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California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

tomshardware.com

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Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#341

Post by fc417fc802 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #335
fc417fc802 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well fair enough. In that case we are actually in agreement. Let the end user (or network admin) sort out what is and isn't acceptable in a given context. What we need regulation to provide (IMO) is a reliable way of doing that.

We don't need regulation, we need cooperation, analogous to movie ratings. A site could attest that they provide content ratings, and that attestation signed by an authority (MPAA). If they are found to have been dishonest about that, the signature is revoked (or probably easier, it's fairly short-lived and just won't be renewed). Browser makers (theatres) cooperate by only loading sites with a valid, signed attestat…

But we already have that and it doesn't work. Sites don't bother to classify themselves. Whitelists are spotty and out of date. Almost nothing interoperates properly. My expectation given the scenario you describe is that business continues as usual with the vast majority of the internet thus being inaccessible when in "child" mode. As a result no one uses child mode and the vicious cycle perpetuates.

A solution would be browsers refusing to load any site that didn't provide such metadata, not just in child mode but in any mode. I suppose either Apple or Google would likely be capable of unilaterally imposing such a requirement as things currently stand. However I also think that's unlikely to happen on its own for various reasons. Thus legally mandating certain basic content classification categories in addition to an extensible standard protocol for communicating such metadata would (I expect) end the cycle. And rather than the government going after individuals the legislation could be structured to place the onus on mainstream browsers, OSes, and other client software to enforce compliance on their behalf.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#342

Post by californical »

lokar wrote: post #300
californical wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come up with a few categories and let the browser/OS decide. Websites by default are ‘true’ for every category, unless they specify. Categories are, for example of some: nudity, sexual, violence, etc. It doesn’t have to be perfect but sites will have to err on the side of caution. We could even create an html tag for example, and the browser can simply not render that portion of the page of the user has that type dis…

A header is probably better than a tag. The goal should be to satisfy most reasonable governments. A neutral technical standard and an international organization to maintain the the ontology for content descriptors

Ah I was proposing the tag as another option - maybe a news article is fine for kids but the comment section is unmoderated. That way they could still read the article but not the comments

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#343

Post by AnthonyMouse »

codedokode wrote: post #138
Bender wrote: post #3

The only device mandates that should be taking place is for the default installations of web clients should be checking to see if parental controls are enabled. This only impacts the major browsers. An intern at each browser company could add this check in minutes. If they are enabled and the person logged in is on a regular account (not admin or power user of sorts) then the base installation of web clients must che…

I think the header/metatag is designed poorly. The RTA proposal is that every operator of every site must verify the content and add the header to mark the site as "safe" or "unsafe". This is unnecessary burden that they have to bear if this proposal is given a green light and this is wrong. Instead, the default should be, that if there is no header or it cannot be parsed, then the content is unsafe. And if there is…

> Instead, the default should be, that if there is no header or it cannot be parsed, then the content is unsafe.

That's something the client should be doing. You can configure your own device (or your kid's) to have whatever default you want.

The actual problem is that classifying the entire firehose of user-generated content is precarious and uneconomical, so the default tag is going to be whatever minimizes liability. If untagged implies "unsafe" and "unsafe" minimizes liability then the majority of content will be untagged. If untagged implies "safe" then the majority of content will end up explicitly tagged as unsafe, because tagging it as unsafe minimizes liability.

But either way if you disable "unsafe content" you'll end up disabling almost everything, specifically including the huge amount of "safe" content which isn't tagged as safe because accurately classifying it is uneconomical.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#344

Post by SoftTalker »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #341
SoftTalker wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need regulation, we need cooperation, analogous to movie ratings. A site could attest that they provide content ratings, and that attestation signed by an authority (MPAA). If they are found to have been dishonest about that, the signature is revoked (or probably easier, it's fairly short-lived and just won't be renewed). Browser makers (theatres) cooperate by only loading sites with a valid, signed attestat…

But we already have that and it doesn't work. Sites don't bother to classify themselves. Whitelists are spotty and out of date. Almost nothing interoperates properly. My expectation given the scenario you describe is that business continues as usual with the vast majority of the internet thus being inaccessible when in "child" mode. As a result no one uses child mode and the vicious cycle perpetuates. A solution woul…

> the vast majority of the internet thus being inaccessible when in "child" mode.

