Social Media Laws and ID Verification on Tapas

[PotatoJuice]

Basically, Utah and Arkansas have passed legislation (linked here and here) that would require a "social media company" to verify the ages of anyone who wanted to have an account or profile on their "social media platform," which is generally defined in the bills as a website or online application that lets people create an account, upload content, view other people's content, and interact with other people and/or their accounts.

Depending on how you read the clauses and exclusions present, I'm not really sure if Tapas would be considered a "social media platform" or not, so I was wondering if Team Tapas had any input about this.

[Kelheor]

Tapas HQ is in California, and they pass as "social publishing company" in their terms of use, so it's doubtful they will have something to do with it. In any case if there will be some changes in terms of use, I bet they will notify everyone in notifications (although to ask for official documents to have an account on a comic publishing site sounds crazy).

[NickRowler]

A lot of social media platforms already has regulation of the age of users. If an account has evidence that it is being run by someone under 13, you can report it and it can be banned.

A lot of these laws aren't really about COPPA. It's adults who don't like that teenagers (13-17) can look up information about topics on LGBTQ or current civil rights moments. They are more or less trying to heavily censor what teenagers have access to.

[PotatoJuice]

While I share your belief that these laws wouldn't apply to Tapas, if they did apply, then Tapas would have to verify the age of an account holder in the states mentioned, regardless of whether the company is headquartered or incorporated somewhere else.

(and technically the laws are about preventing those under 18 from having a social media account without parental consent, but they would have to verify everyone to see if they were under 18 or not.)

[Katzalcoatl]

I find it an interesting topic. I do believe social media needs some form of regulation but at the same time I think it goes hand to hand with parents responsibilities.

Problem with social media is how toxic it can get. For example, when someone does 1 wrong post.
For a teenager it can be devastating getting death threats on a daily basis.

Is the solution requiring an id to be 18+? I don't think so. I believe social medias just need better security in general to prevent things like death threats or things like scrapper sites within facebook and stuff.

Do I believe you need parental consent to surf the web not just social media? Yes. Each parent is responsible for what their kids are watching. As a responsible parent you should make sure they aren't watching anything violent, discriminatory, or illegal.

Do I think a law is needed? Personally, I think it should be common sense but I do know how some parents just don't care much about what their kids do.

[BoomerZ]

I would say tapas website that publishes comics and novels won't be affected as they are set up as a publisher. The forums could be as it is social media. But tapas is some fish compared to facebook, instragram, or twitter, I would bet the people in charge don't even know it exists.

[thepenmonster]

Nat-Cs are gonna Nat-C and push these laws because they think they can stop the gay if no one speaks it. They will fall to the might of the Zoomers soon.

[ionkozokar21]

I totally get the concerns about ID verification and social media laws. It's becoming increasingly important to have verified ID photos for various online platforms and state documents. For anyone who's struggling with this, there's actually a very convenient and secure way to get it done. I recently used this AI-powered service called PhotoGov https://photogov.com/ that lets you create a verified ID photo from your phone. It meets the official requirements of over 96 countries for various government documents. Might be worth checking out if you need to get this sorted quickly and reliably.

[NickRowler]

The bill isn’t designed to stop trolls. It’s more that they want to “childproof” the internet. More or less, they want to do the whole book banning but for online content. They claim that it’s to protect children but it could be a slippery slope for watchdog groups to censor content on LGBTQ or race.

[Kaisei]

That's a fair point. I am sometimes shocked by Tapas users who admit to being 12 in the comments of webtoons that are approaching mature content (I'm not saying I didn't read age inappropriate material at 12, but I certainly didn't admit to it publicly). However, there isn't currently a way to verify age online without personal documents. Data security is a huge issue. People need to be able to keep their reading history private. In some countries, there is a real danger if that becomes public (eg: if content is perceived as criticizing the government).

[Ceedextr]

If platforms like Tapas end up needing to verify user ages, it might be tricky since they’re more of a social publishing space than a typical social media platform. But if they do get pulled into these regulations, they’d likely need some kind of ID verification tool to check ages without a hassle. I’ve come across sites like https://www.idanalyzer.com/products/id-verification-api.html that could handle quick ID checks, so users don’t have to jump through a lot of hoops just to sign up.

[conventurecomics]

If this becomes nation wide I'll be hosting my art on my website if this happens.