Comment by 🐦 wasolili
Re: "What's going on with california and colorado age…"
That's why I think we should be campaigning for privacy-preserving methods of age verification
There is no highly effective method of age verification, let alone a privacy preserving one. Even if you succeed in getting a "privacy-preserving" method accepted for now, when it fails to stop teens from accessing porn, these groups will say we need stronger forms of verification, and when those don't work, they will say, "aw shucks guys, online age verification doesn't work, the only way to save the children is to ban all internet porn. we should have done that from the beginning because porn is bad for adults and needs to be banned just like crack or fentanyl" because the ultimate goal of the groups pushing these bills is to get rid of porn entirely.
And at the same time, setting the legal groundwork for age verification has a secondary goal of eventually being used to suppress (and surveil consumers of) other content. Can you think of any other content that prominent political figures have been claiming needs to be stopped due to being harmful to minors? I sure can.
"we should tell them how to do this the right way otherwise they'll fuck it up" extends a level of good faith to the backers of these bills that should not be given to them. Their goal is not to do this right. Their goals are to get rid of porn for everyone and to also strengthen government control over non-pornographic content. Even if there was a perfect, private method of internet age verification, it does not matter because they don't actually care about that.
🐦 wasolili [flaired user, librarian socialite or something, idk]
Mar 16 · 8 weeks ago
24 Later Comments ↓
👻 darkghost · Mar 16 at 10:22:
Circumventing age restrictions will just be the 21st century version of finding your dad's hidden nude magazine.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Mar 16 at 12:10:
@wasolili : "Can you think of any other content that prominent political figures have been claiming needs to be stopped due to being harmful to minors? "
In the UK I certainly can. Content related to self-harm and suicide, content related to weapons, all kinds of violence -- there are constant calls to restrict all these, and more. In the UK, I would say that pornography is a low-ish priority for age verification, but it's in the frame right now, because it's easy to target.
Let's be clear: what's targeted is the OS makers and the software industry as well as our freedom. Content is secondary. The means of distribution is the perceived weak link. The state needs to be in control of the media.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Mar 16 at 15:30:
In the UK, I'm almost sure that the motivation for age verification really is child safety. The legislators are going about it badly, and the half-hearted implementation will be damaging for privacy, but I really don't get the sense of an ulterior motive. Almost everybody I speak to is 100% behind it.
The UK implementation isn't being driven by social media corporations, because they're carrying the burden of it.
In the US, though, it definitely smacks of bad faith. The California/Colorado plans are stupid, and will achieve nothing of public benefit (but they probably never expected to). As much as I dislike the UK way of dealing with this, the US way is worse.
today eu forces all web servers that provide services it eu to comply with gdpr, and lets say we see it by sites ask us if we agree to get their cookies.
eu doesnt force users, but servers.
so why not forcing porn providers to conduct age verification?
you wanna watch porn? that site won't let you until you give them your id. oh you don't want to give them your id? don't consume that shit.
though of course that would lead to the porn sites that accumlate lots of personal data.
i think they still do? they have to earn no? so they get paid via cards?
but frankly using a vpn is so easy every teen may learn it and access whatever they want so all these measures won't help.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Mar 17 at 13:14:
@norayr : "...using a vpn is so easy every teen may learn it and access whatever they want so all these measures won't help."
To be fair, I don't think anybody expected, or claimed, that the age verification measures in the UK would be 100% effective. No measure introduced for any purpose, by any government, is 100% effective.
Our government claims that the number of kids watching porn has reduced by 60% or something. If that were true, I think it would be counted as a success. Unfortunately, I don't know where this figure comes from since, as you say, the kids are all now using VPNs for their porn.
👻 darkghost · Mar 17 at 15:18:
My kid uses a VPN without understanding why they are using a VPN. Something something security!
I'll be real honest. I'm not sure if kids getting their hands on porn is all that bad.
I totally saw shit I wasn't supposed to. I think I'm pretty ok.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Mar 18 at 15:15:
@jprjr : I'd agree that there are far, far worse things for kids to see. The reason we parents don't like porn (in the UK) these days is because of its association with misogynist culture. Also, we're reluctant to expose young children to the kind of activity where you need a safe-word, because it can be dangerous.
And, frankly, porn is a soft target, because we all kind-of know what it looks like. There are worse things, but they're harder to define, let alone identify. That, I guess, is why there are calls to ban social media completely for minors.
you folks might be interested in
👻 darkghost · Mar 19 at 15:22:
Plenty of init friendly distros. And I'll use a GUI that looks like a papier-mâché project gone terribly wrong before giving systemd the satisfaction of knowing my age.
