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A cynical person might suspect that the reason they are doing this is so that Linux developers don't have standing to challenge the law on 1st amendment grounds

A cynical person might suspect that the reason they are doing this is so that Linux developers don't have standing to challenge the law on 1st amendment grounds...

SilverElfin 5mo ago
That’s exactly what it is. It removes standing, and that is a major flaw in our legal system. We need significant changes to defend constitutional rights properly.
- NewJazz 5mo ago
  Remember when women kept suing for the right to get an abortion and the courts kept just waiting out the pregnancy? Something something sixth amendment...
  - ndsipa_pomu 5mo ago
    Justice delayed is justice denied
cucumber3732842 5mo ago
Nah, you're not cynical enough. This is the classic "what we're trying to do is bullshit on a fundamental level so we're gonna just exempt random things until it becomes a niche issue and we can just do what we want and from there we'll just close all those exceptions over time" move. Give it 5yr and you'll have idiots in the comments talking about how the "linux loophole" was a mistake and should be closed. Source: history
- seanw444 5mo ago
  They're finally applying their 2A strategy to the 1A.
anigbrowl 5mo ago
LEarn to take a win as a win. People who are unable to look at anything without seeing themselves being scammed are clinically paranoid.
- jrmg 5mo ago
  There is so much conspiratorial nonsense in these threads…
- jwitthuhn 5mo ago
  It is an admission from the writers that this law is unrelated to safety and people should very loudly and frequently point that out. If OSes that don't verify the age of their users are a genuinely unsafe for children, why should they be allowed just because they are open source? That doesn't seem to mitigate dangers associated with age in any away I can identify.
  - anigbrowl 5mo ago
    Have you considered that the writers typically have legislative but not technical skills and are just trying to placate upset voters, without really understanding what the optimal solution could be? Reading this and other threads you can see therea re plenty of highly technical people who struggle to articulate what kind of policy they want or what kind of parental controls they want to set up themselves? It's kind of a hard problem and legislators are inclined picking the lowest hanging fruit. Their primary concern is to not be smeared as child predators by their political opponents at the next election, eg "jwitthuhn voted to give gambling websites, pronographers, and pedophiles easy access to YOUR children - s/he OPPOSED age verification laws on internet sleaze!! Who's jwitthuhn really working for - you, or the people who want to exploit your kids?!!" One can point out that such electoral pitches are dishonest bullshit until one is blue in the face, but the fact is they work on a lot of voters because most of them are not smart and don't have the energy or inclination to research every issue. And it is true that there are a lot of hustlers on the internet who are willing to either passively or actively exploit kids, and the anonymity, non-locality, and technical complexity of the internet makes that relatively easy to do and hard to prosecute. Legislators offer simplistic solutions because that's what a most of the public wants, and people often make their voting decisions based on emotional factors rather than cold rationality. You don't need mustache-twirling villains saying 'let's impose burdensome techn regulations that perpetuate oligopolies and allow me to make another trillion dollars, a few million of which I'll send your way, mwhahahaha' to get shitty legislation (which is not to say they don't exist). It will emerge naturally by default if other conditions are right.

A cynical person might suspect that the reason they are doing this is so that Linux developers don't have standing to challenge the law on 1st amendment grounds...

SilverElfin 5mo ago

That’s exactly what it is. It removes standing, and that is a major flaw in our legal system. We need significant changes to defend constitutional rights properly.

NewJazz 5mo ago
Remember when women kept suing for the right to get an abortion and the courts kept just waiting out the pregnancy? Something something sixth amendment...
- ndsipa_pomu 5mo ago
  Justice delayed is justice denied

cucumber3732842 5mo ago

Nah, you're not cynical enough. This is the classic "what we're trying to do is bullshit on a fundamental level so we're gonna just exempt random things until it becomes a niche issue and we can just do what we want and from there we'll just close all those exceptions over time" move. Give it 5yr and you'll have idiots in the comments talking about how the "linux loophole" was a mistake and should be closed. Source: history

seanw444 5mo ago
They're finally applying their 2A strategy to the 1A.

anigbrowl 5mo ago

LEarn to take a win as a win. People who are unable to look at anything without seeing themselves being scammed are clinically paranoid.

jrmg 5mo ago
There is so much conspiratorial nonsense in these threads…
jwitthuhn 5mo ago
It is an admission from the writers that this law is unrelated to safety and people should very loudly and frequently point that out. If OSes that don't verify the age of their users are a genuinely unsafe for children, why should they be allowed just because they are open source? That doesn't seem to mitigate dangers associated with age in any away I can identify.
- anigbrowl 5mo ago
  Have you considered that the writers typically have legislative but not technical skills and are just trying to placate upset voters, without really understanding what the optimal solution could be? Reading this and other threads you can see therea re plenty of highly technical people who struggle to articulate what kind of policy they want or what kind of parental controls they want to set up themselves? It's kind of a hard problem and legislators are inclined picking the lowest hanging fruit. Their primary concern is to not be smeared as child predators by their political opponents at the next election, eg "jwitthuhn voted to give gambling websites, pronographers, and pedophiles easy access to YOUR children - s/he OPPOSED age verification laws on internet sleaze!! Who's jwitthuhn really working for - you, or the people who want to exploit your kids?!!" One can point out that such electoral pitches are dishonest bullshit until one is blue in the face, but the fact is they work on a lot of voters because most of them are not smart and don't have the energy or inclination to research every issue. And it is true that there are a lot of hustlers on the internet who are willing to either passively or actively exploit kids, and the anonymity, non-locality, and technical complexity of the internet makes that relatively easy to do and hard to prosecute. Legislators offer simplistic solutions because that's what a most of the public wants, and people often make their voting decisions based on emotional factors rather than cold rationality. You don't need mustache-twirling villains saying 'let's impose burdensome techn regulations that perpetuate oligopolies and allow me to make another trillion dollars, a few million of which I'll send your way, mwhahahaha' to get shitty legislation (which is not to say they don't exist). It will emerge naturally by default if other conditions are right.