_ are not exploited for the lack of supervision.

Also, there’s nothing banning Facebook from offering under-13 children
accounts, other than their own lack of options for offering non-tracking/non-
advertised accounts for those children.

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
> options for offering non-tracking/non-advertised accounts for those children

LOL, that's the future of privacy, setting your age to below 13.

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tomatotomato37
Interesting they called the list of internet things children can do "free-
range" considering the growing kickback against helicopter parenting; I feel
that they just lost a big group of potential allies framing the issue in that
manner.

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Nelkins
See!! Just another example of how the Internet is a Jewish conspiracy!!

(This is a joke, I am Jewish).

