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Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

• jwr 7mo ago
  I am now waiting for Gruber (daringfireball.net) to post another rant about how terrible EU regulation is. Zero-knowledge proofs are the way to go for this type of thing, I find it mind-boggling that the US lets itself be bamboozled into complete lack of privacy.
  • cosmos0072 7mo ago
    I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS
    • croes 7mo ago
      You could make the same case for parental control as evil. "You‘re reading about evolution! Not in my house"
      • cosmos0072 7mo ago
        Parents already have a lot of control on children' education. Examples: most children believe in the same religion as their parents, and can visit friends and places only if/when allowed by their parents. This is simply extending the same level of control to the internet. Government-mandated restrictions are completely another level.
        • croes 7mo ago
          Who controls your age if you try to buy alcohol. Who controls your age if you want to see an R-rated movie? This is simply extending the same level of control to the internet. More control for parents is a completely different level.
          • applfanboysbgon 7mo ago
            Disingenuous, but I'm sure you know that and were being intentionally so. The government is not using alcohol age laws as a justification to place a camera in your bedroom to make sure you aren't sneaking booze, but it is using internet age laws as a justification to surveil your entire life in a world which is becoming increasingly digital-mandatory to participate in government services or the economy. Nobody had a problem with internet age laws when "are you over 13? yes/no" was legally sufficient.
            • croes 7mo ago
              You‘re missing the point > Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS Parent prefers more control by parents over zero-knowledge proof
              • applfanboysbgon 7mo ago
                If that was your point, I don't think your previous comment did a very good job of making it at all. I do think parental controls can be and are abused for evil, but they're still better than the alternative. Zero-knowledge proof is not an alternative, and to suggest that it is is misunderstanding the situation. These laws are proposed and funded by people who want complete surveillance of the population. Zero-knowledge proof is, therefore, explicitly contrary to the goal and will never be implemented under any circumstances. Suggesting that it can be muddies the issue and tricks people into supporting legislation that exists only to be used against them. In a benevolent dictatorship, sure, go for a zero-knowledge proof verification as your solution. In the reality of democracy, where politicians are corporate puppets who cloak surveillance laws in "think of the children" to rally support from the masses, we need to convince people to see through the lie and reject the proposals outright while reassuring them that they can protect the children themselves via parental controls. You will never be able to sufficiently inform 50.1% of the population of any country of what zero-knowledge proof even means, let alone convince them to support age verification laws but strictly conditional on ZKP requirements. That level of nuance is far too much to ask of millions of people who are not technically-informed, and idealism needs to give way to pragmatism if we wish to avoid the worst-case scenario.
    • tasuki 7mo ago
      > My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online As a parent, sure, that is my stance as well. What... what other stances are there even? How would they work?
      • Markoff 7mo ago
        ignore parent, outsource parenting to gov verification authority TBH many parents done exactly that by giving phones/tablet already to kids in strollers
        • graemep 7mo ago
          The latter is true, but we cannot regulate the vast majority of parents on the basis of the worst.
      • pjc50 7mo ago
        The steelman argument is that parents are not necessarily up to date on the technology, and cannot reasonably be expected to supervise teenagers 24/7 up to the age of 18. Compare movie ratings or alcohol laws, for example: there's a non-parental obligation on third parties not to provide alcohol to children or let them in to R18 showings. But the implementation matters, and almost all of these bills internationally are being done in bad faith by coordinated big-money groups against technologically illiterate and reactionary populist governments. (if we really want to get into an argument, there's what the UK calls "Gillick competence": the ability of children to seek medical treatment without the knowledge and against the will of their parents)
        • _heimdall 7mo ago
          That steelman still stands on a core assumption that its both the state's responsibility and right to step in and parent on everyone's behalf. Maybe a majority of people today agree with that, but I know I don't and I never hear that assumption debated directly.
          • 7mo ago
    • himata4113 7mo ago
      Yes! This is the way, give parents the ABILITY to advertise the users age to browsers, apps and everything in between. Only target cooperations, do not target open source projects. Fine websites for not using this API (ex: porn sites). Assume an adult if not present.
      • idiotsecant 7mo ago
        This is a great solution to the stated problem. The issue is that nobody is actually trying to solve the stated problem. This is a terrible solution to the real 'problem' which is the lack of surveillance power and information control.
        • simion314 7mo ago
          >This is a great solution to the stated problem. The issue is that nobody is actually trying to solve the stated problem. This is a terrible solution to the real 'problem' which is the lack of surveillance power and information control. So on the Sony consoles I created an account for my child and guess what they have implemented some stuff to block children from adult content on some stuff. So if Big Tech would actually want to prevent laws to be created could make it easy for a parent to setup the account for a child (most children this days have mobile stuff and consoles so they could start with those), we just need the browsers to read the age flag from the OS and put it in a header, then the websites owners can respect that flag. I know that someone would say that some clever teen would crack their locked down windows/linux to change the flag but this is a super rare case, we should start with the 99% cases, mobile phones and consoles are already locked down so an OS API that tells the browser if this is an child account and a browser header would solve the issue, most porn websites or similar adult sites would have no reason not to respect this header , it would make their job easier then say Steam having to always popup a birth date thing when a game is mature.
          • himata4113 7mo ago
            That's why I suggested kernel enforced security (simple syscall) that applications could implement and are incredibly hard to spoof / create tools and workarounds for, but I got downvoted to hell. Permission restricted registry entry (already exists) and a syscall that reads it (already exists) for windows and a file that requires sudo to edit (already exists) and a syscall to read it (already exists). Works on every distro automatically as well including android phones since they run the linux kernel anyway. Apple can figure it out and they already have appleid.
    • heavyset_go 7mo ago
      > Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS To be honest, I worry that the framing of this legislation and ZKP generally presents a false dichotomy, where second-option bias[1] prevails because of the draconian first option. There's always another option: don't implement age verification laws at all. App and website developers shouldn't be burdened with extra costly liability to make sure someone's kids don't read a curse word, parents can use the plethora of parental controls on the market if they're that worried. [1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_minority#Second-option_bias https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_minority#Second-...
      • verisimi 7mo ago
        > There's always another option: don't implement age verification laws at all. Where do you go to vote for this option?
      • ndriscoll 7mo ago
        > App and website developers shouldn't be burdened with extra costly liability Why not? Physical businesses have liability if they provide age restricted items to children. As far as I know, strip clubs are liable for who enters. Selling alcohol to a child carries personal criminal liability for store clerks. Assuming society decides to restrict something from children, why should online businesses be exempt? On who should be responsible, parents or businesses, historically the answer has been both. Parents have decision making authority. Businesses must not undermine that by providing service to minors.
        • MSFT_Edging 7mo ago
          > Physical businesses have liability if they provide age restricted items to children. These are often clear cut. They're physical controlled items. Tobacco, alcohol, guns, physical porn, and sometimes things like spray paint. The internet is not. There are people who believe discussions about human sexuality (ie "how do I know if I'm gay?") should be age restricted. There are people who believe any discussion about the human form should be age restricted. What about discussions of other forms of government? Plenty would prefer their children not be able to learn about communism from anywhere other than the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. The landscape of age restricting information is infinitely more complex than age restricting physical items. This complexity enables certain actors to censor wide swaths of information due to a provider's fear of liability. This is closer to a law that says "if a store sells an item that is used to damage property whatsoever, they are liable", so now the store owner must fear the full can of soda could be used to break a window.
    • teekert 7mo ago
      "mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices." Meh, I use it, but it's super annoying and I think that with my Daughter I'll take a different approach (but it will be some years before that is relevant). On Android: The kid can easily go on Snapchat (after approval of install of course, and then you can just see their "friends") before Pokemon Go (just a pain to get working, it keeps presenting some borked version which led to a lot of confusion at first). I just lied about his age in a bunch of places at some point. Snapchat is horrible and sick from our experiences in the first week. On Windows: It's a curated set of websites (and no FireFox) or access to everything. It's not even workable for just school. Granting kids access to our own minercraft servers: My god, I felt dirty about what the other parents had to go through to enable that.
      • epiccoleman 7mo ago
        > Granting kids access to our own minercraft servers: My god, I felt dirty about what the other parents had to go through to enable that. This is a hobby horse of mine to the point that coworkers probably wish I'd just stfu about Minecraft - but holy shit is it crazy how many different things you need to get right to get kids playing together. I genuinely have no idea how parents without years of "navigating technical bullshit" experience ever manage to make it happen. Juggling Microsoft accounts, Nintendo accounts, menu-diving through one of 37 different account details pages , Xbox accounts, GamePass subscriptions - it's just fucking crazy!
        • teekert 7mo ago
          I always wonder about this. I read most dialogs (as I do) but man, the sanity of most people must require that they just next next next this stuff right? Perhaps they even let their kids do it instead.
          • bcrosby95 7mo ago
            If you're using something like a fire tablet and you set them up as a kids account that's not how it works. If you next through everything your kid cannot play minecraft online, not even on your own little private server. Getting an actual kids account to work online with minecraft involves setting the right permissions across 2-4 websites and 1-3 companies. I think it took me around 4 hours of trial and error to get it working.
    • lynx97 7mo ago
      Same here, EU citizen who thinks parents should do some parenting, after all. However, try to confront "modern" parents with your position. Many of them will fight you immediately, because they think the state is supposed to do their work... Its a very concerning development.
    • Pxtl 7mo ago
      > My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Imho there is a place for regulation in that, actually. Devices that parents are managing as child devices could include an OS API and browser HTTP header for "hey is this a child?" These devices are functionally adminned by the parent so the owner of the device is still in control, just not the user. Just like the cookie thing - these things should all be HTTP headers. "This site is requesting your something, do you want to send it? Y/N [X] remember my choice." Do that for GPS, browser fingerprint, off-domain tracking cookies (not the stupid cookie banner), adulthood information, etc. It would be perfectly reasonable for the EU to legislate that. "OS and browsers are required to offer an API to expose age verification status of the client, and the device is required to let an administrative user set it, and provide instructions to parents on how to lock down a device such that their child user's device will be marked as a child without the ability for the child to change it". Either way, though, I'm far more worried about children being radicalized online by political extremists than I am about them occasionally seeing a penis. And a lot of radicalizing content is not considered "adult".
    • soulofmischief 7mo ago
      I'll go further. As a human being, I am responsible for myself. I grew up in an extremely abusive, impoverished, cult-like religious home where anything not approved by White Jesus was disallowed. I owe everything about who I am today to learning how to circumvent firewalls and other forms of restriction. I would almost certainly be dead if I hadn't learned to socialize and program on the web despite it being strictly forbidden at home. Most of my interests, politics and personality were forged at 2am, as quiet as possible, browsing the web on live discs. I now support myself through those interests. We're so quick to forget that kids are people, too. And today, they often know how to safely navigate the internet better than their aging caretakers who have allowed editorial "news" and social media to warp their minds. Even for people who think they're really doing a good thing by supporting these kinds of insane laws that are designed to restrict our 1A rights: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
      • duskdozer 7mo ago
        This is obviously where it's going to go, at least in the US. Things that are non-religious, non-Christian especially, pro-LGBT, and similar will be disproportionately pulled under "adult content" to ensure that children are not able to be exposed to unapproved ideas during formative years.
        • soulofmischief 7mo ago
          Exactly. Having lived through it already, I know what it did to me and I would never wish that upon another child. The internet saved me from being a religious, colonial, racist piece of shit like the rest of my family.
          • rustystump 7mo ago
            [flagged]
            • soulofmischief 7mo ago
              Did you have an actual point to make or did you just choose two random words and hurl an insult with zero context? Were you looking for an actual discussion or is this all you had to offer?
    • module1973 7mo ago
      that is correct the parents are meant to pass on morals and parent the child. If the parents fall through, there is the community such as church, neighbors, schools etc. The absolute last resort is government or law enforcement intervention, and this should be considered an extreme situation. But as John Adams noted, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people" -- in other words, all these laws start to rip at the seams when the fabric of society, the people who make up the society no longer have morals. But I appreciate this article in general, we need to fight against mass surveilance at all costs.
      • pixl97 7mo ago
        >all these laws start to rip at the seams when the fabric of society, the people who make up the society no longer have morals Morals like owning slaves, right? A moral system that requires everyone to be white Christian males isn't a moral system, it's a theocracy.
