You’re saying there are already age checks for certain sites (and analysis of your web traffic and associated data being sold) and that this is no different, if I understand correctly.

Correct-ish.

I would amend that to be "All of this information is already out there and you provide it, without thinking, often multiple times per day". But with the added caveat that this ONLY changes if a third party verification is required.

It is worth pointing out that while the California law requires no verification, the New York law potentially requires more than just a declaration of age. It’s worse elsewhere in the world.

To my knowledge (and skimming what I can find), the New York bill also does not require third party verification. At least, as of 2025-S8102A.

But yes, fully agree regarding the rest of the world. People get EXTRA pissy if you point out the EU isn't magically doing exactly what they want it to do and always siding with "consumers" but... the frameworks and legislature being pushed through there are deeply alarming.

Right, but you see how this is also a bad thing right? Given that the FBI has now spoken about buying this data and uses it to target people, I would think that we would all want better privacy protections, not fewer.

Do not expect companies (and company adjacent) orgs to protect your rights.

But also? The FBI doesn't need to "buy this data". They can just buy the same marketing data everyone already has on them (unless you go above and beyond to obfuscate that).

And this legislature has absolutely zero bearing on any of that.

I don’t see how that should sway opinion about this being a good or a bad thing. It’s a bad thing for everyone, right?

No, it is not. Like I pointed out above: We always say "parents should watch what their kids are watching so that I can keep getting my goon on with tiktok" and all that nonsense. And do you know what the first step to ACTUALLY protecting kids online is? That's right. Restricting accounts based on age.

Adding a user provided birthdate to your account in systemd is no more dangerous than having a field for location or phone number. Having an API to fetch this from the OS IS concerning but is also very much in that realm of "This genuinely makes browsing the internet easier"as, depending on implementation, your computer can auto-verify you so you don't have to wipe the lube off your hand when you change sites.

And... its almost like those of us on open source OSes can maybe consider a way to go even farther with controlling what gets sent...

I don’t see how that should sway opinion about this being a good or a bad thing. It’s a bad thing for everyone, right?

Correct. But I would bet my bottom dollar that at least a few of the folk insisting this is the evil US (fair) forcing their will upon the world don't realize their own governments might actually even be ahead of the game. Like apparently a bunch of live service games disabled chat in the UK in the past day or two?

No, I am saying that. I was saying that calling this a slippery slope doesn’t feel like it is based in the history of privacy erosion.

Again, that privacy already eroded away years ago. Pretending otherwise is just lying to yourself and increasing your own risks.

but just because it isn’t the first step doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight against consolidated, government-mandated privacy violations, right?

The door to your home fell off and all your windows are shattered. Does it make ANY sense to freak out that your ex still has a key to your front door?

And that is why... it is more than a bit tinfoil hat but I really do wonder how much of this "outrage" is being intentionally stoked to distract from the very real concerns. If you actually care about your privacy then you need to educate yourself on what you should have been doing for years now. And consider getting on that.

I’m asking why we don’t try and just fix the problem instead of letting something like this slide by because there are other, similar issues.

Yes, let's try to fix it. Complaining about a single field being added to a user profile (that already has user provided location, phone number, email, etc) ain't it.

Focusing on the third party verification component.. is part of it.

But also understanding that all of this is out there and never coming back is more important.

One of the biggest con jobs facebook has ever done is to pretend that they let you delete your account. And they do. Except... not really. Because User 1234 who has the real name field of "Fred Jones" was deleted. But User 1235 "Daphne Blake" isn't and she has lots of pictures of her and Fred. And Old Man Wilkinson also has pictures of his home that some meddling potheads raided last month. So removing metadata from THEM would violate their digital rights.

So (simplifying), User 1234's "real name" field is indeed voided. But their profile remains the same so all associations with Daphne and Shaggy and all the mansions remain the same. Same with the knowledge that some blonde haired d-bag with an ascot went to school with Red Herring. And that he is related to Skip and Peggy Jones. And that his name is suspected to be "Fred Jones" for the purposes of making sure to protect his identity in case someone registers as him and can't provide ID to prove that.

But folk just fixate on "Delete your profile so that zuckerberg can't control you!" and ignore all that.

Because understanding things is hard.