76 pointsby WaitWaitWha4 hours ago12 comments
  • nlan hour ago
    Background: Meta/Facebook, Google and Apple all support age verification. It gives them legal cover and for their ad platforms gives better data.

    But Meta/FB have been strongly lobbying to make it required at the OS level, so they aren't responsible for it, whereas Google and Apple both want it to be an application responsibility.

    I think the CA version of this ended up with a carve-out for open source? I can't recall the details.

    • isdononthephonean hour ago
      > all support age verification

      No, they all support harvesting your data so they can continue doing what they do best: building shadow profiles and targeting ads.

      Nothing a signal of an age group tells them more than "send me more ads for XX year-olds".

      Why do you think it's always a question asked in online surveys?

  • rendaw2 hours ago
    > The law also stipulates that all transmitted digital signals have to be encrypted.

    I'm hoping there's nuance, but I'm surprised the article didn't go deeper on this too. ARP? ICMP? DHCP?

    I can't actually load the bill to read it ATM.

    • nerdsniperan hour ago
      try: https://ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus/FullText?GAID=18&Doc...

      It only requires the encryption of the specific age-bracket signals mandated by Section 10 of the bill. What you're looking for is here:

      Section 10. Age assurance requirements. ... (d) All digital signals transmitted in accordance with this Section shall be encrypted to ensure data integrity and security.

  • Glyptodonan hour ago
    Are they expecting parents to be held responsible when their kid gets given a laptop and doesn't put in the right age? Or is it just a best effort thing that "parents who want to" can opt in to and which mostly serves as a shield for online platforms who wave the "but age API said" flag whenever something sketch happens?
  • isdononthephone42 minutes ago
    Seeing as this is Illinois we're talking about, it's probably less about protecting kids and more about extorting punitive fines from tech companies for non-compliance.

    > violations can cost up to $50,000 each

    I hear slot machine noises.

    • imdsm40 minutes ago
      it's a strange business model that works for the EU
      • OKRainbowKid11 minutes ago
        Occasionally holding trillion dollar corporations accountable to the law is not a business model.

        I reckon the societal damage these "social" media companies inflict is magnitudes larger than whatever puny fines they've had to cough up so far for braking the law.

  • deckiedan2 hours ago
    From reading the article, it sounds like an enforced standardisation? Like, asking for account age bracket and then having a standard API to ask for it would be easy, right? Just write it to a root owned `~/.age-bracket` for each user or something (obviously something better).

    It's a feature many apps implement in all kinds of ways already, especially games and social media stuff, so this, in theory, just makes it easier and consistent?

    I'm against leaking our kids ages, and all the privacy and other concerns as much as anyone, but are we just getting overly angry too quickly on this one?

    I get that it's a slippery slope too.

    • ares6232 hours ago
      It passes responsibility and accountability from the large platforms to the open-source communities and to parents who are most likely tech illiterate.

      Facebook, etc. can wash their hands when they "accidentally" serve gambling ads (or whatever) to children and say "well it's not our fault the parent has the laptop misconfigured"

      It's classic blaming the victim.

      • ronsor2 hours ago
        I disagree. The parents are the ones who should be supervising. The work should not be pushed off to OSS devs or random website operators. Facebook is bad, but I'd rather deal with one Facebook than kill 1000 normal sites with bad legislation.
        • defrost2 hours ago
          > The parents are the ones who should be supervising.

          Ok. When Alice & Bob come home from school what steps should every parent take to supervise A&B's phone and device usage over the past 48 hours?

          Internet history, of course - for all the browsers, including those hidden away? But what if the logs are wiped or the second BraveFoxChrome installation isn't obvious?

          Must every parent have an IT degree?

          What if the parents are very good plumbers and car mechanics, should they also be expert in software design and installation?

          • pibakeran hour ago
            The same steps you take to make sure they are not smoking in a back alley on the way home.
            • defrost25 minutes ago
              You sniff their clothing for evidence of a porn site or chatting with a predator?
          • HedonicEscal8r32 minutes ago
            If the kid's old enough to be hiding their internet history from their parents, they're old enough to have some privacy.
            • defrost28 minutes ago
              and if they're just old enough to follow instructions from an older cousin, an online predator, or to hand over their phone to a candy waving dubious third party for a "roblox coin hack" ?
          • ares623an hour ago
            Never mind the fact that Facebook, etc. has BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH of software engineers, designers, psychologists making absolutely damn sure that little Alice & Bob keep their nice little eyes glued and their little thumbs scrolling.
            • anon4829343 minutes ago
              If their eyes and thumbs are that little perhaps you as a parent shouldn’t buy them devices, but let them play outside.
              • sroussey3 minutes ago
                Our family computer when I was a kid was in my parents bedroom. There was only one one. Kids should have dumb phones not supercomputers in their pocket connected to everyone everywhere all at once.
          • isdononthephonean hour ago
            > What if the parents are very good plumbers and car mechanics, should they also be expert in software design and installation?