  • axegon_ 7mo ago
    Though the EU is at large keeping it's composure with this. My only criticism towards the EU as an EU citizen is how slow and bureaucratic the EU is and that decisions that should be made on the fly are dragged on forever. That said, government agencies have been doing a terrible job at keeping the private information of citizens safe. But it is nowhere nearly as bad as the US. My best childhood friend died in very questionable circumstances in 2009 in the US in very questionable circumstances. He had a US citizenship and we never really found out what had happened(to the point where we never really got any definitive proof that he had died). But that didn't stop me from trying and I was blown away by the fact that I could log into a US government website, register with a burner mail, pay 2 bucks with an anonymous gift credit/debit card and get a scanned copy of his death certificate in my email. And I didn't even have to provide his passport/id/anything. Just his name. Point is, the US has been terrible at privacy for as long as I can remember. It is probably worse now with Facebook and Ellison holding TikTok.
    • pjc50 7mo ago
      The critical thing is not so much "Americans" as "big money". Big Russian money is also a threat. Big Chinese money .. well, there's a bit of that about, but it doesn't seem to have shown up at the legislation influencing layer.
      • axegon_ 7mo ago
        Oh, that's a different topic: as someone from and living in eastern Europe, there's not a single doubt in my mind that the biggest threat to any civilization is russia by a long shot. The alarming part is that the current US administration hasn't got a single clue of history, suffers from chronic incompetence and the whole superiority complex and fanboying russia as a consequence - those pose a threat. In the context of the conversation, the incompetence is arguably the biggest facepalm moment.
        • lionkor 7mo ago
          > the biggest threat to any civilization is russia Surely you meant this as hyperbole, right? If not, I would love your reasoning as to why its a bigger threat than literally anything and anyone else.
  • mrob 7mo ago
    Zero-knowledge proofs are unworkable for age verification because they can't prevent use of somebody else's credentials.
    • a022311 7mo ago
      The same argument could be said for other age verification methods. Nothing stops a kid from getting their older cousin to verify their identity for something and it will never be possible to prevent this.
      • mrob 7mo ago
        The people proposing these laws presumably think imperfect enforcement is better than no enforcement at all. In the non-zero-knowledge case, it's possible to revoke falsely shared credentials.
        • Aurornis 7mo ago
          > In the non-zero-knowledge case, it's possible to revoke falsely shared credentials. In a true zero-knowledge system sharing falsely shared credentials becomes easy because it’s untraceable. If the proof has no knowledge attached, you can’t conclude who used their credentials on a website that generates proof-of-age tokens on demand for visitors.
          • mrob 7mo ago
            Yes, that's exactly why it can't work.
      • gzread 7mo ago
        The one where the root user can enable parental controls requires the kid to know their parent's password or save up to buy their own device.
        • iamnothere 7mo ago
          Oh no, a $20 Walmart phone, how will they ever afford it. (Note, this is why they won’t stop at the CA bill.)
  • choo-t 7mo ago
    Even with ZKP this is still highly problematic, it create difficulty for undocumented people to access the web, create ton of phishing opportunity, reinforce censorship on most site (as they will now all need to be minor compliant or need age verification), reinforce the chilling effect and make the web even less crawlable/archivable (or you need to give a valid citizen ID to your crawler/archiver). With no proof it will protect anyone from proven harm.
    • gruez 7mo ago
      >it create difficulty for undocumented people to access the web Why is this such a sticking point in US politics? If the "undocumented" people aren't supposed to be in the country in the first place, why should rest of society cater to them? Even if you're against age verification for other reasons, dragging in the immigration angle is just going to alienate the other half of the population who don't share your view on undocumented people, and is a great way to turn a non-partisan issue into a partisan one. It's kind of like campaigning for medicare for all, and then listing "free abortions and gender affirming surgery" as one of the arguments for it.
      • ryandrake 7mo ago
        There are many ways to not have a state or national ID document in the USA. You might simply not have a driver license or passport. That's totally legal. You might be in the country temporarily for business or as a tourist. The constitution applies to all of these people.
        • gruez 7mo ago
          >There are many ways to not have a state or national ID document in the USA. You might simply not have a driver license or passport. That's totally legal. Great, frame it as "poor people without IDs" or whatever, not "undocumented", which in the current political discourse is basically the left's version of the term "illegal immigrant". >You might be in the country temporarily for business or as a tourist. The constitution applies to all of these people. The constitutional right to... watch 18+ videos on youtube while in the US?
  • attila-lendvai 7mo ago
    it's not about protecting children. that's only the PR. once you get this you stop asking why the tech details are the way they are.
    • edgyquant 7mo ago
      Counterpoint: yes it is
      • officeplant 7mo ago
        Countercounterpoint: It's privacy destruction creep and it always has been.
        • gzread 7mo ago
          Countercountercounterpoint: did you actually read the California age "verification" law?
          • officeplant 7mo ago
            Countercountercountercounterpoint: Yes and like every other age verification scheme in the US the underlying idea is privacy erosion. With a side serving of censorship given most dev's can't be bothered to implement these age verification schemes into their software so users might just end up gated out of applications if their OS goes through with this nonsense. Other states are even worse, creating another way to have your buddy buddy lobbyist folks fire up a new business opportunity to make money as a verification service.
            • gzread 7mo ago
              Type in the number 30 to disable gating
  • keybored 7mo ago
    Two billion in lobbying. And the conclusion is that regulation is the problem?
  • gzread 7mo ago
    No, the way to go is the California way. The device owner (root user) can enter the age of the user. Restrictions are applied based on that. Nothing is verified.
    • EmbarrassedHelp 7mo ago
      That way should be paired with "adult by default". So that No age data means adult.
  • totetsu 7mo ago
    Seeming as this affect everyone .. Is there anything like and Open Collective .. grassroots consortium, to put together strong sensible zero-knowledge proof based policy examples that could be given to law-makers instead of this shadowy surveillance Trojan horse nonsense?
    • EmbarrassedHelp 7mo ago
      The real answer is that there is no solution to the problem other than what basically amounts to better parental controls.
  • jmyeet 7mo ago
    Not sure what the Gruber thing is about. I guess I lack context. But on ZKP, I will agree but add this: The only authority that can be trusted to do age verification is the government. You know, those people who give you birth certificates, passports, SSNs, driver's licenses, etc. The idea that parental supervision here is sufficient has been shown to be wholly inadequate. I'm sorry but that train has sailed. Age verification is coming. It's just a question of who does it and what form it takes. Take Youtube, for example. I think it should work like this: 1. If you're not of sufficient age, you simply don't see comments. At all; 2. Minors shouldn't see ads. At all; 3. Videos deemed to have age-restricted content should be visible; 4. If you're not logged in, you're treated as an age-restricted user; and 5. Viewing via a VPN means you need age verification regardless of your country of origin. It's not perfect. It doesn't have to be.
  • ori_b 7mo ago
    The way to go for this kind of thing is to not go for this kind of thing at all.
  • zoobab 7mo ago
    "how terrible EU regulation is" Judges in other countries (Texas) found out this kind of law was a violation of the Free Speech. Since when Free Speech do not apply to -16y old? Made laws are made, then killed by courts later one.
  • alecco 7mo ago
    You are missing the point. The real purpose is to control the Internet and free speech. They've been trying this for ages. Now the excuse is protecting children. Soon terrorism will be back. And don't forget aոtisеmіtism, too. Not exactly a good moment for this particular caste of politicians/elites to pretend they care about children's well-being!
    • everdrive 7mo ago
      The internet we grew up with is nearly gone. For my part I've downloaded most of what I want and am trying to move more towards physical books. I think in the future, the internet could be a lot like cable TV. The value it brings is not worth the costs it imposes.
  • Aurornis 7mo ago
    > Zero-knowledge proofs are the way to go for this type of thing, The benefit of zero-knowledge proofs is that the hide information about the ID and who it belongs to. That’s also a limitation for how useful they are as an ID check mechanism. At the extreme, it reduces to “this user has access to an ID of someone 18+”. If there is truly a zero-knowledge construction using cryptographic primitives then the obvious next step is for someone to create an ad-supported web site where you click a button and they generate a zero-knowledge token from their ID for you to use. Zero knowledge means it can’t be traced back to them. The entire system is defeated. This always attracts the rebuttal of “there will always be abuse, so what?” but when abuse becomes 1-click and accessible to every child who can Google, it’s not a little bit of abuse. It’s just security theater. So the real cryptographic ID implementations make compromises to try to prevent this abuse. You might be limited to 3 tokens at a time and you have to request them from a central government mechanism which can log requests for rate limiting purposes. That’s better but the zero-knowledge part is starting to be weakened and now your interactions with private services require an interaction with a government server. It’s just not a simple problem that can be solved with cryptographic primitives while also achieving the actual ID goals of these laws.
  • EmbarrassedHelp 7mo ago
    Zero-knowledge proofs are only anonymous in theory if you ignore the issue of requiring a third party, and the issue of implementations. And according to the EU Identity Wallet's documentation, the EU's planned system requires highly invasive age verification to obtain 30 single use, easily trackable tokens that expire after 3 months. It also bans jailbreaking/rooting your device, and requires GooglePlay Services/IOS equivalent be installed to "prevent tampering". You have to blindly trust that the tokens will not be tracked, which is a total no-go for privacy. These massive privacy issues have all been raised on their Github, and the team behind the wallet have been ignoring them.
• simonebrunozzi 7mo ago
  Not surprisingly, Meta is possibly the worst "offender" behind funding of these campaigns.
  • lotsofpulp 7mo ago
    I’m curious why Meta would benefit. Meta seems wholly unnecessary, the verification can be done at the OS level, completely in the hands of Apple/Alphabet and maybe Microsoft. If anything, Meta’s utility would seem to shrink if the OS handles proof of being a real person.
    • wil421 7mo ago
      Liability and they probably want whatever blob of bits they use to identify you from the OS.
    • negroesrnegro 7mo ago
      because upstart competitors cant afford the verification process / lobbying efforts next instagram wont be bought out, it cant even begin to exist
    • pjc50 7mo ago
      Meta get to impose verified ID on everyone and link it to their advertisers, AND kill competing networks.
    • c0balt 7mo ago
      Regulatory capture through a higher barrier to entry. Any social media platform that wants to compete with Meta's portfolio will now also need to have an age-verification system in place (which is guaranteed to introduce higher costs). Meta can likely afford to eat the costs here as a tradeoff for the higher impact on smaller players. It also gives them more information on users as a bonus. Further, verification with a real ID is also a quite effective barrier against excessive bots.
      • lotsofpulp 7mo ago
• Terr_ 7mo ago
  Oh look, the Heritage Foundation, the ones who wrote up the "Project 2025" agenda for most of the corruption and authoritarianism that has plagued America in the last year. The very last people you should trust when it comes to "protecting the children."
  • turbinemonkey 7mo ago
    Heritage has been laying waste to America my whole life. They basically planned all of Reagan's legislative agenda, too, just like Project 2025 is doing today. In very real ways, they and their vision are America (a system is what it does, not what it says it does).
  • bluescrn 7mo ago
    To me it feels that the age verfication (adult de-anonymisation) push, at least in Europe, is coming more from the increasingly-authoritarian left as a reaction to the rise of the online right and Musk's Twitter. (Maybe some unspoken element of concern over social media bots, too - as they evolve from spamming copy+pasted comments to being near-indistinguisable from actual human accounts?)
    • dv_dt 7mo ago
      It would be interesting to see a similar lobbying breakdown for the EU and UK. I bet it's still Meta with other right wing actors. The left rarely has the money for this kind of lobbying scale
    • malfist 7mo ago
      If you look at the people pushing these bills it's the anti-trans and anti-porn activists. Not the left.
      • phendrenad2 7mo ago
        In Europe though? You have those?
      • dingi 7mo ago
• turbinemonkey 7mo ago
  Compare this to what the EU built. The EU Digital Identity Wallet under eIDAS 2.0 is open-source, self-hostable, and uses zero-knowledge proofs. You can prove you're over 18 without revealing your birth date, your name, or anything else. No per-check fees, no proprietary SDKs, no data going to a vendor's cloud. The EU's Digital Services Act puts age verification obligations on Very Large Online Platforms (45M+ monthly users), not on operating systems. FOSS projects that don't act as intermediary services are explicitly outside scope. Micro and small enterprises get additional exemptions. The US bills assume every operating system is built by a corporation with the infrastructure and revenue to absorb these costs. The EU started from the opposite assumption and built accordingly. Just another reminder of how we need to protect what we have in the EU (not a guarantee, but at least a chance of fair dealing and a sustained commitment to civic values). Now that the mask has fully fallen, we have to take every step possible to root out American influence.
