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Posted by WaitWaitWha 5 hours ago

Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age(itsfoss.com)
82 points | 47 commentspage 2
seanhunter 3 hours ago||
[flagged]
wincy 3 hours ago|
I’m not looking forward to updating my array of 3D printer controllers with Raspbian in them and having them suddenly ask me for some sort of age attestation. Why would I be glad about this? My kids just aren’t allowed to use social media and have super locked down devices, so even the alleged advantage doesn’t help me.
raincole 2 hours ago||
That's the correct way to do it. Age should be something reported by browser/os/hardware. Something similar to User-Agent.

I really hope this will end the whole third party age verification farce.

csydas 2 hours ago||
it's not

age verification laws have little to do with protecting anyone, and social media companies are attempting to remove themselves from liability for their dangerous product by pushing for it

social media in its current unregulated state is harmful as has been demonstrated repeatedly with (suppressed) studies, and the push for age verification instead of regulation on the actual harmful content

age verification will always be a tool to censor whatever content certain interest groups want to censor and it is a wild violation of privacy as has been repeatedly demonstrated every time an identity verification firm gets hacked, they do not take this seriously at all, and all the while the actual harmful sites continue to do harm and have the ability to blame others for not 'protecting' people from the harm their product causes

it's a complete farce and has nothing to do with protecting anyone except tech companies peddling a harmful product

gblargg 10 minutes ago|||
Might as well put your real name and DOB in there.
spockz 1 hour ago|||
It could be part of the Accept header which already indicates language. It could serve as a signal that you only want to see content that is appropriate for that age bracket. Where appropriate means what the site wants to serve according to the laws of their jurisdiction.

But to require OS to implement all of this goes way to far and together with the proposed verification mechanisms is a privacy nightmare.

hackable_sand 1 hour ago|||
Remember. We should do absolutely everything in our power to not hold these companies responsible.
hackinthebochs 1 hour ago||
What does "hold these companies responsible" look like to you? I see a lot of empty rhetoric without things being spelled out. If you just want these companies to not exist, just say that.
BoxOfRain 1 minute ago||
If it were in my power, I absolutely would outlaw surveillance-based behavioural recommendation algorithms and business models based on them for what it's worth. I would also make it a criminal offence to knowingly attempt to induce pathological addictions in people, which rules out a lot of gambling-style mechanics.

Furthermore I think it's abhorrent that I have to compromise my privacy so the 'slot machines targetted at children' companies can limit their liability. I'd much rather those companies simply left my country outright.

bezier-curve 1 hour ago|||
Maybe we could have privacy protections before assuming every adult in the US is a child until giving random companies our PII? That would be cool, but not holding my breath.
isdononthephone 2 hours ago||
[flagged]
__del__ 2 hours ago|||
five minutes? it took me two minutes to come up with a threat:

someone will serve an innocuous page to adults, and some malicious honeypot trickery to children, all based on an http header.

"you've won five billion robux! click allow [to a webcam permission] to be able to receive them into your account!"

raincole 2 hours ago|||
> Might as well have the children strap red rotating lights to their heads so the predators can more easily identify them in a crowd where they would otherwise blend in

You... you think pedos can't identify children from their appearances alone? People really say the most random analogy for slightest chance to win online arguments...

isdononthephone 2 hours ago||
[flagged]
hackinthebochs 1 hour ago|
The breathless fearmongering over an age field on account set up is just completely over-the-top. This is probably the least bad out of all possible ways to implement age checking. The benefit of this is that it can short-circuit support for more onerous age verification. The writing has been on the wall for some time now: the era of completely unrestricted internet is coming to an end. The question is how awful will the new normal be? Legislation like this is a win all around, a complete nothingburger. We should be celebrating it, not fighting it tooth and nail.
CircuitSeuss 24 minutes ago|
> This is probably the least bad out of all possible ways to implement age checking.

Less bad is still bad.

Normalizing a gated, state controlled internet is bad.