See you in a year or 2.
Play as old as times:
- Company announces garbage change
- People freak out
- Company says ok we will only do half of the garbage
- People calm down and forget
- Company later does the rest of the garbage
- Nobody cares because half of it is already there
I mean it makes total sense the minute you think about it at all.
- some middle managers year end goals include this unpalatable feature
- they release it
- public freaks out
- pr walks it back a bit
- that managers back at work the week after trying to get that feature in because they need to justify the work they just did on it for better compensation
It’s the same with laws.
It’s very hard to get the electorate united to oppose something but if they manage to unite and oppose a bill the lobbyists are back at work on Monday pushing it by a different name.
Laboyists are the scourge of democracy. Every last one of them has a rope and spear with their names written on them.
This isn’t exactly it.
First or isn’t a company or is the government. 2nd, that legislation is just plain dumb and open source systems like Linux, BSD can’t comply with it, even if they wanted to.
The whole law should be repealed though. They use children as excuse, bit it is about surveillance.
The principle that Bullshit, sprayed around often enough, becomes Air Freshener.
Technology makes everything cheaper, including changing minds.
At some points it was unfeasible to abuse consumers because they’d object. Now, if it’s on a large enough scale and valuable enough, you can just pay to convince the majority of them that it’s fine.
also known as TESTING the waters, gauging public response. so they can adapt under a different scheme.
That reminds me. We are quickly approaching the date discord postponed age verification to.
100% Microslop.
Foot in the door technique is a timeless way to get what you want. People seem oblivious to it.
Also works the other way around.
I hear frogs experience the same phenomenon with hot water.
Actually they only stay in the boiling water if their nervous system is impaired
Hm? Did you say something? Sorry, I was distracted.
Good thing humans dont have nervous systems
Are you implying that CA regulators do exactly what disgusting corporations do?!? I am shocked sir!
Install a router/device based content filter if you need to block children from accessing porn.
TV on wall aggregates and displays daily web data for each device?
I mean, it’s not going to work, because your kids are gonna have a smartphone, and they can go to their friend’s house or wherever and they aren’t gonna have content filters. And then you think “okay, I’ll install software on my kid’s viewing device to censor stuff”, but these days, it’s probably not terribly difficult to get ahold of an old phone/tablet/computer, if all you want to do with it is view pornography. Everything’s got a web browser in it, and that’s been the case for long enough that there’s lots of disused hardware just sitting around that can browse the Web. I’ve thrown out a PSP, phones, tablets, countless computers…I suspect that someone’s parents are probably willing to hand their old gear to their kid, and they float around. If you live in an isolated cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, maybe access to Web-capable devices is a barrier, but if your kid has friends, I suspect that it’s not all that hard to get ahold of one device that they have that can browse the Web.
I mean, the realistic answer here is “you’re not going to stop kids from viewing pornography if they sufficiently want to view it”. One kid figures out how to do X, and it doesn’t take long for word to get around.
EDIT: I just hit Amazon looking for an example.
https://www.amazon.com/HOTTABLET-Tablet-Android-Protective-Bluetooth/dp/B0F3XD9M6C
That’s a $39 Android tablet that can browse the Web, has 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of flash (plus an SD card slot). That’s gonna be fine for browsing all the porn you want out there.
Like, it’s pretty hard to keep someone from getting access to something like that. If there weren’t a supply of old hardware floating around and new hardware wasn’t this cheap, okay, but devices capable of browsing the Web are everywhere.
Considering things that are, or could be considered as, porn are everywhere from Reddit to Wikipedia, that doesn’t fix the issue. But I agree, this is something for parents to deal with, not legislation.
Yeah, and while we’re at it, kids should be able to buy alchohol and drugs and go to strip clubs. It’s just a parenting issue.
Make phones 18+ to buy. Make it a legal requirement for parents to set up parental controls. Make parental controls not suck ass. Make the phone tell the website if child or adult no age brackets nonsense. IMO children don’t need access to all websites.
