California is making computers shittier for the rest of the world. Sorry for lashing out, fuck you!
Colorado also has a bill and there is one in the works at the federal level. But yes, its bullshit.
I guess, California is killing Windows without knowing.
“We’ll come around to you next time”
There is a time limit an exception like this will be held. Once it becomes normalized on proprietary systems they’ll expect it on the rest.
Wild they still play the “think of the children” card while ignoring the Epstein files.
This will make finding children much easier for Palantir and its pedo owners. They could even identify more susceptible children more easily.
Oh they’re still thinking about them.
Won’t somebody please think of the children!?
No, not like that!
While masturbating furiously.
For a moment I freaked out that they were only gonna exclude Linux and not open source in general but it seems they exclude based on the license based on this article which is a good thing. The dozens of OpenBSD and FreeBSD users may rest safely now
Doesn’t matter. The thin edge of the wedge is going to get in. In 5 years Linux will be forced to comply.
How about the government focus on taking rights away from people who have actually harmed kids, like I don’t know, maybe a giant pedophile ring in plain sight? Instead the focus on taking rights from everyone because someone, sometime, in the future harm a child.
its not even about “protecting the innocent” is about snooping on potential dissidents/ threats to the status quo of the govt.
The whole digital footprint thing is really having me dawn a tinfoil hat. I was doing Uber a few days ago, and listening to Pandora. I spoke very limited, and brief, Spanish to two riders and I immediately started getting full on español ads on Pandora! Like I don’t speak fluent Spanish! Your ad budget is legit getting wasted.
But I am a little flattered thinking the algorithm thinks I do.
Dunno where I was going with this, but I’m excited to see Linux growing, and hope it gets mainstream enough that a year old unlocked phone has a fork.
The government was paid by Meta… They are just doing what they were told to do
Because it’s not about protecting children, obviously.
When someone with certain personality problems tells blatant lies, they are really only trying to convince themselves. You exist only as an introject inside their minds, you are not real to them, it does not matter if you don’t believe them because it doesn’t need to make sense to you.
The proposed amendment specifically states: “Operating system provider” does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.
That’s one way to encourage people to move to open source software
Imagine if that made MicroSlop and Apple open-source Windows and Mac OS. That would be a wild world.
Enforcing it on android/apple/windows/steamos/chromeos is still problem tho.
Tho I do wonder how they handle chromeos. Do each student have to put their age every year?
My steam account is old enough to legally drink. Wonder if that’ll factor in.
That doesn’t prove anything. There’s no proof that the person currently using it is the same person as the person who created the account.
By the way, you might also notice this argument also works against age verification systems where the user’s age is verified only once. Unless you intend to check their identity every single time they log in.
Age verification is just a ham-fisted way for the state to try to take over a role that should be exercised by parents. Parental controls exist, people!
Parents not raising their kids right is why we can’t have nice things. It’s always used as an excuse for some draconian measure.
the parental control thing is a thin smokescreen. Its about control.
The reality is our OSs and the websites we visit know exactly who we are. They know our blood type, they know if you are pregnant before you do. Why would they need your ID?
Unless you intend to check their identity every single time they log in.
or rather every single second the device is being used
SteamOS, ChromeOS and Android are Linux basedoperating systems though. Especially SteamOS is literally just an arch fork with steam preinstalled.
steam os can be modified, but chromeos is explicitly locoed down. yet, people say even steam os might not be exempted by this
They are talking about how steamos might still be included. Due to the proprietary portions. I’d assume android would fall under that as well.
Most Linux distros contain proprietary packages, it’s one of the reasons why for example Fedora isn’t considered beginner friendly, they don’t ship proprietary stuff so it doesn’t have codecs, etc by default.
But there is a difference if it is part of the base experience or unavoidable, like you need a Google account to do anything on an OEM Android Install, like install any app and such. I guess same is true for steamOS, since focus on the OS is the steam app.
isn’t patents the reason fedora doesn’t have hardware accelerated codecs? mesa has the drivers, fedora just doesn’t compile those drivers in
Yes, it is the patent shenanigans.
I was too lazy to lookup what license steamos uses for distributing lmao. Article says that would be the defining bar for the pass meaning BSD included in this.
See you in a year or 2.
Play as old as times:
- Company announces garbage change
- People freak out
- Company says ok we will only do half of the garbage
- People calm down and forget
- Company later does the rest of the garbage
- Nobody cares because half of it is already there
Foot in the door technique is a timeless way to get what you want. People seem oblivious to it.
I hear frogs experience the same phenomenon with hot water.
Actually they only stay in the boiling water if their nervous system is impaired
Good thing humans dont have nervous systems
Hm? Did you say something? Sorry, I was distracted.
