Comment by bloppe
5 days ago
There are basically 2 possibilities with the outcome of this law: It's rather so full of holes as to be meaningless, or it's so invasive as to force open source projects to try to geofence Illinois (which wouldn't be effective either, but might be the kind of compliance theatre we'll see from maintainers worried about liability).
Linux distros always have a "root" user. Does that user have to be asked its age before being usable? What about docker containers, which often come with a non-root user? What about installation media, which is often a perfectly usable OS? It would either have to be so easy to get around this law that most kids could do it easily, or so overzealously enforced as to disrupt the entire cloud industry.
"so full of holes as to be meaningless"
what is the solution then to age gating apps that the public feels should be age gated? (TikTok, Instagram, etc). it seems like every app implementing its own guessing system would have even more holes, right?
this is one where I am sympathetic. the moment when someone, with their parent, is setting up a device seems like the best point to check age. right?
am I missing something?
The companies you mentioned are the ones profiting handsomely off their intentionally addictive platforms. They're the ones with massive legal departments. Obviously they should be the ones liable to make sure the kids aren't getting abused on their platforms, not a bunch of volunteer Linux developers who couldn't care less about social media or monetization.
They could've written these laws to go after Apple and Microsoft specifically, and assume that most kids wouldn't have the wherewithal to install Linux themselves. That may or may not be effective. But no, the way the law is written, any hobbyist OS dev is now legally liable for the abuse kids might suffer on massive social networks that are completely unrelated to the OS.
The funny thing is that Estonia actually already figured this all out. Their national ID system allows any platform to reliably verify anybody's age without gaining access to any other information about them. It's the perfect system for reliable checking age while maintaining perfect privacy about all other personal data. But I don't think we'll see that in the US in my lifetime, so we'll just have to keep fighting over all these ineffective privacy nightmares instead.
the solution is to remove the bits of those apps that are harmful to children (and adults): the algorithmic data feed, the infinite scroll, the engagement tactics, the advertising
So, for instance, pornography and gambling should be 100% illegal? Or at the least, all social media sites should censor any discussions that aren't child-appropriate?
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but how can you remove adult-only features for children only without knowing the age?
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> It's rather so full of holes as to be meaningless, or it's so invasive as to force open source projects to try to geofence Illinois.
My guess reading the law as linked is that it's much closer to the former than the latter. That being said, you're right that it does bring a bunch of headache alongside with it for little-to-no benefits.