Still there are some issues where abuse can come from parents but hey if they wanted they could give their children alcohol too so that point doesn’t really fly with me.
It has nothing to do with children at all.
It’s called “parenting.” Yes, it’s harder these days with the internet and literally everything “right there.” But it’s still your job as a parent.
ANYTIME ANYONE imposes restrictions “for the children” - there’s something nefarious going on. If it’s a politician-they are looking to build a database for $. If it’s your priest-he’s banging the alter boy after ccd, or hates himself so much for being gay he’s lashing out at the lgbtq community. If it’s a company-they’ve either been threatened into doing it or more likely are on the take with a fat payday. If it’s a developer adding it into Linux, they should expect fierce skepticism and backlash from the community.
It’s NEVER about the children. It’s always an alternative motive. If they actually cared about kids, they’d make sure they were fed at school, they’d invest in their education, or they’d invest into social programs to help out those less fortunate.
The only way to “protect” or “target” any demographic is to first identify everyone to see if they’re in that demographic.
That’s almost always the only reason it’s done.
Thats not the case here.
The california law isn’t actually age verification. It is unchecked age assertion at the operating system level. He is also there specifically for the parents to fill out.When a new device is purchased. I have no doubts.It will be misused and lead to age verification in the OS with a third party verifying the age, but that isnt want the bill is now
Everything you said is correct, but at the same time: “We’re not driving off a cliff (yet), we’re just moving in for a closer look.”
- “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people!”
- “Reduce, Recycle, Reuse.”
- “Only you can prevent forrest fires.”
- “Be All You Can Be in the Army!”
- “Parenting!”
Shift all the blame. Guns? America? Fuck that, it’s the individual, not the industry.
The internet is always two things. The web, access to information on all levels (good or bad ), should be available. It needs to be regulated bc META and anything Elon is apart of, still exist.
Parents are fighting, “literally everything” ! We as a species, is losing to whatever the “internet” is. We need real regulation.
We as a species, is losing to whatever the “internet” is. We need real regulation.
And none of that regulation will have anything to do with age, if you want real effectiveness. A teenager seeing a dick and a dick, a vagina and a vagina, or a dick and a vagina, being mashed together isn’t concerning in the big picture. The stuff that is worrying about the internet affects adults just as much as children, like social media.
You missed the point completely. My example was Meta and Elon’s companies not teens fucking.
Age verification is pointless. The post I responded to, was talking about it is the parent’s (individuals) job not the government’s (regulation). That would be wrong.
And none of that regulation will have anything to do with age, if you want real effectiveness.
That is an extreme view and I believe a dangerous one. Regulation like not experimenting on teen females which caused some to take their life. That seems pretty age related.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/facebooks-dangerous-experiment-teen-girls/620767/
Ear me out: make tools for parents to restrict their child themselves instead of restrictobg everyone and rob data
Or we regulate the use and teach how it properly works. Tools for parents are get but it’s not a fix.
And the worse part, we DO have tools for parents. Either they don’t know these tools exist or they don’t know how to use them. Mostly because they’re tech-illiterate. Kudos to the parents who educate themselves.
This is a benign example, but I was talking with a fellow parent about our dislike of Paw Patrol and told them I had to remove that as an option in Netflix. They were shocked that was possible and I could see the gears turning in their head with that new info. Granted I’m not parenting a teenager yet, but it seems like most of the functionality in bigger platforms generally exists, people just don’t know it’s there and to set it.
Hmm I guess I’m not paying enough attention. What’s wrong with paw patrol?
paw patrol is just so over stimulating with frequent cuts and it’s clearly designed to hook kids short attention spans / does not help develop longer attention spans. It’s a classic problem that kids don’t want to stop watching and have tantrums if you enforce screen time and turn it off. All of this to sell huge toys that kids think they want and will play with one time.
