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[–] 405 points 5 months ago (16 children)

See you in a year or 2.

Play as old as times:

  1. Company announces garbage change
  2. People freak out
  3. Company says ok we will only do half of the garbage
  4. People calm down and forget
  5. Company later does the rest of the garbage
  6. Nobody cares because half of it is already there
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  • [–] 204 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Foot in the door technique is a timeless way to get what you want. People seem oblivious to it.

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  • [–] 44 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I hear frogs experience the same phenomenon with hot water.

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  • [–] 29 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I mean it makes total sense the minute you think about it at all.

    • some middle managers year end goals include this unpalatable feature
    • they release it
    • public freaks out
    • pr walks it back a bit
    • that managers back at work the week after trying to get that feature in because they need to justify the work they just did on it for better compensation

    It's the same with laws.

    It's very hard to get the electorate united to oppose something but if they manage to unite and oppose a bill the lobbyists are back at work on Monday pushing it by a different name.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago

    Technology makes everything cheaper, including changing minds.

    At some points it was unfeasible to abuse consumers because they'd object. Now, if it's on a large enough scale and valuable enough, you can just pay to convince the majority of them that it's fine.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    This isn't exactly it.

    First or isn't a company or is the government. 2nd, that legislation is just plain dumb and open source systems like Linux, BSD can't comply with it, even if they wanted to.

    The whole law should be repealed though. They use children as excuse, bit it is about surveillance.

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  • [–] 119 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    How about the government focus on taking rights away from people who have actually harmed kids, like I don't know, maybe a giant pedophile ring in plain sight? Instead the focus on taking rights from everyone because someone, sometime, in the future harm a child.

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  • [–] 52 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    its not even about "protecting the innocent" is about snooping on potential dissidents/ threats to the status quo of the govt.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    The whole digital footprint thing is really having me dawn a tinfoil hat. I was doing Uber a few days ago, and listening to Pandora. I spoke very limited, and brief, Spanish to two riders and I immediately started getting full on español ads on Pandora! Like I don't speak fluent Spanish! Your ad budget is legit getting wasted.

    But I am a little flattered thinking the algorithm thinks I do.

    Dunno where I was going with this, but I'm excited to see Linux growing, and hope it gets mainstream enough that a year old unlocked phone has a fork.

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  • [–] 23 points 5 months ago

    Because it's not about protecting children, obviously.

    When someone with certain personality problems tells blatant lies, they are really only trying to convince themselves. You exist only as an introject inside their minds, you are not real to them, it does not matter if you don't believe them because it doesn't need to make sense to you.

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  • [–] 96 points 5 months ago* (7 children)

    Fuck age verification, fuck it all to hell. Not for Linux or any other OS or device.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago* (3 children)

    I think that the major current closed-source OSes today are busily harvesting all the data they can anyway, and the vendors probably don't care much about also grabbing age, but stuff like, oh...is it illegal under this law to distribute proprietary versions of older OSes now? Like, classic MacOS, say. That's definitely not open-source. And Apple is not going to go back and do a new release of classic MacOS to add age verification to it. But...there's still some old software that you need classic MacOS to run. So...is it illegal to distribute essential software required to run classic MacOS software in California as of the middle of next year?

    I mean, you might be infringing on copyright as well, but Apple may be okay with people copying classic MacOS around, as they can't really make any money off it today. But this is the State of California, not Apple, that would act here.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Right... But in the age of AI, data-harvesting the right data (i.e. the human/non-AI-slop) becomes very interesting to a lot of companies, "age-verification" is an easy argument (for policy-makers) of e.g. social-media companies to know whether the user is an actual human, thus the verified data is a lot more valuable.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Sure, but we can't make the argument that everyone vouching for age verification is doing so for the same reason.

    It is undeniable that there is a very large, and growing, population of parents and adults that want age restrictions for adult content. I think their concern is valid, too. However, they don't care how it's done.

