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Oddly enough, I found this story by Agence France Presse on a website from Luxemburg (RTI). Did American media not think it is important? The huge jump in suicide contemplation among teen girls seems to have no effect on American MSM.
US state to require parental consent for social media
Issued on: 24/03/2023 - 02:46
AFP
Los Angeles (AFP) – Utah on Thursday became the first US state to require social media sites to get parental consent for accounts used by under-18s, placing the burden on platforms like Instagram and TikTok to verify the age of their users.
The law, which takes effect March 2024, was brought in response to fears over growing youth addiction to social media, and to security risks such as online bullying, exploitation, and collection of children's personal data.
But it has prompted warnings from tech firms and civil liberties groups that it could curtail access to online resources for marginalized teens, and have far-reaching implications for free speech.
"We're no longer willing to let social media companies continue to harm the mental health of our youth," tweeted Spencer Cox, governor of the western US state, who signed two related bills at a ceremony Thursday.
The bills also require social media firms to grant parents full access to their children's accounts, and to create a default "curfew" blocking overnight access to children's accounts.
They set out fines for social media companies if they target users under 18 with "addictive algorithms," and make it easier for parents to sue social media companies for financial, physical or emotional harm.
"We hope that this is just the first step in many bills that we'll see across the nation, and hopefully taken on by the federal government," said state representative Jordan Teuscher, who co-sponsored the bill.
Michael McKell, a Republican member of Utah's Senate who also sponsored the bill, said it was a "bipartisan" effort, and praised President Joe Biden's recent State of the Union address, in which he raised the issue.
Biden last month called on US lawmakers to restrict how social media companies advertise to children and collect their data, as he accused Big Tech of conducting a "for profit" experiment on the nation's youth.
California has already introduced online safety laws including strict default privacy settings for minors, but the Utah law goes further.
Lawmakers in states such as Ohio and Connecticut are working on similar bills.
Platforms including Instagram and TikTok have introduced more controls for parents, such as messaging limits and time caps.
Huge jump in suicide contemplation
At Thursday's ceremony in Utah, McKell pointed to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which he said highlighted the toll social media apps can have on young minds.
"The impact on our daughters -- and I have two daughters -- it was incredibly troubling," he said.
"Thirty percent of our daughters from ninth grade to 12th grade had seriously contemplated suicide. That's startling."
The startling increase in suicide contemplation, and suicide attempts among girls has to do with two things: #2 the teaching of gender fluidity in schools frequently leaves girls with no idea who they are; #1 social media - a girl expressing confusion over their gender is immediately made popular by people encouraging her to transition to a boy. Girls who do that often 'wake-up' one day and realize how badly they have screwed up their lives.
Germany’s top court demands easing of child marriage law
amid mass migration from Muslim countries
MAR 31, 2023 12:00 PM
BY VIJETA UNIYAL
Jihad Watch
With unchecked mass migration from Muslim-majority North Africa and Middle East, the German authorities are struggling to cope with the surge in child marriages across the country.
Germany’s top constitutional court on Wednesday urged the government to ease the child marriage law which nullifies such marital unions, and requires the separation of child brides from their husbands upon arrival in the country.
“Germany’s constitutional court ruled Wednesday that a law banning child marriages needs to be amended because it removes the possibility of continuing a marriage once both spouses become adults,” the Associated Press reported.
The court’s ruling came in response to a case brought forward by a 21-year-old Syrian man who was separated by the authorities from his 14-year-old “bride.”
Germany’s top court demands child marriage law be amended
DW News, March 29, 2023:
Germany’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled that a 2017 law aimed at ending child marriages is not clear enough and must be amended.
The current statute declares all marriages invalid if one of the parties was under 16 at the time of the wedding. This includes marriages entered into abroad by German residents.
It was designed to prevent parents from sending their children to other countries to participate in arranged marriages, and to invalidate child marriages performed abroad on couples who later came to Germany.
The court gave lawmakers until the end of June 2024 to issue clarifications on issues such as whether minors could petition for alimony before or after their 16th birthday, and whether a previously void marriage becomes valid after both parties are at least 16 years old.
The current case was brought before the Constitutional Court by a Syrian couple whose marriage was invalidated when they arrived in Germany in 2015 as refugees.
At the time, the girl was 14 and the man was 21. Upon arrival, she was separated from her husband and placed in a facility for female refugees.
The law banning child marriages was passed by the German parliament in 2017, two years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the country’s borders to uncontrolled migration, resulting in the mass-importation of child brides.
The scale of the problem is difficult to assess. German authorities were unaware of the number of child marriages being arranged or imported into the country, a 2018 media reports suggested.
The mass-importation of child brides is not the only ugly feature of Germany’s misguided immigration policy. The German government has also been flying in ISIS brides and their children stranded in Syria and Iraq since the fall of the Islamic khalifate.