  • sidewndr46 7mo ago
    Isn't eIDAS the same technology stack that would put the government in total control of what websites you can view & what ones you can't? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_website_authentication_certificate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_website_authenticati...
    • turbinemonkey 7mo ago
      QWACs exist to provide a more stringent and user-accessible way to assert a website's identity, mostly to foil phishing and other exploits that regular certificate systems don't address well. Where does this cross into censorship at all?
      • sidewndr46 7mo ago
        When the government decides not to issue certificates to websites they don't like.
        • turbinemonkey 7mo ago
• Chance-Device 7mo ago
  TLDR: Meta want to push all the age verification requirements onto the OS makers (Apple, Google, everyone else gets caught in the crossfire) so that they don’t have to do anything AND they want it done in such a way that they can use it to profile people to push them targeted ads. Its like they want to keep being seen as the bad guys.
  • chongli 7mo ago
    I think this is also a way of getting ahead of any “ban social media for teens and preteens” bills that might pop up in the US. They do not want repeats of Australia! By adding age verification into the operating system they can deflect responsibility but also respond to legislators with a scalpel rather than getting sledge-hammered.
    • user_7832 7mo ago
      …Honestly this seems something very likely, more than the other suggestions.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago
    I want age verification but not at the OS level.
    • gzread 7mo ago
      What would a world with your preferred age verification system look like?
      • triceratops 7mo ago
        If age verification has to exist at all, it could look something like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46447282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46447282 And responses to some common criticisms of the idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459959 I also forgot to mention in my original post that the token issuer is not a monopoly. Any company that wants to participate can do so, just like there are many brands of tobacco and alcohol. Require websites to accept at least 5 providers to ensure competition. To be clear though if it's being used as wedge for privacy violation then it should not exist at all. And from reading TFA preventing that may need a similarly coordinated counter-effort.
• nobodyandproud 7mo ago
  Jesus. As an American I can do my part, but it’s not much. $70 million is chump change for Meta, yet is far more money than I’ll ever have and does so much to influence state legislation.
  • mrtesthah 7mo ago
    We should ask ourselves why we continue to participate and perpetuate economic systems that result in levels of inequality so vast that they threaten control of our democracy.
  • trymas 7mo ago
    Time and time again it amazes me how incredibly cheap lobbied politicians are. They may be earning big sums for an individual, but if you go full corruption[1] to sell out a state or a country - sell it for a fair price. I remember from peak net neutrality discussions during trump 1 maybe around 2017-2018 ant saw an article on theverge.com (that cannot find now) and biggest sum to individual politician was around $200k, when median values were much much lower. Politicians are selling tens of billions of dollars (if not hundreds of billions) worth of revenue to ISPs for couple or dozen million. Literally 1000x return on investment (if successful). I remember local politician (I am not from US) got caught taking 100k bribe from a company for helping with alleged highway construction procurement. Project was valued ~1B - 10 000x return on investment (if they wouldn't have been caught). [1] I am sorry, not "corruption", but "lobbying".
    • budman1 7mo ago
      in the 1990's there was a woman prime minister of Turkey. she ended up resigning in a scandal caused by her husband accepting a boat (or work on the boat..i don't remember). the scandal was caused by the amount of the bribe. it was too low. the Turkish people could understand some corruption, but to be able to bribe the top leader for $50k. Unacceptable. If it would have been $100 million, it would not have been a scandal.
      • NickC25 7mo ago
• close04 7mo ago
  This truly is the best democracy money can buy. As long as money and/or favors change hands in exchange for getting favorable laws passed, it's just legalized bribery and buying off your own "democracy". And it snowballs, the more favorable laws someone buys, the more favorable their position, and the more they can buy in the future. The transition from "democratic facade" to "outright oligarchy" will be swift and seamless.
• anymouse123456 7mo ago
  Every single Linux kernel currently operating within the borders of any of these states should turn itself off and refuse to boot until an update is installed after these bills are rolled back. We should also update all FOSS license terms to explicitly exclude Meta or any affilites from using any software licensed under them.
  • user_7832 7mo ago
    Honestly, like the Left-pad incident [1], getting things to go suddenly dark is extremely effective at getting people to drop everything else to fix an issue. Ideally, getting these servers to auto turn off the day this goes into effect ("In compliance with this new law, Linux is now temporarily unusable. Please <call to action>.") would be glorious for getting the bill staved off, or killed. It would hurt some productivity, but that is a risk these lawmakers taking donations are probably willing to make. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Npm_left-pad_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Npm_left-pad_incident
    • voidUpdate 7mo ago
      "some"? It would hurt a lot of productivity lol. If all linux boxes turned themselves off suddenly, I think the internet would fall over pretty fast. I dont know how much of the internet runs on windows or apple (or others), but I cant imagine it's very much
      • user_7832 7mo ago
        > It would hurt a lot of productivity lol. I know. That's exactly the point. In such situations where one party (Meta) has enough money to lobby and is playing dirty, it's a massively asymmetric situation. In such cases, if you really want to make sure you're heard (which I'm not sure distributers want or care about tbh), you've got to play the game too. Malicious compliance, if you will. PS: For a "practical" variant, simply a warning might be sufficient - given how many hospitals/critical infra uses linux. For eg "There is a chance this server will fail to work on x date due to this y law. Not as glamorous/all-guns-blazing, but probably much more sensible and practical. PPS: For an even more "safer" variant, one could go "Post x, please note that using linux/this server is a violation of law y. Please turn off the server yourself manually. Failure to comply with these instructions and violating the law will be borne entirely by the (no informed) sysadmin/manglement.
• b112 7mo ago
  How much do you want to bet that Amutable, via its founder's control of the systemd codebase and ability to drive change, will be first-in-line to force a switch to its variant of systemd, along with a module for age verification? I don't see it as coincidence that with all these laws passing, suddenly he announces a secure, "controlled", "locked down" version of systemd. Why, RedHat and Ubuntu can simply drop in this new variant, pay a small fee, and be done with compliance.
• d--b 7mo ago
  The guy posted a Ask HN there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47361235 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47361235 https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings/tree/main https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings...
• thiago_fm 7mo ago
  America will just get behind even more as years pass behind Europe in terms of proper regulation of the digital economy, which benefits citizens instead of companies and rich billionaries. The reason is that europeans have nothing to win from those "winner-take-all" platforms the US has built in the past decades. Europe has built zero of them. It contributes very little to Europe's GDP or the overall being of the european. And in some cases, it eats Europe's GDP, moving economic activity back to the US. This is different than for Americans which big tech is a net-positive contributor to society in my POV, mainly because how much economic activity $ it generates. Big techs provide huge paychecks and made a lot of people rich in the US, and most of its GDP growth in the last decade. But it's a double-edged sword. They will make laws in favor of them in detriment of the average American, while minting more billionaries than Europe could ever dream of. Europe will take a long time to get the digital revolution the US already did, but it'll mostly come from regulations and government initiatives. And will be net-positive for humans living in Euope, not for owners of corporations.
  • gzread 7mo ago
    It is interesting isn't it? Most of Europe has better internet access than the US for similar reasons: sensible regulation led to high competition.
    • lII1lIlI11ll 7mo ago
      > Most of Europe has better internet access than the US for similar reasons: sensible regulation led to high competition. Which "most of Europe" would that be? Switzerland and handful of northern countries? Because it is definitely not Germany or several "you can't access half of the internet during times when twenty men kicking a ball on a field" southern states.
• bix6 7mo ago
  O great more big money warping our lives for the worse. I’d write my senator but they won’t do shit. Is there anything that can seriously be done?
  • 0xbadcafebee 7mo ago
    That is the most serious thing you can do, and the most effective. Do you know how democracy works? There are these people called representatives. They are hired by you. They pass laws. They only get to continue having a job if people like you vote for them. When you tell them "I don't like the law you are passing", they are hearing "the people who hire me are angry with me". The more people that are angry at what they're doing, the more their job is at risk. They do what the lobbyists say because somebody else is doing the work, and they get paid (by the lobbyist). But they won't have a job to get paid for if the voters don't vote for them again. So your entire defense against tyranny and bad laws is you speaking out. If you never talk to your reps (or vote), you're telling them you don't care what kind of government it is, and they really will do whatever they want. You have to tell them how you feel, along with all the rest of us. That's the only power we have. In addition to that, tell everyone you know. Your friends, family, coworkers, the dude running the local gas station. Explain to them why government-mandated surveillance of everything they do on a computer is a bad idea. Ask them to talk to their reps.
    • nobodyandproud 7mo ago
      The hard part is writing in a way that these legislators and their help can instantly understand. Ideas? Time to spin up a local LLM for some editing advice.
    • bix6 7mo ago
      It’s not the most effective though. I’ve been writing all my reps at various levels and yet the things I don’t want keep happening.
      • SubiculumCode 7mo ago
        The problem is hat there are too many citizens per Representative. They barely know your community.
• matheusmoreira 7mo ago
  See? It was never about children. Never fails. Corporations literally buy the laws they want and Silicon Valley is the newest lobbying monster. Genuinely terrifying.
  • zoobab 7mo ago
    That's what Washington and Brussels are about: lobbying capitals and buying influence over how laws are made.
• iamnothere 7mo ago
  For a project attempting to track these and coordinate technical resistance, see: https://github.com/AntiSurv/oss-anti-surveillance https://github.com/AntiSurv/oss-anti-surveillance These bills also need to be opposed on a legal/political level. Something I realized last night is that people who lie about their age to send false signals may inadvertently open themselves up to CFAA liability (a felony). So this is a serious matter for users who want to maintain anonymity.
  • gzread 7mo ago
    I believe CFAA talks about exceeding authorization, not just typing in things that are not true.
    • iamnothere 7mo ago
      CFAA has been narrowed in scope through legal decisions but AFAIK it still applies to anyone using false information to bypass security measures. In my view, a federal prosecutor could easily make the argument that age gating is a security measure. You’re welcome to be a test case if you disagree!
      • dml2135 7mo ago
        But are you bypassing a security measure if you provide false information, when true information would also have let you pass?
        • iamnothere 7mo ago
          Again, you’re welcome to be a test case. I do think there is a stronger case against the next under-18 Aaron Swartz, who will get hit with 200 felonies for setting his age wrong (one felony per app/service) after pissing off someone important.
          • ryanmcbride 7mo ago
            I'm more than happy to be a test case. I'm pushing 40 but I will do every single thing in my power to give false information to the surveillance machine. If I get arrested for lying about my age, when I'm of age, then they could probably get me on a whim already anyway. No point in trying to fall in line.
• CarVac 7mo ago
  The same sort of thing is happening for the 3d printer laws. Some company is trying to legislate its own software into ubiquity (guns first, then copyright enforcement) and then double-dip by charging both IP holders and printer manufacturers for their "services".
  • gosub100 7mo ago
    This was the thing the saws-all (or whatever it was called, the brake that stops you from cutting your fingers off with the table saw) tried, right? I don't know if it succeeded but the idea was a government mandate for an otherwise good idea. Everyone then pays more.
    • busterarm 7mo ago
      SawStop
• 0xbadcafebee 7mo ago
  I don't understand why nobody in the comments is freaked out about this. This isn't just "oh Google knows my age", or "oh politicians being corrupt again!" This is "the government made a law that every computer in the world must track every person's identity and send it to the cloud". No offline devices. Commercial vendors get your biometric data (and the equivalent of your driver's license / SSN). Every application on the OS can query your data. If you think it stops with one bill, after they get all the infrastructure for this in place? You're fooling yourself. The whole point of this is to identify you, on every web page you visit, every app you open, on every device you own. Once bills are passed, it's very hard to get them revoked or nullified. This is the most aggregious, authoritarian, Big Brother government surveillance system ever devised, and it's already law. I am fucking terrified. (Yes, the EU has a less horrifying version of this. But Google, Apple, and Microsoft still control most of the devices in the world, and they are US companies.)
  • SkyeCA 7mo ago
    > I don't understand why nobody in the comments is freaked out about this. Because it's hopeless? It's been proven time and time again there's nothing the average person can do to fight this sort of thing. It's just better to sit back and watch as everything gets ruined.
    • 0xbadcafebee 7mo ago
      Actually it's the opposite. Average people speaking out is how the world gets better. It's when they don't speak out that things are allowed to get worse. You literally live in a Democracy. There's 5.8 billion people on this planet who wish they had the kind of power you have. If you give up your rights without a fight, you don't deserve them.
      • SkyeCA 7mo ago
        > You literally live in a Democracy. I have never once voted for a winner at any level of government and parties are whipped. It's really working for me, eh?
