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I haven't read the bills yet but according to the article it applies to children under 18. 17-year-old me would have considered this draconian bullsh*t, for th

I haven't read the bills yet but according to the article it applies to children under 18. 17-year-old me would have considered this draconian bullsh*t, for the same reasons I would now. (So does dad me, incidentally. My kid's messages have always been her business, not mine.)

raincole 4y ago
I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17.
- jay_kyburz 4y ago
  Now I feel old.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Absolutely zero chance, SO was the only resource on the internet that had simple enough explanations for me when I started out programming at 11. I was making PRs to oss projects on Github and churning through Project Euler by 15. I literally owe my entire career to SO which is weird to say typing it out now.
  - folkrav 4y ago
    Reading these comments about people relying on SO - a site founded in 2008 - at age 11, doesn't make me feel any younger, and I'm not even that old (inching closer and closer to my mid-30s). I got into Linux and bash/Python scripting by following tutorials on random shady sites and reading official documentation and manpages. Let's just say it wasn't as seamless as Googling an issue and having a SO thread directly answer my question. Yes, I do realize I now sound like I just said "back in my day, we walked to school, uphill both ways".
    - Avicebron 4y ago
      Yea, it was actually wild when SO came out, because I'd been teaching myself lua pretty much independently, and by the time I got to high school, SO just barely on its way out and immediately everything was a lot easier. Old man yells at cloud, but kids these day won't even have to look at code, everything will be filtered through natural language.
    - raincole 4y ago
      "I feel old" on the internet can mean 15yo to 80yo, so you have all the right to feel old at mid-30s lol When I learned my second programming language (JavaScript), I asked most of my questions via a mailing list. It's quite weird trying to recall it... I almost forgot how mailing list work today.
    - Mezzie 4y ago
      Right? I learned through reading browser documentation in elementary school when CSS and JavaScript were implemented and then running to my dad or internet forums/chat rooms when I ran into topics or problems I didn't understand. None of us knew what we were doing. It was great.
    - tstrimple 4y ago
      Certainly you participated in related forums right? Before SO I was much more involved in online communities like https://gamedev.net/ https://gamedev.net/ which are also at risk due to this sort of bill.
      - folkrav 4y ago
        I actually did not, for some reason. I was on a bunch of phpBB forums in high school, but none surrounding programming/tech. I was obsessed with music and gaming way more than IT stuff, back then. I initially learned programming more as a means to an end (my first scripts were to automate backups to an external drive, transfer stuff between Windows/Linux, that kind of stuff), and just generally for my own enjoyment, than a real plan to do anything with it. I don't even think I realized it was a potential career path before I was already out of high school lol
- swader999 4y ago
  I'm sure our parents would have all let us sign up for a programming site. This bill still allows for that.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Who will pay GitHub to not only install age validation but parental bypass (also with validation)? I don’t believe they even allow under-13 today due to COPA laws. Of course this focus on the age 13 is completely missing the point that the actual age gate is 17.
    - bdw5204 4y ago
      The good part about the COPPA law is that it's an IQ test. If you're under 13, you have to be smart enough to understand that it's a "don't ask don't tell" situation and know to keep quiet. I did when I was 10 and joined Yahoo (the most popular social media site at the time) so I could have a Geocities web site and play fantasy baseball. I'd suggest that teens in Utah just use a VPN but social media sites have been cracking down on VPN users for years and many of those sites now require phone number verification to sign up. This law illustrates yet another reason why that's a bad idea.
      - htag 4y ago
        Looking back on my youth, I think these age verification check boxes were my earliest disregard for authority. I understood the checkboxes were there because there was a law that wanted to prevent me from accessing an online service. I thought the law was stupid, and after contemplating it for days decided to ignore it.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > I don’t believe they even allow under-13 today due to COPA laws. COPPA. COPA was the second attempt (after CDA, which was the first), COPPA was the third and the one that stuck.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    You underestimate how hard it might be to get your parent to sign some weird consent form from a "github" site, especially if it asks for a picture of the parent's ID (to ensure the kid isn't accepting the terms on their own behalf).
- hackernewds 4y ago
  GitHub is not being banned. Neither is SO.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    What part of the bill provides them an exception?
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      >What part of the bill provides them an exception? For Github? 10(b)(i)(N), to the extent that source code files are “documents”. For Stack Overflow? 10(b)(i)(J), which was probably written for LinkedIn specifically.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- RockRobotRock 4y ago
