TLDW:

Brazil is requiring OS level age verification by march 17th, 2026.

New York about to vote on a law that would "require all manufacturers of internet-enabled devices, operating systems, or application stores to conduct commercially reason-able and technically feasible age assurance for users at the point of device activation."

In order to “incentivize” age verification, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that they will ignore COPPA violations for software performing age verification.

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[–] 44 points 6 months ago (12 children)

Linus Torvalds is the closest thing Linux has to a manufacturer

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  • [–] 54 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    Linux is just a kernel.

    Redhat with fedora and steam with the arch based steam os will be the ones that have to implement it.

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  • [–] 42 points 6 months ago (8 children)

    Adding that nonsense to enterprise Linux distros will be hilarious to watch.

    And Steam can just sell blank hardware and let you install some distro you find on the Internet. Streetlight did that with one of their albums.

    And what happens when someone forks fedora and removes it for their own machine. Who’s the manufacturer then?

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

    I am pretty sure anyone will still be able to install a distro/fork from a free country, but steam is unlikely to go this route because convenience is part of the package. They may not even care to resist because they already ask your age for the steam store.

    I am more curious what this will do for non standard devices with multiple users. Even kitchen equipment may run a derivative of linux these days and they don't come with keyboard access.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    You're probably writing that on a device that has a secure boot chain. So far it was there without strict enforcement, but once the manufacturers decide you only get your shit signed if you implement $ARBITRARY_ORWELLIAN_GOV_RULE, you're pretty much fucked.

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