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Texas app store age verification law blocked by federal judge

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

#121

Post by larusso »

I spend well over a month now on the topic to implement the different half cooked APIs into our apps. The chance that this gets overturned or blocked was high but we had to race anyways. I’m curious what this means for similar legislations in others states line Utah and Louisiana that where planned to get into effect later this year.

I very much saw the irony that Texas of all regions tried to restrict the Wild West that is the digital App Store landscape. I think something needs to be done but the implementation proposed is not just problematic but also downright technically impossible. Our first implementation simply failed open for all kinds of errors. Reading the AppStore Age Verification APIs (except Apple) they tried to make this an app problem ala: Playstore is not up to date. Show a message to the user yadayadayada… There so many reasons why this call can go wrong. And the apps won’t start blocking all users just because this call failed. Not to speak about the issue that just for Texas we had to implement said call globally. Because the law states that a an account created after 1.1.26 of a Texas “resident” needs these additional checks. Well let’s see what happens next.

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

#122

Post by hiddencost »

akerl_ wrote: post #109
knodi123 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors..." It's a dumb law, but, devil's advocate - isn't that how porn shops work? And porn shops also sell some non-porn items, too.

This is the difference between standing on a street corner shouting "shit" and taking a shit on a street corner. The court is generally pretty adept at navigating the difference between "a bookstore that has some spicy books" and "a sex shop that has some non-spicy books".

ICYMI Kavanaugh endorsed arresting people because they look brown so I'm not sure why we're putting any faith in the court system.

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

#124

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dragonwriter wrote: post #61
mothballed wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The controlled substance act, as applied, is insanely unconstitutional. That's part of the reason why they needed to pass an amendment to ban liquor.

> The controlled substance act, as applied, is insanely unconstitutional. That's part of the reason why they needed to pass an amendment to ban liquor. The Wartime Prohibition Act says you are wrong. The 18th Amendment was certainly necessary to both make the policy irrevocable without another amendment, and to give states independent power notwithstanding usual Constitutional limits on state power to enforce prohibi…

The Wartime Prohibition Act was passed during the drawdown from World War I and the basis for upholding it was the wartime powers of Congress because of a scarcity of grain from the war.

The last Congressionally declared war was World War II, so if that was supposed to be the constitutional basis for the Controlled Substances Act, there would seem to be the obvious problems that the war was generations ago and nobody is diverting scanty wheat from the food markets to make MDMA.

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

#125

Post by wqaatwt »

mothballed wrote: post #53
jfengel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the second amendment excepted? Nothing in the text says anything different from the others with regards to age. And don't say "because it's insane for kids to buy deadly weapons" because that doesn't seem to figure into any other part of second amendment interpretation.

That didn't happen until 1968 and by that time the constitution was basically toilet paper. The answer is ever since the progressive (and on some occasions, before that) era the constitution was more of a guideline, occasionally quoted by judges much like you can quote the bible to support pretty much anything if you twist it enough.

> since the progressive (and on some occasions, before that)

Wasn’t it the other way around? E.g. the fir amendment was pretty much ignored (barely a guideline) by everyone almost until the 1900s.

Even the founders themselves discarded it almost entirely just a few years after the constitution was ratified..

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

#126

Post by CrossVR »

chrisweekly wrote: post #112
triceratops wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed! Great idea. I'll save others the click: "The insistence on perfect age verification requires ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying cigarettes or booze does not. Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained, and most kids are locked out. In the same way that kids occasionally obt…

This does nothing to protect anonymity as you are still assigned a unique code that has been tied to your ID at the liquor store.

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

#127

Post by CrossVR »

killingtime74 wrote: post #106
knodi123 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors..." It's a dumb law, but, devil's advocate - isn't that how porn shops work? And porn shops also sell some non-porn items, too.

Yes, first amendment is not absolute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

Only the second one is absolute for some reason.

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

#128

Post by AnthonyMouse »

earthnail wrote: post #120
sfdlkj3jk342a wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end, we are at the mercy of those with power. Laws are just a way to make their decisions appear fair and appease the masses. If you piss off enough the wrong person with power, it doesn't matter what the laws say, you'll get screwed.

Not quite that simple. Laws legitimise and stabilise those in power. If enough people stop believing in the law, it really threatens those in power. There are other means to gaining power, of course.

> If enough people stop believing in the law, it really threatens those in power.

I think this is why the thing judges hate the most is people admitting when the law gives them an unfair advantage.

A rule that unjustly benefits someone is fine as long as they don't break kayfabe. Big Brother loves you, that's why you can't install apps on your phone, it's to protect you from harm. The incidental monopolization, censorship and surveillance are all totally unintentional and not really even happening. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

Whereas, declare that you're shamelessly exploiting a loophole? Orange jumpsuit.

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

#129

Post by Nasrudith »

akerl_ wrote: post #109
knodi123 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors..." It's a dumb law, but, devil's advocate - isn't that how porn shops work? And porn shops also sell some non-porn items, too.

This is the difference between standing on a street corner shouting "shit" and taking a shit on a street corner. The court is generally pretty adept at navigating the difference between "a bookstore that has some spicy books" and "a sex shop that has some non-spicy books".

Laws which are open to abuse are bad laws. Full stop.

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

#130

Post by Nasrudith »

wyldfire wrote: post #49
kagrenac wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. If a right "shall not be infringed", then it shall not be infringed. Period. End of discussion. That right is inviolate. Any obstruction to its exercise is plainly anti-American.

If someone set a bomb using a speech recognition algorithm looking for specific elements of political speech, and I knowingly detonated it with that kind of political speech, would the act of my political speech be protected speech? Is the act of shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater protected speech? Surely there should be some limits on what constitutes protected speech.

You're seriously using the cliche used to justify jailing objectors to World War One unironically?
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