Also works the other way around.
I mean it makes total sense the minute you think about it at all.
- some middle managers year end goals include this unpalatable feature
- they release it
- public freaks out
- pr walks it back a bit
- that managers back at work the week after trying to get that feature in because they need to justify the work they just did on it for better compensation
It’s the same with laws.
It’s very hard to get the electorate united to oppose something but if they manage to unite and oppose a bill the lobbyists are back at work on Monday pushing it by a different name.
Laboyists are the scourge of democracy. Every last one of them has a rope and spear with their names written on them.
100% Microslop.
also known as TESTING the waters, gauging public response. so they can adapt under a different scheme.
Plucking the goose with a minimum of hissing.
This isn’t exactly it.
First or isn’t a company or is the government. 2nd, that legislation is just plain dumb and open source systems like Linux, BSD can’t comply with it, even if they wanted to.
The whole law should be repealed though. They use children as excuse, bit it is about surveillance.
Technology makes everything cheaper, including changing minds.
At some points it was unfeasible to abuse consumers because they’d object. Now, if it’s on a large enough scale and valuable enough, you can just pay to convince the majority of them that it’s fine.
Are you implying that CA regulators do exactly what disgusting corporations do?!? I am shocked sir!
That reminds me. We are quickly approaching the date discord postponed age verification to.
The principle that Bullshit, sprayed around often enough, becomes Air Freshener.
Wao, I am gladly surprised by this. I would have never thought this would be possible, yet here we are.
California software companies have serious lobbying power.
I mean… yeah. OpenAI is a California software company and it’s the biggest lobbying force behind the age verification bills.
It’s called “parenting.” Yes, it’s harder these days with the internet and literally everything “right there.” But it’s still your job as a parent.
ANYTIME ANYONE imposes restrictions “for the children” - there’s something nefarious going on. If it’s a politician-they are looking to build a database for $. If it’s your priest-he’s banging the alter boy after ccd, or hates himself so much for being gay he’s lashing out at the lgbtq community. If it’s a company-they’ve either been threatened into doing it or more likely are on the take with a fat payday. If it’s a developer adding it into Linux, they should expect fierce skepticism and backlash from the community.
It’s NEVER about the children. It’s always an alternative motive. If they actually cared about kids, they’d make sure they were fed at school, they’d invest in their education, or they’d invest into social programs to help out those less fortunate.
The california law isn’t actually age verification. It is unchecked age assertion at the operating system level. He is also there specifically for the parents to fill out.When a new device is purchased. I have no doubts.It will be misused and lead to age verification in the OS with a third party verifying the age, but that isnt want the bill is now
Everything you said is correct, but at the same time: “We’re not driving off a cliff (yet), we’re just moving in for a closer look.”
That is true that we’re headed towards a cliff. The way the California bill is structured.It can only be used to filter algorithms, make content and cannot be used for content moderation or filtering. It does nothing to stop what other states or the national government will want to do with it once it’s in there. It also does nothing to stop companies from requiring actual age verification or having accounts. You know , someone like microsoft would love to tie an Id to the computer and make you have a microsoft account to use it.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this is occurring at the same time companies like Palantir are signing government contracts left and right and mega-sized data centers are sprouting up all over the country.
Just like it’s never really about FREEDOM™
The only way to “protect” or “target” any demographic is to first identify everyone to see if they’re in that demographic.
That’s almost always the only reason it’s done.
Thats not the case here.
- “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people!”
- “Reduce, Recycle, Reuse.”
- “Only you can prevent forrest fires.”
- “Be All You Can Be in the Army!”
- “Parenting!”
Shift all the blame. Guns? America? Fuck that, it’s the individual, not the industry.
The internet is always two things. The web, access to information on all levels (good or bad ), should be available. It needs to be regulated bc META and anything Elon is apart of, still exist.
Parents are fighting, “literally everything” ! We as a species, is losing to whatever the “internet” is. We need real regulation.
Ear me out: make tools for parents to restrict their child themselves instead of restricting everyone and rob data
Oh you mean the thing that worked for 20+ years? Are you crazy? Think about the profits and data we won’t collect.
And the worse part, we DO have tools for parents. Either they don’t know these tools exist or they don’t know how to use them. Mostly because they’re tech-illiterate. Kudos to the parents who educate themselves.
This is a benign example, but I was talking with a fellow parent about our dislike of Paw Patrol and told them I had to remove that as an option in Netflix. They were shocked that was possible and I could see the gears turning in their head with that new info. Granted I’m not parenting a teenager yet, but it seems like most of the functionality in bigger platforms generally exists, people just don’t know it’s there and to set it.