Fine. It probably should be, if sites don't want to bother cooperating.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#345

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bijowo1676 wrote: post #281
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only parents can decide for their own children Voters are collectively deciding for all of our children. And there are absolutely group dynamics that require cooperation. It’s why rich communities ban phones in classrooms while in poor communities, the one family that tries doing it alone is probably going to be less successful. Again, I’m not saying you’re fundamentally wrong. Just that this debate has been had an…

we are not collectivist/communist country to have a "muh gubernment" rule and dictate over every little thing. I want government bureacrats, empowered by the stupid median voter, to be as far away as possible from things that I (and any other parent) are perfectly capable of solving by ourselves. I want more freedom

> I want more freedom

Sure. Call your electeds next time this comes up. Right now, the ship has sailed. Jurisdictions are debating methodology.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#346

Post by fc417fc802 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #344
fc417fc802 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we already have that and it doesn't work. Sites don't bother to classify themselves. Whitelists are spotty and out of date. Almost nothing interoperates properly. My expectation given the scenario you describe is that business continues as usual with the vast majority of the internet thus being inaccessible when in "child" mode. As a result no one uses child mode and the vicious cycle perpetuates. A solution woul…

> the vast majority of the internet thus being inaccessible when in "child" mode. Fine. It probably should be, if sites don't want to bother cooperating.

But the expected result here is that parental controls continue not to work very well, parents continue not to use them (at least competently), and people continue complaining that something needs to be done. So I propose that we do something about that rather than sit around continuing to roll the dice on the next half assed turnkey authoritarian solution than an inept legislator fields courtesy of a lobbyist working for a megacorporation whose interests tread well into the realm of the blatantly evil.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#348

Post by frm88 »

Aurornis wrote: post #144
oceansky wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta alone spent 2 billion dollars lobbying for this worldwide, and it was a massive success, it's passing everywhere unanimously.

Meta has not spent $2 billion lobbying for this or on lobbying altogether. It’s amazing how that one AI slop project that made this claim got so many people to believe this number. Spreading this disproven AI slop around isn’t helping. It just makes opposition look like uninformed conspiracy theorists who can’t fact check anything.

Meta is lobbying to get age verification installed at the OS level so that they don't have to bear the cost themselves. I know nothing of the $2B but the fact that Meta influences the legislation can hardly be denied:

During the meeting, Meta executives, including Antigone Davis, global head of safety, are understood to have argued that any age checks should be handled on a smartphone operating system rather than by the likes of Meta.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/meta-urges-labo...

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#349

Post by bijowo1676 »

tzs wrote: post #249

As usual 95+% of people commenting have no idea what is actually in the California law, and so are commenting about things that have nothing to do with it. Different states, countries, and multi-country organizations that have legislated in this area or are working on legislating in this area have went with many different approaches. These differ in their scope, how age is verified (or even if age is actually verifie…

The age verification is coming from the Digital Age Assurance Act.

this act is pushed by the NGO 501c3 called Common Sense Media, their donors include Bezos, zuckerberg, and other rich people.

The same NGO also created a platform called Bandio that provides age verification services. How convenient.

Legislate restrictionist policy today that manufactures demand for age verification service, and then rollout the solution for $$$.

How convenient, muh free market capitalism.

Common sense media also earns $15 mln revenue from licensing its content rating technology.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#350

Post by jeroenhd »

softwaredoug wrote: post #5

All this because public institutions have lost the will or capacity to regulate the companies. So they switch to burdening the consumers.

They are regulating the companies. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are companies.

Desktop and mobile Linux is an extreme niche and alternatives to Linux are practically nonexistent. I'm not surprised law makers might not have known that there are operating systems not made by for-profit companies.

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