Proposed law in Minnesota would ban algorithms to protect the children

I&#x27;m almost interested to backtrace and find out exactly when &quot;algorithm&quot; became the accepted abbreviation for &quot;recommendation algorithm&quot;. Almost, but not quite.<p>Also, whenever I see anything about legislators trying to make laws about what can and can&#x27;t be done to &quot;children&#x27;s accounts&quot; online, I laugh. Surely no child would <i>ever</i> be able to click the &quot;I am over 18&quot; checkbox unless they were truly over 18, right? Nah, couldn&#x27;t happen.<p>I think in some countries, those sites require a governmental ID number to prove your age or something, but... how hard is it for a kid to peek at their parent&#x27;s card, or for a parent to make an account for a kid to use? Expecting any internet service can tell whether a child is currently using any given account is ridiculous without serious data collection and privacy violations.

Merits of the bill aside, I think the headline is spun in a way to make the bill seem totally witless, when it&#x27;s not. There could be more specific wording, of course, and debating the actual merits of the bill is always fair game, but the title reads as if someone just said &quot;Algorithms are bad for children!&quot; and left it at that. The bill is clearly about content prioritization targeted at minors.

Which algorithms? Better not ban any algorithms dealing with traffic lights!