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A HUGE cultural loss and I'm grateful that I got to visit it a few years ago.

We all know once this is a thing, it's going to happen everywhere.

This is obviously unconstitutional and it'll be shot down in the courts before it takes effect since this is their version of KOSA among other First Amendment issues.

Some context here: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/11/nys-safe-for-kids-act-a-...


> This is obviously unconstitutional

"or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"

Well, is social media "speech" or "press"?

Television and radio stations need to abide by FCC guidelines, and in general, certain topics and words aren't allowed in the daytime.

Another example: Tobacco advertising is severely curtailed, *especially advertising targeted towards minors."

In this case, what isn't restricted is social media platforms ability to express ideas or otherwise function as "press." Instead, what's restricted is the addictive nature and activities that cause psychological harm.


You have the right to say want you want, but that doesn’t mean parents or the state have to let you show it to teenagers.

> Well, is social media "speech" or "press"?

Speech.

> Television and radio stations need to abide by FCC guidelines

As far as the content restrictions, they only need to do so if they are broadcast channels (or cable rebroadcasts of broadcast channels), and FCC is constitutionally prohibited from regulating speech on cable-only channels. The argument for why they can do broadcast is the "compelling government interest" in policing the inherently limited broadcast spectrum, which (quite frankly) is pretty shaky precedent if you ask me.

> Another example: Tobacco advertising is severely curtailed

Advertising is commercial speech, which the government has much more powerful abilities to restrict than expressive speech.


There's a pretty strong argument that an algorithmic feed optimised for engagement is commercial speech.

How is that feed "proposing a commercial transaction"?

It’s showing you content in exchange for your attention to their ads?

So is every newspaper.

I don't think you understand what "speech" and "press" are if you argue that the algorithm itself, or the act of running a social network, is protected speech.

In the case of the FCC, there's a clear difference between a radio signal, and the message it carries.

If you think the FCC is unconstitutional, I don't think you are able to make an argument with merit regarding social media.


> Well, is social media "speech" or "press"?

whichever benefits them at that point in time


> This is obviously unconstitutional

I also wonder if this is a first salvo to get users to submit IDs before using online services. How do you determine if a user is a minor or an adult without some form of ID, right?


Exactly, since age verification is going to be required which means collecting a LOT of personally idenificable information (PII) by ways of ID which govenrnments don't have a good history in securely storing that information.

First Amendment doesn't cover things that cause direct harm or speech to minors. In this case, you can draw a straight line between social media usage and an increase in teen suicides, and keeping them on it for long periods is detrimental to their overall mental health especially when they don't have fully developed impulse control or are not legally expected to. You're not allowed to advertise gambling products, alcohol and tobacco to minors under the First Amendment. You can't intentionally show porn to a minor without going to jail in many cases. (18 U.S. Code § 1470 - Transfer of obscene material to minors)

You want to get adults addicted and express yourself to them, so be it, but the legal distinction on limitations on what you can express to minors is well documented.


> You can't intentionally show porn to a minor

Anyone can go to pornhub and see a landing page full of highly explicit sexual images without any kind of age verification whatsoever. How is this legal, if what you say is true? Is it just that they don't know it's a minor on the other side of the screen, so they can say it's not "intentional"?


Pornhub home page has a very clear warning before you get to anything explicit:

    This is an adult website

    This website contains age-restricted materials including nudity and explicit depictions of sexual activity. By entering, you affirm that you are at least 18 years of age or the age of majority in the jurisdiction you are accessing the website from and you consent to viewing sexually explicit content.

    I am 18 or older - Enter 
    I am under 18 - Exit

I don't see that. And no, it's not because I have cookies from them.

Maybe it's geo-location dependent?


Try it in a private browser, without any cookies? May also be an ad blocker

Try logging out.

> Anyone can go to pornhub and see a landing page full of highly explicit sexual images

Not in an increasing number of states where age verification is now required.


Intent is when someone mentally commits to an action

Just a reminder that getting adults addicted to stuff is not always legal either.

