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California moves to exempt Linux from its upcoming age-verification law after backlash over forcing operating systems to collect users’ ages (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 80 points 4 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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  • [–] 11 points 4 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 4 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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