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Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

ilga.gov

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Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#121

Post by SoftTalker »

pianoben wrote: post #105
jacobgkau wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the laws in CA, CO, and now IL are essentially just mandating generally available OS's implement a standardized, local parental control system. Detractors will say parents should just install existing parental control software, even though it's existed in its current form for decades and is obviously not effective. And they'll say it should be the parents' responsibility to enforce what their kids are doing wit…

> while ignoring the fact that these laws provide tools allowing parents to do just that These tools are called "parental controls" and already exist - we don't need laws to compel their production. ...unless, of course, the true aim is to use this as a beachhead for further expansion of privacy-violating requirements. You write this off as a "slippery-slope" argument, but given that there are already quite a few too…

Because the tools don't work, and are too fragmentary and burdensome.

Would you prefer to inform each movie theater in town which movies your child is permitted to watch? Or just rely on the rating system that applies to most movies and is honored by most theatres?

Parents want one setting that says "this is a child" and then expect online platforms to respond appropriately. As we expect and mostly have in the real world.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#122

Post by alephnerd »

iAMkenough wrote: post #34
Slow_Hand wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, I’m surprised that for all of the discussions on HN around these individual statewide acts that I see so little discussion of Meta as a primary force pushing them.

I wonder if Meta monitors their employees comments on HN?

They don't but frankly no one who matters actually gives a s#it about HN anyhow.

HN is also much less representative of the demographics within the American tech industry now as well - almost all the references I see on here are stuff only men in their late 30s to 50s would recognize, and an increasing amount of users appear to be based in Western and Central Europe.

Heck, I'm on the younger end by HN standards (early/mid 30s) and when I introduced HN to my peers over a decade ago (this is my throwaway) even back then they complained that it was "toxic", "snooty", and "unhelpful". And it's reputation amongst the younger generation has only gotten worse.

HN has "SlashDot"ified, because most people are either in private groupchats on signal/imessage/discord or meeting each other with Luma invites.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#123

Post by lich_king »

bink wrote: post #103
inkysigma wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except none of these bills (California or the one in question) as currently written require an ID to actually be verified, merely that the user provide an age. This seems intentional as it's seems to solve the user journey where a parent is able to set a reasonable default by simply setting up an associated account age at account creation. It's effectively just standardizing parental controls. I think this is a reaso…

Kids aren't stupid. They'll just create another account when they're old enough to figure it out. They'll tell their friends how to do it and the rest of us will be stuck with these stupid prompts forever like it's a cookie banner.

So you're advocating for stronger and more invasive controls?...

I think this is a sensible compromise. It gives parents more control than before without relying on shady third-party software or without turning every platform into a cop. Yeah, it also aligns with Meta's interests, but so what?

The age attestation solutions pursued by the EU are far more invasive in this respect, even though they notionally protect identity. They mean that the "default" internet experience is going to be nerfed until you can present a cryptographic proof that you're worthy.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#124

Post by FuckButtons »

mgfist wrote: post #78
Slow_Hand wrote: post #7

If I’m not mistaken, Meta has been lobbying heavily for all of these age-verification bills lately. It seems their strategy is to externalize their responsibility to verify age themselves, and thus reduce their exposure to liabilities when child protection acts like COPPA are violated.

It should be externalized to a degree. Facebook shouldn't be the ones verifying age, but there should be a trusted 3rd party service that does that, which just tells facebook "yes this user is old enough to use your service" or "no they're not old enough". It abso-fucking-lutely should not be at the OS level though, for so many reasons. Even the implementation alone would be a nightmare. Do I need to input my ID to u…

And just which third party do you trust with your identity?

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#125

Post by akersten »

strongpigeon wrote: post #80
nancyminusone wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see any good arguments in favor of it, so why do it? There's no reason my OS needs to know anything about me.

I guess I'm more surprised by the intensity of the backlash this generates here. I agree with you that mandating (weak) OS APIs like this the right approach, but that alone wouldn't warrant the severe reaction this is getting right?

Code is speech. Open source projects are an exercise in speaking publicly. This law mandates particular speech in your otherwise Free as in freedom code.

