Discussion
nemomarx: I didn't even know a bill could be listed without the text being out.Too early to discuss much though?
bayareateg: This is a stupid bill, but how is this an anti-LGBTQ issue?
aurmc: Anything that even slightly has to do with LGBTQ people will likely end up getting blocked from children’s eyes, while anything to do with non-LGBTQ people won’t.
gjsman-1000: I find it interesting this criticism assumes age-appropriate LGBTQ content isn’t a thing.
jmclnx: This did not take long, we all knew this was coming but I am surprised on how quick this appeared.Lets hope they carve out exemptions for Free Operating Systems based upon revenue. But we know that will not happen.
ultrablack: Input age here:
stevenalowe: Looks like compelled speech to me, both for the operating system creator and the users. I do not believe that “interstate commerce” powers negate the first amendment.
gjsman-1000: Ever seen a giant warning on cigarette ads that nicotine is addictive? Do you think half the ad is covered by the black box out of charity?Settled law decades ago.On that note, today is April 15th, tax day. The day where if you don’t provide hard numbers about your life against your will and at your own expense, prison opens as a possibility.
iamnothere: Cigarettes are a product that is sold. Many operating systems are free. I use several that are small projects entirely produced by hobbyists.Even if they stack the courts with muppets who ignore the obvious first amendment angle to get this passed, I will never comply with this and I will happily help others defy it.
gjsman-1000: So if I hand out free cigarettes, I’d be in the clear.
nh23423fefe: You will be charged with child endangerment if you let your kid use your phone.
t1234s: Will this make Linux illegal?
Andrex: Not if the software complies, which is in discussion.https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Undecided-Age-Laws
iamnothere: Many distributions have decided not to comply. Debian has settled on not making anything like this mandatory, as they are a global project, although they may (after discussion and likely voting) agree to optionally package age verification stuff for users who want it for some reason.
nemomarx: Age appropriate books intended for that still get banned, so the assumption is just that the decisions about it won't be made in good faith. "X has two dads" kind of books aren't really adult, and yet...
gjsman-1000: Then sue, at that point, and win.
gbear605: Ah yes, I have a lot of faith that the stacked Supreme Court will return a fair result in this issue.
VadimPR: US should first implement a national identifier that can be used for healthcare purposes before implementing age verification, that would be a lot more helpful.
throwa356262: Oh, but that could be used for voting and we don't want that.
paddor: According to a recent CRYPTO-GRAM issue from Schneier, it's in Meta's interest to push these regulations as their product isn't an OS. Their competition (Apple/MS/Google) are OSs though.
hypeatei: I'm not sure why Meta's lobbying is harped on so much when all of Big Tech benefits from this; Zuckerberg is just the fall guy. Tech companies love the idea of identity / age verification so they can target ads more effectively. My general feeling is also that privacy is a thorn in their side when it comes to integrating more deeply into people's lives.There are also state actors at play here who would love if computing without ID became a very niche thing to do. Obviously their top line would be "fighting terrorism" and "saving the children" but in reality we've seen how these organizations (ICE, NSA, etc.) abuse their power and spy on people without warrants.tl;dr: there is much more at play here than Facebooks interests alone.
pwg: > Zuckerberg is just the fall guyThis is likely because of Zuck's testimony in the very recent court case where he testified exactly that the "best place" to do "age verification" was in the operating system.This was but a few weeks before all these, largely very identical sounding bills, suddenly started appearing in state houses across the USA.
mcshicks: There have been bills in the past like "The improved digital identity act of 2023" that never get out of committee. The latest incarnation seems to be "H.R.7270 - Stop Identity Fraud and Identity Theft Act of 2026". There almost always have one republican and one democratic sponsor. But they don't seem to rise to the level of urgency to get past the current dysfunction in congress.https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7270...
iamnothere: The laws about giving (not selling) tobacco to minors are state laws, not federal. There’s no interstate commerce there or here.Besides, you’re comparing apples to oranges. Cigarettes are a physical product, not a form of expression. Code is speech and compelled speech violates the first amendment. That makes even state laws for OS age verification unconstitutional.
