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

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

#441

Post by kyledrake »

tardedmeme wrote: post #418
kyledrake wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"telling" is a really curious euphemism for forcing volunteer Debian developers at gun point or they'll get thrown in jail. People in recent history seem to have forgotten that this is how governments enforce laws. If it was not, why would anyone bother obeying the laws if they didn't like them? Governments are dangerous monopolies on force and the use of that force shouldn't be casually tossed out like candy at a pa…

The law defines it as a product quality issue. Meaning you can return it for a refund and a company that keeps selling broken products may be ordered to recall them or to stop selling them until they're fixed. You can't go to jail for selling broken products, and this doesn't apply to free software since it's free and has no warranty (which is only allowed because of the fact that it's free.). Do you think the rule t…

> The law defines it as a product quality issue. Meaning you can return it for a refund and a company that keeps selling broken products may be ordered to recall them or to stop selling them until they're fixed.

And if they refuse to do all of this and resist, what happens to them? If you want a sample, stop paying your taxes, stuff your money under your mattress and see what ultimately happens. Just because our government is slow, stupid and incompetent doesn't mean that they don't use the same mechanism of action.

I would love to get into why looking at porno is not even in the same universe of danger as lead poisoning, but I've spent weeks trying to explain harm comparison to people that genuinely think high schoolers using social media is the same thing as them using cigarettes and heroin and I'm just exhausted.

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

#442

Post by zoobab »

kloop wrote: post #120
7e wrote: post #91

Why should Linux be exempt? Linux lobbyists seem to be against the public good. It takes an AI agent 5 minutes to add this feature and then they add be good forevermore. And given that the software is open source, everyone can use the same library to be compliant. Belly-aching snowflakes…

1st amendment. There's a long history of carve outs around commercial products. But, if Linux devs (who aren't selling anything) went to the mat against this law, the government of California would lose and (at least part of) their law would be struck down.

Kids deserve free speech. There is no valid reason to deny access to them to social networks. First amendment is being breached here.

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

#443

Post by lokar »

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.

We are seeking a solution to a social problem, not just a technical problem. If it fails to achieve most of the social goals, it won't be used and you get something worse. Welcome to the real world.

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

#444

Post by jamespo »

iamnothere wrote: post #438
fc417fc802 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're giving fair treatment to the complexity of the issue at hand. When SCOTUS came out in favor of anonymous political speech I do not understand it to have been on the basis of forced speech. We require for example nutrition labels on food products. So clearly metadata of various sorts can be required for an interaction within the marketplace if there's a good enough reason for it. I'm not sure wher…

> So clearly metadata of various sorts can be required for an interaction within the marketplace if there's a good enough reason for it. Marketplace being the key word here. Interstate commerce may be regulated. > I'm not sure where that leaves personal blogs but it certainly applies to Amazon and PornHub. That’s the point. I also care about restrictions on smaller businesses and want to prevent regulatory capture, b…

Fine allow any text through, kids can use whatever gopher site they like.

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

#445

Post by no_wizard »

lxe wrote: post #183
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…

Bold of you to assume that lawmakers have any common sense when it comes to technology legislation. It could have taken 3 interns 3 hours at each browser company to implement a cookie consent standard 15 years ago, yet here we are in cookie banner hell.

In the US all the age verification legislation is written by data broker companies that want to mine this data. The government also wants to be able to have access to this information by proxy.

It’s not written the way it’s written because they’re oblivious it’s written the way it’s written because it’s plain lobbying writing the bill.

For example, there’s little in the way of protections in how the age verification would be protected or prevent the analytics from being sold

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

#447

Post by coryrc »

galangalalgol wrote: post #426
coryrc wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Montessori does advocate that, but mixed ages is not mixed intelligence.

Yes, that is an issue. There isn't much separation until age 11 or 12 and even then it is usually at the same physical facility. Is there good data on how to handle that? Don't want to make irrevocable decisions too early, seen lots of people good at arithmetic that can't do math and the reverse almost as often. Then is it bad to have socialization absent between different intelligence levels? Most public schools in…

There is separation, at least here in the US, where basically all Montessori schools are private and can choose who to take, so the extreme lows aren't present. The other aspect is kids' abilities are masked by how fast kids grow and change; I'd guess a 20th percentile 4-year-old will be better at things than a 95th percentile kid 365 days younger, so the mixed ages still helps both, because teaching helps someone learn and the younger hasn't learned the thing yet. Where when you get to teens, the more capable student in, say, grade 9 will be able to learn calculus so much faster than a less capable student in grade 12, either you make the former waste most of the class repeating concepts they already solidly understand, or you end up leaving behind the slow learner. You're hurting one, the other, or both by mixing them. But that's doesn't mean they can't both be in art class, or band, or shop together.

