Ohio

New Ohio law requires parental consent for kids under 16 to use social media

Published

6 months ago

December 25, 2023

New Ohio law requires parental consent for kids under 16 to use social media

Starting in January a new state law will make it harder for children under 16 to access social media in Ohio.

On Jan. 15, Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act will go into effect, and big name companies will have until then to comply. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the state’s annual budget in July, which included the Social Media Parental Notification Act.

What is Ohio’s new social media law?

The law requires companies to obtain parental consent to contractual terms of service from a parent or legal guardian before individuals younger than 16 can use the companies’ platforms. This includes social media and online gaming or activity companies, such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat. It does not pertain to e-commerce platforms.

If a parent or legal guardian fails or refuses to consent to the terms of service, the company must deny the child access or use of the platform.

How do companies obtain consent?

Companies will have to follow certain steps in order to consent from a parent or legal guardian. The steps include creating a method to determine whether the user is a child under the age of 16 and obtaining verifiable parental or legal guardian consent

If the user indicates that they are under the age of 16, the following methods can be used for verification:

Sign a digital form consenting to the terms of service
Use a credit card, debit card, or other online payment system
Call a toll-free telephone number
Connect to trained personnel via video-conference
Check a form of government-issued identification

Companies then must send the written confirmation of the consent to the parent or legal guardian.

Why is this happening?

Lt. Gov. Jon Husted pushed for the new law. He believes social media is designed to be addictive and is harming the mental health of children. He said it’s time that parents have more say in the digital lives of their children.

“We hope that more parents will either prohibit or limit the amount of interaction their children are having, amount of time their children are spending on their devices, on these apps, and put filters on it to make sure that it is limiting the age-level content if they really want their children to be seeing,” Husted said.

Some companies already have support features

Companies like Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and other platforms, already have features in place to support teenagers and their families when using their platforms. For example, Meta has age verification technology that helps users experience appropriate content and accounts for their age. Accounts are also automatically set to private for individuals under the age of 16.

Rachel Holland, a Meta spokesperson, said the company wants young people to have a safe and positive experience across the internet and that’s why they’ve built safety and privacy features into teen experiences.

“We’ve developed more than 30 tools to support families, including parental supervision tools that allow teens and parents to navigate social media safely together and tools to help ensure teens have age-appropriate experiences online,” Holland said in a statement.

Meta’s Director of Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis recently wrote a blog post calling for a solution to parental consent. “Parents should approve their teen’s app downloads, and we support federal legislation that requires app stores to get parents’ approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps,” Davis wrote.

She believes the industry should come together with lawmakers to create simple, efficient ways for parents to oversee their teens’ online experiences. Instagram is now supporting federal legislation.

“We’ll continue evaluating proposed legislation and working with policymakers on developing simple, easy solutions for parents on these important industry wide issues,” Holland said.

Will it stick?

Other states have passed laws pertaining to children’s privacy on social media platforms. However, judges have blocked those laws in some states, like in Arkansas following a lawsuit from NetChoice, a coalition of trade associations, e-commerce businesses and online consumers.

NetChoice submitted opponent testimony for Ohio’s new legislation.

Other states, like Utah, will be joining Ohio in having legislation take effect next year.

In other states, Husted said, social media and online gaming or activity companies have been cowardly in the actions they’ve taken against the legislation. He said rather than stepping out in public, companies just file lawsuits to try and prevent the laws from going into effect.

“I fully expect that that’s being contemplated in Ohio, and I will give them fair warning that if they don’t comply with this, what we simply have asked them to do, that we will be more aggressive in what we do in response,” Husted said.

Companies, if they do not comply, will face civil penalties and fines, which are listed out in the law’s revised code.

Kayla Bennett is a fellow in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism’s Statehouse News Bureau.