Hmm I guess I’m not paying enough attention. What’s wrong with paw patrol?
paw patrol is just so over stimulating with frequent cuts and it’s clearly designed to hook kids short attention spans / does not help develop longer attention spans. It’s a classic problem that kids don’t want to stop watching and have tantrums if you enforce screen time and turn it off. All of this to sell huge toys that kids think they want and will play with one time.
Also the stories are not really that great, and suck to watch as a parent. They always introduce an issue which is immediately resolved, triggering that instant gratification in your kids brain, without teaching them about conflict resolution or anything really useful. This isn’t even about the idea of Adventure Bay being a police state or promoting the privatization of communal services.
It’s an unfair comparison, but a show like Bluey has great storytelling and while not being purely educational, teaches kids how to emphasize with others and deal with conflict that isn’t easily solvable, even for adults. The music, illustrations, and stories are a work of art and a more valuable use of time than Paw Patrol.
Those are valid points that I haven’t thought of. Thanks for the response.
It’s already available and parents are not utilizing it.
But I also don’t see the problem with this. As long as there’s savvy and smart children that did get educated on safety, the knowledge can propagate to those that did not.
It’s already available and parents are not utilizing it.
The parents have determined that it’s not needed. They’ve determined that trying to strictly regulate exactly what Little Johnny can and can’t see online does him far more harm than porn ever could. This hyper-authoritarian nonsense needs to die in a fire.
Or we regulate the use and teach how it properly works. Tools for parents are get but it’s not a fix.
We as a species, is losing to whatever the “internet” is. We need real regulation.
And none of that regulation will have anything to do with age, if you want real effectiveness. A teenager seeing a dick and a dick, a vagina and a vagina, or a dick and a vagina, being mashed together isn’t concerning in the big picture. The stuff that is worrying about the internet affects adults just as much as children, like social media.
You missed the point completely. My example was Meta and Elon’s companies not teens fucking.
Age verification is pointless. The post I responded to, was talking about it is the parent’s (individuals) job not the government’s (regulation). That would be wrong.
And none of that regulation will have anything to do with age, if you want real effectiveness.
That is an extreme view and I believe a dangerous one. Regulation like not experimenting on teen females which caused some to take their life. That seems pretty age related.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/facebooks-dangerous-experiment-teen-girls/620767/
I’m a DevOps engineer and my employer runs a lot of Linux instances in AWS. I’d love for these politicians to explain to me how age verification of Linux web servers should work for auto-scaling environments where instances are spun up and terminated automatically based on traffic volume. I’d also like to know if I should be using the age of our CEO, the age of our company (thanks to Citizens United), or something else.
I’d like to see them pair a bluetooth headset to a phone.
How old is that headset ?
If it’s over 18 years old, does it automatically pass age verification
only 18 years or younger headphones qualify for consideration.
13*
These are politicians, after all.
Obviously corporations just become exempt from the law. And any laws, why* not.
It’s the 20s version of “the internet is a series of tubes”. They couldn’t explain it if they wanted to, but all they care about is that the bribes are still spending.
Obviously uhhhh uhhhhhhh put your ID in a GitHub secret and uhhhhhh social security number and uhhhhhh
I’d love for these politicians to explain to me how age verification of Linux web servers should work for auto-scaling environments where instances are spun up and terminated automatically based on traffic volume.
Come on, can’t be that tedious. What could it be 200-300 instances tops per day? My kid sister does that many selfies.
Also, is each docker container a “computer” of its own? After all, I could use different distro base images!
You are required to have age verification. We licence our age verification on an instance basis. An instance is defined as whatever makes us the most money, or alternatively causes you the most pain.
You know. A worst case scenario.
Honestly I wonder if this is why the amendment is being suggested. AI products in particular are likely to be interacting with a lot of websites that will be required to verify ages, and I’m sure California in particular is loath to make waves that might throw that revenue stream into doubt.
Yeah, I don’t even know what you’re talking about, and that makes me extra certain that politicians definitely don’t know what you’re talking about. It is nice to see them perhaps taking into account expert opinions on this subject, but 1 for 100 doesn’t make for a good average.
They’ll listen to the lobbyists peddling them with hookers and blow (and promises of future non-executive board memberships and and millionaire speech circuit fees).
That’s all the expertise they care about.
The govt…. Uhhh…. Finds a way (to fuck shit up)
politicians are far to stupid to know any of that. The only computer they know is their phone and maybe a laptop.
Good points, and well put!
It’s being exempt because the Government can’t enforce this requirement on FOSS. Linux isn’t managed by a corporation and I don’t think people realize this yet.
I would pay money to hear Linus on the phone with these self-important assholes.
we want you to force user verification in all Linux.
yeah, fuck you.
…
Give homie some credit, I think he would at least ask “why?” first. Then also wish them “good luck!” on enforcing it.
