A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification • Hacker News Board

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

#631

Post by jfengel » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:30 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #626

dragonwriter wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It defines operating system in the law. No, it doesn't. It defines the following terms: "account holder", "age bracket data", "application", "child", "covered application store", "developer", "operating system provider", "signal", and "user". > This wouldn’t apply to embedded systems and WiFi routers and traffic lights and all those things. It applies to operating systems that work with associated app stores on gen…

In typical jury trials, the jury is instructed that any terms not defined in the relevant statutes are to have their common-sense, ordinary meanings as understood by the jury. The jury is usually also selected to be full of reasonable, moderate people, and folks who are overly pedantic usually get excused during voir dire. Do you really think a pool of 12 people off the street is going to consider an embedded system,…

The jury is selected randomly. They try to weed out obvious kooks, but there is no attempt to make it either reasonable or moderate.

The hope is that twelve of your peers will at least avoid being able to persecute you for political goals. I hope neither of us ever has to find out.

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

#632

Post by dmix » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:30 PM UTC

Twisell wrote: post #613

Although it appear stupid, maybe an OS level endorsement of user age is actually a more reasonable middle ground than delegating mandatory age verification to data brokers... It still parents that usually buy the computers and set up the différents user accounts. So the responsibilities would be put back in their hands as machine owners to correctly tag kid's accounts. OS vendors would then only be responsible to acc…

Theres already parental controls on Mac, iPhone, android, and I’m assuming windows. Those were voluntary

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

#633

Post by stainablesteel » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:32 PM UTC

bmitch3020 wrote: post #290

Reaction 1: how would this even work with embedded systems that have no UI to input this data? Reaction 2: it's open source, make the lawmakers do submit the changes. Reaction 3: how would this ever be enforced? Would they outlaw downloading distributions, or even older versions of distributions? When there's no exchange of money, a law like this is seems like it would be suppression of free speech. Reaction 4: Someo…

you're pointing out that it doesn't make sense

the point of laws like these isn't to make sense, it's to be annoying

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

#634

Post by jfengel » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:36 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #162

SllX wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives are all wrong. You can serve up to 6 two-year terms in the Assembly or up to 3 four-year terms in the Senate, but regardless of which combination you do, nobody in the California legislature can serve more than 12 years combined across both Houses of the legislature. So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals, we have a resumé-building exercise…

> So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals Raises an interesting question of who is less popular, the Californian government or the US Senate. The experiments with long-term professional legislatures have generally not been very promising - rather than statesmen it tends to be people with a certain limpet-like staying power and a limpet-like ability to lear…

The Senate is wildly unpopular, but individual Senators get re-elected overwhelmingly. The problem is always other people's Senators.

Everyone would like to term limit other people's politicians but they like experience for their own. The length of terms can't resolve that one way or the other.

With the Supreme Court we tried eliminating terms altogether, in the hopes that it would give people a chance to bond away from the necessity of appealing to the public. That just pushed the problem back to getting the most ideologically committed judges on the bench... through the Senators.

I haven't heard any structural solution to the problem of Americans just not liking each other.

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

#635

Post by ectospheno » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:38 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #631

nostrademons wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In typical jury trials, the jury is instructed that any terms not defined in the relevant statutes are to have their common-sense, ordinary meanings as understood by the jury. The jury is usually also selected to be full of reasonable, moderate people, and folks who are overly pedantic usually get excused during voir dire. Do you really think a pool of 12 people off the street is going to consider an embedded system,…

The jury is selected randomly. They try to weed out obvious kooks, but there is no attempt to make it either reasonable or moderate. The hope is that twelve of your peers will at least avoid being able to persecute you for political goals. I hope neither of us ever has to find out.

Have you ever gone through jury selection? It isn't what you think it is.

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

#636

Post by cocoto » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #479

sunaookami wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents are lazy and don't want to do what parents should do and cry to the state that they should do it.

This take makes no sense to me. What parents should be doing is enabling age controls. Which means those age control features need to exist . So the state is making sure the features exist. There's no verification. The headline is a lie. It's just an account setting that parents can use if they want to.

The features are all already here.

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

#637

Post by JodieBenitez » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

eleventyseven wrote: post #621

JodieBenitez wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can lie, just like porn sites today. In the US maybe, but where I am you can't fap in peace without using a VPN or have some kind of age verification. Some of them being baroque. Example: "We analyze your email’s digital footprint (history and reputation) against trusted databases. This is often enough to confirm that you're of legal age."

This is an article about California.

Sure, I just give you an example about what could come to California.

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

#638

Post by irishcoffee » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

ectospheno wrote: post #635

jfengel wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jury is selected randomly. They try to weed out obvious kooks, but there is no attempt to make it either reasonable or moderate. The hope is that twelve of your peers will at least avoid being able to persecute you for political goals. I hope neither of us ever has to find out.

Have you ever gone through jury selection? It isn't what you think it is.

Don’t let facts get in the way of righteous indignation!

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

#639

Post by giantg2 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

ectospheno wrote: post #635

jfengel wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jury is selected randomly. They try to weed out obvious kooks, but there is no attempt to make it either reasonable or moderate. The hope is that twelve of your peers will at least avoid being able to persecute you for political goals. I hope neither of us ever has to find out.

Have you ever gone through jury selection? It isn't what you think it is.

I've gone through the process a few times. It does not instill confidence in the system. And that's not including the emotional manipulation tactics that typically take place in jury trials.

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

#640

Post by giantg2 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

kimixa wrote: post #566

flenserboy wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vague laws are put in place so that they can be used selectively to punish particular victims while letting friends through the nets

All laws are vague and interpreted, and in common law (as in the UK and US) interpreted based on precedent rather than the specific text of the original law. If people with power over you want to "selectively punish you" they don't need new laws. And if you want perfectly proscriptive, defined laws in all situations with no "human interpretation" you're in the wrong universe, and may as well be shouting at clouds. Th…

"All laws are vague"

There are degrees of vagueness, but laws generally attempt to avoid being vague with many definitions and strict construction. If a law is sufficiently vague it may be invalidated, or it is at least required to be interpreted to the benefit of the defendant under lenity.