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Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

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Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#101

Post by agentultra »

kej wrote: post #58

I feel like all of these laws are being designed backwards. Content providers, like MPAA films, should have to identify what sort of content they are providing. Then I can give my kids a device configured to allow some or all of that at my discretion. Requiring my kids' devices to advertise their age (or their age "bucket", as if that was a meaningful difference) to protect them is not doing me or my kids any favors.

Or anyone else!

This isn’t for the protection of kids. It’s for the protection of profits by surveillance capitalism.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#102

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

Aurornis wrote: post #24

Not that I'm condoning it, but this law requires self-declaration, not verification. It might sound pedantic but the practical difference is huge. Self-declaration means that the system asks the user to declare if they are a minor. Nothing is verified. Age verification typically means a system which checks ID or has other enforcement measures to try to verify age.

Everyone else is arguing slippery slope.

I don’t even get that far, the proper response to my operating system asking me if I’m a minor or not is: fuck you. It isn’t a harmless question. We aren’t friends, I don’t want an algorithm of news and content, it’s an OS.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#103

Post by tripleee »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #50
shevy-java wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the argument here. You can easily adjust the law to force verification. You seem to assume that "this is now final, nothing will change after that". Why would you assume this to be the case?

The slope is only slippery if the change in question makes it easier for future changes to be bad. Otherwise you're only arguing for no changes to ever be made. Does this law make forced verification easier than if this law didn't exist?

Once you go up the first step of a ladder, the second step is now easier. It's a shifting of the Overton window. You can't enact full surveillance in one move - no-one would accept that. You can boil the frog over a few decades, though.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#104

Post by lrvick »

otterley wrote: post #96
lrvick wrote: post #89

Linux distro founder here (stagex) I will never be compelled to implement this, and would never merge it. Every release requires quorum signatures by an international maintainer team, and the distro is designed to work offline-first, with some variants not even supporting network drivers in the kernel, so Illinois legislators can eat shit.

If you're in the USA or plan to visit someday, I would recommend you speak with your attorney before making such commitments.

I am in the USA, but I literally cannot comply because by design it is not possible for me to ship changes without the international maintainer team agreeing to them. And Illinois legislators have no power over them.

Also, we are not a company. We are an independent community owned project. Our code is free speech and I will burn the world down to defend that right.

Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court over this. Would be great publicity for our coercion resistant approach.

They might as well try to mandate code changes to a blockchain and mandate the whole world host them.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#105

Post by pwg »

kej wrote: post #58

I feel like all of these laws are being designed backwards. Content providers, like MPAA films, should have to identify what sort of content they are providing. Then I can give my kids a device configured to allow some or all of that at my discretion. Requiring my kids' devices to advertise their age (or their age "bucket", as if that was a meaningful difference) to protect them is not doing me or my kids any favors.

> Content providers, like MPAA films, should have to identify what sort of content they are providing. Then I can give my kids a device configured to allow some or all of that at my discretion.

If the intent were to actually protect children, then this would be what was done.

"Protect the children" is just a subterfuge to get electorate support for voting for the foundation for a "1984 thought crime" style monitoring of the internet.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#106

Post by rsyring »

lrvick wrote: post #104
otterley wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the USA or plan to visit someday, I would recommend you speak with your attorney before making such commitments.

I am in the USA, but I literally cannot comply because by design it is not possible for me to ship changes without the international maintainer team agreeing to them. And Illinois legislators have no power over them. Also, we are not a company. We are an independent community owned project. Our code is free speech and I will burn the world down to defend that right. Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court ove…

Thank you.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#107

Post by otterley »

monocasa wrote: post #39
NavinF wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lawsuits for what? AFAIK you have no right to privacy in this sense

Legislating that all complex computing devices must give out your birthday (technically a "signal" of which bucket you're in, but sites are absolutely going to keep track of which bucket you where in, keep asking, and see when it changes). It's constitutional case law that there's an implicit right to privacy in the constitution. I don't see a law that you must wear a band with your birthday out in public passing mus…

> It's constitutional case law that there's an implicit right to privacy in the constitution.

Constitutional scholar here! I mean, yes, that's true in a very general sense, but no court has held that age verification to gain access to a service, or even a device, is unlawful in practice.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#108

Post by hackinthebochs »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74
Bender wrote: post #64

These laws still do not sit well with me. This is just going to create endless lawsuits. In my opinion the safer choice would be to avoid doing anything with current teens, that's just a non starter. Instead think of sliding windows of time and sandbox small children on a child account that if all goes well will one day be a teen and then an adult. They will thank you when they are an adult for looking out for them w…

Just make it a liability for social media companies. Let them figure it out. This is how we age gate everything else.

Why are you people in such a hurry to have facebook et al collecting government IDs?

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#109

Post by mebizzle »

lrvick wrote: post #104
otterley wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the USA or plan to visit someday, I would recommend you speak with your attorney before making such commitments.

I am in the USA, but I literally cannot comply because by design it is not possible for me to ship changes without the international maintainer team agreeing to them. And Illinois legislators have no power over them. Also, we are not a company. We are an independent community owned project. Our code is free speech and I will burn the world down to defend that right. Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court ove…

Thank you for fighting the good fight.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#110

Post by Reason077 »

tomrod wrote: post #4

I'm surprised we're not seeing heaps of lawsuits here. Age verification in general violates privacy.

Nothing in this bill requires age verification. It just requires the OS to have a way to specify the user’s age (not necessarily an exact birth date), so that it can be provided to apps and websites that ask for it.
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