Mastodawn

A great article from @eff talking to the recent absurdity of the #ageverificationlaw (s) and what to do about it.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/ab-1043s-internet-age-gates-hurt-everyone

A.B. 1043’s Internet Age Gates Hurt Everyone

Legislators do not need to sacrifice their constituents' First Amendment rights and privacy to make a safer internet, but they can address many of the harms these proposals seek to mitigate.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Rob Mar 31

An alternative #ageverificationlaw solution for #linux etc.

TLDR...Basically the distributor is the user.

It mirrors exactly what the law wants — a user affirming their age — but places the mechanism entirely under the user's control with no OS provider in the loop. #NixOs, #Guix are 80% close, the other 20%...

1. Remove central legal entity from the chain
2. Decentralize the content distribution itself
3. Embed the jurisdiction-compliance declaration into the user-initiated build process

hell \ Rebekah Hellberg Mar 23

fuck you they wont do what you tell them!! 🤘

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/grapheneos-refuses-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws

#grapheneos #ageverificationlaw #privacyrights

GrapheneOS refuses to comply with new age verification laws for operating systems — group says it will never require personal information

Doesn’t care if its devices can’t be sold in regions that require ID verification.

Tom's Hardware

Noah Bailey Mar 19

Fellow Canadians, please write to your MP about age verification and its privacy risks! It only takes a couple minutes, but it might move the needle in the right direction. Here are my letters to my MP if you need inspiration:

https://nbailey.ca/rant/age-verification/

#ageverification #canada #ageverificationlaw #canadapolitics #ontario #privacy #privacymatters #internetFreedom #canadian #cdnpoli

Letters to my MP: Age Verification

The following are two emails I sent to my member of parliament on March 13 and 18 respectively. I encourage everybody to read, copy, and take inspiration from these. Hi <MP Name> I’m writing to you today about the upcoming vote on the “online harms” bill. I believe you think you are doing the right thing; protecting the youth from the horrible things that can happen on the web. However, this legislation will not only do nothing to help kids, it will significantly harm the privacy of every Canadian, erode the quality of life for many marginalized people, and hand over shocking amounts of personal information to off-shore companies.

MusiqueNow

✡️ 🇵🇸

Mar 19

Who's Behind #California #AgeVerificationLaw that #GreasyGavinNewsom Signed ??

#TechDregs

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b_x4Q0_RQQs

Who's behind the California Age Verification Law?

YouTube

Ramin Honary Mar 14

Age verification can be abused by predators to seek out children. Age verification laws are requiring software to check the age of the user in more and more jurisdictions around the world. California’s laws are probably the most strict, requiring the age verification to happen in the operating system if the operating system can install apps over the Internet (which nowadays, includes all operating systems).

The legislators who pass these laws have been paid large campaign donations (“bribed” by any other name) to argue that these laws will give parents more control over what their children see on the Internet and what apps their children use.

But now any child predator can create a website, such as a website with nice, innocuous-looking, family-friendly, free games to play, and then collect information about people who use the website, like IP addresses, and web browser fingerprints, what kind of games are played, and of everyone who visits your website. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what a child predator could do with such a list of users when sorting that list by the user’s age.

I can’t help but wonder if it just a coincidence that a large number of the people in the Jefferey Epstein papers have still not been brought to justice, some of whom may still be paying these bribes to politicians?

#AgeVerification #AgeVerificationLaw #EpsteinPapers #JeffereyEpstein #EpsteinClass #ChildSafety #OnlineChildSafety #ChildSafetyLegislation

Age Verification Is Coming For the Internet. We Built You a Resource Hub to Fight Back.

Age verification laws are proliferating fast across the United States and around the world, creating a dangerous and confusing tangle of rules about what we’re all allowed to see and do online. That's why today, we're launching EFF.org/Age, a one-stop shop for users seeking to understand what these laws actually do, what’s at stake, why EFF opposes all forms of age verification, how to protect yourself, and how to join the fight for a free, open, private, and yes—safe—internet.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Jessica D Dooley Mar 13

Important research and documentation that businesses that profit from consumer data collection are lobbying governments to mandate age verification:

"Meta Platforms: Lobbying, Dark Money, and the App Store Accountability Act
An open-source intelligence investigation into how Meta Platforms built a multi-channel influence operation to pass age verification laws that shift regulatory burden from social media platforms onto Apple and Google's app stores."

https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings

#osint #privacy #opensource #lobbying #ageverificationlaw #security