A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

johnea wrote: post #83

fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

I'm, again, glad to run linux. The distro I run has no affiliated online "account" at all, and I would expect this exempts it from the requirement. I'm no democrat, although I'm sure as hell no republican, and as a resident of the state, I'm also a routine critic of the California state government. I agree that a lot of their activities are indeed, performance art in nature. However I do agree with the identification…

Post by buu700 » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

Sophira wrote: post #183

cjs_ac wrote: post #18

Ignoring all the tedious 'no, you're a bad person for having different priorities and beliefs to me' comments that this will inevitably inspire, I have to ask: why does the operating system need to be involved in this? The intended target of the regulation seems to be app stores. Someone has fallen victim to Politician's Logic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vidzkYnaf6Y

I think the answer is quite simply: Follow the money. General-purpose computing is scary to big, soulless corporations. They want you to rely on them , not to be able to do stuff yourself. (They want to keep that power for themselves.) Age verification is the quickest road to ending general-purpose computing, because it plays on people's knee-jerk emotions. It won't do it by itself, but it'll goes a long way towards…

Post by hilsdev » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

idle_zealot wrote: post #190

fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

What I'm reading of this law is that it requires OS developers to require users select their age (really their age bracket) when making a user account, and an interface for applications/websites to read that user-provided field. I.e. not age verification, but just a standard way to identify if a user is on a child account. If that understanding is correct, how is this bad at all ? It's a way to put to rest people's c…

Post by braingravy » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 10:38 PM UTC

timhh wrote: post #181

dathinab wrote: post #46

> [..] requires an account holder to _indicate_ [..] i.e. this doesn't require age verification at all just a user profile age property > [..] interface that identifies, at a minimum, which of the following _categories_ pertains to the user [..] so you have to give apps and similar a 13+,16+,18+,21+ hint (for US) if combined with parent controls and reasonably implemented this can archive pretty much anything you nee…

> i.e. this doesn't require age verification at all, just a user profile age property This is usually how they do it though. First make a dumb law with poor enforcement. People don't push back about it because it obviously won't be enforced. Wait a bit, then say "people are flagrantly violating this law, we need better enforcement". At that point it's a lot harder to say "it shouldn't be a law at all!" because nobody…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 27, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC