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Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

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Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#461

Post by dalmo3 »

rothific wrote: post #439
jayers wrote: post #327

I'm incredibly dubious of the conclusions of this researcher. Claude Opus was used to gather and analyze all of the data. I am not skeptical of any of the research, the sources seem to be cited properly. I am skeptical that this researcher has thought through or verified their conclusions in a systematic and reliable fashion. This part gives it away: "Research period: 2026-03-11 to present." This individual dropped h…

This is a fascinating report, not because of the content or even quality of the report, but because of the way it was generated. It is an AI generated report dumped into GitHub and has made it onto the front page of Hacker News with over 1,000 upvotes and many comments. This type of GitHub-based open-source research project will become more common as more people use tools like Claude Code or Codex for research.

It's not slop when it confirms my biases. /s

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#462

Post by hedora »

After looking at the California bill a bit, I'm equally worried about the implications for application developers as I am for the implications for OS developers.

It says apps must use the age signal as proof the user is a minor, and then behave according to all California laws regarding that. (I'm not a lawyer, but that's my read.)

So, does this apply to applications that run locally? What if an under 13 year old tries to read a text file with lots of swear words or ascii b00bs? Does emacs need to stop them? cat? xterm?

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#463

Post by inetknght »

theptip wrote: post #460

> the sponsor of Louisiana's HB-570, publicly confirmed that a Meta lobbyist brought the legislative language directly to her. The bill as drafted required only app stores (Apple, Google) to verify user ages. It did not require social media platforms to do anything. Thing is, when these “make the websites collect your ID” proposals come up, the overwhelming sentiment here is “this is terrible and we need to do it low…

> Thing is, when these “make the websites collect your ID” proposals come up, the overwhelming sentiment here is “this is terrible and we need to do it lower in the stack”.

Perhaps the "overwhelming" sentiment is paid actors? Or people whose jobs depend on not having that risk assigned to their employers?

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#464

Post by Mars008 »

jgord wrote: post #440

Did Meta spend around 60Mn lobbying for age verification to be forcibly added to every OS install ? If not, who has been paying to lobby for these age verification laws ? That seems a question that we should have an answer to. Forcing an age check upon linux install seems anti-competitive, and a violation of freedom of speech allowed by the Constitution. Also impractical and ineffective, unless they plan on some sort…

> age verification to be forcibly added to every OS install ?

This should be easy. Just in one of dialogs ask user to create a file 'me_age.txt' with age inside. No changes to OS at all. This will be the 'interface'. Any program can read the file. As far as I understand that's all California law requires (or will require).

Not sure about other versions. Strict verification would require binding to property software/services. Which is equivalent of reporting every user on every install.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#465

Post by Cococloco »

Calvin02 wrote: post #310

Wasn't it Apple that was trying to get Meta to implement age verification in the first place? So, Meta is trying to get them to do it, which seems right. Why does Apple always get a free pass?

Doesn't apple already check your age when you make an Apple account? using credit card information (before you use any app) It already feels enough to me.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#467

Post by intended »

Fiveplus wrote: post #302

Anyone reading this purely as a child safety or campaign finance story might miss the broader architectural war happening here. If you zoom out a little, this is the inevitable, scorched-earth retaliation for Apple's ATT rollout from a few years back. Apple cost Meta billions by cutting off their data pipeline at the OS level, justifying it with a unilateral privacy moral high ground. Now, Meta is returning the favor…

I would hesitate with reading this and drawing any conclusions at all.

The methodology appears to be LLM driven, and the contextual framing which the conclusions are couched in, drive conclusions to a specific direction.

It does not clarify between two readings

1) Meta is driving Age verification efforts

2) Meta is being opportunistic with age verification efforts to further its own goals

The larger macro picture is that voters globally are tired of Tech firms and want something done about it.

The second macro trend is the inability of governments to handle/control tech, and are looking for reasons to bring tech to heel.

That’s context results in a sufficiently different degree of culpability and eventual path to resisting privacy reducing regulations.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#468

Post by intended »

jayers wrote: post #327

I'm incredibly dubious of the conclusions of this researcher. Claude Opus was used to gather and analyze all of the data. I am not skeptical of any of the research, the sources seem to be cited properly. I am skeptical that this researcher has thought through or verified their conclusions in a systematic and reliable fashion. This part gives it away: "Research period: 2026-03-11 to present." This individual dropped h…

Concur. The data is not independent of the conclusions reached, and feels very Reddit research like - (à la Boston bombing).

In this case they have named individuals and firms as well, without the degree of diligence that such call outs should warrant.

In its current state, I would count it as a prelude to witch hunts.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#469

Post by ori_b »

mentalgear wrote: post #323
Fiveplus wrote: post #302

Anyone reading this purely as a child safety or campaign finance story might miss the broader architectural war happening here. If you zoom out a little, this is the inevitable, scorched-earth retaliation for Apple's ATT rollout from a few years back. Apple cost Meta billions by cutting off their data pipeline at the OS level, justifying it with a unilateral privacy moral high ground. Now, Meta is returning the favor…

Well, I certainly prefer if big tech fight each other instead of the user as sometimes there might even come something good out of it - like elevated privacy in Apple's ATT case. Overall, that's the reason anti-trust laws must be applied rigorously, otherwise the normal population has no chance.

They fight each other by stomping on users.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#470

Post by djao »

mentalgear wrote: post #323
Fiveplus wrote: post #302

Anyone reading this purely as a child safety or campaign finance story might miss the broader architectural war happening here. If you zoom out a little, this is the inevitable, scorched-earth retaliation for Apple's ATT rollout from a few years back. Apple cost Meta billions by cutting off their data pipeline at the OS level, justifying it with a unilateral privacy moral high ground. Now, Meta is returning the favor…

Well, I certainly prefer if big tech fight each other instead of the user as sometimes there might even come something good out of it - like elevated privacy in Apple's ATT case. Overall, that's the reason anti-trust laws must be applied rigorously, otherwise the normal population has no chance.

All they had to do was exempt free and open source software from the requirements, which are unworkable in the FOSS context anyway, and they would have gotten away scot-free with their tech company pillow fight.

But no, they had to let collateral damage frag the free software crowd, which is inconsequential to their aims anyway, but 100% a huge concern for those suffering the collateral damage.

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