Governments in California, Colorado, Australia, Brazil, and Singapore are rewriting the rules of how operating systems work, and one developer has responded by registering his software under the law's own definitions, citing the exact statute, and declaring intentional noncompliance on his front page.
What's driving this legislation isn't purely a child safety agenda: there's a $2 billion lobbying shadow hanging over these bills, and the company at the centre of it stands to gain enormously while its rivals absorb the legal exposure.
Today, we break down exactly how the laws work, why volunteer-run Linux projects may face thousands of dollars in fines they have no way to pay, and how one $12 piece of hardware is being positioned as an act of civil disobedience.
— https://goblincorps.com/ageless-linux.html
systemd has implemented age verification.
I think there is a script out already that removes it.
— https://lunduke.substack.com/p/systemd-adds-age-verification-and
👻 darkghost · Mar 22 at 01:24:
There are also many init friendly distros, and BSD too
I imagine BSD-based OSs will have to comply as well...
@stack:
The idea of Gavin as president is actually more revolting/scary than Trump
I don't like Newsom one bit but, do you have any situational awareness? Trump is quite literally rounding up undesirables and sending them overseas to forced labor camps without any restraint. He is destroying any semblance of a social safety net the US once had. He collaborates with known techno-fascists.
That isn't to say I like Newsom—far from it. I don't like any politician. But to say that just because of some bullshit privacy-grabbing law that he's worse than Trump is an... interesting take.
~~~
@norayr:
i suggest other law: what if we forbid to use proprietary software till the 30?
because it can harm, make young brains addicted, and get used to constant surveillance and control by random entities in pursue of profit.
Actually kind of based tbh. If I thought laws were actually a good thing then I'd probably support this.
~~~
@lars_the_bear:
Sooner or later, though, on-line services are going to insist on ID.
The moment this happens, I'm just not going to use that service. Excluding things like banks which need my ID anyway, there's only like 2 proprietary web services I use (namely Discord and YouTube) and I'd probably be fine without them.
If you look at his trainwreck California, the fraud and tax hell of the US, the place people can't leave fast enough, you may understand my statement.
As for Trump... Sending "undesirable" (actually, criminal) non-citizens (from prisons) home is the least of my issues with this administration.
Sending "undesirable" non-citizens home is the least of my issues with this admibistration.
how, in good faith, can you call yourself an "anarchist" and still think "citizenship" is a meaningful thing that wasn't invented to control people.
All I see is people being forcibly removed from their communities by the violent gang we call "ICE", oftentimes taken to camps with horrible conditions or to places they previously left due to it being extremely unsafe for them.
I've said before that I am a terrible anarchist.
No, I don't believe in borders and entitlements, but I have to live in this world, and have to share it with other people, including the majority who elected this president largely on this issue.
It would be wiser to accept the loss and regroup, and find an _electable_ candidate instead of throwing tantrums and trying to throw the chessboard into the air.
The damage done in terms of human trafficking and suffering in order to bring cheap labor into this country, and the desire of some states to not deport prisoners who are forced into free labor corporate work camps, is horrible. There is no good way to unwind it, and the propaganda machine protects the Empire, using well-meaning people.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Mar 22 at 18:28:
@zipsegv : "The moment this happens, I'm just not going to use that service."
That's always been my attitude, too. But what's going to happen when you need verifiable ID to do _anything_ on the Internet? Even a DNS lookup? Even Gemini?
My experience is that politicians, when thwarted, tend to react by implementing even stupider policies. Like (in the UK) trying to ban VPNs becasue people are using them to get around age verification.
@lars_the_bear yeah no, we're in agreement. these laws are really bad in general.
GrapheneOS is refusing to cooperate. See HN
— https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479183
👻 darkghost · Mar 23 at 17:53:
OH NO now I won't be able to buy a GrapheneOS device in CO or CA!! Wait a minute.... I still can't buy a GrapheneOS device there now! I have to get a Pixel and pave it over!
Somehow I think TempleOS will not be complying either... Maybe it's time to listen to what God is saying.
Original Post
What's going on with california and colorado age verification? — Do they actually have anything to do with verification? Everyone is using the word verification, but any source that actually gets into what the bills require does not talk about verification. It seems to me that the laws are just about collecting age-based information, and using it to not show porn to minors. There seems to be no requirement to actually verify the information they collect. Am I completely misunderstanding what...