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US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
141–150 of 243 posts
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#142Will this make Linux illegal?
Not if the software complies, which is in discussion. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Undecided-Age-Laws
Many distributions have decided not to comply. Debian has settled on not making anything like this mandatory, as they are an international project, although they may (after discussion and likely voting) agree to optionally package age verification stuff for users who want it for some reason.
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dark money PACs and billionaire donors have indeed engineered a system where immense wealth dictates public policy, frequently hiding their identities behind 501(c)(4) "social welfare" groups. These organizations act as "dark money ATMs," allowing a tiny fraction of the ultra-wealthy to spend hundreds of millions of dollars entirely anonymously. To sell their profit-driven agendas, they construct "astroturf" front gr…
Why waste the time generating slop like this?
I spent a lot of time reading the books on which these perspectives are based.
You probably won't read the books.
So I hope that, by writing about reality here on HN, I can expose you to some facts and ideas that you're too complacent to bother investigating, yourself.
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if I hand out free cigarettes, I’d be in the clear.
The laws about giving (not selling) tobacco to minors are state laws, not federal. There’s no interstate commerce there or here. Besides, you’re comparing apples to oranges. Cigarettes are a physical product, not a form of expression. Code is speech and compelled speech violates the first amendment. That makes even state laws for OS age verification unconstitutional.
> Code is speech and compelled speech violates the first amendment.
The first amendment does not blanket ban compelled speech. You can be compelled to testify against someone if granted immunity. You can be forced to take an oath or affirmation in court. I'm sure there are other examples.
> The laws about giving (not selling) tobacco to minors are state laws, not federal. There’s no interstate commerce there or here.
If multiple states have differing legislation over the same area of commerce, it can affect interstate commerce. But anyway, after Wickard v Fiilburn interstate commerce is never not implicated.
> An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed animals on his own farm. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and supplies.
> Filburn grew more than was permitted and so was ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he said that because his wheat was not sold, it could not be regulated as commerce, let alone "interstate" commerce (described in the Constitution as "Commerce ... among the several states").
> The Supreme Court disagreed: "Whether the subject of the regulation in question was 'production', 'consumption', or 'marketing' is, therefore, not material for purposes of deciding the question of federal power before us. ... But even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect'."[2]
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Age appropriate books intended for that still get banned, so the assumption is just that the decisions about it won't be made in good faith. "X has two dads" kind of books aren't really adult, and yet...
Then sue, at that point, and win.
SCOTUS says no.
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
The laws about giving (not selling) tobacco to minors are state laws, not federal. There’s no interstate commerce there or here. Besides, you’re comparing apples to oranges. Cigarettes are a physical product, not a form of expression. Code is speech and compelled speech violates the first amendment. That makes even state laws for OS age verification unconstitutional.
> Code is speech and compelled speech violates the first amendment. The first amendment does not blanket ban compelled speech. You can be compelled to testify against someone if granted immunity. You can be forced to take an oath or affirmation in court. I'm sure there are other examples. > The laws about giving (not selling) tobacco to minors are state laws, not federal. There’s no interstate commerce there or here.…
Court proceedings have been the one place that lasting, narrow 1A exemptions like these have been granted. (The Court is willing to give itself a few exceptional powers now and then.)
> Wickard v Fiilburn
A bad decision that is slowly being undermined and which will eventually be overturned. The State is not omnipotent.
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#147US should first implement a national identifier that can be used for healthcare purposes before implementing age verification, that would be a lot more helpful.
There have been bills in the past like "The improved digital identity act of 2023" that never get out of committee. The latest incarnation seems to be "H.R.7270 - Stop Identity Fraud and Identity Theft Act of 2026". There almost always have one republican and one democratic sponsor. But they don't seem to rise to the level of urgency to get past the current dysfunction in congress.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7270...
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#148According to a recent CRYPTO-GRAM issue from Schneier, it's in Meta's interest to push these regulations as their product isn't an OS. Their competition (Apple/MS/Google) are OSs though.
I'm not sure why Meta's lobbying is harped on so much when all of Big Tech benefits from this; Zuckerberg is just the fall guy. Tech companies love the idea of identity / age verification so they can target ads more effectively. My general feeling is also that privacy is a thorn in their side when it comes to integrating more deeply into people's lives. There are also state actors at play here who would love if compu…
> Zuckerberg is just the fall guy
This is likely because of Zuck's testimony in the very recent court case where he testified exactly that the "best place" to do "age verification" was in the operating system.
This was but a few weeks before all these, largely very identical sounding bills, suddenly started appearing in state houses across the USA.
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#149US should first implement a national identifier that can be used for healthcare purposes before implementing age verification, that would be a lot more helpful.
Oh, but that could be used for voting and we don't want that.
Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed
#150What if the user is another machine? Sorry, my API won’t talk to another API unless it’s old enough to drink. How do we still have no people in government with basic computer literacy?
> no people in government with basic computer literacy?
There are a few. See Wyden, Markey.