Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act • Hacker News Board

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

#861

Post by tashbarg » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:32 PM UTC

Mashimo wrote: post #702

tashbarg wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a strong hint in the search warrant, that they knew about the distribution of Nazi materials. Just calling someone Schwachkopf doesn’t get prosecutors to investigate further.

Weeeeeell .. to counter that argument there is pimmelgate. I know it was not legit, but they searched his house, even after he was at the police station and confessed. That leads to selv censorship, even if what you did was legal.

Yes, I think I am with you. That search should not have happened (and consequently was ruled unlawful by a court afterwards). But it should not have happened in the first place.

I hope (but do not know) that in the Schwachkopf-case, they just took the shortcut via insult instead of opening an investigation for the Nazi stuff.

But we don’t know that.

I believe, that we can express our opinions and discuss them without insulting people (in the legal sense). And I hope, that prosecutors do not lightly investigate each Schwachkopf they find on the internet.

And for all the other cases, the courts need to be involved.

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

#862

Post by ori_b » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:32 PM UTC

mapcars wrote: post #839

_heimdall wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That requires a high level of trust in your current government and whomever is in charge in the future. Its worth remembering how the Nazis so efficiently found Jews in the Netherlands. The Dutch government kept meticulous records, including things like your name, address, and religious affiliation. That wasn't a big deal until the Nazis rolled in, throw in some level of Nazi sympathizers in the Dutch government and…

> That requires a high level of trust in your current government and whomever is in charge in the future. Some entity has to be trusted with our data anyway, at least government supposed to have some accountability before the citizens, corporations have much higher incentives for profit.

> Some entity has to be trusted with our data anyway

Why?

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

#863

Post by parineum » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #756

parineum wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is outlined in Project 2025 (which I have not read). Great sentence. Aside from making me completely doubt everything you're stating, I don't understand why people just take it as a given that Project 2025 is something the current administration gives two shits about. Is war in Iran in Project 2025?

> I don't understand why people just take it as a given that Project 2025 is something the current administration gives two shits about. Because if you use project 2025 as a scorecard, the current administration is hitting all the salient points very quickly. With a score that high, inferring that the administration does in fact give two shits about it seems reasonable.

I noticed this scorecard doesn't show things that are done that _aren't_ in project 2025 and things that are directly in opposition. There's no "Did the opposite" status, just "Not started", "In progress", and "Completed".

Furthermore, looking through the list of objectives, the "completed" objectives are all fairly middle of the road conservative points, it's no surprise that many of those are marked as completed. The one's that are making headlines are mostly found in the "Not Started" sections. https://www.project2025.observer/en?sort=status-asc

It's not surprising that a conservative think tank and a conservative administration are aligned on a quite a few things but there are plenty of things in this list of objectives that the current administration has either not done or said anything regarding or has actively worked against.

As an exercise, go through all 320 objectives and see how many _you_ agree with. Plenty of them are milquetoast positions. A chunk of them are also just "continue enforcing existing laws", sinister wording for bog standard practices or broad/vague enough that every administration could probably call it completed.

In short, it's a padded list.

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

#864

Post by JoshTriplett » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #843

JoshTriplett wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is already a set of standards for this: websites can send content ratings to the browser, and the browser can choose not to show content on the basis of those ratings. We don't need another one, especially one that inverts the polarity by having the browser proactively send information to the site.

Maybe that would work too, but “this device has a child lock turned on” seems like reasonable information to send? It’s a lot better than having to check ID’s.

You know what's even better? Not sending anything.

There's no value in sending that bit of information rather than in using what's already readily provided.

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

#865

Post by smt88 » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #851

redm wrote: post #654

The question I keep coming back to regarding the recent debate around age verification is "Why now?" I'm 47, and I started using the internet in my early teens through BBS gateways. I've seen every age of the Internet, and there's always been widely available pornographic materials. Why all of a sudden is this a crisis? Perhaps I'm missing something?

An unfortunate side effect of Epstein mania is that people (particularly legislators) are more receptive than ever to the "think of the children!" strawman. This approach is highly effective right now, and it might never work again in Zuckerberg's lifetime. America needs another Zappa.

My observation of Epstein "mania" is that politicians are revealing themselves to not particularly care about children being sexualized.

The push for age verification seems to stem from conservative states trying to appear to care about children through symbolic gestures while cutting other funding and protections for children.

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

#866

Post by ibejoeb » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

sigmoid10 wrote: post #735

sieep wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US. Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card. I've never once had any issue with my identity.

Not everyone has (or can have) a driver's license and a social security card literally says it is *not* for identification because it lacks even the most basic aspects. But since the US never managed to come up with an actual system, companies started using SSNs like an identity verifier, because it is the one thing everyone has across every state. But that also makes identity theft or credit fraud trivial in the US…

That's correct, but what does a driver license have to do with it? A state-issued driver license is one document that can serve as identification. There are plenty of others, including those that are solely for identification. Are you unintentionally conflating them, or are you suggesting that there a eligible people who are unable to get an identity document?

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

#867

Post by gzread » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:34 PM UTC

mapcars wrote: post #839

_heimdall wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That requires a high level of trust in your current government and whomever is in charge in the future. Its worth remembering how the Nazis so efficiently found Jews in the Netherlands. The Dutch government kept meticulous records, including things like your name, address, and religious affiliation. That wasn't a big deal until the Nazis rolled in, throw in some level of Nazi sympathizers in the Dutch government and…

> That requires a high level of trust in your current government and whomever is in charge in the future. Some entity has to be trusted with our data anyway, at least government supposed to have some accountability before the citizens, corporations have much higher incentives for profit.

Does it? We can live without anyone knowing our age except the entities we tell it to.

Is it actually a crime to upload a fake ID photo to a private company for age verification?

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

#868

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:34 PM UTC

redm wrote: post #654

The question I keep coming back to regarding the recent debate around age verification is "Why now?" I'm 47, and I started using the internet in my early teens through BBS gateways. I've seen every age of the Internet, and there's always been widely available pornographic materials. Why all of a sudden is this a crisis? Perhaps I'm missing something?

It's "Now" only because of a confluence of factors - namely, $2B spent on convincing lawmakers to do this now, because Meta doesn't wanna be fined $52B again. It's nothing to do with porn. The lawmakers passing this are passing it because "protecting the children" is always going to get them votes (even if it doesn't actually protect the children)

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

#869

Post by Xelbair » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:34 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #721

These discussions remind me so much of the US discussions about federal ID documents as verification. There's a vocal portion of people which opposes any solution because "privacy, government overreach, surveillance ...". So instead of a solution like e.g. zero-proof age verification, that tries to minimize intrusions on privacy, the result is the worst of all worlds, maximum surveillance (but I guess it's ok if it i…

Because this does not address the problem at all. Or rather - it does not address my problems as a citizen, and it just pushes responsibility of parents onto 3rd parties and punishes everyone collectively for it.

Also fundamentally speaking - this does just take away your right to privacy. do you just let your rights be taken away?

I don't want 'minimization' of intrusion of privacy, i want no intrusion of privacy.

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

#870

Post by skybrian » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 3:35 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #864

skybrian wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that would work too, but “this device has a child lock turned on” seems like reasonable information to send? It’s a lot better than having to check ID’s.

You know what's even better? Not sending anything . There's no value in sending that bit of information rather than in using what's already readily provided.

Which Internet standard are you referring to? I’d like to check browser support.