2026-03-01 13:33:21
A landmark law that limits children under the age of 16 to one hour per day on social media apps has been blocked by a US court, in a blow to child safety campaigners seeking to limit exposure to sites such as Instagram and YouTube.
In an opinion released on Friday, a federal judge in Virginia halted the enforcement of a bill passed by the state last year, under which social media companies could be fined $7,500 per violation.
The state “does not have the legal authority to block minors’ access to constitutionally protected speech until their parents give their consent by overriding a government-imposed default limit”, Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles wrote of the measure, implementing a preliminary injunction.
Giles concluded the law was “over-inclusive”. Under it, “a minor would be barred from watching an online church service if it exceeded an hour on YouTube . . . yet, that same minor is allowed to watch provider-selected religious programming exceeding an hour in length on a streaming platform,” she wrote. “This treats functionally equivalent speech differently.”
Here is more from the FT.
The post Stand with free speech and the Constitution appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-03-01 01:17:18
On the war, Matt Yglesias has a good take. On AI and the military, Ross Douthat has a good take (NYT). If you wish to sample an “outside the box” opinion, here is Eliezer.
The post Some opinions appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-03-01 00:41:24
1. “It’s a win for fairly orthodox economic thought.” Yessirree.
2. Maybe the public does not hate AI?
4. “Neanderthal men in Neanderthal societies may have had a strong attraction to hybrid women — that is, to women with a modern human parent or grandparent.” (NYT) Rizz or rape?
5. Woolly rhino genome recovered.
The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-02-28 20:18:33
Ruxandra Teslo asks a good question:
I have a curiosity: why is it the case that it is easier to get MAID in Canada than it is to access experimental treatments which carry a higher risk? In the past, I used to think ppl do not like “deaths caused by the medical system”, but for MAID the prob of death is 100%…
The Canadians may be somewhat inconsistent on this point. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been consistent and has rejected medical self-defense arguments for physician assisted suicide and let stand an appeals court ruling that patients do not have a right to access drugs which have not yet been permitted for sale by the FDA (fyi, I was part of an Amici Curiae brief for this case).
Hat tip for the post title to Jason Crawford.
The post If you have the right to die, you should have the right to try! appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-02-28 20:09:58
You may comment here if you wish…
The post The war appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
2026-02-28 15:46:13
Many of you got upset when I mentioned the possibility that parents use smart phone software to control the social media usage of their kids. There was an outcry about how badly those systems work (is that endogenous?). But that is missing the point.
If you wish to limit social media usage, mandate that the phone companies install such software and make it more effective. Or better yet commission or produce a public sector app to do the same, a “public option” so to speak. Parents can then download such an app on the phone of their children, or purchase the phone with the app, and manipulate it as they see fit.
If you do not think government is capable of doing that, why think they are capable of running an effective ban for users under the age of sixteen? Maybe those apps can be hacked but we all know the “no fifteen year olds” solution can be hacked too, for instance by VPNs or by having older friends set up the account.
My proposal has several big advantages:
1. It keeps social media policy in the hands of the parents and away from the government.
2. It does not run the risk of requiring age verification for all users, thus possibly banishing anonymous writing from the internet.
3. The government does not have to decide what constitutes a “social media site.”
Just have the government commission a software app that can give parents the control they really might want to have. I am not myself convinced by the market failure charges here, but I am very willing to allow a public option to enter the market.
The fact that this option occasions so little interest from the banners I find highly indicative.
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