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Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

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Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#91

Post by officeplant »

axegon_ wrote: post #30
pjc50 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The critical thing is not so much "Americans" as "big money". Big Russian money is also a threat. Big Chinese money .. well, there's a bit of that about, but it doesn't seem to have shown up at the legislation influencing layer.

Oh, that's a different topic: as someone from and living in eastern Europe, there's not a single doubt in my mind that the biggest threat to any civilization is russia by a long shot. The alarming part is that the current US administration hasn't got a single clue of history, suffers from chronic incompetence and the whole superiority complex and fanboying russia as a consequence - those pose a threat. In the context…

>biggest threat to any civilization is russia by a long shot

I don't mean to be the average gloating US citizen, but I'm pretty sure we're the largest threat to the Earth.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#92

Post by officeplant »

edgyquant wrote: post #68
attila-lendvai wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not about protecting children. that's only the PR. once you get this you stop asking why the tech details are the way they are.

Counterpoint: yes it is

Countercounterpoint: It's privacy destruction creep and it always has been.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#93

Post by dv_dt »

bluescrn wrote: post #29
Terr_ wrote: post #4

Oh look, the Heritage Foundation, the ones who wrote up the "Project 2025" agenda for most of the corruption and authoritarianism that has plagued America in the last year. The very last people you should trust when it comes to "protecting the children."

To me it feels that the age verfication (adult de-anonymisation) push, at least in Europe, is coming more from the increasingly-authoritarian left as a reaction to the rise of the online right and Musk's Twitter. (Maybe some unspoken element of concern over social media bots, too - as they evolve from spamming copy+pasted comments to being near-indistinguisable from actual human accounts?)

It would be interesting to see a similar lobbying breakdown for the EU and UK. I bet it's still Meta with other right wing actors. The left rarely has the money for this kind of lobbying scale

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#94

Post by neya »

Damn, had to scroll a couple of comments to find this:

    Anthropic donated $20 million to Public First Action, a PAC that promotes Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn and her sponsored Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that will force everyone to scan their faces and IDs to use the internet under the guise of saving the children.

    The legislative angle taken by companies like Anthropic is that they will provide the censorship gatekeeping infrastructure to scan all user-generated content that gets posted online for "appropriateness", guaranteeing AI providers a constant firehose of novel content they can train on and get paid for the free training. AI companies will also get paid to train on videos of everyone's faces and IDs.

    As for why Blackburn supports KOSA:

    Asked what conservatives’ top priorities should be right now, Senator Blackburn answered, “protecting minor children from the transgender [sic] in this culture and that influence.” She then talked about how KOSA could address this problem, and named social media platforms as places “where children are being indoctrinated.”

    If Anthropic, the PACs it supports and Blackburn get their way with KOSA, the end result will be that anything posted on the internet will be able to be traced back to you.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/12/anthropic-gives-20-million-t...

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#95

Post by gzread »

_heimdall wrote: post #37
pjc50 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The steelman argument is that parents are not necessarily up to date on the technology, and cannot reasonably be expected to supervise teenagers 24/7 up to the age of 18. Compare movie ratings or alcohol laws, for example: there's a non-parental obligation on third parties not to provide alcohol to children or let them in to R18 showings. But the implementation matters, and almost all of these bills internationally a…

That steelman still stands on a core assumption that its both the state's responsibility and right to step in and parent on everyone's behalf. Maybe a majority of people today agree with that, but I know I don't and I never hear that assumption debated directly.

The point of having a state at all is to create a framework where people are set up to succeed.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#96

Post by officeplant »

user_7832 wrote: post #57
anymouse123456 wrote: post #25

Every single Linux kernel currently operating within the borders of any of these states should turn itself off and refuse to boot until an update is installed after these bills are rolled back. We should also update all FOSS license terms to explicitly exclude Meta or any affilites from using any software licensed under them.

Honestly, like the Left-pad incident [1], getting things to go suddenly dark is extremely effective at getting people to drop everything else to fix an issue. Ideally, getting these servers to auto turn off the day this goes into effect ("In compliance with this new law, Linux is now temporarily unusable. Please .") would be glorious for getting the bill staved off, or killed. It would hurt some productivity, but tha…

It still blows my mind that anyone trusts npm after this whole incident.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#97

Post by gzread »

a022311 wrote: post #84
mrob wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero-knowledge proofs are unworkable for age verification because they can't prevent use of somebody else's credentials.

The same argument could be said for other age verification methods. Nothing stops a kid from getting their older cousin to verify their identity for something and it will never be possible to prevent this.

The one where the root user can enable parental controls requires the kid to know their parent's password or save up to buy their own device.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#98

Post by ndriscoll »

heavyset_go wrote: post #44
cosmos0072 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring…

> Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS To be honest, I worry that the framing of this legislation and ZKP generally presents a false dichotomy, where second-option bias[1] prevails because of the draconian first option. There's always another option: don't implement age verification laws a…

> App and website developers shouldn't be burdened with extra costly liability

Why not? Physical businesses have liability if they provide age restricted items to children. As far as I know, strip clubs are liable for who enters. Selling alcohol to a child carries personal criminal liability for store clerks. Assuming society decides to restrict something from children, why should online businesses be exempt?

On who should be responsible, parents or businesses, historically the answer has been both. Parents have decision making authority. Businesses must not undermine that by providing service to minors.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#99

Post by gzread »

officeplant wrote: post #92
edgyquant wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: yes it is

Countercounterpoint: It's privacy destruction creep and it always has been.

Countercountercounterpoint: did you actually read the California age "verification" law?

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#100

Post by mvdwoord »

someguyiguess wrote: post #85
anymouse123456 wrote: post #25

Every single Linux kernel currently operating within the borders of any of these states should turn itself off and refuse to boot until an update is installed after these bills are rolled back. We should also update all FOSS license terms to explicitly exclude Meta or any affilites from using any software licensed under them.

I probably don't have all the info on the various laws across the US and EU that are being pushed, but I'm confused why Linux distros don't just update their licensing and add a notice on the installation screen that it is illegal to run their OS in places where these laws exist? Heck, Linus Torvalds should just add an amendment to the next release of the Linux Kernel that makes it illegal to use in any jurisdiction…

Would be funny indeed... And also curious why nobody does that.
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