Also the stories are not really that great, and suck to watch as a parent. They always introduce an issue which is immediately resolved, triggering that instant gratification in your kids brain, without teaching them about conflict resolution or anything really useful. This isn’t even about the idea of Adventure Bay being a police state or promoting the privatization of communal services.
It’s an unfair comparison, but a show like Bluey has great storytelling and while not being purely educational, teaches kids how to emphasize with others and deal with conflict that isn’t easily solvable, even for adults. The music, illustrations, and stories are a work of art and a more valuable use of time than Paw Patrol.
Those are valid points that I haven’t thought of. Thanks for the response.
It’s already available and parents are not utilizing it.
But I also don’t see the problem with this. As long as there’s savvy and smart children that did get educated on safety, the knowledge can propagate to those that did not.
It’s already available and parents are not utilizing it.
The parents have determined that it’s not needed. They’ve determined that trying to strictly regulate exactly what Little Johnny can and can’t see online does him far more harm than porn ever could. This hyper-authoritarian nonsense needs to die in a fire.
Oh you mean the thing that worked for 20+ years? Are you crazy? Think about the profits and data we won’t collect.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this is occurring at the same time companies like Palantir are signing government contracts left and right and mega-sized data centers are sprouting up all over the country.
Just like it’s never really about FREEDOM™
The most pedophilic government in history desperately needs to know if your children are on the computer
… For reasons
American states are not at all like provinces.
California’s government is not synonymous with the federal government.
This is like winning a small fight and continuing to march on to Moscow on the winter.
They’ll keep whittling rights down until everything you do is logged with your ID and is whitelisted for your consumption (and I mean whitelisted by rich white list of folks who have the power).
Anything LGBTQ will be blocked as controversial. And teaching they don’t like will be hidden. Was slavery bad? “Well, that’s controversial. The Europeans did nothing but civilize those savages don’t you know! And our wealth justifies the whole thing!”
Tbh, this is just a massive stack of misguidedness.
First, look at what the original law does:
- OS needs to know the age.
- OS itself doesn’t do anything with the age
- OS needs to provide the age to apps and services asking for it
- Apps and services need to block content based on the age provided with the OS
- If the OS doesn’t provide an age, apps and services have to block as if the user was a toddler
Removing the requirement for the OS to provide an age doesn’t change anything at all, because someone running an OS that doesn’t provide an age will just be blocked everywhere. That’s not a solution, that’s a joke to appease idiots who don’t know what the law does.
This is just as misguided as the backlash against systemd who added an age field to the user account to allow people to be still able to access age-restricted content.
The actually relevant part that people should be combatting is the requirement for apps and services to do age verification using the OS-provided age. The OS age field doesn’t matter.
I wish people actually read the california law, it’s rather short, and covers a lot of the “gotchas” people are coming up with (e.g. No it doesn’t apply to servers).
I don’t like age verification laws (Especially since I live in a jurisdiction with one already in effect) but at least argue against the law itself rather than a strawman version people heard about via social media.
This is so common online.
Bad Thing happens.
People argue against Bad Thing incredibly fucking badly. Just abysmal. They don’t understand why or how the Bad Thing happened. They didn’t read the document containing Bad Thing. They don’t know who or what is involved with Bad Thing or where. Nonetheless, they vehemently argue against Bad Thing, using only their imagination as source material.
Someone with more experience fighting Bad Thing shows up in the comments, tries to argue against the misinformation, only to inevitably be accused of defending the Bad Thing.
So they’re basically admitting that they don’t need this for any computer since if you don’t need it for open source why would you need it for closed source? You think kids don’t know how to download and install linux? If I could do it with floppies and a book in the 90s then kids today can do it with a USB image and LLM assistance.
But in reality they’ll probably just wait for a few years and try and push it through again like how they do with most shitty legislation.
Most kids don’t know anything about computers these days. All they know are phones and tablets. Maybe this will get them to learn some basic computer skills.
You think kids don’t know how to download and install linux?
