POSTED BY Caroline Carollo on October 4, 2013
Minors are spending significantly more time online than ever before, and they are not always aware of the consequences of posting personal information about themselves and leaving a digital footprint. Kids often act impulsively with the content they post on social media sites, and these posts become part of a searchable, permanent record that can follow them for the rest of their lives, impacting college applications and job applications. As a result, the state senate president of California stressed the need to protect minors in this unforgiving digital era, proposing that adolescents should be given the right to remove reckless pictures, videos, or messages that they have posted online.
On September 23, 2013, the governor of California signed SB 568, a new law that will require websites, mobile apps, and online services aimed at minors to allow minors to delete or remove the information they post. Website providers will be required to notify minors that removal is an option, and they must provide clear instructions on how a minor should request removal of the content that he or she posted. However, website operators will not be required to delete that content which has been reposted by a third party before the author of the post has it removed. Moreover, this law will prohibit the advertising of harmful products that are illegal for adolescents to use or purchase, such as alcohol, tobacco, and guns, on websites that specifically target minors. The provisions of SB 568 will become effective as of January 1, 2015.
While such a law is a good way to give internet users more control over their online identities as well as a “second chance” at creating a positive image of themselves, there are some flaws that will affect its efficiency. First, SB 568 will only apply if someone is under the age of 18 and lives in California. The fact that it is a state bill will make it difficult to navigate and enforce; the law suggests it seeks to regulate all websites and online services, including those that are not under California’s jurisdiction. Many websites with online users that live in California will not have their servers based in California, which leads me to believe it is unlikely that these websites will comply with the requirements of SB 568. One might think the solution in this case is simple: block these websites that are not complying with the law from California-based IP addresses. However, this law only applies to minors, so taking away everyone’s access to these websites would not be fair or feasible. Moreover, this law would not protect adults that want to erase something from the internet that they posted when they were minors. While I understand the law is designed to protect children that may not be mature enough to understand the consequences of leaving a digital footprint, it seems unfair to deny an adult from doing exactly what the law allows minors to do—delete content he or she posted when he or she was under the age of 18.
Additionally, the removal requirement of SB 568 will not apply if the distasteful content was posted online by a third party. This means that a minor will not be afforded protection under the law if his friend, or worse, his enemy, is the one that posted the embarrassing content of him online. There is also the issue of a third party taking screenshots of content that a minor posted online, or of reposting that content. This would also seem to fall beyond the online provider’s, and the law’s, control. Furthermore, even though a minor can request that his or her post be deleted from a website, there are no requirements that the actual data on the servers be deleted. Although there are good intentions behind it, there seem to be too many “holes” in this new law.
