(That doesn’t mean it is not a bad idea, and even perhaps unconstitutional for other reasons.)
I don't think a cryptographic algorithm is "expressive" any more than it is purely functional; indeed, the 9th circuit evaluated and rejected the expressive/functional distinction for source code in the above case.
Regardless - code is speech, and the government cannot compel or prevent speech except in very narrow circumstances.
Providing an API is required if you do some other thing, but you are not required to do that other thing. Requirements that are triggered by engaging in some other activity are not compulsions if the activity they are triggered by is not compulsory. (Now, whether restricting the thing that triggers the requirement by adding the requirement is permissible is a legitimate question, but that is not the question that is addressed when you ignore the thing triggering the requirement and treat the requirement as a free-standing mandate.)
If you don't want to write, hire someone to write, pay someone to provide an implementation that has already been written, or acquire an implementation already written that is available without payment, such an API, you can simply choose not to do what is defined as being an “operating system provider”, and no obligation attaches,
No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to do labor to write code for an API.
I don't know what's wrong with you, honestly, that you would so vivaciously defend this impractical, immoral and completely nonsensical law so vivaciously.
It is seriously disturbing.
I do, these people are entryists and they have evil goals in mind.
Do not hire people like this, and block them from working on your projects.
On the object level: giving medical advice is a form of (literal) speech. If you want to practice medicine and give medical advice as part of that practice, there are tons of constraints on what you can say to patients. The argument you’re laying out here is clearly too general.
I don’t know what’s wrong with you that you are reacting to arguments that exist only in your own mind. I'm not defending the law. (Nor—while I am very much opposed to the law—have I been opposing it here. I haven’t made a normative argument in either direction.)
Also, I don't think “vivaciously” means what you think it means.
That is very much overstating the holding in the case [0], the most relevant part of which seems to be:
“encryption software, in its source code form and as employed by those in the field of cryptography, must be viewed as expressive for First Amendment purposes”
The ruling spends a key bit of analysis discussing the expressive function of source code in this field as distinct from the function of object code in controlling a computer.
A law compelling providing functionality which it is merely most convenient to comply with by creating source code as part of the process is not directing speech, any more than an law delivery of physical goods where the most convenient method of doing so involves interacting by speech with the person who physically holds them on your behalf is.
[0] text here: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/176/176.F3d...
That's forced labor. I'm not required to write a line of code to please anyone. It's free software with no warranty. They have LLMs, let's see them build it. :)
> That's forced labor.
Well, that's a 13th Amendment issue not a 1st Amendment one, but, in any case, its not forced if it doesn't direct who does the work to create the functionality, only requires you to have the functionality provided if you are doing some other activity, it is more of an in-kind tax. [0] (Now, if you want to make an argument that when the activity it is conditioned on is expressive that that makes it a 1A violation as a content-based regulation when the condition is tied to the content of the expressive act, that is a better 1A argument, that might actually have some merit against many of the real uses of, say, age verification laws; but “if I am doing this activity, I must either create or acquire and use software that has a specified function” is not, in general, a 1A violation.)
[0] It's not really that other than metaphorically, either, any more than every regulation of any kind is an “in-kind tax”, but its far closer to that than “forced labor”.
Good, because I'm not writing it, f\/ck them. Free software, no warranty. Use it if you want to. Otherwise, pound sand.
Don't you mean "bad"? Shouldn't you want it to be a violation of the constitution so it gets thrown out?
I think you should read it a bit more closely. The court threw out the "functional/expressive" argument for source code, like I said in my original comment.
Secondly, what are you talking about that source code is the most "convenient" way to implement this? It's the literal, only possible way to present an interface to a user, ask them a question, and "signal" to other applications if the user is a minor or not. You're being completely nonsensical there. There's no other way to do that: someone must write some code. The bill specifically says "an API"!