    That's where big tech "saves the day" by generously offering to collect all of our IDs and tying it the our accounts. Secure, and private, age verification can be done with zero knowledge proofs. But that probably won't happen without competent government

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago*

    IIRC from past reading, the driving factor behind the California bill was that some places were passing laws that would have placed responsibility for age verification on websites. Meta


    probably correctly assessing that anything they did was going to be defeatable and not wanting to engage in a big fight with regulators over that


    drove the California effort to create an OS-level responsibility. It's not that this especially solves anything from the standpoint of people who want age restrictions, but that it dumps the legal problems on the OS vendors, like Apple and Microsoft, instead of on Meta.

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  • [–] -3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Agree but would rather it be enforced at the OS level than per app or site. My kid just told me she uploaded her photo to some game she plays which sucks.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    On most phones/pcs, you have tools to restrict what your kid can or can’t do. I don’t know the specific OS this has happened on, but you can probably limit downloads, timegate specific apps so that they can only play them when you’re around, or maybe even deny camera access to some.

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  • [–] 79 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    How about they spend their time revamping parental controls instead? The age gate stuff is clear about user data collection and nothing else.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Exactly. Age control is obviously needed I am so glad I'm not a kid that has to navigate the social algorithms of our time.

    That said this is obviously a law being pushed by the technofascist companies like meta and their goal is always more power, in this case more data. It's crazy how many law makers just do what they are told. they are doing the same with trying to lock down 3Dprinters.

    More local control in operating systems as well as parental controls in platforms like YouTube where they could have full control to turn off the algorithm, maybe even a browser api where you need admin to enable adult mode. But based on everything I've seem from companies like google and meta they don't care in the slightest about the children as long as they make their bag

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Easing local control is what that law was about (and it did think far enough to only include user facing). If there wasn't a global tendency to move towards surveillance and identity verification I'd be all for it. As it is I have some reservations about slippery slope.

    The law doesn't require identity verification. It requires the OS to provide the age group of the user (set at install) to programs running on the OS. Something that, if adopted widely, would immensely help with allowing parents to control access (i.e. if they decide their kid should be able to see everything, just put them in ths age group for that, similarly they could also do that and manage it the same way as they would now. Or if they're lazy as many parents sadly are, there is at least some enforcement of age control that someone thought about, without giving up any identifying info beyond an age group). Yes it could be circumvented somewhat easily, but as far as I see it that's always a feature. A child being exposed to something accidentally has very different implications than actively trying to access it.

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  • [–] 203 points 5 months ago* (18 children)

    It’s called “parenting.” Yes, it’s harder these days with the internet and literally everything “right there.” But it’s still your job as a parent.

    ANYTIME ANYONE imposes restrictions “for the children” - there’s something nefarious going on. If it’s a politician-they are looking to build a database for $. If it’s your priest-he’s banging the alter boy after ccd, or hates himself so much for being gay he’s lashing out at the lgbtq community. If it’s a company-they’ve either been threatened into doing it or more likely are on the take with a fat payday. If it’s a developer adding it into Linux, they should expect fierce skepticism and backlash from the community.

    It’s NEVER about the children. It’s always an alternative motive. If they actually cared about kids, they’d make sure they were fed at school, they’d invest in their education, or they’d invest into social programs to help out those less fortunate.

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  • [–] 23 points 5 months ago

    The california law isn't actually age verification. It is unchecked age assertion at the operating system level. He is also there specifically for the parents to fill out.When a new device is purchased. I have no doubts.It will be misused and lead to age verification in the OS with a third party verifying the age, but that isnt want the bill is now

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (12 children)
    • "Guns don't kill people, people kill people!"
    • "Reduce, Recycle, Reuse."
    • "Only you can prevent forrest fires."
    • "Be All You Can Be in the Army!"
    • "Parenting!"

    Shift all the blame. Guns? America? Fuck that, it's the individual, not the industry.

    The internet is always two things. The web, access to information on all levels (good or bad ), should be available. It needs to be regulated bc META and anything Elon is apart of, still exist.