  Reddit is also an incredible resource for niche, constructive topics like learning how to build a computer. You could draw the line anywhere you want for social media.
  - chickencatsoup 4y ago
    I mean, this is why it's a common thing to append reddit.com to your google searchs nowadays. Seeing how others solved problems or getting a feel for their opinions on certain things is actually super useful.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  So that's why I didn't become a professional programmer. SO and Github hadn't been invented yet when I was 17.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    You’re thinking about it wrong. How many people that you knew when you were 17 would have become programmers if the current resources existed. See also: survivorship bias.
- cesarb 4y ago
  > I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17. I'm sure many of us didn't have any access to StackOverflow and GitHub when we were around 17 years old, because StackOverflow and GitHub didn't exist yet. For several of us, git didn't exist yet. Heck, for some of us, the web didn't exist yet! Kids these days...
  - shaunxcode 4y ago
    I remember having to send an email to the admin of sourceforge for permission to have a project and thus CVS access. "Please sir may I contribute to open source?"
  - McSwag 4y ago
    I’m kind of surprised but also not surprised in the outrage over the “draconian bulls*t.” The problem I have as a parent is that I can see it causing real social damage to adults around me, my own kids, and kids around my kids. Anti-social behavior, Disrespect for authority, extreme violence is easy to see and normalized (stuff that would normally be considered traumatic), wokeness and anti-wokeness is normalized (must we all have such strong opinions?). I’m talking behavior way more at extreme ends of the polarized spectrum and at earlier ages than what I grew up around. It’s basically force-fed opinions at a global scale, how can that possibly be healthy? We can barely fathom how this media impacts adults as it stands. All this clear evidence aside, I feel like it’s obvious, how can the absence of these things do any measurable harm to kids?
    - komali2 4y ago
      Regardless of your ethical stance on the subject, it would be a good exercise to consider who you're ok with determining what kind of content your children can view. Allowing a government to step in to pass laws like this is a draconian step too far. As a parent do you not already have all the tools you need to ensure your children don't use tik Tok? From the light touch and mundane, using the built in features of the operating system (parental blockers and app timers are available on Android and IOS) to the heavy touch of not allowing your kid to have a smartphone. Why do you want the government taking over this role for you? Maybe there's some parents who don't care if their children are on tik tok. Why should they follow the same parental strategy you have?
- bawolff 4y ago
  Oh i feel so old. I probably wouldn't be a programmer without sourceforge.
  - spiralx 4y ago
    I probably wouldn't be a programmer without ordering floppy disks full of random source code by post from software-by-post catalogues - one letter to ask for a catalogue, get the catalogue in the post, send them a letter with your order and a cheque and receive a bunch of disks a week later...
- LouisSayers 4y ago
  You have no idea. Before StackOverflow it was PAINFUL. Staring at "Reached end of file while parsing" errors and wondering wtf that even means... Then finding out after 5 hours that you missed a semicolon. Oh, and forget rounded borders, what a f@#%king nightmare.
  - raincole 4y ago
    Oh I have a lot of ideas. I started learning programming before Stackoverflow got traction. Plus I'm not a native speaker and by the time I didn't really speak English at all. So I practically needed to learn what "Reached end of file while parsing" means in plain English, then tried to find out that I had missed a semicolon :'(
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Hmmm...all I had was a blank screen and a Byte article.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> 17-year-old me would have considered this draconian bullsht, for the same reasons I would now. If anyone thinks that this bill is going to keep 17 year olds from accessing everything from Reddit to GitHub, they are going to be very disappointed. It's kind of wild to see so much of these comments insisting that anyone under the age of 18 be locked up and prevented from accessing basic internet sites and* encouraging laws that would force every site to implement strict ID verification just to use it. Did everyone just forget what it was like to grow up with draconian content blockers at school preventing you from getting to benign information on the internet?
- rhn_mk1 4y ago
  I don't think people instituting such laws are young enough to remember contet blockers at school.
- easrng 4y ago
  > draconian content blockers most school content blockers were pretty easily bypassed in my experience. i was in school relatively recently, my highschool had fortinet which sucked (sni blocking + blocks a bunch of protocols), but tor still got through if i used a bridge. i probably could've used a vpn but tor was easier. before highschool there wasn't anything more than dns filtering (and briefly http host blocking but not sni blocking) which was bypassed by approximately everyone (who wanted to bypass it). most people used random vpn apps, i changed dns, both worked fine.
decremental 4y ago
> My kid's messages have always been her business, not mine This is such a hilariously bad take. No wonder kids are so screwed up with parents having an attitude like that.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  Agreed. It’s not even a take it’s just a concerning statement. They should care.