Yes. I think most kids don’t know how to download linux. Just the same as I think most adults don’t know how to do it. It doesn’t matter if it’s actually easy. That’s not the question. The question is if people know how to do it.
Just the same I don’t think they know how to download a non-google based browser.
It’s not about difficulty. It’s about desire to do so. I’ve heard pancakes are very easy to make. I have no desire to make pancakes. I’m 42 and have never made pancakes. I know there’s eggs and flour, and a bowl. I’d have to learn. And to learn, I have to want to learn. And that all goes back to having desire to learn.
Necessity is the mother of innovation. And right now, 90% of the population do not give a damn about which os they use. They just call it “the facebook machine”, and it’s their cell phone.
Desktop across all platforms is dying. Windows 11 sucks. The ram costs are making everything unobtainable. The vast majority don’t even know there is a different way. They just pull out their cell phone, check their tiktok and whatever else, and they go about their day.
At this point three people have desktops. Gamers, hobbyists, and people who need them for work.
So yeah. I DO think most people have zero clue that you can install linux from a usb. I also think most people have never heard of linux.
I wish I still knew where this comic was. It was two geologists, and they’re discussing how the common man must surely know of the starter rocks that everybody knows. Then they start listing a bunch of crystals and rocks nobody has ever heard of before. And they say “oh, and obviously everybodys heard of (insert rock you’ve never heard of)” and his coworker says “well obviously”.
Completely unaware that what seems common to them is completely unknown to everyone else. I really feel like about 30-50% of linux users have that mentality about PCs. They have a PC. They find Linux easy. Therefore it IS easy, and everybody on earth can use linux.
For some of you, you don’t see the failure of that logic, while the rest of you are cringing right now.
Comments like these are very healing for me.
I wish I still knew where this comic was.
You’re probably thinking of an xkcd comic:
I wish I still knew where this comic was. It was two geologists, and they’re discussing how the common man must surely know of the starter rocks that everybody knows.
You’re thinking of XKCD 2501: Average Familiarity:
Necessity is the mother of invention. If you put enough roadblocks in the way these kids will learn same as we did. The only difference is they’ll have an LLM and youtube videos to learn what they need instead of BBS, IRC, and books like we used. Kids know how to search the web. They might not know what they don’t know but as soon as they search “how do i browse the web without my computer telling on me” and linux comes up then they’ll fall down the rabbit hole. It’s like you think these kids exist in bubbles.
You’re placing a lot of "if"s in there, and treating them as if they’re already true.
If you put enough roadblocks in the way these kids will learn same as we did.
Roadblocks to what? To using a pc? What makes you think kids WANT to use a PC at all? Is the roadblock getting to access the internet? Because there’s no roadblocks for that. They have cell phones. Thats what they know the internet as, and they’re accessing it just fine. Is the roadblock privacy? You think kids who take out their cell phones in public, and record them and their friends, and anyone walking by in the background, as they dance the newest trendy dance, to upload to tiktok, are worried about privacy?
And yes, I do think everyone lives in a bubble. Some people live in the same bubble. Most people live in multiple bubbles.
Did you know the Cleveland Cavaliers have lost the first 3 games in a 7 game series against the NY Knicks? Probably not. I live in Cleveland. It’s all anybody in this bubble is talking about. I don’t even like basketball, but right now everyone in the Cleveland sports bubble is losing their shit. I imagine outside of Cleveland nobody gives a shit.
Your bubble seems to be linux. You think linux is more prominant than it is. Right now desktop linux is at a 5% highest ever user base. It has nothing to do with people ditching windows. It has nothing to do with privacy concerns. It has everything to do with Valve making huge progress towards gaming on linux. People are taking their old “not good enough for windows” pcs, and suddenly their gaming lifespan covers more.
Because again. Nobody is saying linux is bad. What it does, it does well if you know what you’re doing. What I’m saying is nobody cares about any of that until they have a desire to use a pc, that isn’t windows. Most people are just ditching pcs completely because for watching youtube, and browsing facebook, and recording tiktoks, why do you need anything more than a low end cell phone? Why buy a pc during a time when prices are sky high, when they get what they need from the thing already in their pocket?