    Parents are fighting, "literally everything" ! We as a species, is losing to whatever the "internet" is. We need real regulation.

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  • [–] 28 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (9 children)

    Ear me out: make tools for parents to restrict their child themselves instead of restricting everyone and rob data

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    And the worse part, we DO have tools for parents. Either they don't know these tools exist or they don't know how to use them. Mostly because they're tech-illiterate. Kudos to the parents who educate themselves.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    This is a benign example, but I was talking with a fellow parent about our dislike of Paw Patrol and told them I had to remove that as an option in Netflix. They were shocked that was possible and I could see the gears turning in their head with that new info. Granted I'm not parenting a teenager yet, but it seems like most of the functionality in bigger platforms generally exists, people just don't know it's there and to set it.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Hmm I guess I'm not paying enough attention. What's wrong with paw patrol?

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    paw patrol is just so over stimulating with frequent cuts and it's clearly designed to hook kids short attention spans / does not help develop longer attention spans. It's a classic problem that kids don't want to stop watching and have tantrums if you enforce screen time and turn it off. All of this to sell huge toys that kids think they want and will play with one time.

    Also the stories are not really that great, and suck to watch as a parent. They always introduce an issue which is immediately resolved, triggering that instant gratification in your kids brain, without teaching them about conflict resolution or anything really useful. This isn't even about the idea of Adventure Bay being a police state or promoting the privatization of communal services.

    It's an unfair comparison, but a show like Bluey has great storytelling and while not being purely educational, teaches kids how to emphasize with others and deal with conflict that isn't easily solvable, even for adults. The music, illustrations, and stories are a work of art and a more valuable use of time than Paw Patrol.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    It's already available and parents are not utilizing it.

    But I also don't see the problem with this. As long as there's savvy and smart children that did get educated on safety, the knowledge can propagate to those that did not.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    It’s already available and parents are not utilizing it.

    The parents have determined that it's not needed. They've determined that trying to strictly regulate exactly what Little Johnny can and can't see online does him far more harm than porn ever could. This hyper-authoritarian nonsense needs to die in a fire.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    We as a species, is losing to whatever the “internet” is. We need real regulation.

    And none of that regulation will have anything to do with age, if you want real effectiveness. A teenager seeing a dick and a dick, a vagina and a vagina, or a dick and a vagina, being mashed together isn't concerning in the big picture. The stuff that is worrying about the internet affects adults just as much as children, like social media.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago

    You missed the point completely. My example was Meta and Elon's companies not teens fucking.

    Age verification is pointless. The post I responded to, was talking about it is the parent's (individuals) job not the government's (regulation). That would be wrong.

    And none of that regulation will have anything to do with age, if you want real effectiveness.

    That is an extreme view and I believe a dangerous one. Regulation like not experimenting on teen females which caused some to take their life. That seems pretty age related.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/facebooks-dangerous-experiment-teen-girls/620767/

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  • [+] 67 points 5 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I mean they could force big corpo to not allow anyone who can't verify age to use their services.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    This is sponsored by meta to push the age requirement tracking onto the os rather than Facebook directly to avoid liability when under age kids access harmful content

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Which is insane, as the OS doesn't have any way to authoritatively measure the user's age and so they have to be 'honor system' where the age is whatever the user says the age is, or require some online account with identity validation, which is what facebook tries to do anyway.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    An unverified age bracket in the OS that provides that to web services is the correct way to do it (a parent setting up a computer or account for a kid checks one box and suddenly google safe search, etc, everyone else doesn't check the box, done).

    I suspect meta is hoping to get better unique account to human mapping in their surveillance machine.

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  • [–] 46 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Install a router/device based content filter if you need to block children from accessing porn.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Considering things that are, or could be considered as, porn are everywhere from Reddit to Wikipedia, that doesn't fix the issue. But I agree, this is something for parents to deal with, not legislation.

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  • [+] -14 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, and while we're at it, kids should be able to buy alchohol and drugs and go to strip clubs. It's just a parenting issue.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Make phones 18+ to buy. Make it a legal requirement for parents to set up parental controls. Make parental controls not suck ass. Make the phone tell the website if child or adult no age brackets nonsense. IMO children don't need access to all websites.

