Remember all the ruckus with various US states introducing operating-system level age verification laws? Colorado and California thankfully exempt open source.
  • Majestic@lemmy.ml
    9·
    2 hours ago

    I’m afraid this isn’t the win you think it is.

    One of two things will happen in the near future:

    1. Nearly everything you do online from banking to shopping to social media (including online gaming) to paying your electric or internet bill to yes porn will require OS-level attestation to access and use the site. Linux lacking this will become an incredibly private OS that is useless for anything online making this a defeat for Linux having any hopes of real desktop market share and/or forcing it to comply. Microsoft, Apple, Google would love to push Linux as an OS option off the table.

    2. Kids will start using liveboot or installing Linux and evading these controls, Christian fascists, tech overlord capitalists, and the government will take notice and write a bill to close this “loophole” and within a few years having already established the idea in the popular conception that age verification is okay will face lesser resistance in quickly ramming it through.

    • quips@slrpnk.net
      2·
      5 minutes ago

      It absolutely is the win we think it is. These are separate from mandating open source to include age verification.

  • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
    6·
    2 hours ago

    Good. As a European person using Linux in Canada, I refuse to engage with any extra nonsense on my computer just because some American states are being idiotic. Even if it’s just one extra click, I’m not doing it just because California says I should. Get fucked

  • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.netEnglish
    8·
    5 hours ago

    I mean how would they not exempt FOSS, short of individually policing the software installed on every individual personal system or instituting new hardware requirements and making the use of non-compliant hardware criminal?

    • ohshit604@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      11·
      4 hours ago

      short of individually policing the software installed on every individual personal system or instituting new hardware requirements and making the use of non-compliant hardware criminal?

      Quit giving them ideas!

    • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
      6·
      4 hours ago

      afaik it’s straight up the opposite for the california law. I didn’t read it myself, but from what I read online about it, they require a boolean “adult/minor” and forbid any other data collection related to age

    • ISOmorph@feddit.org
      13·
      6 hours ago

      Yes please! The sooner we normalize that, the sooner these threads will stop being about people explaining idea nr. 26637372 how to implement parental controls. It’s not about protecting children! That’s just the marketing slogan!

  • Matty_r@programming.dev
    63·
    9 hours ago

    Thats great. I do fear that it’ll still pretty much be a requirement if they continue to force age verification through websites etc.

    • ardrak@lemmy.world
      15·
      8 hours ago

      I still think it should be the other way around. It should be a setting on the device/OS that an adult could tik and lock with a password or something that would mark the user or the device as a minor.

      It would be an easy thing for a parent to do and to everyone implement, and I doubt anyone would get angry over that.

      • obvs@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 hours ago

        You’re right. It’s INCREDIBLY simple.

        And I’m saying this as a systems engineer. I do this for a living.

        I would go a step beyond and just make it a mandatory screen as part of setup:

        Will this account mainly be used by an adult, by a teenager, or by a child?

        I think the “teenager” would allow a little more granularity in parental control, but the “teenager” would legally be treated as a minor.

        And you mandate that browser manufacturers be able to read that as part of the account information, but not forced to provide it to websites.

        And you mandate that websites be forced to put in place restrictions that prevent adult websites from being provided to children or to computers that don’t identify the user as an adult or as a child.

        Restricting on the computer manufacturers’ ends is the wrong way to do it. Restrict on the websites’ end.

      • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
        0·
        4 hours ago

        This would be simple. This would also not address the fundamental issue which is identification of bots vs. humans which are quietly destroying the online advertising industry (which, yeah, good riddance), which is what motivated Meta to lobby for online age verification to begin with. So it would fulfil the official purpose of age verification, but not it’s real purpose