      • 7mo ago
• flowerthoughts 7mo ago
  When I moved from Sweden to Ireland and realized the Swedish central address registry makes moving fantastically easy, I started dreaming of a central registry where consumers and producers could meet. I can give my supplier access to exactly the information they need, and nothing else. I can revoke access when I feel like it. Like OAuth2 for personal data. They can subscribe to updates. It could be a federated protocol. Not saying I think it's a good idea to provide the year of birth to all sites, but (session ID, year of birth) is the only information they would need. The problem is proving who's behind the keyboard at the time of asking, which would require challenge-response, and is why I think this should be an online platform, not a hardware PKI gadget with keys inevitably tied to individuals.
  • itopaloglu83 7mo ago
    Knowing what we know about the current environment, each company is going to start selling everything they know about you to anybody who's willing to pay. Enforcing privacy is hard not because it's not possible, but companies have greater financial incentives to just breach your privacy to track and manipulate us.
    • deaux 7mo ago
      > Enforcing privacy is hard not because it's not possible, but companies have greater financial incentives to just breach your privacy to track and manipulate us. No, enforcing privacy is not hard, all it takes is imposing penalties _much greater than_ those financial incentives.
  • pietervdvn 7mo ago
    Your idea has been implemented as datapods: https://www.capitalnumbers.com/blog/data-pod-decentralized-data-ownership/ https://www.capitalnumbers.com/blog/data-pod-decentralized-d... It seems dead though...
• DavidPiper 7mo ago
  The idea that it might cost "someone" $2 every time a user opens and app AND it sends a bunch of private data to a 3rd party is completely dystopian, let alone everything else. And a serious question: with deepest respect to the author for their extraordinarily impressive time and effort in this investigation... Why was this not already flagged by political reporters or investigative journalists? I'm not American so maybe I don't understand the media structure over there but it feels like SOMEONE should have been all over this way before it's gotten to the point described in this post.
  • TheRealDunkirk 7mo ago
    When a megacorp funds a network of non-profits to lobby a bunch of politicians, draft legislation, and tell them to take it to committee, that can happen without much visibility, especially when it's been orchestrated at the state level, as this has. Where does any of this show up until there's a vote called on it? There's no open debate. No working "across the aisle" to address concerns. There's nothing left of the legislative process that started this country, or, indeed, any Western representative democracy. So someone has to be watching, see something on an agenda that raises the hairs on their necks, figure out what it is, and if there's a story there, and they're not going to get any help from anyone because everyone involved knows how the public is going to feel about it. And then, as the article indicates, even a place like Reddit is going to astroturf the effort to get the story out. (Which I've been trying to point out for YEARS, but which -- surprise, surprise! -- gets supressed.)
  • dfxm12 7mo ago
    Mainstream media is largely captured by the same monied interests as discussed in the reddit post. Although the poster does mention an article from Bloomberg as evidence, most of their sources are local outlets or tech-focused. https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings?tab=readme-ov-file#investigative-reporting https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings...
• neya 7mo ago
  Damn, had to scroll a couple of comments to find this: Anthropic donated $20 million to Public First Action, a PAC that promotes Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn and her sponsored Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that will force everyone to scan their faces and IDs to use the internet under the guise of saving the children. The legislative angle taken by companies like Anthropic is that they will provide the censorship gatekeeping infrastructure to scan all user-generated content that gets posted online for "appropriateness", guaranteeing AI providers a constant firehose of novel content they can train on and get paid for the free training. AI companies will also get paid to train on videos of everyone's faces and IDs. As for why Blackburn supports KOSA: Asked what conservatives’ top priorities should be right now, Senator Blackburn answered, “protecting minor children from the transgender [sic] in this culture and that influence.” She then talked about how KOSA could address this problem, and named social media platforms as places “where children are being indoctrinated.” If Anthropic, the PACs it supports and Blackburn get their way with KOSA, the end result will be that anything posted on the internet will be able to be traced back to you. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/12/anthropic-gives-20-million-to-group-pushing-for-ai-regulations-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/12/anthropic-gives-20-million-t...
  • tclancy 7mo ago
    Christ on a crutch, had they donated $25k or something you'd figure it was just a rounding error, but why this much from a company that isn't profitable? This is doing nothing to disabuse me of my theory 90% of "Startup Culture" is just an excuse for rich people to move money around. "Need to get your stoned mope of a C student a head-start on a resume that will let him stay gainfully employed? Well, I just brokered a VC deal for these kids that want to throw micro-concerts in parking spaces, we'll get your boy in as Senior Music Programmer."
• NoImmatureAdHom 7mo ago
  Where do I donate to oppose this bullshit? I want to open my wallet. It should be the top comment.
  • casey2 7mo ago
    Donate a phone call. You aren't gonna win the bribing war against people who own a machine that turns your worthless data into millions of dollars. If everybody who cared to and lived in the affected districts called they would kill the bill just to clear their phone-lines.
• PeterisP 7mo ago
  What I'm confused about is how the proposed bills would apply to servers. Like, in general, a software change to add an "age class" attribute to user accounts and a syscall "what's this attribute for the current user account" would satisfy the California bill and that's a relatively minor change (the bad part is the NY bill that allegedly requires technical verification of whatever the user claimed). The weird issue is how should that attribute be filled for the 'root' or 'www-data' user of a linux machine I have on the cloud. Or, to put aside open source for that matter, the Administrator account on a Windows Active Directory system. Because "user accounts" don't necessarily have any mapping (much less a 1-to-1 mapping) to a person; many user accounts are personal but many are not.
  • khafra 7mo ago
    We're all going to have to use service accounts created on Windows Server 2003 or RHEL 4, otherwise they won't be old enough and will require manual login from an of-age administrator
    • anthk 7mo ago
      Good luck enforcing that on Guix, or 9front. The auth server would lie in Colorado. The FS server, in New Mexico. The CPU server, in Nevada. The terminal (the client), in Alaska. Shut down and repeat at random. Watch the lobbies collapsing down tring to sue that monster.
  • singron 7mo ago
    In the CA bill, "User" means child. It's pretty clear that non-human users aren't covered and don't have to participate. E.g. the API can return N/A or any other value for non-humans. If there is a way to make the API applicable only to human children users, then it doesn't even need to be callable for other entities. E.g. on android, each app gets its own uid, so the unix user doesn't correspond to a child, so the API will instead (probably) be associated with another entity (e.g. their Google account, an android profile, or an android (non-unix) user)
  • troyvit 7mo ago
    Honestly what I hope is that if these bills pass, sysadmins just turn off any server that doesn't have attestation and go off to the beach to collect shells.
• ExpertAdvisor01 7mo ago
  I don't understand it . There are so many ways to child-proof a device . Google Family Link and the Apple equivalent . Use cloudflares Family dns (blocks porn websites etc ..) Instead of just creating a course that explains how to child-proof a device, we have to surveil everyone.
  • actsasbuffoon 7mo ago
    Because they’re not really trying to protect kids.
    • onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
      Please scan your asshole to use the toaster. It's to save the kids. We care about the kids. We don't bomb them.
  • eigencoder 7mo ago
    Do you have a child? Because I think the device makers haven't really done a good job, there are just too many workarounds.
    • kjkjadksj 7mo ago
      Tell me how a whitelist isn’t going to work for you
    • heavyset_go 7mo ago
      Why are you buying your child devices made for adults and not devices purpose built for children?
    • array_key_first 7mo ago
      Solution: don't give your kids the device. Put up a computer in the family room like it's 1998. Perfect, now little Timmy can do his homework. And if he looks up "boobies", he won't be able to sneak it past you! The best part? This is cheaper and easier. You're literally doing less. Locking down a smartphone is hard? Great, so don't do that. Problem solved, you're welcome, I'll send you my invoice.
• john_strinlai 7mo ago
  for ~2 decades i have attended events, written to my representatives, proposed solutions to whoever i can, and encouraged my students to do the same as various attempts are made to strip regular people of their privacy. for ~2 decades now, i have been trying to fight this fight. one scary observation is that each year, less and less people care. at least, this is true among my students. plenty of them believe the 'protect the children' line and are more than willing to do whatever the government/big tech suggests. or they just shrug ("what difference would i make?"). for context, i teach at a college level, in tech. a few of my classes are from the cybersec program, one of the programs that should understand and care about the implications of bills like these, and even the majority of them do not care about this stuff anymore. they grew up with instagram and facebook and cameras everywhere. they grew up knowing that any little fuck up they have is recorded and posted online. they know that by the time they go to college, all of their data has already been leaked a few times. they never really had an expectation of privacy in the first place, so it just isnt a big deal. as someone who interacts with this next generation of "hackers" on a daily basis... the concept of cypherpunk is gone. i got into this field because of my beliefs. they are going into this field because they want a chance at buying a house some day, and know that big tech has big bucks. i am tired. and i recognize that this is exactly what they (lobbyists, meta, etc.) want! but i am tired and discouraged. more and more i find myself having to actively fight the urge to give up. i am not ready to give up just yet... but, i am sorry to say that as someone closer to retirement than i am comfortable admitting, i only have so much energy left.
  • julkali 7mo ago
    i felt that.
  • zoobab 7mo ago
    27 years against software patents in the EU, feeling the same unfortunately. But sometimes very few people can make a difference.
• npn 7mo ago
  Now it is only age verification. Next they will try to impose digital ID. That's when you know the new world has begun.
• inetknght 7mo ago
  Age verification is merely the background task to set up infrastructure for OS to provide many many other signals about who's using the device. Age signals from the OS? Need to provide a channel of information available to applications. Applications already talk to servers with unchecked commonality. Biometric data? Today it unlocks your private key. Tomorrow it's used to verify you are the same person that was used during sign-up -- the same that was "age-verified". Next year, the application needs to "double-check" your identity. That missile that's coming to you? Definitely not AI-controlled, definitely not coming to destroy the "verified" person who posted a threatening comment about the AI system's god complex. Nope, it's coming to deliver freedom verification.
  • ccvannorman 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • inetknght 7mo ago
      Buddy... I've been called a robot since long before AI became mainstream.
      • scottyah 7mo ago
        Ha! We should have a T shirt with this.
  • gruez 7mo ago
    >Age signals from the OS? Need to provide a channel of information available to applications. Applications already talk to servers with unchecked commonality. This is a non-issue because it's almost certainly going to be gated behind a permission prompt. There are more invasive things sites/apps can ask for, and we seem to be doing fine, eg. location. Moreover is it really that much of a privacy loss if you go on steam, it asks you to verify you're over 18, and the OS says you're actually over 18? >Biometric data? Today it unlocks your private key. Tomorrow it's used to verify you are the same person that was used during sign-up -- the same that was "age-verified". Given touch id was introduced over a decade ago, and the associated doom-mongering predilections did not come to pass, I think it's fair to conclude it's a dud.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• sporadicallyjoe 7mo ago
  If politicians care so much about protecting children, then why aren't they going after the rich and powerful child abusers mentioned in the Epstein files?
  • kjkjadksj 7mo ago
    Best they can do is only arrest maxwell.
• retrocog 7mo ago
  This discussion, being so timely and important, inspired me to draft an article that explains a possible third way that might not have been fully considered. I would be humbled and honored to receive any feedback: https://www.robpanico.com/articles/display/presence-derived-identity-a-third-key-type-for-federated-trust/ https://www.robpanico.com/articles/display/presence-derived-... (posting link because it would be too much for a comment)
• throw8fasdffdf 7mo ago
  I'm surprised the "laboratory" of the globalist elite, India, hasn't implemented this yet. Digital-ID (Aadhar) was heavily pushed by USAID and other US-deepstate associates; the same with digital-money and the "demonetization". Bill Gates's org actively tests out things on actual humans like guinea pigs, before globalizing the "solutions". These days all of this is kind of redundant since the phone-number + verification has become essentially a necessity to live in the city in any part of world today. The prev. Govt. had considered doing this "login with your ID or no internet" scheme (to "protect" people no doubt) back in 2012s - there were explicit statements about disallowing people who would not authenticate with Aadhar, but it was shelved (likely because of their unpopularity). If our current "Dear Leader" were to propose this, I think a significant population would opt-in simply because of a sense of belonging to a hero-worship-cult. The state is determined to ensure that every human be their slave.
  • dyauspitr 7mo ago
    Your take in this entire ends up with you blaming Bill Gates like some MAGA tinhat? The GOP are literally the cabal of pedophilic, privacy ending, freedom crushing elites you’re looking for and this is somehow your perspective?