How are you not outraged? People are missing the above forest for the "oh but it's a tiny little easy API and I don't see any downsides" trees.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#127

Post by intrasight »

gruez wrote: post #65
tyre wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could require government ID to sign up and an adult sponsor to certify accounts for kids. Plus a limit on how many accounts an adult can sponsor. It would be a mess, but solve the problem. It’s not that we don’t have the technology, we just don’t want to because the friction would decimate user numbers and engagement; it would be much simpler to regulate (e.g. usage limits on minors); and minors are less monetiz…

>They could require government ID to sign up and an adult sponsor to certify accounts for kids. Plus a limit on how many accounts an adult can sponsor. Requiring all online account creation to go through some government vouching system sounds far worse for privacy than OS doing age verification.

OS-based age verification would also have to use a government ID. There is no alternatives to a government ID for such verification.

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#128

Post by pooooka »

shit_game wrote: post #30
mikestorrent wrote: post #3

I don't like this whole thing, but compared to what I was fearing would happen, this idea is nowhere near as bad. What I expected was that we'd end up with the OS vendors actually being mandated to really do age verification, and then submitting that using Web Credentials and Secure Attestation so that the far end could trust the whole thing, locking open-source OS's out of the mix and creating more of a walled garde…

> Can someone tell me whether I am being a fool by actually being a bit relieved it's going this way? You're being a fool by actually being a bit relieved it's going this way. These bills are meant to nudge the overton window[0] of digital politics in the direction of mandating realtime identity verification for all forms of computing. Advertisers want it, governments want it, _bad people and bad governments want it_…

LOL. Well said...Seems as if we're on some dystopian track that's eventually going to transform a RealID card into something like a Common Access Card (or worse).

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#129

Post by eecc »

mgfist wrote: post #78
Slow_Hand wrote: post #7

If I’m not mistaken, Meta has been lobbying heavily for all of these age-verification bills lately. It seems their strategy is to externalize their responsibility to verify age themselves, and thus reduce their exposure to liabilities when child protection acts like COPPA are violated.

It should be externalized to a degree. Facebook shouldn't be the ones verifying age, but there should be a trusted 3rd party service that does that, which just tells facebook "yes this user is old enough to use your service" or "no they're not old enough". It abso-fucking-lutely should not be at the OS level though, for so many reasons. Even the implementation alone would be a nightmare. Do I need to input my ID to u…

I guess the point is: delegate to kernel, then “oh, people with root can bypass with modules? Secure Boot!”

Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill

#130

Post by TrueDuality »

strongpigeon wrote: post #80
nancyminusone wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see any good arguments in favor of it, so why do it? There's no reason my OS needs to know anything about me.

I guess I'm more surprised by the intensity of the backlash this generates here. I agree with you that mandating (weak) OS APIs like this the right approach, but that alone wouldn't warrant the severe reaction this is getting right?

A big chunk of the problem with this kind of legislation for me is that it inherently indicates a failure to govern to me. I disagree with the premise of the solution, but even more so this is trying to legislate a specific engineering solution for our current systems rather than any form of financial, objective guidance, or have reasonably actionable and enforceable consequences.

While laws that target engineering decisions are sometimes reasonable, they are always accompanied with specific guidance from a credible academic based institution (e.g. mechanical and civil engineering use private licensing bodies and develop specific curriculum and best practices).

The only time this law will ever be enforced is punitively for other crimes against major actors who are extremely limited in number. It is unenforceable for Linux, trivial for Apple, Microsoft, and Google to add to their OS. Presumably easy to spoof, the law describes it as minimal but once again, there isn't a specification so who knows. Websites won't be liable, they're getting a sweetheart deal here.

In practice what this law does is absolve abusive platforms an from any responsibility. It adds extra meaningless work and overhead for legitimate adult platforms while opening themselves up to new potential legal challenges, and ultimately doesn't replace the responsibility its removing.

This doesn't make children safer. This doesn't make the internet safer. This kind of legislation makes it easier to abuse children online by removing responsibility from platforms that are known to be dangerous to them yet profit from their presence the most.

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