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Ohio

Beryl's wrath to be felt as far north as Michigan, Ohio this week

Published

5 hours ago

July 7, 2024

Press Room

Beryl's wrath to be felt as far north as Michigan, Ohio this week

Tropical Storm Beryl continues charging toward Texas Sunday morning, and forecasters still expect it to continue strengthening before making landfall in Texas early on Monday morning.

While Beryl is expected to bring hurricane conditions to Texas on Monday, strong winds and rain from the cyclone will move into the Midwest by midweek.

Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio are among the states that will feel the impact of Beryl.

Once Beryl hits Texas, the cyclone is expected to travel north throughout the South and Midwest.

Beryl forecast cone
(FOX Weather)

Beryl’s current forecast cone shows the storm will weaken as it moves north but maintains tropical depression strength from Arkansas through Michigan throughout the week. A tropical depression is a cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 38 mph or less. Unlike tropical storms and hurricanes, tropical depressions are identified by numbers rather than names.

Current forecasts have Beryl’s remnants extending into Ohio and Michigan by the end of the workweek.

Several inches of rain are possible as the storm treks north, leading to significant flash flooding concerns.

Forecasters expect heavy rainfall to spread from eastern Texas through central Illinois by midweek.

“At this time, the higher (…) amounts focus over northwest Arkansas to central Illinois with the highest over the Ozarks. Areal averages are expected to be around 2 to 5 inches with local maximums upwards of 8 inches,” the Weather Prediction Center wrote Sunday.

Beryl forecast cone
(FOX Weather)

Beryl formed in the Atlantic Ocean on June 29 and became the season’s first hurricane. The storm broke records throughout its trek and is expected to strengthen ahead of its impending Texas landfall.

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Ohio

Muskegon Clippers pitchers struggle in relief, fall to visiting Southern Ohio

Published

13 hours ago

July 7, 2024

Press Room

Muskegon Clippers pitchers struggle in relief, fall to visiting Southern Ohio

By Dave Hart LocalSportsJournal.com MUSKEGON – Rough pitching has suddenly been a weakness in recent contests for the Muskegon Clippers. On Friday, the Clippers allowed eight late runs before falling to Southern Ohio. It was a similar result on Saturday night as the Clippers’ bullpen allowed eight runs in the seventh inning and six more

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Ohio

Alex Palou kicks off IndyCar hybrid era with pole at Mid-Ohio

Published

20 hours ago

July 6, 2024

Press Room

Alex Palou kicks off IndyCar hybrid era with pole at Mid-Ohio

LEXINGTON, Ohio – With a brand-new tool at the drivers’ fingertips and countless more data figures to track and analyze, two of the best teams and drivers in IndyCar couldn’t help but make series history Saturday afternoon.

In the debut of hybrid technology in qualifying at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou edged Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward by 24 ten-thousands of a second to take pole for Sunday’s 80-lap race, marking the tightest front row in the Fast 6 qualifying format’s history that dates back to 2005 (0.0027 seconds in the 2023 GMR Grand Prix on the IMS road course).

“It means he went to the bathroom before qualifying,” quipped O’Ward to thunderous laughs in the Mid-Ohio media center. “We’re all out here pushing, pushing, pushing. That’s the beauty of it and what makes it exciting and fun. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

“It’s irritating and annoying to miss it by just that little bit. I was really happy with the lap, but there’s always more available. You find little bits and pieces here and there, but this is a really strong start for tomorrow, and it should be a good race.”

At a track that has seen nine different winners in its last 10 IndyCar races – with seven of those winners coming from the front row – starting position means everything at Mid-Ohio, particularly with a brand-new repave and where teams will be learning on the fly about how to best maximize the new 60 horsepower boosts available each lap.

‘Combatting the change’: How introduction of hybrid will (and won’t) change IndyCar in 2024

O’Ward and Palou agreed that a car, driver and team reaping the full benefits from IndyCar’s new Energy Recovery System might gain a maximum of two tenths a second per lap, making the bespoke system something too impactful to ignore – but not something to prioritize while forgetting about traditional driving and optimal car balance across an entire lap.