You can’t force it on any Linux distro, but on everybody who has to give a shit about compliance.
I mean they could force big corpo to not allow anyone who can’t verify age to use their services.
This is sponsored by meta to push the age requirement tracking onto the os rather than Facebook directly to avoid liability when under age kids access harmful content
Which is insane, as the OS doesn’t have any way to authoritatively measure the user’s age and so they have to be ‘honor system’ where the age is whatever the user says the age is, or require some online account with identity validation, which is what facebook tries to do anyway.
An unverified age bracket in the OS that provides that to web services is the correct way to do it (a parent setting up a computer or account for a kid checks one box and suddenly google safe search, etc, everyone else doesn’t check the box, done).
I suspect meta is hoping to get better unique account to human mapping in their surveillance machine.
Red Hat is the biggest power on Linux.
How about they spend their time revamping parental controls instead? The age gate stuff is clear about user data collection and nothing else.
Because they don’t give a single fuck about the kids, unless they’re pedos fucking kids, then they give all the fucks.
The Epstein class wants to know who the minors are on the internet.
Exactly. Age control is obviously needed I am so glad I’m not a kid that has to navigate the social algorithms of our time.
That said this is obviously a law being pushed by the technofascist companies like meta and their goal is always more power, in this case more data. It’s crazy how many law makers just do what they are told. they are doing the same with trying to lock down 3Dprinters.
More local control in operating systems as well as parental controls in platforms like YouTube where they could have full control to turn off the algorithm, maybe even a browser api where you need admin to enable adult mode. But based on everything I’ve seem from companies like google and meta they don’t care in the slightest about the children as long as they make their bag
Easing local control is what that law was about (and it did think far enough to only include user facing). If there wasn’t a global tendency to move towards surveillance and identity verification I’d be all for it. As it is I have some reservations about slippery slope.
The law doesn’t require identity verification. It requires the OS to provide the age group of the user (set at install) to programs running on the OS. Something that, if adopted widely, would immensely help with allowing parents to control access (i.e. if they decide their kid should be able to see everything, just put them in ths age group for that, similarly they could also do that and manage it the same way as they would now. Or if they’re lazy as many parents sadly are, there is at least some enforcement of age control that someone thought about, without giving up any identifying info beyond an age group). Yes it could be circumvented somewhat easily, but as far as I see it that’s always a feature. A child being exposed to something accidentally has very different implications than actively trying to access it.
Fuck age verification, fuck it all to hell. Not for Linux or any other OS or device.
I think that the major current closed-source OSes today are busily harvesting all the data they can anyway, and the vendors probably don’t care much about also grabbing age, but stuff like, oh…is it illegal under this law to distribute proprietary versions of older OSes now? Like, classic MacOS, say. That’s definitely not open-source. And Apple is not going to go back and do a new release of classic MacOS to add age verification to it. But…there’s still some old software that you need classic MacOS to run. So…is it illegal to distribute essential software required to run classic MacOS software in California as of the middle of next year?
I mean, you might be infringing on copyright as well, but Apple may be okay with people copying classic MacOS around, as they can’t really make any money off it today. But this is the State of California, not Apple, that would act here.
Right… But in the age of AI, data-harvesting the right data (i.e. the human/non-AI-slop) becomes very interesting to a lot of companies, “age-verification” is an easy argument (for policy-makers) of e.g. social-media companies to know whether the user is an actual human, thus the verified data is a lot more valuable.
Sure, but we can’t make the argument that everyone vouching for age verification is doing so for the same reason.
It is undeniable that there is a very large, and growing, population of parents and adults that want age restrictions for adult content. I think their concern is valid, too. However, they don’t care how it’s done.
That’s where big tech “saves the day” by generously offering to collect all of our IDs and tying it the our accounts. Secure, and private, age verification can be done with zero knowledge proofs. But that probably won’t happen without competent government
IIRC from past reading, the driving factor behind the California bill was that some places were passing laws that would have placed responsibility for age verification on websites. Meta — probably correctly assessing that anything they did was going to be defeatable and not wanting to engage in a big fight with regulators over that — drove the California effort to create an OS-level responsibility. It’s not that this especially solves anything from the standpoint of people who want age restrictions, but that it dumps the legal problems on the OS vendors, like Apple and Microsoft, instead of on Meta.
Agree but would rather it be enforced at the OS level than per app or site. My kid just told me she uploaded her photo to some game she plays which sucks.
How about neither. We don’t need it.
On most phones/pcs, you have tools to restrict what your kid can or can’t do. I don’t know the specific OS this has happened on, but you can probably limit downloads, timegate specific apps so that they can only play them when you’re around, or maybe even deny camera access to some.
