Can an 8-year-old waive their rights to sue a company by clicking a box?
That’s the stance of Roblox, an online gaming platform that bills itself as a digital playground.
The argument comes as the $41-billion company is embroiled in a lawsuit with the family of a Northern Kentucky child whose death by suicide, her mother says, is related to use of the platform.
Minors can’t waive rights. Or, in theory they can’t waive rights because they don’t have capacity. That’s my understanding
In my country nobody can waive rights, by default no contract is able to take any rights from you
You know, like a reasonable place would. Not this “rights are inaliable!” Unless you do x, y, or z.
That’s what common sense would dictate
I’m splitting hairs a lil bit - you’re pretty much correct. Minors are not citizens, so they don’t have rights. Minors are wards of the State. They under State protection, and as such don’t have the ability to forgo that protection, until they turn 18.
This is all wrong.
As long as the minor has US citizenship (through naturalization, parents, ect) they have citizenship. We can see this with ICE deporting non US citizen minors (there might be a rare exceptiom, but those are outliers).
Minors have constitutional rights as they have been ruled by the US supreme court to protest politically in schools (as long as it doesn’t interfer with school operation or other students). They even have the ability for the second amendment as long as they are provided permission from the parent and is under adult supervision (hunting, target practice, compitition). Also still protected against unconstitutional searches or seizures.
Minors are not wards of the state unless they are sentenced to a correctional facility, some kind of state mental hospital, or orphinege. Children are under control of their parents unless some substantial reason (parent or guardian death, judification, extreme mental health).
As the other poster stated, children have protections such ad labor laws, protections against military service, protections against adult criminal trials (unless ruled by a judge).
(some of this will vary state by state, but most is the same)
Minors (except immigrants who have not been naturalized) are citzens, and they do have rights. For example, minors can be issued passports, and cannot lawfully be deported. That’s because they’re citizens.
Also, you can’t just walk down the street and kill a minor. That’s an example of a right that everyone has, regardless of whether they’re citizens. Generally, the Constitution refers to such people as persons rather than citizens.
The vast majority of minors are not wards of the state, the only exception being those who are declared wards of the state through explicit legal procedures.
So nothing you said was correct.
The real rationale for Roblox being full of shit is that minors cannot execute contracts. And there are what are called unconscionable contracts, which are invalid even if the signatory is not a minor.
Is that so? It would be a bit strange for me that children have no rights. What would prevent child labor or protect them from abusive parents otherwise?
It would be a bit strange for me that children have no rights.
That’s because it’s not true.
any mention of “waiving your rights” should always automatically be null, no matter who it concerns. by definition it places the corporation above the law. Might as well let corporations authorize people to kill, steal and do other crimes if that is allowed.
we need global capital punishment for corporations
You can’t sign any rights away in the EU.
It’s great because I know my rights here and I can just accept any terms knowing they can’t fuck me over no matter what I accept.
Do you have any concrete examples of this being enforced in practice?
All I see:
- our data still gets collected
- our phones, TVs, wiretap “assistants” still spy on us and upload all of our information to personal datasets that companies can access
- “deleting your data” as per GDPR is just a database flag/row that says the data says it is deleted
- EU just authorized any and all companies to spy on your communications 24/7, 365 days a year
- freedom of speech/expression doesn’t exist here any more than in America, maybe less
Our right to privacy (freedom right pillar) is literally daily being violeted 1000 times over and the most I have ever seen happen is a slap on the wrist 0.01% of yearly revenue fine that didn’t change anything. Companies can fuck you over all they like unless you have a 10million € army of lawyers…
Also how is it going in Germany with the Palestine protester that had been locked in solitary confinement (known torture) for 23 hours per day for the past almost year after a show trial kangaroo court where they wouldn’t allow even any independent record of the trial inside (violation of both dignity and justice pillars)
There is precious little enforcement of many rights, so we absolutely cannot take them for granted and have to fight for them on every front.