    • fluffybucktsnek 7mo ago
      I suspect you only read up to the 2nd paragraph of OP's comment if that's what you got. They certainly aren't pinning the blame on Bill Gates. I don't think "current "Dear Leader"" (quotes included) is common MAGA vocabulary. Also, given the bipartisan support of the bills, funding and presence in the Epstein files, it seems unfair to include only MAGA as the "cabal of pedophilic, privacy ending, freedom crushing elites".
• SilverElfin 7mo ago
  The post looks to be deleted. Anyone know a way to view the original content?
• fredgrott 7mo ago
  If we want really a set up where a child does not access it... Psychology has a higher success rate...just tell them that their parents use it.... There are many systems where accuracy is loose and that is its core feature...for example postal addresses worldwide...I can a mistake in the address but the letter or package will still get there...
• RankingMember 7mo ago
  Removed! Anyone got a copy of the original text?
  • nomilk 7mo ago
    Also curious why it would be removed.
    • busterarm 7mo ago
      It (for the second time) was automatically removed via mass reporting by reddit accounts.
    • poizan42 7mo ago
      See https://reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/oa8hln9/ https://reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billi... AutoModerator on /r/linux is set up to automatically remove posts after a set amount of reports.
      • alex1138 7mo ago
        Gee that can't be abused at all Fuck Reddit
    • SilverElfin 7mo ago
      Mass reporting, likely coordinated. This person had a previous submission on this topic that was also attacked this way.
  • troyvit 7mo ago
    They linked to this GitHub project: https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
  • vaylian 7mo ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20260313125244/https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260313125244/https://old.reddi...
• troyvit 7mo ago
  The original post was removed from reddit but it links to this GitHub repo that has most of the same information, but in a different format: https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
  • narrator 7mo ago
    Also on the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20260313090844/https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260313090844/https://www.reddi...
  • alpaca128 7mo ago
    Luckily it was archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260313125244/https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260313125244/https://old.reddi...
  • tomhow 7mo ago
    Ok thanks, we've repointed the URL to the GitHub page.
• istillcantcode 7mo ago
  This feels like a waste of time and money. Why are people so interested in tracking people who on average can't read or write better than a 12 year old child? By my count, I'm assuming things will be increasingly degraded for about the next 8-10 years or so.
• triceratops 7mo ago
  Bravo, some actual journalism! I wish a professional media organization had done this research. It seemed obvious this was a coordinated wave but I always figured it was moral busybodies. EDIT: why is it deleted now?
  • jpadkins 7mo ago
    that goes against the goals of the professional media organizations.
    • triceratops 7mo ago
      Keep being cynical and that's the media you'll get. In the real world, professional media organizations regularly expose corruption. More often than not? No idea. But to pretend they only engage in cover-ups is cynical fatalism.
  • narrator 7mo ago
    The wayback machine got it: https://web.archive.org/web/20260313090844/https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260313090844/https://www.reddi...
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • bryan_w 7mo ago
    Oh no, you fell for it.
• slacka 7mo ago
  It was removed. Here is the archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20260313125244/https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260313125244/https://old.reddi...
  • bboozzoo 7mo ago
    I wonder what made them do it. The conspiracy theorists are really going to enjoy this.
• Aunche 7mo ago
  Am I the only person who recognized that this bill explicitly does not require any sort of id verification? The point is to make apps and websites more accountable.
• marcosdumay 7mo ago
  Eh... That "[removed]" there means there was something to read and now it's gone? At least the author posted a link to the dataset in a comment so it survived: https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
• khat 7mo ago
  Does this surprise anyone, just over a decade ago there was a whistleblower who said the government was spying on its own citizens. The president and half the country called him a traitor. The only way to stop this from happening is half the country refuse to buy any tech that implements OS age verification. That includes working any job that also requires the use of that tech(Basically all jobs). The only thing that talks is money and when half your workforce is not working(or buying anything because they aren't working) then things will get changed real quick. But most people don't want to do that because no one is willing to suffer short term for long term gains. The govt and 1% know this that's why they increment it slowly overtime with generic causes like "save the children"
  • pessimizer 7mo ago
    > The only way to stop this from happening is half the country refuse to buy any tech that implements OS age verification. You have consumer activist brain. Next you're going to suggest that we complain to the manager or start our own government and compete in the marketplace. > The only thing that talks is money No, the only thing that is talking is money. Money wants this. You're busy pretending like you're going to do a boycott; they're going to boycott you. Complain about the internet? They'll just blacklist you from it. Complain about the phone? Well now you can't use one; try smoke signals. Complain about the landlord? They'll settle the case, kick you out on the street, and blacklist you among all private equity landlords and the management companies that service small landlords. You'll just go to a small landlord that doesn't use one of the management companies? Well they won't have access to a bunch of vendors that have exclusive contracts with and share ownership with the management companies; now they can't make any money and have to sell to private equity. You've been fooled into thinking that being victimized is a moral failure of the victim. The perpetrators taught you that. They taught you that the only appropriate action is to beg and threaten to leave, and they shut down customer service and monopolized the market. But, again, the worst thing they trained you to do is to blame the victim.
    • johnnyanmac 7mo ago
      >You're busy pretending like you're going to do a boycott; they're going to boycott you. What do you mean? They still need people purchasing software and hardware. You can argue effectiveness, but if enough people say no, then a boycott is extremely effective. The issue is always on awareness and making people take hard actions.
• qoez 7mo ago
  Only 26 million is way way lower than I expected, especially given how much these companies make in profit
  • bondarchuk 7mo ago
    Scott Alexander had a few posts about that ("why is there so little money in politics?"): https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/tech-pacs-are-closing-in-on-the-almonds https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/tech-pacs-are-closing-in-on...
    • yunohn 7mo ago
      Feels like a lot of words to avoid thinking about “black” money and favors in kind. For example, nobody would include Trump’s golden bar from Switzerland in such ann estimate - repeated ad nauseam for all lobbying corruption.
    • lapcat 7mo ago
      I think one of the reasons politicians can be bought so cheaply by interest groups is that the opponents of the interests groups have practically no money. The interest groups don't need to spend a ton as long as they spend more than their opponents. The linked post talks about the effectiveness of AIPAC but fails to mention how much is spent by say, Palestinian interest groups. Perhaps there's a good reason for this: do Palestinian groups have any money to spend on US elections? Try fundraising in Gaza right now. Likewise, business interest groups have a lot more money to spend on elections than, say, environmental groups. The latter have to beg for small donations from individuals just to stay afloat. Thus, it's relatively easy for business groups to outspend environmental groups. To win an auction, you just have to be the highest bidder.
      • edgyquant 7mo ago
        I don’t think this is a great example as a big complaint recently has been the influence of the gulf states on American politics.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• Fiveplus 7mo ago
  Anyone reading this purely as a child safety or campaign finance story might miss the broader architectural war happening here. If you zoom out a little, this is the inevitable, scorched-earth retaliation for Apple's ATT rollout from a few years back. Apple cost Meta billions by cutting off their data pipeline at the OS level, justifying it with a unilateral privacy moral high ground. Now, Meta is returning the favor. By astroturfing the App Store Accountability Act through digital childhood alliance, Meta is forcing Apple to build, maintain and also bear the legal liability for a wildly complex state-by-state identity verification API. Gotta give it to Zuck. Standing up a fully-fledged advocacy website 24 hours after domain registration and pushing a bill from a godaddy registration to a signed Utah law in just 77 days is terrifyingly efficient lobbying.
  • john_strinlai 7mo ago
    >Gotta give it to Zuck. if "it" is the middle finger, for sure. "terrifying" is a great choice of word for it.
    • bigyabai 7mo ago
      I was equally impressed/terrified by Apple's marketing blitz around client-side-scanning. So many people got paid to advocate for that, and the community barely convinced them it was a bad idea. There's not much hope left for any of FAANG deliberately resisting surveillance.
      • classified 7mo ago
        Why would they resist surveillance? They're making massive profits from it.
      • hsuduebc2 7mo ago
        Well they can profit from that so why resist if ordinary user usually cares only about colors being pretty and Instagram/tiktok/x/your slop generator of choice working properly.
  • dfedbeef 7mo ago
• bryan0 7mo ago
  Main takeaway: > Meta spent a record $26.3 million on federal lobbying in 2025, deployed 86+ lobbyists across 45 states, and covertly funded a "grassroots" child safety group called the Digital Childhood Alliance (DCA) to advocate for the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA). The ASAA requires app stores to verify user ages before downloads but imposes no requirements on social media platforms. If it becomes law, Apple and Google absorb the compliance cost while Meta's apps face zero new mandates.
  • mentalgear 7mo ago
    A comment someone made on the post about OpenAi lobbying the DOD against Anthropic to mind: "Not only are the whores - they are cheap ones too".
• _slih 7mo ago
  the post getting mass-reported off reddit twice is the best evidence that the research is accurate lol
• Calvin02 7mo ago
  Wasn't it Apple that was trying to get Meta to implement age verification in the first place? So, Meta is trying to get them to do it, which seems right. Why does Apple always get a free pass?
  • Cococloco 7mo ago
    Doesn't apple already check your age when you make an Apple account? using credit card information (before you use any app) It already feels enough to me.
• BLACKCRAB 7mo ago
  [dead]
• jayers 7mo ago
  I'm incredibly dubious of the conclusions of this researcher. Claude Opus was used to gather and analyze all of the data. I am not skeptical of any of the research, the sources seem to be cited properly. I am skeptical that this researcher has thought through or verified their conclusions in a systematic and reliable fashion. This part gives it away: "Research period: 2026-03-11 to present." This individual dropped his investigative report two days after beginning research! Yes, AI is an incredibly good research assistant and can help speed up the tasks of finding sources and indexing sources. The person behind this investigation has not actually done their due diligence to grok and analyze this data on their own, and therefore I can't trust that the AI analysis isn't poisoned by the prompters implicit biases.
  • Aurornis 7mo ago
    I agree. I tried reading some of the documents and they're full of this: > LIMITATION: Direct PDF downloads returned 403 errors. ProPublica Schedule I viewer loads data dynamically (JavaScript), preventing extraction via WebFetch. The 2024 public disclosure copy on sixteenthirtyfund.org was also blocked. > Tech Transparency Project report: The article "Inside Meta's Spin Machine on Kids and Social Media" at techtransparencyproject.org likely contains detailed ConnectSafely/Meta funding analysis but was blocked (403) The least they could have done is read their own reports and then provided the documents to the LLM. Instead they just let it run and propose connections, asked it to generate some graphs, and then hit publish.
  • inkysigma 7mo ago
    Some of these are also just like really weak? One of them for example seems to be some random employee at FB donating ~$1k to a politician and calling that a link. The entire "Proven Findings" is all over the place and provides no coherence. I don't think it's a particular secret that Meta would prefer age verification be done at the OS level so I'm not really sure what the added claim here is. > A Meta employee (Jake Levine, Product Manager) contributed $1,175 to ASAA sponsor Matt Ball's campaign apparatus on June 2, 2025. Source: Colorado TRACER bulk data. > No direct Meta PAC contributions to any ASAA sponsor across Utah, Louisiana, Texas, or Colorado. Source: FollowTheMoney.org multi-state search. While it is true that Meta has funded groups that advocate for age verification, a lot of them also appear to have other actors so it's not like this is some pure Meta thing as some of the other commenters are suggesting.
• tim-tday 7mo ago
  Age verification is surveillance. The organized campaign to push age verification is not actually trying to protect children. You can’t do age verification without identity verification. You can’t have internet privacy and identity verification.
• Cider9986 7mo ago
  Here is an Archive: https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/search?fun=ids&ids=t3_1rshc1f https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/search?fun=ids&ids=t3...
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• kmbfjr 7mo ago
  I was already on my way to de-internetizing and de-digitalizing my life, this just makes it more of an imperitive. Have at it Meta, you broke it you most certainly bought it!
• glass1122 7mo ago
  [dead]
• Arubis 7mo ago
  Just generally, a good piece of context to keep in mind whenever you see electronic surveillance, backdoor, or anonymity-piercing legislation or legal efforts, _particularly_ when they're framed as protecting minors, is that Jeffrey Epstein's primary mode of communication with his co-offenders was Gmail, frequently via a BlackBerry.
• naxtsass 7mo ago
  The OP’s point can be interpreted as describing the automation and mechanization of this kind of targeting, which would likely become necessary if the scope of prosecuting so-called “thought crimes” continues to expand.