raincole 4y ago

I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17.

jay_kyburz 4y ago
Now I feel old.
Spivak 4y ago
Absolutely zero chance, SO was the only resource on the internet that had simple enough explanations for me when I started out programming at 11. I was making PRs to oss projects on Github and churning through Project Euler by 15. I literally owe my entire career to SO which is weird to say typing it out now.
- folkrav 4y ago
  Reading these comments about people relying on SO - a site founded in 2008 - at age 11, doesn't make me feel any younger, and I'm not even that old (inching closer and closer to my mid-30s). I got into Linux and bash/Python scripting by following tutorials on random shady sites and reading official documentation and manpages. Let's just say it wasn't as seamless as Googling an issue and having a SO thread directly answer my question. Yes, I do realize I now sound like I just said "back in my day, we walked to school, uphill both ways".
  - Avicebron 4y ago
    Yea, it was actually wild when SO came out, because I'd been teaching myself lua pretty much independently, and by the time I got to high school, SO just barely on its way out and immediately everything was a lot easier. Old man yells at cloud, but kids these day won't even have to look at code, everything will be filtered through natural language.
  - raincole 4y ago
    "I feel old" on the internet can mean 15yo to 80yo, so you have all the right to feel old at mid-30s lol When I learned my second programming language (JavaScript), I asked most of my questions via a mailing list. It's quite weird trying to recall it... I almost forgot how mailing list work today.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    Right? I learned through reading browser documentation in elementary school when CSS and JavaScript were implemented and then running to my dad or internet forums/chat rooms when I ran into topics or problems I didn't understand. None of us knew what we were doing. It was great.
  - tstrimple 4y ago
    Certainly you participated in related forums right? Before SO I was much more involved in online communities like https://gamedev.net/ https://gamedev.net/ which are also at risk due to this sort of bill.
    - folkrav 4y ago
      I actually did not, for some reason. I was on a bunch of phpBB forums in high school, but none surrounding programming/tech. I was obsessed with music and gaming way more than IT stuff, back then. I initially learned programming more as a means to an end (my first scripts were to automate backups to an external drive, transfer stuff between Windows/Linux, that kind of stuff), and just generally for my own enjoyment, than a real plan to do anything with it. I don't even think I realized it was a potential career path before I was already out of high school lol
swader999 4y ago
I'm sure our parents would have all let us sign up for a programming site. This bill still allows for that.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Who will pay GitHub to not only install age validation but parental bypass (also with validation)? I don’t believe they even allow under-13 today due to COPA laws. Of course this focus on the age 13 is completely missing the point that the actual age gate is 17.
  - bdw5204 4y ago
    The good part about the COPPA law is that it's an IQ test. If you're under 13, you have to be smart enough to understand that it's a "don't ask don't tell" situation and know to keep quiet. I did when I was 10 and joined Yahoo (the most popular social media site at the time) so I could have a Geocities web site and play fantasy baseball. I'd suggest that teens in Utah just use a VPN but social media sites have been cracking down on VPN users for years and many of those sites now require phone number verification to sign up. This law illustrates yet another reason why that's a bad idea.
    - htag 4y ago
      Looking back on my youth, I think these age verification check boxes were my earliest disregard for authority. I understood the checkboxes were there because there was a law that wanted to prevent me from accessing an online service. I thought the law was stupid, and after contemplating it for days decided to ignore it.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > I don’t believe they even allow under-13 today due to COPA laws. COPPA. COPA was the second attempt (after CDA, which was the first), COPPA was the third and the one that stuck.
- judge2020 4y ago
  You underestimate how hard it might be to get your parent to sign some weird consent form from a "github" site, especially if it asks for a picture of the parent's ID (to ensure the kid isn't accepting the terms on their own behalf).
hackernewds 4y ago
GitHub is not being banned. Neither is SO.
- falcolas 4y ago
  What part of the bill provides them an exception?
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    >What part of the bill provides them an exception? For Github? 10(b)(i)(N), to the extent that source code files are “documents”. For Stack Overflow? 10(b)(i)(J), which was probably written for LinkedIn specifically.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
RockRobotRock 4y ago
Reddit is also an incredible resource for niche, constructive topics like learning how to build a computer. You could draw the line anywhere you want for social media.
- chickencatsoup 4y ago
  I mean, this is why it's a common thing to append reddit.com to your google searchs nowadays. Seeing how others solved problems or getting a feel for their opinions on certain things is actually super useful.
