Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

Post by croes » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

pbackx wrote: post #356

nextos wrote: post #14

Something remarkable and unsettling is how the age verification debate has popped up almost simultaneously in the US, UK, and EU. With the same logical fallacies. Pretty telling about how transnational lobbies and their interests work. Controlling what children do online is a solved problem: Parenting and parental control applications.

Personally I do not believe this is a solved problem. Technically maybe, in practice not at all. It is quite a job juggling the controls of the different companies. Microsoft even has two, one for Xbox one for windows. And then your child turns 13 and your only option is to take away the devices entirely. Another thing already discussed is school provided hardware. I know the schools try, but it is usually one person…

Post by huhntmoral » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 4:08 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #499

givinguflac wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a lot of well intentioned people writing these laws and pushing for them. No, there absolutely are not. There are Meta et al and their international lobbyists, pushing copy-paste bills. Anyone pearl clutching for the kids is an idiot, or is paid off.

If it makes you feel better to turn people who disagree with you into cartoon villains, then more power to you. But you'll lose the debate because you will only engage in strawman arguments. There are real arguments in favor of this that should not be dismissed, but should be embraced and we should explain why those arguments are weaker than ours. I feel extremely strongly that this is a Trojan horse that will expand…

Post by mvdwoord » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

prohobo wrote: post #385

nextos wrote: post #14

Something remarkable and unsettling is how the age verification debate has popped up almost simultaneously in the US, UK, and EU. With the same logical fallacies. Pretty telling about how transnational lobbies and their interests work. Controlling what children do online is a solved problem: Parenting and parental control applications.

I'm completely baffled why anyone still engages with the "official" framing around this. Obviously, it's not for protecting children. Obviously, it's a technocratic trojan horse for increasing surveillance capabilities on digital systems. This is so cynically anti-democratic that they obfuscate the real purpose, don't even bother to make it plausible, and everyone is left talking about how "awful it is" that it's alr…

Post by iamnothere » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

tstrimple wrote: post #367

iamnothere wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not by legal mandate! And especially not a universal one that applies to FOSS! If legislators want to create some kind of legal category of child friendly device and put requirements around it, maybe that’s ok. Until they attempt to ban, restrict, or otherwise inconvenience non child friendly devices, and I guess I no longer have confidence that they won’t attempt that. At this point I’m only in favor of market based…

> Not by legal mandate! And especially not a universal one that applies to FOSS! How the fuck do you think these sorts of standards are created? The companies involved aren't going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts. That doesn't exist. So you've got multiple competing private standards which are all more privacy invasive or an option when you setup your account to specify an age that is reported to anyone…

Post by phillipclapham » Sun, Mar 15, 2026, 4:26 PM UTC