Mastodawn

Adam Demasi 2d ago

I didn’t think this needed to be said, but don’t make up conspiracy theories about Linux projects complying with the age verification laws. You’re frustrated like we all are, but you’re directing it at the party that has little power other than to implement it as minimally as possible.

Instead, contact the lawmakers that passed this without listening to groups such as the EFF, who warned them about how it affects platforms other than Apple and Google’s. There’s still time before the laws come into effect.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/ab-1043s-internet-age-gates-hurt-everyone

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

EFF has long warned against age-gating the internet. Such mandates strike at the foundation of the free and open internet. They create unnecessary and unconstitutional barriers for adults and young people to access information and express themselves online. They hurt small and open-source...

Electronic Frontier Foundation

@kirb there was literally no need to implement anything.

@oblomov of course there was. How do you think it helps to pretend otherwise?

@benjamineskola @kirb no, there was not.

@oblomov how not? do you imagine that the law simply goes away if you wish hard enough, or do you think that people in (e.g.) california should simply be forced to use windows or macos instead?

@benjamineskola @oblomov @kirb

Let them try to enforce it

@einsiedlerspiel I seem to keep making this point elsewhere, and so I’ll be blunt: if you are not the person against whom the law will be enforced, I don’t think it’s your place to say ‘let them try to enforce it’. You are demanding that others face the consequences on your behalf.

@benjamineskola

right, at some point it starts being my problem because I'm sitting downstream of this code. People are responsible for the code they write and the harm it does. This is how you talk yourself into 'just following orders'. You're free to act out of self preservation. I'm free to withhold my sympathy.

And we're talking here about laws that are not even yet in effect, and compliance implemented by someone who isn't in the position to be held responsible in the end either. The stakes could not be lower. How am I supposed to trust that there is a point at which I downstream won't be thrown under the bus by these projects, when the stakes inevitably will be higher?

@einsiedlerspiel Be serious. How are you going to be 'thrown under the bus' by this? It's an optional feature of an optional piece of software.

@benjamineskola

It's part and parcel with similar pushes for 'trusted environments' on end user devices. It's building infrastructure.

And yeah in its current iteration it is almost minuscule, that's why it's so alarming that compliance is so eager.

@einsiedlerspiel I have zero sympathy for hysteria about this.

It's a bad law, yes. But the people affected by it do not have the luxury of simply ignoring it and hoping it'll go away.

@benjamineskola

well it won't go away if there's no resistance and the infrastructure for enforcing it exists that's for sure.

@einsiedlerspiel I'm not sure there's much that could be done to resist it from Europe anyway, so I don't know what you're making a fuss about.

@benjamineskola

Laws that I don't have direct influence on, not even the bit of voting power i might have had in the us, affecting what kinda control mechanisms are normalized in software i rely on? How could that be upsetting. The US exports these policies.

@einsiedlerspiel you do realise that literally nobody is forcing you to run this software, right?

@benjamineskola

a) we're talking about systemd and related projects that are infrastructure for basically every non microsoft/apple desktop I could recommend to newbs.

b) Again the current iteration is almost minuscule, but it's the general trend towards locked down devices. The impetus of these laws is a push in the direction of the situation of mobile devices at which point you might as well say 'noone forces you to use a computer' (Also the mobile space already provides the model for how the "noone forces you" always has a 'yet' implied. Evenn without laws there is software that I *need* to access existentially important services which I could not use without a 'trusted' device; see banking software, app-only ticketing etc.).

But we don't need to continue this. All I'm saying is this no big deal attitude will backfire and we absolutely need software projects asserting their opposition. (And I'm not willing to cede this field to fucking lunduke).

No I don't expect everyone to take the bullet, but I expect the acknowledgement that there is indeed a choice.

@einsiedlerspiel Look, I think it’s a good thing if people refuse to comply. But I don’t think that’s going to be a reasonable choice for everyone. Not everybody can afford to risk getting sued, and it’s not my place to tell them to get sued anyway.

Given that, I think it’s necessary for the means to comply with the law to exist.

In which case I don’t understand why so many people are throwing tantrums about someone implementing such means.