Irenes (many)there's so many bills in so many jurisdictions, we hadn't realized California actually managed to pass the age verification in the OS thing :(
HowToPhil (Phillip R)@ireneista And Colorado is trying to follow :(
It's such complete bullshit
@howtophil if it winds up being enforced, it's not compatible with ... well, anything, really. democracy, among other things.
Peter Hosey@ireneista I hadn't heard that it was even floated. Only found out that it was already law* last week.
*signed by the Governor already, but comes into effect next year
@boredzo we've been active in multiple groups that are attempting to fight these surveillance bills, so we'd heard about the versions of it in other jurisdictions, sigh...
Dimly Lit Corners@ireneista maybe not (yet) v.v
наб@ireneista did it? as I read the "bill", it looks like (a) it's written in a version of english with no nouns that makes it not really mutually intelligible with english, and (b) it looks like you the user (you the parent) are the operating system provider, since you the user are a person that controls the operating system software on a computer? which makes so little sense I read this for a PR stunt
@ireneista (but then I have lived in an "LGBT-free zone" which covered most of eastern poland and consisted of being deemed an "LGBT-free zone", a media cycle, then running that back in a year, with nothing actually changing ever. so maybe I'm pre-disposed to viewing clearly-bogus "legislature" as PR stunts. but that does seem like something that americans do constantly anyway, so)
@nabijaczleweli there are bills along these lines being introduced all over the world. we agree that enforceability is likely to be a problem but nobody spends that amount of lobbying effort simply for PR reasons.
@nabijaczleweli as context we should mention that we have personally been tracking and opposing these surveillance and censorship bills for years, both as an activist and in our professional capacity
in a woefully inadequate way, because we do not have a massive lobbying apparatus at our disposal, but we've been trying our best
Philippa Cowderoy@ireneista I "look forward" to the first time they go for someone selling a retro PC running DOS...
0xC0DEC0DE07EA@ireneista I cannot. How is my embedded device supposed to do that exactly? Leaving aside that not all computers are permitted to have radios or network accessibility (they know what they did).
@c0dec0dec0de yeah if we ever have to replace our current television, our plan is to disable all antennas in the new one with a solder bridge at their base
@ireneista increasingly feels like it’s the only way to be sure.
@c0dec0dec0de yeah. it's, you know, a prophylactic measure because the kinds of malfeasance we're really concerned about are probably not happening yet, but we do think it's warranted.
Jeffrey Yasskin@ireneista My impression, and I think @npdoty 's, is that the California law makes OSes *ask* their owner for the user's age, in order to pass it on to apps. It doesn't make them verify that age, so it facilitates parents working with websites to give their kid an appropriate experience. If a kid is more mature than their age implies, or websites are hiding age-appropriate information, the device owner can say a different age. Seems in line with https://www.w3.org/TR/privacy-principles/#guardians. Much better than the jurisdictions that are requiring sites to verify with private-info uploads.
I could be missing something, of course.
Privacy Principles
Privacy is an essential part of the web. This document provides definitions for privacy and related concepts that are applicable worldwide as well as a set of privacy principles that should guide the development of the web as a trustworthy platform. People using the web would benefit from a stronger relationship between technology and policy, and this document is written to work with both.
Nick Doty@ireneista @jyasskin yeah the details of different bills and different approaches are significant, even though we might be concerned about the trend and its risks for privacy and free expression in all cases.
California will require operating systems to ask the user to select an age range. Texas requires app stores to confirm age (with an identity check or some other system) and then pass on the age range to apps. UK and Australia mandate that every service do its own identity or age check.
@ireneista @jyasskin voluntary, user-selected age-range signaling seems among the less harmful of approaches, in that it doesn't require or enable much additional data collection, and gives guardians some discretion in what they signal. We hear from both parents and teens that they want those choices, and that they're creeped out by the ID and biometric verification mechanisms.
@npdoty @jyasskin we do anticipate the Heritage Foundation is going to fund lawsuits to push for the strongest possible interpretation of any law that does exist along these lines, as they have with SESTA/FOSTA, since it appears to be coming from the same ideological position. so we can't rely on it being interpreted by people who want to be reasonable.
@ireneista @jyasskin I think the more active fight, and the attention of many conservative activists, is pushing for laws with more invasive mandates. At the US federal level, for example, there's the Kid's Online Safety Act vs the Parents Over Platforms Act.
Some laws do have more openings for aggressive interpretation, and ambiguities that might lead to overcompliance. Texas and others refer to undefined "commercially reasonable" verification methods, for example.
@npdoty @ireneista Reading https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043, I'm worried about 3 things:
1) '"Account holder” means an individual who is at least 18 years of age.', and the OS has to ask "the" account holder, but there's nothing about how the OS figures out its administrator's age. Presumably it'll be ok to assume that the person setting up a device bought the device, and only 18yos can buy things, even though that's strictly false?
2) The law talks about "the" user, so what about devices with multiple users? (probably minor?)
3) The law assumes that the OS will give apps a granular version of the single age specified for the user. But a good parental control app ought to let parents say "my kid is Xyo for this particular app". Is that allowed?
1) '"Account holder” means an individual who is at least 18 years of age.', and the OS has to ask "the" account holder, but there's nothing about how the OS figures out its administrator's age. Presumably it'll be ok to assume that the person setting up a device bought the device, and only 18yos can buy things, even though that's strictly false?
2) The law talks about "the" user, so what about devices with multiple users? (probably minor?)
3) The law assumes that the OS will give apps a granular version of the single age specified for the user. But a good parental control app ought to let parents say "my kid is Xyo for this particular app". Is that allowed?
Verena Starwalker@ireneista The question is.. what do we do about it?
@virtuafox yeah, it's a good question. we need to chew on that.