            You know who else are not experts in software design and installation? Fossil politicians and slimy bureaucrats.

            Name one public sector state or local website that isn't utter garbage and a nightmare to use. Go ahead I'll wait.

            They need to get their sticky donut-eating fingers out of my personal computer.

            • forestrywatan hour ago
              I renew my tabs online a few times a year. Site is state wide and works great. Take like five minutes and it's super manageable. Seattle city light works well and has a solid outage map when there's bad weather.

              capitol.wa.gov is really informative and easy to use and looks nice.

              Is three examples enough? You only asked for one. But I figured a few extra would help you.

  • raincolean hour ago
    That's the correct way to do it. Age should be something reported by browser/os/hardware. Something similar to User-Agent.

    I really hope this will end the whole third party age verification farce.

    • csydas36 minutes ago
      it's not

      age verification laws have little to do with protecting anyone, and social media companies are attempting to remove themselves from liability for their dangerous product by pushing for it

      social media in its current unregulated state is harmful as has been demonstrated repeatedly with (suppressed) studies, and the push for age verification instead of regulation on the actual harmful content

      age verification will always be a tool to censor whatever content certain interest groups want to censor and it is a wild violation of privacy as has been repeatedly demonstrated every time an identity verification firm gets hacked, they do not take this seriously at all, and all the while the actual harmful sites continue to do harm and have the ability to blame others for not 'protecting' people from the harm their product causes

      it's a complete farce and has nothing to do with protecting anyone except tech companies peddling a harmful product

    • isdononthephonean hour ago
      Really? Will it take online predators or other threat actors more than five minutes to somehow leverage this unnecessary data for terrible purposes?

      Might as well have the children strap red rotating lights to their heads so the predators can more easily identify them in a crowd where they would otherwise blend in unnoticed.

      • __del__32 minutes ago
        five minutes? it took me two minutes to come up with a threat:

        someone will serve an innocuous page to adults, and some malicious honeypot trickery to children, all based on an http header.

        "you've won five billion robux! click allow [to a webcam permission] to be able to receive them into your account!"

      • raincolean hour ago
        > Might as well have the children strap red rotating lights to their heads so the predators can more easily identify them in a crowd where they would otherwise blend in

        You... you think pedos can't identify children from their appearances alone? People really say the most random analogy for slightest chance to win online arguments...

        • isdononthephonean hour ago
          You can't identify them via an anonymous GET request. Unless of course we implement your suggestion and stick their ages in a header:

          > similar to User-Agent

          In summary: your suggestion is objectively terrible and I have thus won this argument. (I didn't even realize we were arguing.)

    • bezier-curve10 minutes ago
      Maybe we could have privacy protections before assuming every adult in the US is a child until giving random companies our PII? That would be cool, but not holding my breath.
  • stevenalowe2 hours ago
    illogical hubris - no state can regulate the internet; no state can compel developers to write code. the court cases on this will be interesting
    • forestrywatan hour ago
      I think you'll find they don't have to compel you to write code. They can simply prevent you from doing something else if you don't meet an obligation. Many many industries have compliance obligations that compel speech. Therapists have to report certain things if they hear them. Managers have a duty to report. My restaurant time I was required to write temperature logs.

      The idea that code can't be compelled to fit a shape by the government is goofball nonsense.

    • bell-cot8 minutes ago
      I assume you've heard of New Mexico's DoJ winning a not-quite-$1B court case against Meta.

      Maybe Meta's lawyers will win on appeal, maybe they won't. "Think of the children!" pushes a lot of emotional buttons.

      But Mr. Zuck most certainly can decide that he doesn't like the legal bills and uncertainty, and order his developers to write code.

  • orionblastar3 hours ago
    This is censorship; it is like saying you can't eat a steak because a baby can't chew it. They will try to ban Linux or fine Linux developers unless it reports the user's age.
    • drnick12 hours ago
      How? Linux developers don't live in Illinois or even in the USA for the most part.
      • charcircuit2 hours ago
        They sell the OS to Illinois residents.
        • NordStreamYacht2 hours ago
          I have paid for Redhat just once. Since then ubuntu FTW
          • charcircuit2 hours ago
            It's possible for Ubuntu too. Dell sells Ubuntu laptops to Illinois.
            • conspan hour ago
              "this option is not available in the state of Illinois"

              Seems easy enough to implement before 2028 and only serve laptops without OS.

              • dmurray3 minutes ago
                Well at least this wouldn't result in massive incentives for Microsoft to get the same law passed elsewhere.
  • user000052 hours ago
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  • dangbelows32 minutes ago
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  • 2 hours ago
    undefined
  • seanhunter2 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • wincy2 hours ago
      I’m not looking forward to updating my array of 3D printer controllers with Raspbian in them and having them suddenly ask me for some sort of age attestation. Why would I be glad about this? My kids just aren’t allowed to use social media and have super locked down devices, so even the alleged advantage doesn’t help me.