• xbar 7mo ago
  Wrote to my state representative this morning. "You implemented a law that enables vibe-coding pedophiles to deploy apps that find all the children. Please resign."
• Aurornis 7mo ago
  This is very lazy AI generated content, as admitted toward the end of the document. Clicking through to the "findings" shows that they didn't even try to feed proper data into Claude when the AI bot was blocked or couldn't access the documents. Some examples: > LIMITATION: Direct PDF downloads returned 403 errors. ProPublica Schedule I viewer loads data dynamically (JavaScript), preventing extraction via WebFetch. The 2024 public disclosure copy on sixteenthirtyfund.org was also blocked. > Tech Transparency Project report: The article "Inside Meta's Spin Machine on Kids and Social Media" at techtransparencyproject.org likely contains detailed ConnectSafely/Meta funding analysis but was blocked (403) So Claude then goes on to propose "Potential Role" that postulates connections might exist, but then caveats it by saying that no evidence was found: > This negative finding is inconclusive due to inability to access Schedule I grant detail data in the actual 990 filings (PDF downloads returned 403 errors, and ProPublica's filing viewer loads data dynamically). This is what happens when you try to lead an LLM toward a conclusion and it behaves as if your conclusion is true. Hacker News is usually quick to dismiss incomplete and lazy LLM content. I assume this is getting upvotes because it's easy to turn a blind eye to the obvious LLM problems when the output is agreeing with something you believe.
• 827a 7mo ago
  I'm not sure I fully grok the hypothesis that Meta is materially advantaged by pushing for OS-level age verification. I suppose its another intelligence signal for ad targeting, but they have to believe that at least on platforms like iOS this signal is going to be obfuscated from them. Its hard to believe it'd be any more valuable than the other non-verified heuristics they're already gathering. Arguably they would be more materially advantaged if they were forced to KYC/validate ages, not the platform; because sure, there's a cost to doing it, but presumably having hard data on who your customer actually is, with age and address and everything, is worth a lot more than the verification cost. And being able to say "We're legally required to gather this" gives a lot of PR cover (even though it'd be followed with "but we're giddy to do so and we will abuse this data and you every way we possibly can. No one at Meta believes you are human. We hate you as much as you hate us, but we're stuck in this together, endlessly loathing the supernatural force that keeps us working together.") But, On the flip side: I also don't doubt that Meta is doing this, because the purpose of a system is what it does, and the leadership at Meta has done nothing in the past four years to demonstrate that they're capable of cogent thought and execution. We want to believe there's some evil plan, and maybe there is, but in all likelihood one day we'll learn that they're just... unintelligent.
  • pwg 7mo ago
    > I'm not sure I fully grok the hypothesis that Meta is materially advantaged by pushing for OS-level age verification. These laws, that attempt to move "age verification" into the OS, 100% absolve Meta (and all the Meta owned "properties") from any legal liability so long as all of Meta's app's follow the law's required "ask the OS for the age signal of the user". Any "bad stuff" which then gets shown to "underage users" then becomes "not Meta's fault, they followed the legally proscribed way to check the age of the user, and the OS said this user was 'old enough'" and Apple/Google then get to shoulder the liability (and pay out for the class action lawsuits) for failing to provide a proper age signal. That's the "material advantage" gained by Meta by pushing these laws.
    • 827a 7mo ago
      My point is that they already know how old you are, within some confidence interval, even if you never tell them or you lie to them, because they actively watch what you do and classify your behaviors with your age cohort. So why do they care so much that they gain another signal that only says "the user is over 18" rather than a much more valuable signal like "the user is 36 and lives in Albany" that they'd gain by doing the KYC internally? I don't think absolution of legal liability has ever crossed any of these fools' empty heads. The threat of being fined & punished by the USG for doing something bad hasn't been a factor in corporate decision-making for decades.
• aesoh 7mo ago
  [flagged]
• shevy-java 7mo ago
  What I find interesting is how this legislation suddenly leads to some open project give in and submit - see MidnightBSD wishing to spy on people via a daemon now. Linux will probably follow suit via systemd; an appropriate name would be systemd-sniffy, to sniff for user data and warn the authorities "WARNING - 15 YEARS OLD IS WATCHING SOME P..., SHUT DOWN THE HOUSE!!!". And the legislation calls this safety. And freedom. It is like in the novel 1984. But stupid. Probably more like minority report - but also stupid. All aided by Meta bribing lobbyists to do their bidding.
• phba 7mo ago
  The primary goal of these efforts is to control communication and the flow of ideas. Information is a control mechanism, since we act on what we believe. In history we had four media revolutions (printing press, radio, television, Internet), each greatly disrupting and reshaping society. This is the fifth (social media and maybe AI). All these revolutions had the same theme: increased reach of information, increased speed of transmission, increased density (information amount per unit of time), and centralization of information sources. Now we seem to reach the limits of change. No more reach, since our information networks span the entire globe. No more speed, since transmission times are close to how fast we can perceive things. The only things left to change are even more centralization and tighter feedback loops (changing the information based on how the recipient reacts). Given all that, this media revolution might be the last one, so there is a gold rush among the elites to come out on top.
• siliconunit 7mo ago
  How is this preventing anyone booting up an old pc and sharing a usb key data. This is utter nonsense made to control people and instigate fear and self censorship... this is 'the system' discovering the internet in slow motion and immediately pushing its boot over it. We live in an artificial moral panic that should have no place in the minds of smart people.
• herf 7mo ago
  It's easy to lie to an OS about your age because it's a single-user experience, and if your parents allow you to lie (or don't know), that's all it takes. Social networks are so much better equipped to estimate age because they have a simple double-check, which is that most kids follow other kids in their grade level. The patches on top of this are really bad. For instance, we are seeing "AI" biometric video detectors with a margin-of-error of 5-7 years (meaning the validation studies say when the AI says you're 23-25 you can be considered 18+), totally inadequate to do the job this new legislation demands.
• juris 7mo ago
  so as to not hold the liability bag, devs will publish the majority of their apps as 18+ (we're back to the 2000s with porn banner ads everywhere), and children will ask their parents to use their computer (orly owl).
• jgord 7mo ago
  Did Meta spend around 60Mn lobbying for age verification to be forcibly added to every OS install ? If not, who has been paying to lobby for these age verification laws ? That seems a question that we should have an answer to. Forcing an age check upon linux install seems anti-competitive, and a violation of freedom of speech allowed by the Constitution. Also impractical and ineffective, unless they plan on some sort of bio-metric confirmation of age. Will they outlaw computation itself, or constrain a personal quota so that only corporations can access approved LLMs and certainly not run a local AGI ? As with the insane "encryption is a weapon and cant be exported" policy of the 80s, this will surely force innovation to migrate outside the US.
  • infotainment 7mo ago
    > Did Meta spend around 60Mn lobbying for age verification to be forcibly added to every OS install ? Of course they would want this -- as long as the OS reports that the user is over 18 via such a system, then Meta is legally off the hook for any COPPA violations.
  • _2d30 7mo ago
    > As with the insane "encryption is a weapon and cant be exported" policy of the 80s, this will surely force innovation to migrate outside the US. Not advocating for this policy but if a critical argument against it is that policymakers can expect an analogous amount of computer innovation migrating out of the US as it saw in the 80s, then I think policymakers won't care remotely. Quite literally I think the lower bound for the proportion of global computer innovation happening in the US is 70%.
  • hsuduebc2 7mo ago
    I honestly wouldn't be surprised. They are absolutely negative player. But I'm kinda confused how this could even pass and what is the functional reason for this? Because "think about the children" it absolutely isn't. You can of course chain child to the radiator and let him out but that's obviously not an protection.
  • Mars008 7mo ago
    > age verification to be forcibly added to every OS install ? This should be easy. Just in one of dialogs ask user to create a file 'me_age.txt' with age inside. No changes to OS at all. This will be the 'interface'. Any program can read the file. As far as I understand that's all California law requires (or will require). Not sure about other versions. Strict verification would require binding to property software/services. Which is equivalent of reporting every user on every install.
• _2d30 7mo ago
  I have no idea if Meta is driving these, but the only way it would make sense for them to do it is if they saw age-verification as inevitable and would prefer to pass on the costs/liability of implementation to the app store providers. If they didn't see them as inevitable, then it makes no sense for them to be pushing for these as they are fundamentally against their own growth.
• intended 7mo ago
  I want to appreciate the fact that the investigation exists, and that someone has made it. However this is the kind of investigation that Reddit is famous for, which ends up causing more harm than good, like the Boston bombing investigation. Age verification, for example, is coming no matter what - there’s a big enough chunk of voters tired of tech globally. Governments are also tired of dealing with tech and want to bring them to heel. These macro forces are far more significant than the amounts identified on lobbying in this investigation (~$63 mn iirc) Given the title, the reading of the article implies Meta is driving age verification. The content of the investigation, reads more as meta taking advantage of the push for age verification to move it to the OS layers.
• jaesonaras 7mo ago
  Just ban lobby groups. Politicians are public servants, not corporate servants.
  • tpmoney 7mo ago
    I'm unclear how banning the ACLU and the EFF is supposed to improve the alignment of politicians to public interests.
• novok 7mo ago
  Man if the EU made GDPR a 45M+ user platform thing most of the issues with it would've gone away.
• theptip 7mo ago
  > the sponsor of Louisiana's HB-570, publicly confirmed that a Meta lobbyist brought the legislative language directly to her. The bill as drafted required only app stores (Apple, Google) to verify user ages. It did not require social media platforms to do anything. Thing is, when these “make the websites collect your ID” proposals come up, the overwhelming sentiment here is “this is terrible and we need to do it lower in the stack”. I think the OS is a better place than the website. (Let security conscious folks use a standalone device too if desired.) The astroturfing stuff is obviously sus, I don’t have a feel for whether this is egregious by the standards of $T companies or just par. Of course, the EU option of using proper ZK proofs etc sounds way better as portrayed in the OP. But when you actually dig in, doesn’t the EU effectively mandate OS support too, eg https://eudi.dev/1.7.1/architecture-and-reference-framework-main/ https://eudi.dev/1.7.1/architecture-and-reference-framework-..., https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-doc-architecture-and-reference-framework/discussions/361 https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-doc-archi... ? Maybe this isn’t set yet but it seems a likely direction at least.
  • inetknght 7mo ago
    > Thing is, when these “make the websites collect your ID” proposals come up, the overwhelming sentiment here is “this is terrible and we need to do it lower in the stack”. Perhaps the "overwhelming" sentiment is paid actors? Or people whose jobs depend on not having that risk assigned to their employers?
    • theptip 7mo ago
      Perhaps, or perhaps there are legitimate privacy concerns with requiring every website to collect a photo of your ID to prove you are not a minor?
      • inetknght 7mo ago
        There are legitimate privacy concerns with requiring every website to collect a photo of your ID to prove you are not a minor. Those concerns are amplified when it's done even lower in the stack. You don't want a website to collect your ID? Neither do I. I also don't want my OS to collect anything about me either.
• hedora 7mo ago
  After looking at the California bill a bit, I'm equally worried about the implications for application developers as I am for the implications for OS developers. It says apps must use the age signal as proof the user is a minor, and then behave according to all California laws regarding that. (I'm not a lawyer, but that's my read.) So, does this apply to applications that run locally? What if an under 13 year old tries to read a text file with lots of swear words or ascii b00bs? Does emacs need to stop them? cat? xterm?
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• kurvexa 7mo ago
  Hey, my favorite youtuber just made a video on you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41VCmCgm9I&t=24s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41VCmCgm9I&t=24s
• irenetusuq 7mo ago
  [dead]
• pezgrande 7mo ago
  It was even published by Yahoo lol [0]. 0: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-behind-meta-154717384.html?guccounter=1 https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-beh...
• soco 7mo ago
  Here's some more technical details of the Swiss new official way (yet to be implemented) of doing age verification and more: https://www.liip.ch/en/blog/swiss-eid-from-a-developer-perspective https://www.liip.ch/en/blog/swiss-eid-from-a-developer-persp...
• TZubiri 7mo ago
  >"Here’s where the lobbying gets surgical. The proposed laws hammer Apple’s App Store and Google Play with compliance requirements but reportedly spare social media platforms—Meta’s core busines Because social media already has the age info exactly? I think an OS and a web platform with accounts are different product categories. Not even sure what an interpretation of the bill that would affect meta would be.
  • PokemonNoGo 7mo ago
    "Because social media already has the age info exactly?" I don't know what this question means. What information does social media have "exactly"?
