Comment by fc417fc802
4 days ago
Presumably by outlawing the types of algorithms used with the legislation carefully limited to a particular context rather than anything being authored by an individual. Right to express oneself preserved, government regulates a harmful product, business as usual.
As far as this specific Colorado legislation goes (which is concerned with the ability to comply with their previously passed data privacy law) I think it's not entirely bad but I have two issues with it.
First, it reverses the problem. Services should be sending an age-appropriateness (or even just general content classification) signal to the device for local processing, not the other way around. If you're going to mandate that OS creators do anything it should be to implement a certain baseline level of (interoperable!) functionality as far as parental controls are concerned.
Second, the entire thing should be predicated on some metric such as MAU or revenue or combination thereof not on the exceedingly vague idea of a "free, publicly available code repository".
> First, it reverses the problem. Services should be sending an age-appropriateness (or even just general content classification) signal to the device for local processing, not the other way around.
OK, so say the device receives a signal that say that an app is not appropriate for children under 13. How would the device find out if the user trying to run the app is under 13?
The question itself (ie if the user is under 13) doesn't matter. Already for the current legislation there's nothing stopping the device owner from intentionally lying about the age. So really this entire exercise is about providing a standardized means of control over filtering, thus my observation that the proposed measure is both backwards and overly limited in scope.
The software on the device can do whatever it would like with the signal it receives, including consulting the user account metadata for declared age if the device owner so desires.
Having the app ask the OS for the age range is more flexible.
If the app tells the OS the age range it is appropriate for the filtering will only be able to either block or allow the app to run.
If the systems tells the app the age range of the user the app can operate in a mode appropriate for that age range. For example a multiplayer game app can put kids in games that only have other kids playing.
I think it being limited is a feature. This was modeled after the California law, and I think the intent is the same although the changes made after the initial draft make it less clear. The California law is clearly aimed at being a parental control on the child's device, with minimal privacy implications. Hence relying entirely on the age information provided by the parent.
I definitely agree with those. Age verification laws in general I have lots of beef with because they're so nonsensical.