You’re placing a lot of "if"s in there, and treating them as if they’re already true.
I want your energy. I’m going to use this one in the future, thanks.
On your last point: I think that’s why Colorado should do a referendum. If we collect enough signatures the passed law goes to the ballot and the citizens can reject it. We can also collect signatures to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot to ban some of the most invasive age/identity verification going forward.
We neee more backlash on things.
Yes we ou.
Fuck age verification, fuck it all to hell. Not for Linux or any other OS or device.
Agree but would rather it be enforced at the OS level than per app or site. My kid just told me she uploaded her photo to some game she plays which sucks.
On most phones/pcs, you have tools to restrict what your kid can or can’t do. I don’t know the specific OS this has happened on, but you can probably limit downloads, timegate specific apps so that they can only play them when you’re around, or maybe even deny camera access to some.
How about neither. We don’t need it.
I think that the major current closed-source OSes today are busily harvesting all the data they can anyway, and the vendors probably don’t care much about also grabbing age, but stuff like, oh…is it illegal under this law to distribute proprietary versions of older OSes now? Like, classic MacOS, say. That’s definitely not open-source. And Apple is not going to go back and do a new release of classic MacOS to add age verification to it. But…there’s still some old software that you need classic MacOS to run. So…is it illegal to distribute essential software required to run classic MacOS software in California as of the middle of next year?
I mean, you might be infringing on copyright as well, but Apple may be okay with people copying classic MacOS around, as they can’t really make any money off it today. But this is the State of California, not Apple, that would act here.
Right… But in the age of AI, data-harvesting the right data (i.e. the human/non-AI-slop) becomes very interesting to a lot of companies, “age-verification” is an easy argument (for policy-makers) of e.g. social-media companies to know whether the user is an actual human, thus the verified data is a lot more valuable.
Sure, but we can’t make the argument that everyone vouching for age verification is doing so for the same reason.
It is undeniable that there is a very large, and growing, population of parents and adults that want age restrictions for adult content. I think their concern is valid, too. However, they don’t care how it’s done.
That’s where big tech “saves the day” by generously offering to collect all of our IDs and tying it the our accounts. Secure, and private, age verification can be done with zero knowledge proofs. But that probably won’t happen without competent government
IIRC from past reading, the driving factor behind the California bill was that some places were passing laws that would have placed responsibility for age verification on websites. Meta — probably correctly assessing that anything they did was going to be defeatable and not wanting to engage in a big fight with regulators over that — drove the California effort to create an OS-level responsibility. It’s not that this especially solves anything from the standpoint of people who want age restrictions, but that it dumps the legal problems on the OS vendors, like Apple and Microsoft, instead of on Meta.
Niiice.
If all they are asking for is an age, just put in ‘69’ and be done with it.
Proving your age is a different story. I’m not holding up my driver’s license during an OS install.
LOL - verification? Yeah, I got your verification right here! Here’s your verification!
To late I already implemented my own linux age verification. Every time I log in I scan my face and my drivers license and email it to microsoft, google, meta and the CCP. Get owned privacel
Under the original law, operating systems would be required to request a user’s age or birth date during device setup, then expose an “age bracket signal” to apps and app stores. The law, which defined brackets such as “under 13,” “13–15,” “16–17,” and “18+,” immediately raised questions about how such requirements would apply to decentralized, open-source software ecosystems.
I kind of wonder what software running as a service on Windows is supposed to identify itself as if it’s non-interactively downloading software.
A lot of unanswered practical implementation questions surrounding this. Questions like how and why about a lot of things.
A question I have is why all the separate age brackets would be necessary. If the purpose is keeping kids from accessing porn or other “adult” material, why do they need any other categories aside from under 18 and 18+? Those age brackets read more like the kind of demographic categories advertisers, data brokers, etc are interested in than a simple age verification check.
