I am so puzzled by everyone who objects so strongly to these operating system based opt in systems; all it does is provide for a way for a parent to indicate the age of a child's account, and an API for apps and browsers to get that information. If you're the owner/admin of a system, you get to set that information however you want, and it's required that it only provides ranges and not specific birthdays in order to be privacy preserving.
Meta being behind all of these efforts makes it incredibly suspicious, especially given the New York law is ridiculously more invasive than the California one. It sure makes it seem like there's likely a larger plan here that this is merely facilitating.
So I don't think I can still buy it at face value that California's version is a good-faith attempt to balance privacy and child safety, even if that's what it is in the eyes of the legislature, given who's actually behind it and what else they've been pushing for.
Yes, the New York proposed law is far worse, and we absolutely should be pushing back against that. And Facebook doesn't care, because they only care about moving the liability onto the OS vendor, not on actual privacy.
But still, just because this was supported by Facebook doesn't make it bad. Sure, Facebook doesn't care about privacy, but they do care about not being liable for this, and in this case, they're right, it is actually much more efficient to centralize this function in the OS, and it happens that that way it can be done in a privacy preserving way as California's law shows.
I didn't say just because Facebook supports a law that it makes it bad.
I said the fact that Facebook has been lobbying for such legislation across a ton of jurisdictions, that makes it suspicious.
I stand by that. This is suspicious, whether it's ultimately bad or good.
At any rate, why legislate operating systems when all of the harm comes not from computers themselves but rather from certain websites? And there are already mature solutions for controlling access to specific websites. Client-side parental controls for internet access have existed for decades, dating back to Surfwatch from the Win95 era. A credit card requirement would also effectively impose an age filter.
It definitely makes it more deserving of a closer look. I think that's undeniable.
The government legislating APIs is an uncomfortable precedent given the culture wars that are raging right now. There seems little reason to expect this will stop here.
I work in aviation, a highly regulated field. And that's a good thing. It does take some work to regulate well; there has been a migration in aviation to more prescriptive regulation about how things need to be, to less prescriptive like what the ultimate performance needs to be. But yeah, the aviation regulations aren't that you have to implement something a specific way, but that you have to be able to show that your aircraft has no more than a certain probability of catastrophic failure (where the probability varies base on certain things like the size and type of aircraft).
For this age verification law, all that is required is that there is an API provided for this purpose, and there is a way for the owner of the machine to set up user accounts with age information indicated, and that the APIs need to provide several rough age ranges, not specific birthdays.
It might also include some additional text like "we have decided to collaborate with systemd to integrate this proprietary binary blob, to maximize the reach and eliminating any pains in the setup process caused by the vibrant ecosystem of package managers, while at the same time avoiding disrupting the development process of the Linux kernel".
We shouldn't object to a reasonable law just becasue it might, theoretically, pave the way to an unreasonable law.
In fact, this is put in place as an alternative to the kind of law being enacted elsewhere, right now, which is much worse; the ones requiring ID based verification for accessing many online services. This one provides an alternative solution, which is far more privacy preserving, and leaves all of the actual power in the hands of the owner of the computer.
Are these illegal operating systems?
Either you or someone else mentioned this talking point the other day, I asked for even a single example of an OS maker being sued over this successfully, and I got nothing.
It requires that operating systems provide a way, at account setup, to specify the age or birthdate of a user, and provides an API for indicating which age range the user falls in (under 13, 13 to 16, 16 to 18, or over 18) to an application, so the application can use that information to comply with any laws or regulations relating to the age of the user.
It doesn't make any requirement that the parent actually truthfully put that information in. It doesn't require that anyone verify the information. It doesnt provide for any requirement that a child not set up a user themselves. It explicitly calls out that there is no liability on any of the parties if one user uses a computer under another user's account.
So all it's doing is saying that there must be a reasonably accessible mechanism for a parent to indicate a child's age so that rough information about which age range the child is in can be provided.
Now, is it perfect? No.
It does seem a bit over broad as there are lots of things which be classified as computers uner this, like routers, smart TVs, graphing calculators, cars, etc. Having to provide account setup with age and an API to accesss it in all of these environments could be a bit of a lift in the time frame given. And it doesn't leave a lot of time for something like standardization of Unix APIs between operatings systems, so for systems not running graphical environments I'm sure we're going to get a bunch of different solutions from different OSes as everyone sticks it in a different place and provides a different way to access it. And this would need to be a new feature added into long-term supported maintenance releases operating systems.