“You don’t want to give up one-and-a-half tenths for free that’s available to you, but it’s a lot of work to get those,” Palou said. “But it’s free lap time, so you need to take it.”

“I think tomorrow, it’ll be a challenge for everybody to see whether you’re going to keep the same strategy or change it up a little bit,” added O’Ward. “It’s become a tool for all the drivers and the teams to either make your lives a lot easier or harder. I think it will be interesting.”

The relatively small amounts of boost – drivers are allowed to use 310 kilojoules of energy from the ERS per lap, amounting to eight or so seconds of 60 additional horsepower – have made for a bit of a paradox for teams in the leadup to this weekend as they try to decipher what to tinker with and how much.

Every change leads to another – potentially leading to information overload, Palou admitted. The system isn’t expected to lead to or allow for a massive sea change in the drivers finishing on podiums, winning races or capturing poles, but it’s also something that can have just enough an impact that teams can’t ignore it entirely and solely treat it as a 100-pound brick in the back of their cars either.

“There’s too much stuff to look at now – too many options to get distracted with,” said Palou, adding that the amount of information to scroll through in the cockpit has already made an impression. “The engineers have the ability to focus on what’s really important. This morning, I was saying, ‘Let’s take a look at deploy and regen,’ and my engineer said, ‘Don’t look at that. Look at your driving first, and then focus on the percent of charge.’”

After nearly five years, it’s arrived: Explaining IndyCar’s new hybrid system

Several of Palou’s title challengers starting in a hole Sunday

Staring from pole Sunday at a track that has favored strong qualifying performances has a chance to pay big dividends for Palou, as the two-time champ enters the oval-heavy portion of the 2024 schedule starting next weekend. Yet to log an oval win among his 11 career victories that have all come in the last three-plus years, Palou currently holds a 23-point cushion over 2022 champ Will Power and 32 over his Ganassi teammate and six-time champ Scott Dixon.

Only three members of the current top-10 made Saturday’s Fast 6 – Colton Herta qualified 4th – and five of those failed to make it out of the first round, including Power (who qualified 16th and is 2nd in points), Dixon (14th/3rd), Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood (15th/5th), Josef Newgarden (18th/9th) and Felix Rosenqvist (13th/10th).

Standout performances

Two of IndyCar’s young guns shined Saturday, including:

David Malukas: qualified 3^rd in just his second race back from his surgically-repaired left wrist and in his second race with Meyer Shank Racing. The 22-year-old’s results also marks the best for the team’s home track in MSR’s history.

Christian Rasmussen: After a rough start to his rookie IndyCar campaign where he currently sits 22nd in points, the young Dane made his first career Fast 12 Saturday at Mid-Ohio. Ahead of this weekend, he’d only started inside the top-15 twice. The Ed Carpenter Racing driver qualified 9th for Sunday’s race.

How to watch, listen: IndyCar Series Mid-Ohio schedule, TV, streaming in hybrid engine debut

IndyCar qualifying results at Mid-Ohio

1. Alex Palou

2. Pato O’Ward

3. David Malukas

4. Colton Herta

5. Marcus Armstrong

6. Marcus Ericsson

7. Scott McLaughlin

8. Alexander Rossi

9. Christian Rasmussen

10. Christian Lundgaard

11. Linus Lundqvist

12. Romain Grosjean

13. Felix Rosenqvist

14. Scott Dixon

15. Kyle Kirkwood

16. Will Power

17. Nolan Siegel

18. Josef Newgarden

19. Graham Rahal

20. Rinus VeeKay

21. Santino Ferrucci

22. Agustin Canapino

23. Pietro Fittipaldi

24. Kyffin Simpson

25. Toby Sowery

26. Sting Ray Robb

27. Jack Harvey

*For undergoing an unapproved engine change by moving to their fifth of the year, Armstrong, Rosenqvist and Fittipaldi all will drop six spots on the grid for tomorrow’s race.

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