    • ceejayoz 7mo ago
      Facebook can make a very accurate guess from your photos, your posts, your friends' ages, and the data brokers they link it all up with.
      • PokemonNoGo 7mo ago
        You said it. An accurate _guess_. Not exactly.
        • TZubiri 7mo ago
          When I registered my account I gave my date of birth didn't I?
  • Ysx 7mo ago
    > Because social media already has the age info exactly? Then it shouldn't be difficult to comply.
• SkyeCA 7mo ago
  > organizations like the Digital Childhood Alliance (DCA)
  • cluckindan 7mo ago
    The Reddit post mentions that DCA does not exist in any official record. It seems to be a ghost organization for the purpose of controlling perceptions.
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    • enoint 7mo ago
      I think it exists, as an umbrella group. It might only be 3 weeks old. But it seems preoccupied with minors accessing online pharmacies. Very preoccupied with that.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• everdrive 7mo ago
  [dead]
• bradley13 7mo ago
  The article makes one mistake: praising Europe for having a better approach. Governments here are pushing hard to force ID requirements. Sure, they start by pretending it's "for the children" and they "only want age verification". They also claim that e-IDs will be voluntary. Camel. Nose. Tent. These are the same governments that file criminal charges when you compare lying leader to Pinocchio (Germany). The UK records something like 30 arrests per day for social media posts. Just imagine how much better they could do, if you were not pseudo-anonymous in the Internet!
  • dreadnip 7mo ago
    I quite like the EU approach. It's a decent spec. Most countries already have digital apps to verify identity, like Denmark's MitID (https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/get-started-with-mitid/ https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/get-started-with-mitid/). These could be expanded to fully EUDI compliant wallets and deliver encrypted proof-of-age without exposing any other identity. For example a gambling site could require MitID auth, but only request proof-of-age and nothing else. You can see in the app which information is being requested, like with OAuth.
    • y-curious 7mo ago
      I don’t mean to be as aggressive as this sounds but the frogs probably liked the increasingly warm water too until it started boiling. How many steps between MitID and a fork that is used to enforce extreme censorship?
      • boesboes 7mo ago
        Everything is a slippery slope if you tilt & twist it enough...
        • snackbroken 7mo ago
          This particular slope has consistently had people pratfalling over and over again for hundreds of years.
• singingwolfboy 7mo ago
  https://archive.ph/6kiqr https://archive.ph/6kiqr
• XzAeRosho 7mo ago
  I know most of this affects only the US, but I'm wondering where this will go in the EU if the Age Verification Tech goes ahead in America. There's been lots of efforts to increase surveillance disguised as protection for kids in the EU and UK. The Swiss implementation of eID may be hint that governments may/will take the responsibility to implement and maintain the tech, but the multiple intrusions and lobbying by Palantir and friends in the EU gives me the ick.
  • OccamsMirror 7mo ago
    This does not only affect the US. They're ramming this kind of bullshit into law in Australia too. As rapidly as they can.
  • jwr 7mo ago
    The EU, unfortunately, has shown to be very susceptible to this kind of lobbying in the past. We regularly see legislation that is being rammed and rushed through in spite of vocal opposition. I would be very, very worried. (EU citizen)
    • abc123abc123 7mo ago
      Yep. Sadly the EU is more or less lost, and freedom online will be squashed. I would not be surprised if age verification will tie in with the EU digital wallet, and with the EU democracy shield surveillance project, so that any opposition to Brussels ideological stance will get you disconnected from your bank, money, purchases, and your ability to ID yourself. Basically, the chinese, through WTO, managed to utilize corona to show politicians, regardless of color, the enormous power of complete digital control of the population. Our spineless and incompetent EU politicians thought it very erotic, and are now ramming it down our throats. I don't really see a way to stop this apart from moving to south america or africa, to a small country with a weak government.
    • dotandgtfo 7mo ago
      What examples of this do you have in recent years (post 2016)? The clearest example of lobbying (chat control) has repeatedly been struck down.
• varispeed 7mo ago
  Why "lobbying" is not treated as corruption? This kind of corporate influence should be illegal.
  • guywhocodes 7mo ago
    This is probably protected free speech
    • cwmoore 7mo ago
      You have the right to remain silent, but you must assert it verbally.
  • jamesnorden 7mo ago
    Technically because citizens are also allowed to lobby, but in practice only corporations get to play, so it becomes "legal bribing".
    • snowwrestler 7mo ago
      The environmental movement and labor movement are two examples where citizens organize to go up against corporate interests and win pretty regularly and durably. Most of those folks would not call it lobbying because of the negative associations of the word. “We have activists, our opponents have lobbyists.” But it works the same way. It is specifically protected in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Emphasis mine.
      • cwmoore 7mo ago
        You might want to look into the industry funding of environmental organizations and the decline of union membership before you decide with your whole heart.
  • 7mo ago
• badpenny 7mo ago
  It's an important story, and I'm glad it's getting exposure, but this "article" is some really blatant AI slop. Go and read the original Reddit thread by the human being who did the work instead of this lazy regurgitated shit.
  • Cthulhu_ 7mo ago
    What makes you think it's "blatant AI slop"? I mean I agree with reading the source over something that went through a journalistic filter but you didn't even link it.
  • wildzzz 7mo ago
    The original reddit post was also written by AI
  • dddgghhbbfblk 7mo ago
    It appears that the original "research" was also pure AI slop--someone just asking Claude and quickly slapping together whatever it said. It's very low quality and should not be getting this much attention.
  • anthonySs 7mo ago
    in this thread: people hating an ai company from an ai written article about an ai written reddit thread
• motohagiography 7mo ago
  Even steelmaning the case for age verification, does anyone really think the state is going to re-institute the innocence of childhood by filtering content and services? Of course not. There is no steelman. If you can do age, you can do identity, and the purpose of identity is recourse for authorities against truth and humor. Doing ID or this fake age verification with anything other than a physical secure element is a dumb regulation that going to create its own regulatory arbitrages and spawn very powerful and profitable black and grey markets. Poor laws create criminal economic opportunity, and digital id is just creating a massive one. Between Meta being behind a digital id initiative under the pretext of alleged "age verification" and the Debian project leads pivoting to political objectives, it appears gen Z now has a cause to build tech against and fight for. These are dying organizations that cannot innovate and they've attracted a pestilence that is pivoting them to the easier problem of political maneuvering. as it's easier to militate for what nobody wants than to make something anyone actually wants. The upside is that people get to be hackers again. Tools to cleanse our networks and systems of Meta and other surveillance companies and the influence of these compromised organizations are an OS install and a vibecoding weekend away.
  • enoint 7mo ago
    What makes you think Debian leads have taken a stand?
  • pjc50 7mo ago
    > Debian project leads pivoting to political objectives What does this mean? Free software was always a politics of itself.
  • stavros 7mo ago
    Your premise is flawed, you can do age without doing identity. Not that I'm a fan of either, I just wanted to point out the flaw.
    • intrasight 7mo ago
      [dead]
  • 7mo ago
• hliyan 7mo ago
  Why can't we handle this the same way we handle knives, guns and chainsaws: require adults to secure the device before letting minors near them? All the devices need is the ability to create limited access profiles. A human adult performs age verification by only providing the minor with creditals to a limited profile. Trying to perform that verification so far away from the minor, after they have got to the last gate, seems like the worst way to do it.
  • bluGill 7mo ago
    I want my kids to grow up in a world where they can install linux themselves. I don't want them to grow up in a world where they can't walk to a neighborhood park without me.
    • SiempreViernes 7mo ago
      Not sure I see the crossover between activities performed at home and problems of car centric street design and the resulting poor pedestrian traffic safety?
      • bluGill 7mo ago
        If I have to watch my kids 100% of the time they can't walk to the park. Nothing to do with street design - most suburbs have a park a safe walk near any house. That kids are not walking there is nothing to do with street design.
        • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 7mo ago
          > That kids are not walking there is nothing to do with street design. Some state legislatures are pushing back against this. Utah passed a law in 2018 which amends the definition of neglect to exclude this kind of thing. https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html (c) "Neglect" does not include: [...] (iv) permitting a child, whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm, to engage in independent activities, including: [...] (B) traveling to and from nearby commercial or recreational facilities; A handful of other states have followed suit. This page shows a map of states with similar laws: https://letgrow.org/states/ https://letgrow.org/states/
• orthoxerox 7mo ago
  If this lobbying forces Microsoft to finally add local child accounts to Windows, I'll consider Meta's money well-spent.
• bix6 7mo ago
  [dead]
• armchairhacker 7mo ago
  Apparently most of the “original” report was done by Claude (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47366804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47366804). And now paraphrased on various ad-space (and in this case affiliate link) sellers, probably also by Claude. Claude is the only real journalist here. Personally I’d rather not see reposts of posts this recent, especially LLM posts.
  • codethief 7mo ago
    Agreed. IMO your comment should be at the top. (Would it make sense to post it at the top level, so that it can be voted up independently?)
    • dang 7mo ago
      I've moved it to the top level and into the merged thread. (This subthread was originally a child of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47411314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47411314.)
  • Barbing 7mo ago
    I came to the comments dissatisfied with the writing. Or maybe more specifically the structure, idk not much of a writer, but many of the sentences are solid journalist quality yet the right background is not being set nor the right transitions being given etc. My dissatisfaction mode used to be boring high school newspaper sentences but the kids still seem to _assemble_ the details a tiny bit better.
• mwelpa 7mo ago
  has any of upvoters at least opened the article? there's no proof or event screen/link to reddit discussion. It's just comparison to EU's law.
  • delecti 7mo ago
    The article starts with the words "A Reddit researcher", and "Reddit researcher" is a link to the reddit thread in question.
  • Aurornis 7mo ago
    If you open the supposed research it’s just a pile of Claude Code generated AI slop. It was discussed on HN at the time. Every time I point it out, including with actual quotes from the research showing the problems with it, I get downvoted on HN. This headline is becoming one of those “too good to fact check” clams because the people posting it know it will drive traffic.
• systima 7mo ago
  Follow what Nick Clegg has been saying post-Meta. He might give a big clue.
  • pjc50 7mo ago
    .. do you think you could quote it here to save time please?
    • systima 7mo ago
      "But there is an obvious solution: mandate the operating systems (iOS and Android) to share device users' ages when they download apps from the app stores – data the operating systems get as part of the hardware acquisition already. This would be a simple one-step way for parents to control all the different apps that their kids use (in the US, the average teen uses forty different apps per month) and would remedy the fractured app-by-app approach we have today. We should make a societal judgement about whether to set these age limits for smartphones or social media use at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen or sixteen, then write it into law." in How to Save the Internet by Nick Clegg
      • dboreham 7mo ago
        Luckily Facebook has a web site, so it can be used without downloading an app.
        • intrasight 7mo ago
          Obviously, the device will share the age with the browser app.
      • saltcured 7mo ago
        Everything else aside, this naive belief system is right up there with "10 Myths every programmer should know about X" where X is email addresses, legal names, postal addresses, dates, timestamps, etc. Or perhaps they are envisioning a "hardware acquisition" process where the purchaser is forced to take some oath and sign an attestation about all future users of the device...
• Aldipower 7mo ago
  Didn't read yet, but "Reddit researcher" struck me. :-)
• conartist6 7mo ago
  The way the law is written is so utterly shit that I don't think it does what it's meant to do at all. Microsoft has a trillion dollars in liability now because every historical OS is illegal, and every adult user of that historical OS (that you don't ask for their age) is a monetary fine. $2500 fine for Microsoft for letting me continue use Windows 10 in Colorado, cause they never asked my age. Also hilariously the law openly FORBIDS checking the user's identity to verify age. It says you MUST NOT collect any more information than is necessary to comply with the law. And complying with the law only requires that you ASK the user to TELL YOU their age, so my non-lawyer take is that if you do anything else like checking ID you can and probably will be prosecuted
  • ibejoeb 7mo ago
    Microsoft is not going to let you continue using Windows 10 under any circumstances.
    • conartist6 7mo ago
      They cannot fucking stop me. $2500
• intended 7mo ago
  This is how bad journalism results in conspiracy theories. I looked at the original analysis and it was fraught with language that leads to specific conclusions. It was most certainly LLM aided, if not generated. I am not ascribing malice, but the author seems inexperienced with the repercussions of making assertions out of partial knowledge. Also: Good grief, this article is also written via LLM! Human+machine comes up with theory that goes viral, and then Humans+machines amplify it? Is this the brilliant future we have to look forward to?