So yeah, could it have been done better? Yes. Is it likely that they are actually going to fine OpenWRT developers if they don't implement this? I doubt it; it's pretty clear that the legislative intent is desktop and phone OSes, and other mass market consumer oriented devices that might offer app stores.
So yeah, I see some issues, but overall this seems like the right way to do things; just provide a way for parents to set an age on their children's account, and then provide that to any apps that might need to do age verification. That's it.
I don’t see why we should burden OSes this way. An App Store does all that better.
Because it's inverted. If it's opt in on the parent's part anyway then there's no reason to send additional information along with the request. The service should rather send additional information about content categorization alongside the response.
So what reasons can you imagine for it to be designed in such an obviously unnecessary way?
Right now the only one I'm aware of is RTA which theoretically applies on a per-request basis although I expect that approximately all present usage is uniform site wide.
Such a system is clearly the technically superior solution. It regulates the provider as opposed to the client, forcing the market to provide a workable solution for concerned parties while the client maintains complete control over how things are handled. It further steers well clear of any slippery slopes by not mandating the broadcast or collection of personal information.
Perhaps important from a liability perspective, it places the onus on the client as opposed to these latest attempts to shift it squarely onto the service provider. Right now the legality of serving content across jurisdictional boundaries is extremely convoluted. With ID or age reporting laws it clearly becomes the service provider's responsibility. In contrast, a mandatory metadata standard for classification would create a situation in which it is clear that the legal responsibility (if any) to appropriately configure filters falls to the client.
Of course such a solution would be of no help to the anti-porn and pro-surveillance lobbies. That's the entire point.
or do you have root on your iPhone?
I can't see how that could ever go wrong.
That literally does not answer the GP's question.
You're just an anarchist. We can save a lot of steps if you just state that outright.
I'm merely a proponent of civil disobedience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience
> Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law out of all other freedom struggles.
> Martin Luther King Jr.
There is absolutely no reason at all to even so much as recognize these laws as legitimate. Society can go to hell if it thinks otherwise. They were supposed to be working for us, not the corporations. Since they aren't, we simply revoke their power over us. It really is that easy.
Power isn't something you have, it's loaned out to you, and it can be revoked. People give you power because they believe you'll act in their best interests and solve their problems for them. Once it becomes clear that's not happening, there is absolutely no reason at all to defer to some corrupt "authorities" who are doing nothing but enriching themselves at our expense.
So much for "Resolving inconsistencies between my ideas is the entire reason why I come here to discuss them."[1] - you're just here to engage in propaganda.
(propaganda that, for the future record, isn't even true - corporations do not get votes and do not get to "buy the laws they want")
The current system allows for changing it if you have enough support. People who try to go around it because they do not have the needed support. If society was truly wrong we could easily dissolve it.
Yeah, in an ideal world. Good luck with that.
We live in a deeply unjust world where laws are literally bought and paid for by corporations. This age verification nonsense is just the latest example. They aren't going to sit idle if we attack their lobbying efforts, they're going to come after us. God only knows what a surveillance company like Meta can do to you if they really hate your guts.
Selective rejection of laws based on your own personal morals is wrong in every circumstance.
Either you believe the system is just and you follow all the rules (and work through the system to changes the individual rules you believe are unjust), or you believe that the system is fundamentally unjust and you take drastic action to fix it. If you don't, then you're a hypocrite - you don't really believe that the system is unjust, you're just using that as an excuse to selectively ignore laws you disagree with.
- some are backed by powerful interests
- some have become load-bearing and are too difficult to replace
- some just don't matter and aren't enforced
- even if you fix some, new ones will be passed, because people are not perfect
If I prove this to you, will you then take your own advice and "take drastic action" to replace the US government?
> If I prove this to you, will you then take your own advice and "take drastic action" to replace the US government?
No. You didn't actually read my comments before responding, and you're fundamentally misunderstanding my position. That's not "my own advice".
> Either you believe the system is just and you follow all the rules (and work through the system to changes the individual rules you believe are unjust) [...]
I believe the system is just. That does not change in the presence of those unjust rules that you listed above, because those laws can be changed and are changed regularly, and because they're not egregious enough to constitute a failure of the system.
