Digital Natives, Ancient Dilemmas, The Shifting Boundaries of Youth Culpability Online

“ The very power of early youth is in the violence of its changes; it is the era of chaos in the souls of people; when they are in the making; when the crust is only forming, and the fire may break forth at any moment ”

“ There was something in this remark about the sacredness of human life that was not what Andrew expected, and his answer died unspoken.
"Youth," continued the stranger, "is enthusiasm, but not enthusiasm in a straight line. We are impotent in directing it, like a boy with a toy engine. How carefully the child sets it off, how soon it goes off the rails! So youth is wrecked. The slightest obstacle sends it off at a tangent. The vital force expended in a wrong direction does evil instead of good. ”

“ The day will come when our present barbaric attitude toward youth will be altered. Before it can be altered, however, we must completely revise our conventions of innocence. Youth is no more certainly innocent than it is certainly happy, and the conspiracy of silence that surrounds youth is not to be justified on any ground of over-impressionableness. Innocence, besides, can last too long. Every one has pitied stale innocence. If a New York child of ten becomes delirious, his ravings may quite easily be shocking to older people. ”

“ The sentimentalist clings tenaciously to the association of youth with innocence; the sociologist knows that even the age-limit which the law fixes as a boundary-line of innocence has no corresponding restriction in fact. ”

“ Grownups. When they think of someone being spied on, they think of someone else, a bad guy. When they think of someone being caught and sent to a secret prison, it's someone else -- someone brown, someone young, someone foreign.
"They forget what it's like to be our age. To be the object of suspicion all the time! How many times have you gotten on the bus and had every person on it give you a look like you'd been gargling turds and skinning puppies?
"What's worse, they're turning into adults younger and younger out there. ”

“ Simply stated, the Court's decision in this case rests upon the considered opinion — after nearly four busy years on the Juvenile Court bench during which the testimony of thousands of such juveniles has been heard — that the statements of adolescents under 18 years of age who are arrested and charged with violations of law are frequently untrustworthy, and often distort the truth. ”

“ It is a great tragedy when a juvenile commits murder—most of all for the innocent victims. But also for the murderer, whose life has gone so wrong so early. And for society as well, which has lost one or more of its members to deliberate violence, and must harshly punish another. ”

“ Moreover, the cited studies describe only adolescents who engage in risky or antisocial behavior, as many young people do. Murder, however, is more than just risky or antisocial behavior. It is entirely consistent to believe that young people often act impetuously and lack judgment, but, at the same time, to believe that those who commit premeditated murder are—at least sometimes—just as culpable as adults. ”

“ The same percentage of Gen Z also said that social media has a direct impact on how they feel about themselves.
“This new generation (Gen Z) is becoming the digital shepherd of a new era in technology adoption and reliance. Their acceptance and usage of technology is likely to be more similar to that of peers in distant countries than grandparents in their own country,” said Jason Dorsey, chief strategy officer of the center, in a study on Gen Z and technology. ”

“ Technology has afforded Gen Zers different learning styles and tools. In August 2018, education publisher Pearson reported that 59% of Gen Zers preferred using YouTube, compared with 55% of millennials, the generation that preceded them. More telling is that only 47% of Gen Z said they preferred learning on paper books, compared with 60% of millennials.
Technology is not just changing education and Gen Z. Technology has increased connectivity with the outside world but also increased depression and suicide, and changed how Gen Zers perceive themselves. ”

“ This is a perfect community to talk about all the wonderful things the internet offers–all the knowledge creation, and access to knowledge that it provides. But for victims of online abuse, they feel like the more that they engage online, the more provocation it is for their harassers, so they totally disappear. It’s just safer, and it’s going to provoke less abuse. So they lose the opportunity to do all of the things that we’re all engaging in, politically, socially, economically — all the wonderful things that all these network spaces offer, but they can’t enjoy it. ”

“ There is sound advice for online behaviour, such as, ‘treat everything you say online as broadcast’, but any expression of humour or opinion may lead to a Twitter storm if it gets misconstrued. The global, uncontrollable nature of such events puts the relationship between the individual academic and their institution under a new type of strain. ”

“ So when victims... in describing some of the kind of trivializing that we do to online harassment.... You know, a key problem is that when people go to law enforcement, they’re bedeviled by the same social attitudes that many are bedeviled by, which is “turn your computer off”, is what they’re told. “Oh, boys will be boys.” Like, “Ignore it, it will go away.” And some of that comes from—I have talked to so many law enforcement officers, so it’s not to say that they are, you know, uniquely have really poor attitudes. They’re also just not used to the technology. ”

“ The critics conjure up a digital apocalypse—a world of perfect control achieved through legally backed digital fences, in which both speech and competition suffer, and where citizens lose privacy, the privilege of fair use, and the right to criticize popular culture rather than simply consume it. In their view, the legal disaster is only exacerbated by bumbling judges who do not understand the technology and who are easily fooled by the doom-laden rhetoric of the content companies. ”

“ In a political experience coherent with the pragmatics leading to the civilization of illiteracy, hacking appears on a continuum joining creativity, protest, invention, and non- conformity, as well as criminal intention. The answer to hackers is not a code of punishment of medieval or industrial inspiration, but transparency that will, in the long run, undermine possible criminal motivations. A society that punishes creativity, even when relatively misdirected, through its policies and laws punishes itself in the long run. ”

“ It is an unfortunate fact that these issues are both growing challenges that the international community must confront together. And we must also grapple with the issue of anonymous speech. Those who use the internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities. But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the internet for peaceful political purposes. ”