Sorry, not true (I wish it were). Even in the EU there are few rights that cannot be taken away or waived.
Not a lawyer, but if i hire someone to kill someone and put that in writing, I can’t sue that person for not doing his job because the contract has no legal value. Not sure on the details, but if i understand correctly a contract between two people cannot cover things that are outside the law. Meaning the law of contracts (like TOS) is inferior to the law of killing people. Seems like this is not true for America, but here i’ve heard of consumers winning lawsuits based on this principle.
We do need global punishment for corporations, but it would not be the only solution: corporation have to abide to local laws.
if they cant be punished globally, they cant be made to obey local laws. Kind of like if you could do crimes in one country and just leave after heat gets too bad. For us, interpol will go after you.
For individuals it is a lot easier to go to another country to evade punishment. If a company does that they also can’t produce or sell there themselves and will have to find another company to act as an intermediary. Also, in this case it is about a dragging someone to court. It is hard to take a us software company to court, but it does happen. For example, a Dutch organisation took Meta to court for not allowing users to receive a feed with only the accounts they follow. They won that case. A celeb had his identity used by fraudsters who used Google Ads to trick people into buying certain crypto, he won the case. Yes companies get away with a lot, but they are ‘made to obey local laws’ from time to time.
they dont get fines that matter though, otherwise they wouldnt act like they are just cost of doing business. fine for breaking law for big corporation should be big they are actually scared of getting fined.
And company being able to to evade punishment via intermediary is not right either. breaking the law should mean they get left behind by competitors
100% agree
If it can be waived, then it’s a temporary privilege, not a right
Children aren’t legally allowed to enter into contracts. How are their lawyers this stupid? Are they just getting their arguments from chatbots?
They aren’t stupid - they’re stalling, dragging the trial out in an effort to coax the plaintiff into a settlement or running out of money so they’ll have no choice but to drop the suit. It’s standard issue corporate evil.
Also exhaust them mentally. You can only get reminded of the court case about your 8 yo child’s death so many times before you break
Likely a mix of all 3 things. (Both stupid lawyers using chatbots and a special extra helping of techbro leadership that is hellbent on “challenging the paradigm” or some other shit)
I’m no expert, but my Business Law professors were absolutely adamant about the fact that a minor can never execute a legal agreement and there are no exceptions.
Even if the parent leaves a contract out with a stamped envelope and tells their kid to sign it and mail it off, the contract is null and void. If my professors were correct and things haven’t changed, I can’t imagine a child can waive their (or their parents) rights by clicking a checkbox either.
“Waiving of rights” should be automatically null and void if it happens only as part of some TOS (or GTC or similar situations).
There needs to be strict scrutiny applied by courts to TOS. And other similar legal terms (ask a lawyer what they are, not me) which all say basically only the obvious things that shouldn’t need to be stated at all can be put in them.
If you need more than the basic protection the law already provides for you, then you don’t use a TOS, you need a real contract signed by both parties, with both parties having a lawyer on hand to ensure the terms are understood and really agreeable.
There should be standard TOS clauses that are approved based on their legality and enforceability that click or use based “contracts” should be limited to. Or at the very least, they should need to be legally ratified rather than only looked at closely if legally challenged.
Like that whole “you waived our liability for real world shit by using Disney+” should have resulted in the disbarment of any lawyers that wrote, approved, and tried to argue it in court when it came up and punitive damages to Disney for even trying.
I’m still pissed off about that. The guy’s wife fucking died and they pulled that shit.
But this was not in court: Disney was trying to force the surviving husband into arbitration and simply withdrew the objection to trial after it got a lot of bad publicity, so it was never heard in front of a judge. Disney never actually said it did not have absolute right to arbitration, it just withdrew the objection, meaning that they could do it again at any time.