You seem to agree that there are unjust laws, but you don't realize the scope of the problem. There are many unenforceable laws, with drastic consequences if they were enforced, which are not being fixed[0]. A just system would not perpetuate unjust laws indefinitely, and so under your framing, everyone who disagrees with these laws and is not willing to follow them should take "drastic action."
In fact, there's no such binary. We live under a flawed system which contains unenforceable laws; we can just ignore those laws (which law enforcement already does) even if they are not changed, without needing to overthrow the system, emigrate, or whatever it is you meant to imply by "drastic action."
[0]https://claude.ai/share/b5d93161-65f8-432e-b04e-af98d951038e
Irrelevant.
> A just system would not perpetuate unjust laws indefinitely
Can you point to laws that the majority of the population agrees are unjust that have existed since the beginning of the United States? If not, then there's zero unjust laws being perpetuated indefinitely, and so your conclusion is invalid by your own argument.
But, your own argument is wrong to begin with - the vast majority of humans will acknowledge a system as being essentially just even if it perpetuates some unjust/irrelevant/silly laws.
> In fact, there's no such binary.
That's true, you can "just ignore those laws" - and you'll be a hypocrite. The binary that I'm describing is clearly moral. I'm not saying that you physically must take one position or the other (as you're implying) - just that if you pick a value in the middle, you're a hypocrite, and your opinions are worthless, because you don't really believe them - you're just saying whatever is most convenient/advantageous for you at the moment.
While I don't see why "unenforceable laws" is being mentioned so many times, given the plethora of other laws, I possit that since one of the prior comments was that enforcing them would be damageous, perhaps the intended wording is "unenforced laws" (as distinct from laws which cannot be enforced). If so, then I suggest their relevance.
>> A just system would not perpetuate unjust laws indefinitely > > Can you point to laws that the majority of the population agrees are unjust that have existed since the beginning of the United States? If not, then there's zero unjust laws being perpetuated indefinitely, and so your conclusion is invalid by your own argument.
This the flaw that a law being perpetuated "indefinitely" (that is, without defined end) need not have existed since the beginning of the United States. Such law could have begun at any after, or indeed prior.
>> In fact, there's no such binary. > > That's true, you can "just ignore those laws" - and you'll be a hypocrite. The binary that I'm describing is clearly moral. I'm not saying that you physically must take one position or the other (as you're implying) - just that if you pick a value in the middle, you're a hypocrite, and your opinions are worthless, because you don't really believe them - you're just saying whatever is most convenient/advantageous for you at the moment.
This formulation is not constructive of enlightened debate. Kindly sheath your daggers and reply without invectives. As written, that might easily be read both as personal attack and casual dismisal of entire person. For what is a person who has no opinions?
Now, if I understand your position correctly, you believe that all laws must be obeyed, and that disobeying any law is immoral. Do we each believe that some laws are, whether past or present, immoral? In the case that a law can be immoral, I must hold that the resultant moral obligations are to disobey that law to the fullest and to endeavour to best ability for its most expedient and most moral removal.
I do.
> you should reform/replace it
This is a way to reform it. If nobody obeys a law, is it really illegal? It's more like a custom.
> Selective rejection of laws based on your own personal morals is wrong in every circumstance.
So if your so called authorities passed a law saying you're required to participate in some atrocity such as genocide, you'd do it with a clean conscience? Okay.
> you believe that the system is fundamentally unjust and you take drastic action to fix it
I don't have the power to do so. Also, people who try "drastic" actions are called terrorists.
Nobody asked for this age verification nonsense. The entire child protection angle is just a way to manufacture outrage and cover up the real nature of this law. This is purely a political move from Meta against Apple and Google. Apple cut off their data via iOS privacy controls, now Meta is striking back.
Meta spent billions on lobbyists, then laws benefiting Meta and hurting its competitors were passed. If this is not evidence that you can buy laws, I don't know what is.
Why shouldn't it look like that? Especially with a law this dumb
>Especially with a law this dumb
Allow software to know if the user is an adult or a child seems like a useful signal to me and is not dumb.
As it stands, it reads more like “I’ve used my free will to decide to suspend all critical thinking and accept that anything that anyone with authority decides should be a rule must be unquestioningly accepted.”