hrimfaxi: > Code is speech and compelled speech violates the first amendment.The first amendment does not blanket ban compelled speech. You can be compelled to testify against someone if granted immunity. You can be forced to take an oath or affirmation in court. I'm sure there are other examples.> The laws about giving (not selling) tobacco to minors are state laws, not federal. There’s no interstate commerce there or here.If multiple states have differing legislation over the same area of commerce, it can affect interstate commerce. But anyway, after Wickard v Fiilburn interstate commerce is never not implicated.> An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed animals on his own farm. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and supplies.> Filburn grew more than was permitted and so was ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he said that because his wheat was not sold, it could not be regulated as commerce, let alone "interstate" commerce (described in the Constitution as "Commerce ... among the several states").> The Supreme Court disagreed: "Whether the subject of the regulation in question was 'production', 'consumption', or 'marketing' is, therefore, not material for purposes of deciding the question of federal power before us. ... But even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect'."[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
iamnothere: Courts have been the one place that lasting, narrow 1A exemptions like these have been granted. (The Court is willing to give itself a few exceptional powers now and then.)> Wickard v FiilburnA bad decision that is solely being undermined and which will eventually be overturned. The State is not omnipotent.
pixl97: SCOTUS says no.
hedora: I'm worried that Poettering's new startup is designed to ban unapproved Linux, BSDs, etc.https://linuxiac.com/systemd-creator-lennart-poettering-join...The cynic in me says the Win 11 "you must have a TPM" push (along with passkey's "big tech owns all your accounts" design) were rammed through specifically to centralize control of the open web.At this point, if the federal government actually forced OS-level censorship, most literate folks would just download Linux. So, first, they need to close the remaining door.I'm not exactly holding a candle for debian. SystemD has already started adding support for this, and, in the past, downstream has been able to force unpopular debian votes through.
krunck: I pledge to defy it.
someguyiguess: Yes but they would need a functional healthcare system first.
Schiendelman: I struggle with this. Outcomes for our healthcare system are much better than critics want to accept. Most of the negative health outcomes in the United States are mostly about our built environment - people who aren't very poor and live in walkable urban centers in the US have health outcomes similar to Europe. Those reading this website in the US often have outcomes that exceed their peers in Europe - we have much better cancer treatment, for instance. US city air quality is starting to beat European cities because we don't use nearly as much natural gas (NYC is better than Berlin, for instance, at pm2.5).Most negative US health outcome factors can be traced to suburbanization, which is also where the vast majority of the gun violence is, and systemic racial wealth disparity. We have a pretty good healthcare system, we just need to subsidize it for people who can't afford it.
microtonal: "If we focus on a subset of the population that is lucky, we have a great healthcare system." Got it!Sorry for the sarcasm, but that's how your comment reads.Do those lucky people have healthcare insurance tied to their employment? Are they afraid to go to a demonstration or advocate a union, because they could lose their job and thus healthcare?A good healthcare system treats everyone equally, no matter where they live in a country, their income level, being employed/unemployed, etc.We have a pretty good healthcare system, we just need to subsidize it for people who can't afford it.No, it is broken. The US healthcare capita costs twice as much per capita as most West European countries and the 'outcomes per capita' are worse. The problem is, similar to the prison system etc., the privatization of the system. It's run by companies that go for profit maximization, which entails rejecting as many claims as possible, driving up medicine prices, etc.
usefulcat: In the US, quality of health care is not really a problem. The problem is that the cost is too high, and also availability (in part because of the cost).
OutOfHere: I guess we'll be selecting Canada at the country selection screen.
AlexandrB: Good luck, our Canadian government loves data collection and "sticking it to big tech". This will be Canadian law very soon, I'm sure.
duped: I don't know how many times this needs to be iterated, but voter ID has absolutely nothing to do with election security. It has everything to do with voter suppression, just like poll taxes and literacy tests. It gives poll workers discretion to turn people away.There's a reason this idea is pushed solely by Republicans with the explicit goal of reducing the number of people who can vote, because fewer people voting is better for Republicans.