The bill sponsors are senator Andrew Gounardes and assemblywoman Nily Rozic. Rozic told CBS news: "Jewish parents are being told to remove social media apps completely from their phones because there is no way to actually prevent what their children will see."

Seems like they're getting around the complaints about the previously overturned laws by just going after the feed order while not banning access to the underlying content via conventional means.

Some more context:

Hochul told a reporter, “we’ve checked to make sure, we believe it’s constitutional.” And, that’s just laughable. Checked with whom? Every attempt I saw to call out these concerns was brushed off as “just spewing big tech’s talking points.”

The Constitution is not a “big tech talking point.” What the actual research shows is not a “big tech talking point.”

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/21/today-we-save-our-childr...


What is unconstitutional about it?

It's content-based discrimination, which means it goes straight to strict scrutiny.

How is it discriminating content?

It’s not putting restrictions on content that can be shown.


It's discriminating between social media companies purely on the basis of their speech--the recommendation algorithms they choose to use.

If the algorithm constitutes speech by the social media companies, doesn’t that remove their common carrier status?

If the speech is theirs, they are responsible for its content.


> If the algorithm constitutes speech by the social media companies, doesn’t that remove their common carrier status?

They aren't common carriers and never have been.


Good god, not that zombie lie again!

[1] Age veriifcation

[2] Content discrimination

[3] Has the unfortunate side effect of restricting LGBTQIA+ youth and adults' speech

There's a reason why most of these bills are legally challenged.


I don’t understand #3.

What you just saw is total corruption and monopolization at work. No ways about this.



> Lobby groups representing cable, telecom, and mobile Internet service providers sued the FCC in several US appeals courts last week. Industry groups also filed a petition with the FCC on Friday asking for a stay of the rules, claiming the regulations shouldn't take effect while litigation is pending because the industry is likely to prevail in court.

> If the industry loses at the appeals-court level again, lobby groups would seek review at the Supreme Court. Their hopes depend partly on Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who argued in a 2017 dissent as a circuit court judge that the "net neutrality rule is unlawful and must be vacated" because "Congress did not clearly authorize the FCC to issue the net neutrality rule."

As I predicited six months ago that the US Supreme Court is going to have to get involved to settle this matter one way or another: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38224394

Also from paulddraper at the same thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38225342


It's coming to every new Windows 11 powered PC in the future so this will be harder to ignore.


I fear that Kagi is going to suffer the same fate as Neeva did:

"In a way, the brief flicker of Neeva’s existence tells everything you need to know about the last 20 years of search-engine supremacy. Building a search engine is hard. Building one better than Google is even harder. But if you want to beat Google, a better search engine is only the very beginning. And it only gets harder from there." [1]

[1] https://www.theverge.com/23802382/search-engine-google-neeva...

Not to mention Kagi's continued sustainability issues (28,071 users at the time of writing) [2] and their plans for their own AI products [3] [4] that would inevitably and eventually doom them.

[2] https://kagi.com/stats [3] https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314

Also, ADeerAppeared is right that government intervention aka a major breakup needs to happen for competition to thrive and I don't see it happening (although I hope I'm wrong).


Thank you for your concerns, but Kagi is not just sustainable but also profitable.

And if you want to know our plans, just check our own blog [1].

[1] https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-ai-search#philosophy


Maybe you shouold read this: https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314

Whip up a SearXNG instance or use one instead.


I don’t really care about the tshirt drama or some type of ideological purity in their funding etc.

Kagi just works well and I really love the way that you can prioritize the sites you like and block the sites that you don’t in the search and that there aren’t any ads and I’ve used a lot of other search engines and this is the only one I’ve like well enough that I actually enjoy using it and don’t find myself subconciously back at google.


Meh. Every search engine has it drama.

But I still find Kagi more refreshing than Google.


Keep in mind that this guy and Kagi themselves can't be trusted as proof by this piece: https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011314


I'll let the public record speak to my ability to execute and run the business. If you have any concrete points that you think I did not already adequately address, I am happy to do it. Just please do not slander publicly (and keep things on-topic if you can).


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