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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

#351

Post by kqp »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #340
kqp wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is misinformation stemming from disinformation propagated by organized industry retaliation to the law. Cookie banners are not and never have been required by law, they are intentional harassment designed to make users oppose laws that actually just say “you may not track users without their consent”. A good faith implementation would be simply nothing, because no explicit consent is required when you’re actuall…

All of the cookie banners have separate categories for strictly necessary, functional, performance and marketing, because those come from the law. The problem is that people generally want functional and often performance cookies, and then you end up with the stupid cookie banner regardless of marketing cookies.

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.

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

#352

Post by [deleted] »

SoftTalker wrote: post #330
lxe wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tech companies could have headed off this legislation 15 years ago by just solving the problem as Bender suggested. But they wanted to pretend they had no social responsibility to not deliver filth to children, and so now the legislators are involved and they get to deal with that. I have no sympathy.

[deleted]

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

#353

Post by saghm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
grim_io wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can't. Like no past generation could stop their kids.

> no past generation could stop their kids Past generations absolutely protected their kids from cigarettes and alcohol. A gate doesn’t have to be 100% effective to have net benefits.

Yes, but when I go to the grocery store, U don't buy alcohol or cigarettes (because I don't drink or smoke), and no one cards me. Even if I never accessed a single site like the ones being described, and despite there being no kids who have access to my devices because I don't have any children, according to these laws every OS I install is required to force me to provide proof of my age. That's a huge escalation over any of those other checks, and I'd be similarly against any check that required anyone to present id to literally enter a store that happens to sell alcohol or cigarettes.

(Yes, you might get carded before you can go into a bar or a club, but we're talking about every possible device that can connect to the internet here; that's a lot closer to the grocery store than a bar or club terms of how much of a staple this is for most people's daily lives at this point. Cutting off my ability to access to my bank account, contact doctor, or pay my bills should not be something that should require additional steps because my devices which no children ever used could theoretically be used for a child to try to watch porn).

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

#354

Post by saghm »

mikestorrent wrote: post #63
iamalizard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such mandates should take place at all.

I agree with you, as a longtime free speech believe. but... I would also like to keep my kids from seeing the very worst of the internet before they're ready to handle it. I tried using a PiHole but Firefox DNS-over-HTTPS nullifies that now. It's not realistic for me to be watching over their shoulders 24/7; what can I do to keep them away from stuff 99% of people agree isn't for children to see, without something li…

> what can I do to keep them away from stuff 99% of people agree isn't for children to see, without something like this?

The better question is "Why do I need to give up privacy on my devices that no children ever use and are used for all sorts of mundane things that are entirely unrelated to what you're trying to protect your children from to solve this problem?" The solution being proposed here is to require ID checks at the OS installation level; this would be like requiring me to flash my ID when I walk out of my house because kids would have to go outside if they were going to try to buy alcohol.

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

#355

Post by saghm »

Bender wrote: post #61
iamalizard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such mandates should take place at all.

I agree fundamentally and ideologically but we are past that point. The toothpaste is already out of the tube as they say. There will be restrictions so all I can do is suggest more sensible restrictions that keep the control on the client side and do not share data. Any data shared can and will be abused, leaked , sold, stolen without consequence.

How and when did we decide that we were past that point? I don't remember being consulted

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

#356

Post by wizzwizz4 »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #297
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we should take measures that actually address the problems that exist. Problem numero uno: the Big Tech companies are creating systems and digital environments that are hostile to everyone (of which children are a subset), compelling everyone to use them, and punishing those who attempt to get away. We cannot fix that by merely dictating terms, especially if those terms are such that only the Big Tech companies t…

Ok we might be in violent agreement here but so far I've yet to see anyone put forth anything like a serious plan to dismantle Big Tech, which clearly indicates that "triage legislation" half measures are the only thing currently on the table. I see little sense in letting perfect be the enemy of good.

https://airesistlist.org/ (currently down: see the Internet Archive) has links to several concrete projects, including https://di.day/en (see also, https://european-alternatives.eu/, https://switching.software/). The IndieWeb (https://indieweb.org/) and the Fediverse[1] are both movements to take back parts of the internet. We can all make small changes in our lives: what would you do, if you refused to acknowledge the existence of Big Tech, and needed to choose another approach? And can you do this, in practice?

Low-tech Magazine (https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/) has enough articles to publish a thematic book, “How To Build a Low-tech Internet?”. There are other books with concrete proposals: pretty sure Cory Doctorow's published a few (Chokepoint Capitalism, also by Rebecca Giblin; Enshittification; possibly others). You can read these if you would like. But the important part is using and maintaining credible alternatives, reducing both our dependence on and support of these companies.

[1]: although more work is needed to reduce the addictiveness / increase the user empowerment of Fediverse UIs (which are largely modelled on the corresponding Big Tech social media systems): websites are still the way to go, if you can.

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

#357

Post by teekert »

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…

Well sure, such a solution may solve age verification elegantly, but does it serve the interests of the companies that pushed this bill?

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

#358

Post by saghm »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #150
burnte wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. It is not the government's job to raise our children. The more we ask the gov't to do that we should do, the less power we actually have. Some will say this ship has sailed, well, I say it's not too late to sink it.

I am sick of these "government bad" takes. They lack constructive suggestions, like your "sink it" nugget, they lack decent problem descriptions, as if anything after the sinking (likely private governance, aka feudalism) is immune to the ills of big-gov, and on top perpetuate reductivist arguments as if any kind of restrictions of freedom is by definition bad. This broad rejection without good reasons is borderline…

I'm not a libertarian; I just don't get why I should have to prove my age on every device I own regardless of what I access online when I don't have kids. Parental controls already exist on devices, so that's not really what this is legislation is proposing. I don't have a concrete solution because I don't even agree that "theoretically we don't know for sure that this device couldn't be used by a child to access pornography" is a problem that it's my job to solve as someone with no kids and plenty of mundane uses of the internet like paying bills, contacting medical providers, filing taxes, etc.

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

#360

Post by saghm »

hansvm wrote: post #157
burnte wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. It is not the government's job to raise our children. The more we ask the gov't to do that we should do, the less power we actually have. Some will say this ship has sailed, well, I say it's not too late to sink it.

On the other hand, I know several "home-schooled" people [0] who literally can't even read and later married people more than twice their age or had other serious deficiencies in their life potential. The government can probably step in a little more here and there. [0] I also know home-schooled people whose parents are far better than any teacher I've ever had and whose education and achievements reflect that obviou…

> On the other hand, I know several "home-schooled" people [0] who literally can't even read and later married people more than twice their age or had other serious deficiencies in their life potential. The government can probably step in a little more here and there.

Back on the first hard, I'd argue that most of those people might have benefited from having more access to the internet, as it sounds like at least part of the problem was that they had severely limited experience for how to navigate the world outside of small amount their parents allowed them to be exposed to. I'm on board with the government being involved in ways that are beneficial, but "make anyone using an internet-connected device plug in their ID first" just feels like an absurd overreach for what it's trying to solve.

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