Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 263 posts

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#91

Post by Refreeze5224 »

The_President wrote: post #79
lmz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that argument you could argue for age gating wifi access and mobile data.

Bookstore and libraries are environments where content is known. I am not making any sort of argument that identifies internet access as something to age gate. Correct analogies should be used to present the most fool proof argument.

Who cares if you don't like his analogy? His point is that this is a violation of the 1st Amendment. Which, by the way, does not mention anything about content being known or not.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#92

Post by startupsfail »

lovich wrote: post #80
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested: the only one that I can think of that has some limitations is the second amendment? Are there others? As to the first amendment: Although not equal to that of adults, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that "minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection." Only in relatively narrow and limited circumstances can the government restrict kids' rights when it comes to protected sp…

The Bong hits 4 Jesus case[1] clarified that minors don’t have full first amendment rights since they are compelled to attend school, and government employees can punish them for their speech. My memory is failing me for the relevant case name but I’m also fairly sure students don’t have full 4th amendment rights, again because they are compelled to attend school and the government employees are allowed to search the…

It used to be worse, back in the days. See that case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#93

Post by The_President »

Refreeze5224 wrote: post #91
The_President wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bookstore and libraries are environments where content is known. I am not making any sort of argument that identifies internet access as something to age gate. Correct analogies should be used to present the most fool proof argument.

Who cares if you don't like his analogy? His point is that this is a violation of the 1st Amendment. Which, by the way, does not mention anything about content being known or not.

I should have contacted you, Refreeze98, prior to posting my comment that contained far less of an abstraction than you've condescendingly supplemented.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#94

Post by etchalon »

mothballed wrote: post #56
etchalon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's the way our courts have ruled on it. Nothing more complicated than that. The courts are empowered by the Constitution to interpret the Constitution, and their interpretation says kids can have their rights limited.

True, but the executive and legislator are bound to ignore the courts if their interpretation violates the constitution. The judicial branch for instance can't simply declare that "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law" means that "Clarence Thomas is god emperor of the US and commands all the armed fo…

They very much are not bound to ignore the courts. That's not a thing. That's very explicitly not a thing. Why would you think that's a thing?

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#95

Post by devsda »

robkop wrote: post #35
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #2

Judge Robert Pitman said that it violates the First Amendment and is "more likely than not - unconstitutional." The Act is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book. We enjoy 1A protections of speech and assembly. When we consider our rights,…

For those curious about the "consistent principle of law" here - SCOTUS wrestled with nearly exactly this question in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton earlier this year, and effectively emboldened more of these laws. Previously the Fifth Circuit had relied heavily on Ginsberg v. New York (1968) to justify rational basis review. But Ginsberg was a narrow scope - it held that minors don't have the same First Amendment r…

Law is a strange and possibly the only aspect in human societies where people are by default assumed to know, understand and follow it to the letter when everybody acknowledges that law is open to interpretation. You cannot in most cases claim ignorance as it can be abused by criminals.

But there is whole industry of education, profession, journals, blogs, podcasts and videos trying to teach, interpret and explain the same laws. In the end it is decided by experts who have been practicing law for decades and even almost half of those experts may disagree on the right interpretation but a citizen is expected to always get it right from the start.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#96

Post by triceratops »

selinkocalar wrote: post #38
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #2

Judge Robert Pitman said that it violates the First Amendment and is "more likely than not - unconstitutional." The Act is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book. We enjoy 1A protections of speech and assembly. When we consider our rights,…

The technical implementation is messy too. Most age verification systems either don't work well or create massive privacy risks by requiring government ID uploads.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46223051 This one works well. Or at least, as well as age verification for tobacco and alcohol. And equally privacy-preserving.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#97

Post by nunez »

The_President wrote: post #65
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #2

Judge Robert Pitman said that it violates the First Amendment and is "more likely than not - unconstitutional." The Act is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book. We enjoy 1A protections of speech and assembly. When we consider our rights,…

False analogy given by this federal judge. App stores are gateways to social environments and unknown or future content. Every book in a bookstore can be verified because the content can be known and audited. Regardless of opinion on the root issue, this judges statement aligns books with the Internet and they are absolutely not the same.

Yes, but you can't stop eight year olds from grabbing a James Patterson or Stephen King novel from the shelf. Their parents should, and some librarians might throw a moral exception to their choice, but if they wanna read It, they're gonna read It.

Enforcing anything other than that is a huge 1A violation IMO.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#98

Post by nunez »

echelon wrote: post #7
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #2

Judge Robert Pitman said that it violates the First Amendment and is "more likely than not - unconstitutional." The Act is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book. We enjoy 1A protections of speech and assembly. When we consider our rights,…

I hope we can use the First Amendment and freedom of assembly to tackle these ID age verification (read: 1984 surveillance) laws. I don't have faith that this will work. We need to amend the constitution to guarantee our privacy. It should be a fundamental right.

Between AI improvements, laws like this and Telly, we are a few steps away from the telescreen.

(I saw a Telly recently. This device should be terrifying, but "free" makes people make weird choices.)

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#99

Post by lostlogin »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #90
selinkocalar wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technical implementation is messy too. Most age verification systems either don't work well or create massive privacy risks by requiring government ID uploads.

LinkedIn’s verification is maddening

LinkedIn is maddening. If you make the mistake of signing up, it takes years to escape their spam and bs.

Re: Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

#100

Post by nunez »

senshan wrote: post #33
ls612 wrote: post #4

The only reason the earlier age verification laws were upheld were because they narrowly targeted porn. This is an entirely unsurprising outcome.

I do not see how this is an argument. If porn can be narrowly targeted, why apps can not be targeted narrowly as well? It seems to be more about harmonizing Texas law (SB2420) under the constraints of federal law (1A), so we will likely to see this question all the way to the USSC.

Porn is a category; apps are a concept

Like age laws for vape pens vs age laws for shopping.

Post reply on HN