Apparently it is time to say it again: You aren’t helping or achieving anything by squatting onto github/gitlab/irc/etc to tell people, that you think age verification is a bad idea.

1. Nobody involved thinks the laws proposed in some US states are a good idea.
2. There is a more nuanced discussion to be had whether some form of standardized parental controls are, but technical forums aren’t the place to do that either and the situation is heated enough, that even the most socially skilled people aren’t in the mindset for nuanced anymore. (Congrats!)
3. Unfortunately a large part of the FOSS space is financed by companies, who want to continue selling hardware with Linux and we live in a society. So if this becomes law, something will have to give. The correct way to oppose this is by participating in the process. Vote, write to your representatives, etc. (Or viva la revolution, good luck)
4. All you are doing by writing in those pull requests is pilling onto the abuse some of the most burned out people in the industry already experience over this and other even stupider topics.
5. Figuring out the line to walk between designing something adequate to comply to different (existing and proposed, potentially conflicting) legislation and privacy is difficult and you are not doing anybody a favor by making the space to do this in collaboration transparently and openly hostile. Ending up with various different/non-standard stacks to do this would have even worse consequences.
6. If you actually have technical feedback and are up-to-date on all the relevant context, of course you are welcome to participate. But expect to do the work in that case, just complaining will again not help.

Jeez.. people, you aren’t doing better than the wayland haters. And no, just being on the right side of the general debate, doesn’t justify this shit.

@drakulix hot take, but people implementing fascist asks fucking deserve pushback

fuck this tone-policing nonsense

@Ember @drakulix People would be more open to this entire discourse if it wouldn't have been started by a MAGA dude that thinks "woke states" shouldn't enact such legislation to cause harassment.

Yeah people jump at each others throat, because a fash person made a reddit post, congrats.

@karolherbst @Ember @drakulix I haven't read any reddit posts. This shit has come up again and again for years. If we take further steps towards this they'll keep trying to force more shitty things through that end up actually violating privacy more. None of this has ever been about protecting children... It's been about surveillance and control. We don't need any of this. Now, I don't condone harassing people, but we do need to pushback when things matter.
@karolherbst @Ember @drakulix To be clear, by "they" I don't mean the devs implementing this as a reaction to changing laws. I mean the lawmakers making these laws. Although immediately caving and implementing whatever they want doesn't do the devs any favors either.
@tachi it's not even caving because of pressure, it seems a whole lot more like the law just gave them an excuse
@Ember Yeah I'm sure it seems like that in some projects, with some developers. With other projects it does seem like they're being forced into it by various factors so they're trying to make the best of a bad situation. Both situations suck. Pushing back on both devs and lawmakers is needed but honestly I don't expect much from lawmakers. Harrassing isn't how we solve this but pushing back certainly doesn't seem to work either. I have no answers.
@Ember It does suck that this is happening in a lot of core projects though. Countries seem to be able to export their policy to projects that are used globally by everyone and it adversely affects FOSS. If devs don't care about that then the only option we have is to stop using their software.

@tachi hard when it's core sofware, it's not like there's an actual alternative to systemd and the freedesktop stack, or the linux kernel for that matter

also with how many projects are embracing slop it really feels like OSS as a whole is going down in flames, can't avoid it all aside from just, not using computers if at all possible

@tachi @Ember @drakulix not implying that everybody that is upset about this read a reddit post, but it does seem to be the original source for the current wave of backslash.

Like I'm not disagreeing with people being upset with the legislation, but it also doesn't feel too good to know that people are angry at each other because some fash person made a reddit post.

@karolherbst lmao. who the fuck cares about what some reddit fascist said, that doesn't make "age verification" trash justified, nor does it make pushback on it the same as being MAGA

@Ember right and I haven't claimed either of those things.

Just that people already hate that literal trolls jumped on the discussion to fuel it and if everybody else also jumps on it as a result it won't lead to anything productive..

Nobody likes this and everybody would be happier not having to do this. Like there is no disagreement about this being an awful situation to be in.

It's the trolls that is dealt with, not community feedback being ignored.

@Ember Then call out or write to the law makers involved, whether MAGA or "dems". Or write the companies pushing this non-sense (e.g. freaking Meta). Or write the companies wanting to sell computers, that you as a customer demand, that they rather stop selling their stuff in the affected states. Or try to work on the implementation to ensure, that distros with no financial incentive won't have to ship any of this and have an option to disable these "features".

There is actionable stuff here or alternatively use any coping mechanism you employ probably frequently in these tiring times over this mess and the systematic change all of us would like to see.

But effectively harassing individual developers, who try to keep their jobs over an api, isn't it.
@Ember @drakulix what a fucking wanker you are...
@swick @[email protected] @drakulix We dont allow children to drive cars, I guess we shouldn't allow children onto Github either ;-)
@vladimirchicken @swick As much as I think Ember is in the wrong here, I hope I don't have to state why we shouldn't counter this with more harassment. Mute/report/move on.

Also this is exactly the attitude, that got us into this mess, let people make mistakes online. You don't have to be the one engaging with it, but this is how people learn. Don't tell me you didn't make some enemies in some niche forums in your formative years. I certainly have posted stuff, I am not proud of in hindsight.

Anyway, seems like it is time to mute this thread.
@drakulix @vladimirchicken @swick yes

it is important to try and be charitable and tolerant. constantly reacting to people just ends up with people who would normally get along, arguing over things that are either stupid or they actually get along with

it's important to do your best to actually listen to people and understand what they're trying to say. what they actually believe, and where their frustrations are
@drakulix @vladimirchicken @swick also, age-ism is toxic. there are legitimate reasons to care about age, when it comes to consent for example

but it is not okay to dismiss opinions and views because of age. it is not okay to assume that someone is dumb because of age

yeah, younger people are usually more immature. leave them be, gently call out their behavior

and of course, older people make mistakes too, let's not jump to the worst possible conclusions
@Ember @drakulix Do you want them to ignore law? Direct your anger towards the correct places.

@Ember Hot take, but this attitude will get you killed.

You are not going to survive fascism with infighting. Quite the opposite: causing infighting is literally their strategy, because isolated people are easy prey.

Malicious compliance on the other hand will help you survive. And I would be very stunned if any linux-based age verification system would be hard to bypass for users.

So let them cook. And don't abuse your allies.

@Ember And on the subject of tone policing:

Most of what @drakulix says applies no matter if you write: "My dearest maintainer, I don't like the idea of age verification" or "You are a fucking moron for implementing age bullshit."

You're not wrong because of your tone.

You're not even wrong.

I just don't see, how github arguments will have any meaningful impact.