    Still there are some issues where abuse can come from parents but hey if they wanted they could give their children alcohol too so that point doesn't really fly with me.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    I mean, it's not going to work, because your kids are gonna have a smartphone, and they can go to their friend's house or wherever and they aren't gonna have content filters. And then you think "okay, I'll install software on my kid's viewing device to censor stuff", but these days, it's probably not terribly difficult to get ahold of an old phone/tablet/computer, if all you want to do with it is view pornography. Everything's got a web browser in it, and that's been the case for long enough that there's lots of disused hardware just sitting around that can browse the Web. I've thrown out a PSP, phones, tablets, countless computers...I suspect that someone's parents are probably willing to hand their old gear to their kid, and they float around. If you live in an isolated cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, maybe access to Web-capable devices is a barrier, but if your kid has friends, I suspect that it's not all that hard to get ahold of one device that they have that can browse the Web.

    I mean, the realistic answer here is "you're not going to stop kids from viewing pornography if they sufficiently want to view it". One kid figures out how to do X, and it doesn't take long for word to get around.

    EDIT: I just hit Amazon looking for an example.

    https://www.amazon.com/HOTTABLET-Tablet-Android-Protective-Bluetooth/dp/B0F3XD9M6C

    That's a $39 Android tablet that can browse the Web, has 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of flash (plus an SD card slot). That's gonna be fine for browsing all the porn you want out there.

    Like, it's pretty hard to keep someone from getting access to something like that. If there weren't a supply of old hardware floating around and new hardware wasn't this cheap, okay, but devices capable of browsing the Web are everywhere.

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  • [–] 45 points 5 months ago
    [–] 40 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Wild they still play the "think of the children" card while ignoring the Epstein files.

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  • [–] 33 points 5 months ago

    This is like winning a small fight and continuing to march on to Moscow on the winter.

    They’ll keep whittling rights down until everything you do is logged with your ID and is whitelisted for your consumption (and I mean whitelisted by rich white list of folks who have the power).

    Anything LGBTQ will be blocked as controversial. And teaching they don’t like will be hidden. Was slavery bad? “Well, that’s controversial. The Europeans did nothing but civilize those savages don’t you know! And our wealth justifies the whole thing!”

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  • [–] 111 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (17 children)

    I’m a DevOps engineer and my employer runs a lot of Linux instances in AWS. I’d love for these politicians to explain to me how age verification of Linux web servers should work for auto-scaling environments where instances are spun up and terminated automatically based on traffic volume. I’d also like to know if I should be using the age of our CEO, the age of our company (thanks to Citizens United), or something else.

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  • [–] 39 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    I'd like to see them pair a bluetooth headset to a phone.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    If it's over 18 years old, does it automatically pass age verification

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago

    I’d love for these politicians to explain to me how age verification of Linux web servers should work for auto-scaling environments where instances are spun up and terminated automatically based on traffic volume.

    Come on, can't be that tedious. What could it be 200-300 instances tops per day? My kid sister does that many selfies.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I don't even know what you're talking about, and that makes me extra certain that politicians definitely don't know what you're talking about. It is nice to see them perhaps taking into account expert opinions on this subject, but 1 for 100 doesn't make for a good average.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    They'll listen to the lobbyists peddling them with hookers and blow (and promises of future non-executive board memberships and and millionaire speech circuit fees).

    That's all the expertise they care about.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago

    Honestly I wonder if this is why the amendment is being suggested. AI products in particular are likely to be interacting with a lot of websites that will be required to verify ages, and I'm sure California in particular is loath to make waves that might throw that revenue stream into doubt.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Also, is each docker container a "computer" of its own? After all, I could use different distro base images!

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    You are required to have age verification. We licence our age verification on an instance basis. An instance is defined as whatever makes us the most money, or alternatively causes you the most pain.

    You know. A worst case scenario.

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