• gethly 7mo ago
  age verification is always a backdoor for some nefarious constitutional rights-infringing policy because every child has their parents legally responsible for their well being and all the legal aspects as well. in other words, parents have the responsibility, and authority, to enforce what devices and what websites their kids are allowed to visit, and no silicon valley epstein pedos run by mosad should have any involvement in any of this whatsoever.
• pkphilip 7mo ago
  This is an underhand way of mandating digital id at the point of operating system boot or login
  • shevy-java 7mo ago
    I am curious how this will play out for Linux. I won't accept any code that spies on my owned computer devices. No criminal goverment can force be to surrender my rights here. But it is interesting to see how easy it is to purchase legislation in the USA - well done, Facebook! I predict more people will abandon it though, now that they see that Meta is trying to push out global spying on regular people.
    • bobmcnamara 7mo ago
      Also no exclusion for RTC and RTOS systems.
    • xvector 7mo ago
      They will require remote attestation of your entire boot chain eventually.
• shevy-java 7mo ago
  So meta acts as a government spy actor. Interesting. When a company such as meta pursues mass-sniffing, is it still a company or is it just a spy-agency? Meta isn't even hiding this anymore. I am glad to finally understand why these "age verification" is pushed globally. Meta pays well.
• Aurornis 7mo ago
  I tried to read the research when it was posted on Reddit a few days ago, but it’s all AI slop. The person who uploaded it admitted that they just had Claude go out and explore their hypotheses, but they didn’t even spend the time trying to get the real documents into Claude. Claude identified documents it wanted but couldn’t access them, so it just proposed hypothetical connections. The research has a lot of these: > LIMITATION: Direct PDF downloads returned 403 errors. ProPublica Schedule I viewer loads data dynamically (JavaScript), preventing extraction via WebFetch. The 2024 public disclosure copy on sixteenthirtyfund.org was also blocked. > Tech Transparency Project report: The article "Inside Meta's Spin Machine on Kids and Social Media" at techtransparencyproject.org likely contains detailed ConnectSafely/Meta funding analysis but was blocked (403) So the “research” isn’t some groundbreaking discoveries by a Redditor. It’s an afternoon worth of Claude Code slop where they couldn’t even take the time to get the real documents into the local workspace so Claude Code could access them. It’s now getting repeated by sites like Theo gadgetreview.com because the people posting to these sites aren’t reading the report either.
  • xbar 7mo ago
    Meta spent $2B to buy anti-privacy laws.
    • Aurornis 7mo ago
      Meta didn’t spend $2B. Even the original report doesn’t say that Meta spent that amount. The $2B number was the sum of all the numbers Claude could find, not the money Meta spent. There is so much AI slop in this article and source that it should be tripping everyone’s clickbait detectors, not being taken as accurate reporting.
      • cheesecompiler 7mo ago
        Does the amount listed change the underlying point?
        • Aurornis 7mo ago
• SpaceL10n 7mo ago
  So Meta's corporate strategy involves manipulating our social lives even more than they already do? I'm tired boss.
  • baggachipz 7mo ago
    They can always go lower
• Simulacra 7mo ago
  I think this is only the first step towards a license for the Internet. The best example I know of is South Korea, where you have a state issued login. I think it's only a matter of time until the U.S. government knows exactly who you are at all times on the Internet, and this effort is completely agnostic of party or doctrine. This has been building across multiple administrations.
• mayhemducks 7mo ago
  If Citizens United is not challenged, we will end up being governed by corporate billionaires. Forcing age verification down our throats will be the least of our worries if this continues.
  • baggachipz 7mo ago
    > we will end up being governed by corporate billionaires I think it's a little late for that.
• redm 7mo ago
  The question I keep coming back to regarding the recent debate around age verification is "Why now?" I'm 47, and I started using the internet in my early teens through BBS gateways. I've seen every age of the Internet, and there's always been widely available pornographic materials. Why all of a sudden is this a crisis? Perhaps I'm missing something?
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • MSFT_Edging 7mo ago
    More studies are being done on the effects of social media. Social media execs have been brought in front of congress multiple times. The US tried to ban tiktok because it showed our military actions in a negative light to millions of teens.
  • chasd00 7mo ago
    > Perhaps I'm missing something? maybe since minors can't enter into a contract they can't agree to TOS and therefore their content is ineligible to be used as LLM training material? just guessing.
  • flatline 7mo ago
    People often cloak their power grabs behind a move to control some vice. It was just a bunch of us nerds on BBSs back in the day. Now everyone is online. The stakes are completely different.
  • AJRF 7mo ago
    Did any groups recently lose control of a narrative? Are people in that group powerful, influential and wealthy? Would that group benefit from being able to use state power against individuals who just won't stop shining light on injustice?
  • rwmj 7mo ago
    Meta likes this stuff because (a) it's a barrier to entry to new social networks and (b) it heads off the under 16 bans which have happened in other countries.
• SirMaster 7mo ago
  We age gate the movie theater, so why is age gating a website or app any worse?
  • nickburns 7mo ago
    Have you given any movie theaters a permanent and persistent copy of your ID lately? Your phone number? Make them a list of anything and everything you've read about lately?
    • ezfe 7mo ago
      ???
    • SirMaster 7mo ago
      What is the fight over? It semes like some people are fighting over age restriction at all, and others are fighting over the specific exchange of age proof mechanisms.
      • nickburns 7mo ago
        Can we have the former without the latter? My own fight is squarely with the latter. I think I'm beginning to realize, however, that the onus should be on both sides of the issue to find a reasonable common ground.
  • mperham 7mo ago
    What age is appropriate for the Safari app? What age is appropriate for PlannedParenthood.com? Reddit.com? A movie is a distinct piece of content. A website and an app can be a container for lots of different content.
    • jayers 7mo ago
      This isn't even a hard question. The movie theater is open but movies that are rated R are not. In this case, Reddit.com is a movie theater, subreddits are movies. The website might be open, but not every subreddit is. This is in fact how Reddit already operates, age verification is just a joke right now.
• rererereferred 7mo ago
  Companies shouldn't be allowed to grow so big that they can manipulate laws as they want.
  • rc_mob 7mo ago
    Too late they already did, and now they control the laws that decide how big a company can be allowed to be.
  • snarfy 7mo ago
    This is the failure of capitalism.
  • Kenji 7mo ago
    [dead]
• cycomanic 7mo ago
  These discussions remind me so much of the US discussions about federal ID documents as verification. There's a vocal portion of people which opposes any solution because "privacy, government overreach, surveillance ...". So instead of a solution like e.g. zero-proof age verification, that tries to minimize intrusions on privacy, the result is the worst of all worlds, maximum surveillance (but I guess it's ok if it is not the federal government, but meta), with minimum utility. Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US.
  • sieep 7mo ago
    > Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US. Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card. I've never once had any issue with my identity.
    • abustamam 7mo ago
      I think they're talking about proving your identity to a non govt entity. A few things that come to mind are any platform with a KYC, they require you to upload your ID and assure you they're secure with a little lock icon.
      • masklinn 7mo ago
        Even proving your identity to a government entity is non-trivial, as can be seen by the administration trying to use that as a new poll tax.
        • abustamam 7mo ago
          When I needed to get my newborn daughter's social security card I went to the local SS office, only to be turned away because I did not have an appointment. So I went home, finally got an appointment after an hour on the phone, trying to explain why I didn't have her SS card (apparently "it never arrived" did not compute), went back the next day with my passport card to provide as proof of identity. Only for them to say "we don't accept passport cards as ID. We can use your license though!" Baffling.
• stevenalowe 7mo ago
  This is key: ‘The “child safety” rhetoric masks a competitive strategy that shifts liability from platforms to operating system makers.’
• Quarrelsome 7mo ago
  > Meta’s backing of DCA, part of a $70 million fragmented super PAC strategy designed to evade FEC tracking Why is this never relevant politically? Its the same with the Epstein files, terrible things happen and we just hand-wring. It seems like the US electorate, doesn't know, doesn't care or is otherwise distracted. I don't see how the US is ever going to get shit together if it accepts this sort of corruption.
• BTAQA 7mo ago
  The zero-knowledge proof angle is interesting but the real barrier is implementation most platforms won't voluntarily adopt privacy-preserving verification when the surveillance version gives them more data. Regulation would need to mandate the privacy-preserving approach specifically, not just "verify age somehow.
• daveswilson 7mo ago
  How are Apple and Google reacting to this? Surely these companies aren't ignorant of it.
• trilogic 7mo ago
  Your website send request to the users for access to private networks. That´s called invasive. Hacker news should not allow posts with this kind of websites.
• echelon 7mo ago
  > EU’s eIDAS 2.0 offers privacy-preserving age verification with zero-knowledge proofs that protect personal data. I'm on a short phone break and this is the first I've heard about this. Commenting to ask if anyone can explain this. If not, it'll be a reminder for me to research later. I'm not sure I'm on board with age verification, but I'm certainly opposed to all forms of identity linkage and tracking. Maybe this is a middle ground? I'd still prefer if parents disciplined their own kids by limiting device access and controlling their peer groups instead of putting us all into a rats nest of surveillance.
• granzymes 7mo ago
  Has HN really stooped so low that we are upvoting unsourced AI slop? This “article” is sourced to a random Reddit thread and was clearly written by an LLM. > A Reddit researcher just exposed >The technical reality hits harder than policy abstractions. > Here’s where the lobbying gets surgical.
  • ectospheno 7mo ago
    Ad hominem. If it’s clearly wrong then demonstrate.
    • Aurornis 7mo ago
      It has been demonstrated as being wrong throughout this thread and the original threads about it. The original report was AI slop from Claude Code. If you go to the repo it doesn’t even claim that Meta spent $2B, that’s just a sum of a lot of numbers Claude could find, not the number that Meta spent on lobbying this.
    • granzymes 7mo ago
      It is actually not argumentum ad hominem, not least because this author is clearly not a person. It is extremely relevant to substance of this post that it was written by an LLM based on an anonymous Reddit commit (based on "reporting" itself written by Claude). >If it’s clearly wrong then demonstrate. Sorry, this does not work in the age of AI. If you don't bother writing your own words, then no one should bother responding to them.
• noahnewmanmack 7mo ago
  i find it funny this got more upvotes than the original post on HN
• BirAdam 7mo ago
  Pretty sure that the current round of age check laws violates COPPA and FERPA... as transmitting age to any requestor would violate those laws. So, we're just furthering tyranny. Which law gets enforced today, which tomorrow, and who gets targeted? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
• nisten 7mo ago
  teacher, leave em linux kids alone
• pacifika 7mo ago
  Why?
• morissette 7mo ago
  Puts Linux on every flash drive they own in prep
• morissette 7mo ago
  I must say I’ve been on the internet since around 7 or 8 with no restrictions and I turned out just fine
• ezfe 7mo ago
  [dead]
• skybrian 7mo ago
  I don’t know why this isn’t a very simple Internet standard. The browsers on devices that have a child lock turned on could send an http header. People who have websites that are adult-only could configure their web server to check for that header and do something appropriate. That requires cooperation, but since most adult websites don’t want children to be visiting them, cooperation shouldn’t be hard to get. Governments can pass a law and businesses can set a config flag. For uncooperative websites, child-locked devices can check a blacklist. Then it’s up to parents to make sure their kids only have child-locked devices and for stores to not sell unlocked devices to kids. It’s never going to perfect, but it doesn’t doesn’t have to be to change community norms.
  • JoshTriplett 7mo ago
    There is already a set of standards for this: websites can send content ratings to the browser, and the browser can choose not to show content on the basis of those ratings. We don't need another one, especially one that inverts the polarity by having the browser proactively send information to the site.
    • skybrian 7mo ago
      Maybe that would work too, but “this device has a child lock turned on” seems like reasonable information to send? It’s a lot better than having to check ID’s.
      • JoshTriplett 7mo ago
        You know what's even better? Not sending anything. There's no value in sending that bit of information rather than in using what's already readily provided.
        • skybrian 7mo ago
          Which Internet standard are you referring to? I’d like to check browser support.
• koolala 7mo ago
  This is a junk AI article sourcing Reddit.
• bzmrgonz 7mo ago
  That's just great, now the tech-bros are going to start a war!!!
• stopbulying2 7mo ago
  Isn't age verification effectively useless given PI breaches? "Do such breaches make it trivial to lie to age and identity verification systems?" "1B identity records exposed in ID verification data leak" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47348440# https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47348440#
• tgtweak 7mo ago
  [dead]
• napolux 7mo ago
  So the theory of advertisers needing a way to verify who’s a bot and who’s not is not that crazy