No.

[Edit] Actually, I take that back. If all data collection services in the USA can go 5 years without one single data leak, I'll consider it.

Prove yourself worthy.

This feels less like "protecting children" and more like pedophiles inventing a way to find more children to harm. Parents need to parent. Platforms need to moderate, with sane humans, not AI or stupid age gate laws that anyone under 18 can bypass.

from henceforth all the children that i may or may not have were born on Janurary 1st 1970

Weird how the way to protect children involves grabbing everyone’s ID instead of regulating social media.

My kid was born 1970-01-01 on the same day I was.

Sorry kid, gotta verify your age to use this ti-84

I wonder if this would be challenged as a 1st amendment issue. For everyone in Illinois, they will be denied government digital resources via compelled speech.

Of course, I don't expect any sane response to this. If anything, I expect .gov sites to start requiring a selfie with the president to prove your patriotism.

I was born in 1901, January 1st.

What scares me is the future of this push.

In Australia, after their U16 social media ban, 4 in 5 U16's still accessed social media they were banned from.

When these bills have little impact b/c minors figure out how to get past age gates, there will be pressure for more draconian measures. It isn't like the ppl pushing these will shrug and give up. They will demand more and more erosion of local control. More and more corporate lockdown.

If a local 'date of birth' field defaults to '18 and up' if unset; the bracket is communicated using an open, standardized format; specification is on a trust-basis, without external verification required; and the field automatically unsets upon turning 18; I might not be that opposed to an implementation like this.

But without a requirement for legal presence within the state of Illinois, any application developers without it, cannot really be held liable for any infringements on it. Bad actors might also learn which internet users are of which age bracket, and this all might be the beginning of another very slippery slope, where requirements keep building as a result of misuse and/or ineffectiveness.

  Please insert identity verification probe.

I assume this is so the paedophile president can stalk users by age, cause it definitely does nothing to protect kids

https://itsfoss.com/news/illinois-age-verification-bill/

Working link

It is terrible. But there is a ray of good news in there too. Not for IL sadly, but for other states that went on this path,

The bill picked up language exempting operating systems and developers distributing software under terms that let anyone copy, redistribute, and modify it freely. It also added a clause blocking platforms from locking down modified versions.

California's AB-1043 had the same gap. Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, the same lawmaker who wrote AB-1043, introduced AB-1856 to fix it. After several rounds of edits, the amended bill redefines "operating system provider" to exclude anyone distributing software under those same open license terms.

The IL law does not have those carve outs. So ti's way more draconian than the other states listed.

I don't care about this issue because I don't have kids /s

Said file not found

One more gate to walk around

Device makers doesn't sound like operating system to me. Just need to make sure there is a distro that the device comes with which does this. So if you make ToBeReinstalledOS which only comes with an age checkbox and USB media creation tool to the bare minimum compliance required and no network drivers to prevent accidental age verification. Your device is compliant and can be sold in authoritarian countries.

kids=0;

we sure are getting close to someone's wet dream of having a dystopian hellscape where people don't have control over their computers

I'm interpreting the opposite. Currently, if I want my kid's user account flagged as belonging to a minor, I don't have that option. If I want my kid's user account treated differently online, I don't have that option. This bill gives me that option, and it gives me the option of turning it off if I feel like it, and it doesn't require me to provide any personal information to achieve that outcome.

I agree that exceptions should be made for open-source. But overall, this seems way less invasive than EU or UK age verification.

So, what am I missing? This is the same asshole that wants every round of ammo to have a serial number, so I know better than to expect reasonable and well-thought-out legislation from this administration.

K I'm 20, everyone is 20.