“ This Court holds that the Defendant had copiously reposted and disseminated information on an overseas social platform with the full knowledge that such information was fabricated and false, which had created disturbances, leading to such untrue information being widespread and propagated in the cyberspace overseas, obfuscating the truth, and seriously endangering national interests and social order ”

“ The objective is to prohibit illegal conduct, but this restriction goes well beyond that interest by restricting the speech available to law-abiding adults.
The Government submits further that virtual child pornography whets the appetites of pedophiles and encourages them to engage in illegal conduct. This rationale cannot sustain the provision in question. The mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it. ”

“ Social media websites are publishers and curators of speech, and their users are engaged in speech by writing, posting, and creating content. Although the law ostensibly is aimed at social media networks, it fundamentally implicates the speech of the networks’ users by mandating a policy and mechanism by which users can complain about other users’ protected speech. ”

“ Moreover, social media users often gravitate to certain websites based on the kind of community and content that is fostered on that particular website. Some social media websites—including Plaintiffs’—intentionally foster a “pro-free speech” community and ethos that may become less appealing to users who intentionally seek out spaces where they feel like they can express themselves freely.
The potential chilling effect to social media users is exacerbated by the indefiniteness of some of the Hateful Conduct Law’s key terms. ”

“ Indeed, there is not even reason to think that defendants carefully screened any content before allowing users to upload it onto their platforms. If anything, the opposite is true: By plaintiffs’ own allegations, these platforms appear to transmit most content without inspecting it.
The mere creation of those platforms, however, is not culpable. To be sure, it might be that bad actors like ISIS are able to use platforms like defendants’ for illegal—and sometimes terrible—ends. But the same could be said of cell phones, email, or the internet generally. ”

“ The fact that some bad actors took advantage of these platforms is insufficient to state a claim that defendants knowingly gave substantial assistance and thereby aided and abetted those wrongdoers’ acts. And that is particularly true because a contrary holding would effectively hold any sort of communication provider liable for any sort of wrongdoing merely for knowing that the wrongdoers were using its services and failing to stop them. That conclusion would run roughshod over the typical limits on tort liability and take aiding and abetting far beyond its essential culpability moorings. ”

“ Making it easier for parents to block adult and age-restricted material from the internet. To provide a consistent level of protection across all media, as a matter of urgency, the internet industry should ensure that customers must make an active choice over what sort of content they want to allow their children to access. ”

“ Another change to KOSA comes in response to concerns that the law would lead to age verification requirements for platforms. For a platform to know whether or not it is liable for its impact on minors, it must, of course, know whether or not minors use its platform, and who they are. Age verification mandates create many issues — in particular, they undermine anonymity by requiring all users to upload identity verification documentation and share private data, no matter their age. ”

“ The bill now states that a covered platform is not required to implement an age gating or age verification functionality. But there is essentially no outcome where sites don’t implement age verification. There’s no way for platforms to block nebulous categories of content for minors without explicitly requiring age verification. ”

“ The District Court found that at the time of trial existing technology did not include any effective method for a sender to prevent minors from obtaining access to its communications on the Internet without also denying access to adults. ”

“ If a network service provider discovers that a user publishes or disseminates information that is harmful to the physical and mental health of minors, it shall immediately stop transmitting the relevant information, take measures such as deleting, blocking or disconnecting the link, keep the relevant records, and report to the departments of cyberspace affairs, public security and other departments. ”

“ Through law-based punishment and individualized assistance and education, the state does its utmost to rehabilitate underage people involved in cybercrime. China has strengthened the protection of minors in cyberspace, making breakthroughs in typical cases such as those concerning circulation of audio and video about narcotics, violation of minors' personal information rights and interests, and excessive livestream rewards from minor viewers. ”

“ In 2019, China issued the Regulations on the Protection of Children's Online Personal Information, prioritizing the protection of personal information for children. In 2020, the Law on the Protection of Minors was revised, to strengthen minors' education on internet literacy, online supervision and regulation of content for minors, protection of minors' personal information online, and prevention and control of internet addiction, all to safeguard minors' legitimate rights and interests in cyberspace. ”

“ So our broader, I think, system of free expression, I hope, and I think they’re listening, is going evolve to think about digital citizenship, that they often invoke that term, to justify their bans of harassment, stalking, threats and privacy invasions. But my advice is yes, digital citizenship is so important. It’s not only rights but responsibilities. But part of your responsibility as host of digital citizens, is to engage even the harassers, in the conversation about why you’re doing it to them, and being really clear. ”

“ They are our future, and they deserve a voice.
I know all of you are seeing this in your own states and territories, too. And I believe that if we all come together, we can start to effect positive change for our children and help prepare them for their futures.
As I have said before, it is important that, as adults, we take the lead and the responsibility in helping our children manage the many issues they are facing today. This means encouraging positive habits with social media and technology; even limiting time online and understanding the content they are exposed to on a daily basis. ”

“ This approach also requires parents to acknowledge their own ambivalence towards some aspects of commercialisation and sexualisation. By not using parental internet controls, by buying an 18-rated game for a younger child, by wanting their children to have the latest technology and most fashionable clothes, parents can themselves be complicit in adding to the pressures. ”

“ If this youth shall become entangled in the toils of the law and the mistaken parents intercede for him, gaining their ends in saving him from all punishment for his misdeeds, the boy receives through it only another selfish impetus toward more and greater offenses against society. ”

“ The time may come when no one can be sure whether his words are being recorded for use at some future time; when everyone will fear that his most secret thoughts are no longer his own, but belong to the Government; when the most confidential and intimate conversations are always open to eager, prying ears. When that time comes, privacy, and with it liberty, will be gone. ”