Lawyers representing Google and Meta are suing Virginia to stop a law banning children from social media
https://www.wvtf.org/news/2025-11-21/virginia-sued-over-new-social-media-age-verification-law
https://www.wvtf.org/news/2025-11-21/virginia-sued-over-new-social-media-age-verification-law
8 Comments
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website · 21 pts · 262d
Which part is infuriating here? The law that will be difficult to enforce and probably has all sorts of unintended side effects? Or that lawyers, and indeed layers funded by big internet companies, are suing?
Fundamentally, let them sue. Not everything coming out of the legislatures the world over is pristine law and this is how the system can correct for mistakes. Also, I'm sadly more on the side of the Googles and the Metas. Their freedom of speech argument is entirely self serving but that doesn't make it wrong. Any age verification has itself a chilling effect on speech online. Forcing it creates more data sets to be leaked and hacked and in this case of minors' information, not grownups' who can make an educated decision if they want to go through with it to go watch porn. This is not a clear case of mild infuriation.
Yecoh@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 262d
Trusting judges more than legislatures is uniquely american.
This is how you ended up with Citizens United. 4 men cancelled a law (McCain–Feingold Act) approved by the House of Representatives, the Senate and signed by the President.
In most democracies, it doesn't work like that. The elected legislature has the upper hand. The UK Supreme Court can interpret laws, but it can not cancel them.
lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com · 2 pts · 262d
Because your legislators aren't morons? UK & EU pass or attempt to pass so dumb laws.
Most democracies have judicial review & UK is in the wierdo club.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website · -1 pts · 262d
Trusting judges is not uniquely American. You'll find similar processes on the continent across the channel. The hurdles of who can sue and under which circumstances may differ. The appointment of judges is often less politicized. I think the UK is the unique case here and I believe that's because by and large there isn't a written constitution, at the very least not in the same way as in the US or France or Poland. Supreme courts are there as a check on whether or not laws conform to constitutional values and have the power to overrule a legislature when it passes laws that don't. It's not an "upper hand" deal, it's checks and balances.
The American legal system is not great. I don't know the details of the case you mentioned. One bad decision doesn't mean the whole system needs to be abolished. If that were so I'd like to have a word with the UK's highest court on what constitutes a woman.
ulterno@programming.dev · 1 pts · 262d
They'll probably end up going the route of age and identity verification being mandatory, but kids still being allowed to use social media.
That way they get more personal videos for their AI and this time, legally non-deletable.
What we are seeing now, is just a choreographed prelude to reduce public backlash.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 262d
Parents back in the first century probably said the same shit about wax writing tablets.
Old farts need to realize shit changed and how their parents raised them is not going to work in a world that is fundamentally different.
jdredbeard@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 262d
You seem to be treating social media like a step forward in technology or society.
It's more like junk food. I use it daily, knowing it's ruining my health and will someday kill me
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 262d
you assume I'm treating it as a step forward.
I'm not.
I'm treating it as something that has fundamentally altered society. whether that change is for good, or ill, is not something I'd care to argue over. It's here. It's not going away, and the way people raised kids fifty or more years ago for a world that no longer exists is only going to ruin more kids.
More to the point, all these laws are going to do is teach kids not to tell adults. It's going to teach them to hide going on line, maybe drive them into the gray or dark web. it makes kids vulnerable; exposed. it's like sex education: kids are going to find a way, so teach them safe ways.