And the whole “try but back down if it isn’t going so well” strategy is the worst part of it all because it helps them without even if a judge would laugh them out of court over it because of the set of people that would back down or be happy with a lesser settlement, which is probably larger than the set of people that would fight it anyways, plus there’s the subset of people that would want to fight anyways but don’t have the resources to do so.
That’s why I hate the whole system of “treat it as if it is all good until someone (who was specifically harmed by this) takes it to court”. And that’s even before getting to the part where the decision in the end rests in the hands of a single or maybe a small group of judges.
This argument would be laughed out of the building. An 8 year old cannot enter into a contract.
So that deal I made with the devil to swap my soul for a monster truck when I was a kid isn’t legally enforceable?!
Legally? No. Spiritually? Still probably no.
No no. Delivery is just late. I talked to Saber-hagan yesterday about it. They assure me it’s totally bitchin’!
Contracts are two sided. If one party doesn’t fulfill their side, the other doesn’t either. So unless the Devil produces a monster truck, they are not entitled to your soul.
Better to hold assumption until the courts actually function because Donnie has been wrecking the Justice System lately
I’m confused, even if the girl could waive her rights and that is legally a valid argument - she is not the one who’s excersizing her right to sue the company right? Does that right extend beyond death or would such a contract also extend to others who have not signed anything?
Also what the fuck, their stance is they can’t be sued, instead of they’re not guilty. I mean i’m not guilty and the parents can’t sue me, but if they wanted to my defense would surely be that i had nothing to do with it - not that they can’t sue me.
The fast talking lawyers were hoping no one would notice what you just pointed out.
Actually they can sue you. Anyone can sue anyone else over anything. It’s whether the lawsuit or not has any merits and will be carried on is what decides that. If you have a lot of money and want to fuck over a poor person sue them for nothing. The poors still have to spend all their money defending themselves against nothing or else they’re in contempt of court and you get the satisfaction of destroying them financially forever. No crime, but the poors still get punished.
Over here:
A) you have a legal right to legal representation, there is a social justice system where lawyers work for a set price.
B) if you bring something to court, you have to pay a few, also if the case gets dismissed.
C) Not bringing a lawyer does not automatically mean someone is in contempt of court.And i believe there is some law here where you got be charged for a crime if you harras people, i think this would be triggered after your third or fourth frivolous suit.
Poor people are fucked over all the time, but over here not because they’re sued by someone with money for no reason.
By being born you accept being bound by the following terms and conditions…
There’s only one condition, providing you were actually lucky enough to have been born alive.
Unfortunately that condition is that you must eventually die.
We can’t prove that currently, not everyone that has been born has also died yet.
So far it appears to have been an inevitable eventuality, but I can see what you are implying.
It’s akin to the P vs. NP problem.
I just need enough time to witness it, making me the exception.
Roblox really seems to be the end boss of evil game companies. The competition is certainly steep but they never cease to amaze me with how low they‘re willing to go for a few bucks more.
Regardless of the age of someone entering into a contract (by clicking a checkbox)
Aren’t there certain rights you can’t waive, regardless of age?
minors can enter into contracts?
I think it depends on the country, since all rights themself are granted by the law of a country. That’s why there is a global definition of what human right, but not every human gets to exercise that right.
There are in the US. However what those rights are is something courts agree we all have, but generally hate to state.
To add some important context:
Seitz is suing the company, along with two others, for Audree’s death, which occurred one week after her 13th birthday.
and the mom is also suing Discord and TikTok.
Relevant yes, but isn’t the age at which she signed the ‘contract’ even more relevant? Crazy young age to end your life though. Can’t imagine what that’s like.
isn’t the age at which she signed the ‘contract’ even more relevant?
It’s everything – or it used to be, before the current administration (US) decided to turn two and a half centuries of law into Calvinball.
I don’t believe arbitration agreements should be legal at all, but with how conservative US courts are right now, I doubt we’ll see it overturned.
fuck roblox
That’s a vile argument. Fuck Roblox.
no. next question?