nkrisc 4y ago
So that's why I didn't become a professional programmer. SO and Github hadn't been invented yet when I was 17.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  You’re thinking about it wrong. How many people that you knew when you were 17 would have become programmers if the current resources existed. See also: survivorship bias.
cesarb 4y ago
> I'm sure many of us wouldn't have been a programmer if we hadn't had access to SO/Github around 17. I'm sure many of us didn't have any access to StackOverflow and GitHub when we were around 17 years old, because StackOverflow and GitHub didn't exist yet. For several of us, git didn't exist yet. Heck, for some of us, the web didn't exist yet! Kids these days...
- shaunxcode 4y ago
  I remember having to send an email to the admin of sourceforge for permission to have a project and thus CVS access. "Please sir may I contribute to open source?"
- McSwag 4y ago
  I’m kind of surprised but also not surprised in the outrage over the “draconian bulls*t.” The problem I have as a parent is that I can see it causing real social damage to adults around me, my own kids, and kids around my kids. Anti-social behavior, Disrespect for authority, extreme violence is easy to see and normalized (stuff that would normally be considered traumatic), wokeness and anti-wokeness is normalized (must we all have such strong opinions?). I’m talking behavior way more at extreme ends of the polarized spectrum and at earlier ages than what I grew up around. It’s basically force-fed opinions at a global scale, how can that possibly be healthy? We can barely fathom how this media impacts adults as it stands. All this clear evidence aside, I feel like it’s obvious, how can the absence of these things do any measurable harm to kids?
  - komali2 4y ago
    Regardless of your ethical stance on the subject, it would be a good exercise to consider who you're ok with determining what kind of content your children can view. Allowing a government to step in to pass laws like this is a draconian step too far. As a parent do you not already have all the tools you need to ensure your children don't use tik Tok? From the light touch and mundane, using the built in features of the operating system (parental blockers and app timers are available on Android and IOS) to the heavy touch of not allowing your kid to have a smartphone. Why do you want the government taking over this role for you? Maybe there's some parents who don't care if their children are on tik tok. Why should they follow the same parental strategy you have?
bawolff 4y ago
Oh i feel so old. I probably wouldn't be a programmer without sourceforge.
- spiralx 4y ago
  I probably wouldn't be a programmer without ordering floppy disks full of random source code by post from software-by-post catalogues - one letter to ask for a catalogue, get the catalogue in the post, send them a letter with your order and a cheque and receive a bunch of disks a week later...
LouisSayers 4y ago
You have no idea. Before StackOverflow it was PAINFUL. Staring at "Reached end of file while parsing" errors and wondering wtf that even means... Then finding out after 5 hours that you missed a semicolon. Oh, and forget rounded borders, what a f@#%king nightmare.
- raincole 4y ago
  Oh I have a lot of ideas. I started learning programming before Stackoverflow got traction. Plus I'm not a native speaker and by the time I didn't really speak English at all. So I practically needed to learn what "Reached end of file while parsing" means in plain English, then tried to find out that I had missed a semicolon :'(
datavirtue 4y ago
Hmmm...all I had was a blank screen and a Byte article.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> 17-year-old me would have considered this draconian bullsht, for the same reasons I would now. If anyone thinks that this bill is going to keep 17 year olds from accessing everything from Reddit to GitHub, they are going to be very disappointed. It's kind of wild to see so much of these comments insisting that anyone under the age of 18 be locked up and prevented from accessing basic internet sites and* encouraging laws that would force every site to implement strict ID verification just to use it. Did everyone just forget what it was like to grow up with draconian content blockers at school preventing you from getting to benign information on the internet?

rhn_mk1 4y ago
I don't think people instituting such laws are young enough to remember contet blockers at school.
easrng 4y ago
> draconian content blockers most school content blockers were pretty easily bypassed in my experience. i was in school relatively recently, my highschool had fortinet which sucked (sni blocking + blocks a bunch of protocols), but tor still got through if i used a bridge. i probably could've used a vpn but tor was easier. before highschool there wasn't anything more than dns filtering (and briefly http host blocking but not sni blocking) which was bypassed by approximately everyone (who wanted to bypass it). most people used random vpn apps, i changed dns, both worked fine.

decremental 4y ago

> My kid's messages have always been her business, not mine This is such a hilariously bad take. No wonder kids are so screwed up with parents having an attitude like that.

throwayyy479087 4y ago
Agreed. It’s not even a take it’s just a concerning statement. They should care.