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US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

congress.gov

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Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#41

Post by Morromist »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #16
Morromist wrote: post #2

Its going to be funny when there are married 17 year olds driving cars with guns and children but who can't install linux or access facebook without calling their dad. Why are so many bi-partisan bills so bad?

I don't think that's what this bill is about. I think they want to be able to attach a government issued ID to logins for various services. They tried claiming it was to fight terrorism, but that didn't really work so now they're saying "it's for the children!"

Yeah, you're probably right. I couldn't find the text of the bill in the link. I'm sure the effort to do this kind of thing goes back to the 90s: like a lot of the really intense copyright bills - the CASE Act (ability for big companies to easily fine people who they think are breaching their copyright for $5,000 + legal fees without anything resembling a trial or evidentiary hearing) has been popping up in different forms for decades - but in its current name they took 5 years of trying to pass it, but the main idea was officially proposed in 2006 - so 14 years to get the bill passed, but then it was a thing long before it was officially proposed by a house comittee too.

I guess they figure if they keep trying they'll eventually get it passed - which is probably true.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#42

Post by NewJazz »

replooda wrote: post #18
sheept wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. You don't get to vote on specific federal policies, you vote on the people who vote for those policies.

Mark Zuckerberg and such?

Dollars speak louder than ballots.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#43

Post by eek2121 »

iamnothere wrote: post #9

At the very least, if this passes, the resulting court challenge will provide precedent that shuts it down in all 50 states at once. The downside will be riding out the intervening months before the court decision comes through. Stock up on ISOs and full git clones of your favorite OS sources.

You are assuming that courts will shut this down. Guess what? The Supreme Court is responsible for these laws: https://publicinterestprivacy.org/paxton-age-verification/

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#44

Post by einpoklum »

1. Would this not be unconstitutional? i.e. is computer software not enough of a form of expression/speech to eschew such a requirement?

2. Are OS "providers" the same as OS "authors"? And - with a GNU/Linux distribution, who would be the providers, really?

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#45

Post by iamnothere »

verdverm wrote: post #38
foxfired wrote: post #5

Since voting is that power we say we have in the US. Does the public get to vote on this? If not... > Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster - Neil Postman

We can also engage in direct action the other 364.9 days of the year. Call/email your representatives, go to a town hall, call the leaders of both parties of both senate and house, go to a march or protest. There are other ways we can be heard, be substantive and thoughtful, they tally and track messages which are not hyperbole or copy-paste. If you can make it personal, even better. It only needs to be a few sentenc…

Don’t forget civil disobedience, should the bill come to pass.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#46

Post by iamnothere »

einpoklum wrote: post #44

1. Would this not be unconstitutional? i.e. is computer software not enough of a form of expression/speech to eschew such a requirement? 2. Are OS "providers" the same as OS "authors"? And - with a GNU/Linux distribution, who would be the providers, really?

1. It would be

2. They haven’t thought about it and don’t care

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#49

Post by Ucalegon »

boxed wrote: post #40
Ucalegon wrote: post #34

"Rep Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) announced the Parents Decide Act, bipartisan, commonsense legislation to strengthen online protections for children and give parents greater control over what their kids can access on phones, tablets, and other devices. Gottheimer’s new Parents Decide Act will: - Require operating system developers like Apple and Google to verify users’ ages when setting up a new device, rather than relyin…

Seems like legislation should come after senators and members of congress directly call Tim Cook en masse to complain that: 1. Screen time reporting has been 100% broken for decades . Just does not work as advertised. False advertising is indeed illegal. 2. The parental controls are a joke. Can't block apps that were ever downloaded by a member of the household. Don't want the kid to have TikTok? You better not have…

I do not disagree that there is A LOT that Apple could, and should, be doing to enable parents. The problem that we have is, that if a vendor, like Apple, just decides to continue to have broken systems, there isn't a way to compel them to fix the problem outside of legislation. And, because most people in the House/Senate have a complete lack of technical literacy, we get situations where they define things poorly or special interests get to set those definitions in their favor/for ideological reasons, rather than to make good policy.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#50

Post by declan_roberts »

siliconc0w wrote: post #22
carefree-bob wrote: post #17

I'd love to know which funds/wealthy individuals are bankrolling this rush of age verification mandates. It's certainly not a grass roots phenomenon.

Yeah it does seem to be a new 'thing'. I'm betting it's like the heritage foundation who figured out age-restrictions give them a new end-run around the first amendment. Started with porn (because who is going to defend porn) and now they're going to slide down the slippery slope.

Heritage foundation? Lol give me a break.
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