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Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

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Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#41

Post by bezier-curve »

raincole wrote: post #23

That's the correct way to do it. Age should be something reported by browser/os/hardware. Something similar to User-Agent. I really hope this will end the whole third party age verification farce.

Maybe we could have privacy protections before assuming every adult in the US is a child until giving random companies our PII? That would be cool, but not holding my breath.

Edit: of course, downvote the comment pointing to Americans having more civil rights. Expect nothing less from the HN techbro cesspool. And yes, this meta commentary infringes the guidelines, and the trust contract is broken at this point. This site does not deserve my energy anymore.

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#42

Post by bell-cot »

stevenalowe wrote: post #15

illogical hubris - no state can regulate the internet; no state can compel developers to write code. the court cases on this will be interesting

I assume you've heard of New Mexico's DoJ winning a not-quite-$1B court case against Meta.

Maybe Meta's lawyers will win on appeal, maybe they won't. "Think of the children!" pushes a lot of emotional buttons.

But Mr. Zuck most certainly can decide that he doesn't like the legal bills and uncertainty, and order his developers to write code.

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#43

Post by dmurray »

consp wrote: post #19
charcircuit wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible for Ubuntu too. Dell sells Ubuntu laptops to Illinois.

"this option is not available in the state of Illinois" Seems easy enough to implement before 2028 and only serve laptops without OS.

Well at least this wouldn't result in massive incentives for Microsoft to get the same law passed elsewhere.

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#44

Post by sroussey »

anon48293 wrote: post #31
ares623 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never mind the fact that Facebook, etc. has BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH of software engineers, designers, psychologists making absolutely damn sure that little Alice & Bob keep their nice little eyes glued and their little thumbs scrolling.

If their eyes and thumbs are that little perhaps you as a parent shouldn’t buy them devices, but let them play outside.

Our family computer when I was a kid was in my parents bedroom. There was only one one. Kids should have dumb phones not supercomputers in their pocket connected to everyone everywhere all at once.

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#45

Post by touwer »

imdsm wrote: post #33
isdononthephone wrote: post #32

Seeing as this is Illinois we're talking about, it's probably less about protecting kids and more about extorting punitive fines from tech companies for non-compliance. > violations can cost up to $50,000 each I hear slot machine noises.

it's a strange business model that works for the EU

[flagged]

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#46

Post by spockz »

raincole wrote: post #23

That's the correct way to do it. Age should be something reported by browser/os/hardware. Something similar to User-Agent. I really hope this will end the whole third party age verification farce.

It could be part of the Accept header which already indicates language. It could serve as a signal that you only want to see content that is appropriate for that age bracket. Where appropriate means what the site wants to serve according to the laws of their jurisdiction.

But to require OS to implement all of this goes way to far and together with the proposed verification mechanisms is a privacy nightmare.

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#47

Post by isdononthephone »

What's most shocking to me is the willingness to comply on display here and elsewhere.

If the state proposes you stick a corncob up your rear, your initial response shouldn't be to ask if they prefer you use a rubber or wooden mallet to achieve compliance.

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#48

Post by zahlman »

drnick1 wrote: post #4
orionblastar wrote: post #2

This is censorship; it is like saying you can't eat a steak because a baby can't chew it. They will try to ban Linux or fine Linux developers unless it reports the user's age.

How? Linux developers don't live in Illinois or even in the USA for the most part.

I don't see how that implies they won't try. From everything I've seen before, the neither lawyers nor judges tend to have a solid understanding of technology (lawyers might know the parts that will be helpful to them in their current cases).

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#49

Post by hackable_sand »

raincole wrote: post #23

That's the correct way to do it. Age should be something reported by browser/os/hardware. Something similar to User-Agent. I really hope this will end the whole third party age verification farce.

Remember. We should do absolutely everything in our power to not hold these companies responsible.

Re: Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

#50

Post by hackinthebochs »

ares623 wrote: post #10
deckiedan wrote: post #3

From reading the article, it sounds like an enforced standardisation? Like, asking for account age bracket and then having a standard API to ask for it would be easy, right? Just write it to a root owned `~/.age-bracket` for each user or something (obviously something better). It's a feature many apps implement in all kinds of ways already, especially games and social media stuff, so this, in theory, just makes it ea…

It passes responsibility and accountability from the large platforms to the open-source communities and to parents who are most likely tech illiterate. Facebook, etc. can wash their hands when they "accidentally" serve gambling ads (or whatever) to children and say "well it's not our fault the parent has the laptop misconfigured" It's classic blaming the victim.

Why exactly are some of you guys advocating for platforms to have increased responsibility for verifying the age of their users? Why exactly do you want platforms to collect government IDs or contract with third party ID brokers? How is that an improvement over the user agent attesting to the age of the user?
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