In a perfect world the right way to protect children from digital dangers is by proper parenting. In the real world the government steps in so that the next generation doesn't come up crippled. The solution is imperfect and might be a privacy nightmare but is better than nothing. There is a lot of bad parenting in preventing digital-related problems in children.
Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
321–330 of 473 posts
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#322Earlier 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…
> Yeah, the laws in CA, CO, and now IL are essentially just mandating generally available OS's implement a standardized, local parental control system. Except what about my OS which doesn't have parental controls and can't reasonably be expected to provide them because who's gonna do it and be responsible for it?
Your attitude is exactly why it's gotten to the point of being proposed as law.
Of course, nobody can ever stop you from running anything you're building yourself, privately. But you might end up finding that you need to implement additional APIs anyway in order to access what you want to on the internet, just as you're expected to have some sort of HTTP support and HTML rendering in order to get that far. The part you'd be able to "cheat" on in your own custom OS is just reporting a higher age bracket without making you type an age in first.
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, and hear me out, _maybe our computers shouldn't spy on us in the first place_?
So which situation do you want instead of anonymous age verification: A) 18+ content is behind a pinky swear B) 18+ content is behind a parental control (what this bill would do) C) The internet can't have 18+ content anymore D) Some other system? Please describe it.
The Illinois bill is not about 18+ content. It's about controlling who your children can talk to on social media. The OS age check is just a means to that end. The end is blatantly unconstitutional. The bill of rights doesn't mention age limits. Freedom of assosiation applies to kids just as much as it does to adults. If the bill passes, then any racist parent could block all comms from kids of a different color for example.
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not if you're being pushed down the slope. It's not an accident that this appeared within a month or two of the California one. I would bet good money that there's someone shopping this bill around. If you do a frequency analysis of when these bills are being introduced, you'll notice an odd cluster internationally. Less charitably, they're coordinating / talking / being pushed by someone. More charitably, the "idea"…
What you have overlooked is that this type of bill is being introduced in states that have the strongest data protection and privacy laws, such as California and Colorado, and now Illinois. This is happening after several other states have introduced age verification laws that actually require age verification which typically involves uploading your identity documents to each website that is required to verify your a…
https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-pas...
https://nationalpress.org/topic/model-legislation-statehouse...
https://www.thegazette.com/opinion/guest-columnists/lawmaker...
I have looked into hiring lobbyists. I have seen how the sausage gets made.
Pop quiz, who do you think funds https://www.digitalchildhoodalliance.org/ ?
https://ifstudies.org/in-the-news/over-50-conservative-group...
:)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-beh...
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_b...
https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
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In general, this is an example of the Martha Mitchell effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect
Real conspiracies exist. Openly. They're open secrets for those in the know.
You'd be surprised by how banal so much of this is. So many parties trying to get what they want. Doing a cost v benefit analysis and looking the other way.
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
So which situation do you want instead of anonymous age verification: A) 18+ content is behind a pinky swear B) 18+ content is behind a parental control (what this bill would do) C) The internet can't have 18+ content anymore D) Some other system? Please describe it.
D) Parenting
Is D) parenting what they do for cigarettes in stores today as well?
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#326People here seem very against this, but I don't really see it. This only require to have a form asking about your age and provide an API to read it, right? Surely I'm missing something? Is the backlash due to fear of a slippery slope?
The backlash is from Meta trying of assign liabilities of their business practices on people who may not even be users.
Yes, this is just the beginning of a huge swath of innocent APIs to identify people on the internet. Meta isn’t going to stop, and neither will governments.
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#327If allowing children access to social media is dangerous, then why aren't they enforcing existing child abuse and child endangerment laws? Throw the parents in prison for failing to control their children.
>If allowing children access to social media is dangerous, then why aren't they enforcing existing child abuse and child endangerment laws? Because there's no remotely compelling evidence for this and it'd be thrown out by a judge as a huge parental rights violation.
So the justification for these age restrictions is bogus then?
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. IL and MA follow whatever CA does with a few year lag. Considerations of sanity never enter into the discussion.
As an Illinoisan, this kind of stuff makes me want to leave and get somewhere sane. Anybody have recommendations? What places don't have this kind of insanity?
Answers will be provided after adequate proof that you will not bring the voting record that made illinois what it is with you.
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. IL and MA follow whatever CA does with a few year lag. Considerations of sanity never enter into the discussion.
As an Illinoisan, this kind of stuff makes me want to leave and get somewhere sane. Anybody have recommendations? What places don't have this kind of insanity?
There's some hope in New Hampshire. Our legislature just struck down our equivalent bill[1] while it was in committee. And within the last decade, privacy was enshrined in our state constitution[2], providing us with more legal teeth, on top of our free speech protections, to defeat digital age verification within the state.
[1] https://legiscan.com/NH/bill/HB1658/2026
[2] https://www.nh.gov/glance/state-constitution/bill-rights
Re: Illinois Introducing Operating System Account Age Bill
#330It's kinda convenient because every service needs to ask you for the age now because they can't serve under 13s in a lot of cases. Having it be a simple API would be a decent convenience, no? If you connect it with a permission system where you can choose whether to provide this information (e.g. >13 as a bool or age as an integer or the birthday as a date) that can't be too bad I guess? I haven't read the whole thin…
No, because "Operating System Provider" is either too vague, or too imposing on free operating system developers.
Having a radio option for <13, 13–15, 16–17, and 18+ on account creation and a syscall to query that is not a huge imposition for OS.