Socialization doesn't have to solely occur in an academic classroom.

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

#448

Post by echelon »

CJefferson wrote: post #318
echelon wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me be very explicit so we're not dancing around the topic: The potentially all-powerful government shouldn't know: - what vices a person has - what religion a person has or doesn't have - what porn you watch - what alcohol and drugs you buy PERIOD. All of these things can be exploited. To control jobs, to control finances, to extort influence, to shape ideology, etc. The government shouldn't be able to catalog th…

Should a government control the porn a child can walk into a shop and buy? The alcohol and drugs they can work into a shop and buy? Are you suggesting we remove current laws making it illegal for children to purchase these things?

A store doesn't photocopy your ID. Some states even allow retailers to skip the ID check if the patron looks old enough.

With online services, there's no way to ensure your information isn't permanently stored and associated with the transaction for later misuse.

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

#449

Post by some_random »

anigbrowl wrote: post #108
zarzavat wrote: post #30

A cynical person might suspect that the reason they are doing this is so that Linux developers don't have standing to challenge the law on 1st amendment grounds...

LEarn to take a win as a win. People who are unable to look at anything without seeing themselves being scammed are clinically paranoid.

This would be a reasonable take if lawmakers hadn't been trying to scam us our of our rights since those rights were first put to paper.

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

#450

Post by kqp »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #401
kqp wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly necessary cookies don’t require explicit consent, and generally can’t be rejected. Functional cookies don’t require additional explicit consent if you actually use that function. “Performance” actually refers to analytics, probably rebranded because users did not want it. Making you think they had to ask for the reasonable cookies, too, is the whole trick being pulled here.

> Functional cookies don’t require additional explicit consent if you actually use that function. To not be indistinguishable from "strictly necessary" there would have to be a case where the "functional cookie" actually required consent, right? What case is that and how would you solicit that consent other than some kind of cookie banner? > “Performance” actually refers to analytics, probably rebranded because users…

> To not be indistinguishable from "strictly necessary" there would have to be a case where the "functional cookie" actually required consent, right?

The case is when you don’t use that feature.

> how would you solicit that consent other than some kind of cookie banner?

Using the feature that requires the cookie is considered consent, same as using the website is considered consent to set cookies actually necessary for the entire website to function. For example, if you click “save settings”, that’s consent to save those settings, there’s no need for a “but am I allowed to save settings?” popup.

You might be tempted to dive into the potential grey area here, and sure, one exists, but (a) that’s why the laws go into 1,000 times more detail than this HN comment, (b) most of it’s not in the grey area, and (c) even in the worst case, making 100% sure is as easy as a checkbox before the button that activates the feature, there’s never a requirement for a blanket “can we do whatever we want” before even displaying the homepage.

> It refers to statistics, but sometimes you do want that, e.g. so the site can tell you how long it took you to do something compared to the average user, or provide those analytics to you. And the fact that this is ambiguous is an obvious problem -- if you get access to the data they collect is that "analytics" or "functional"?

The GDPR calls it “statistics”, but in this context defines the word to mean analytics, not statistics shown to users. If it’s shown to users then it’s either strictly necessary or functional.

> In the face of an ambiguity, most corporate bureaucrats are going to take the risk-averse option, which is to ask for consent in case it turns out to be adjudicated as required ex post facto. The result is quite predictable. If you pass a poorly drafted law, businesses have a general preference for doing something stupid/wasteful/annoying over something that could get them sued or fined.

Businesses are generally risk averse, yes, but don’t mistake knowing a force at play for knowing them all. The “cookie consent banner” was invented and evangelized not by the laws they’re commonly believed to have sprung from but by the IAB, an ad industry consortium counting Google, Facebook, and many others as members. The same organization that organized efforts to prevent third party cookie blocking, and that tried to block the GDPR entirely. The banner norms they created did not even comply with the law until changes a few years ago, the EU just took its sweet time on enforcement.

The average small business, of course, is not in on some grand scheme, but this is where your risk aversion comes in: if all the big players are doing something, and everybody around you is doing it, and you Google it and the first 20 results all say to do it, then the risk averse move is of course to just do it and move on. After all, trusting your own judgement is scary, what if you get sued or fined?

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