OK this is a stupid question, but why have Linux projects (apparently) fallen over themselves to comply with an age-recording statute in a single US state (albeit a large one), when those projects have been failing for decades to respect national and even international law regarding disability?
#accessibility #disability #linux #FreeSoftware #fascism #AgeVerification #infantilism
Because it's not a single state, not even a single country. I think this video about systemd is elucidating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5AcreFk40U
Watch until the end, because the last message is important.
I thought the Colorado situation was ongoing. But that doesn't invalidate my point that some statutes are given rapid attention and others, which are designed to help minorities are not.
Oh, and at the risk of being snarky, I note with amusement that a response to a point about accessibility is a youtube video. Honey, it is wasted on me.
I'm sorry for the YouTube link, I just didn't want to repeat an argument somebody else expressed a lot better than I ever could. Basically, the author argues that the anger towards free software developers for trying to implement law-conforming changes in their projects is misdirected -- it should be towards those passing those laws.
Having been in a somewhat similar, although not as important, situation more than 10 years ago, I understand this point of view.
"Hey don't blame *me* I'm just complying in advance" is not the argument they think it is
@johnzajac @ammdias @iaruffell
Also none of this does anything to explain why they can't comply with accessibility law.
@ammdias @iaruffell The problem is, they aren't being made to comply with laws in one or two areas, they're falling over themselves, ignoring dissenting voices in their rush to implement this in a thing that shouldn't even have anything to do with it anyway. Systemd just supposed to handle startup and services, not keeping records of the users.
The thing is, the laws aren't even binding them yet. Most don't even apply to them since they aren't centralized in those two states. The laws aren't even really finalized yet and implementations now may not even comply with the final laws...
And implementing those laws globally also tends to violate laws elsewhere. They're picking complying in advance with area laws that aren't even 100% legal over complying now with global laws that are.
@ammdias @iaruffell I do want to be clear: collecting user data to be submitted to applications outside of the user's control is non-compliant with a lot of privacy laws elsewhere. I'm no lawyer, but I'm willing to bet it's non-compliant with privacy laws even in California, as limited as those are... (Yeah, the law itself is pretty contradictory.)
They don't have to do this. Systemd is not California (or Colorado) based. It's global and it's implemented globally, which means it absolutely is violating laws elsewhere.
They could have spoken to lawyers. The EFF would have been glad to take this up I have absolutely no doubt. They even could have listened to the voices of people saying "hey, this may not even be legal."
But it's being rushed through in a hurry instead.
These age-verification laws are getting promoted by Meta, in their ongoing efforts to evade culpability for content moderation & to eliminate privacy as a civil right.
https://www.gadgetreview.com/reddit-user-uncovers-who-is-behind-metas-2b-lobbying-for-invasive-age-verification-tech
https://fortune.com/2026/03/02/social-media-companies-age-verification-addiction-privacy-concerns/
https://thedeepdive.ca/who-pushes-age-verification-bills/
Meta never abided by child protection laws before. Why now?
https://archive.is/ZyajL
https://winbuzzer.com/2026/03/18/reddit-user-uncovers-meta-2b-lobbying-age-verification-xcxwbn/
They want to be able to sell ads adjacent to CSAM content for the Epstein Class & not face the type of repercussions ...
1/
2/
... Musk is facing for his CSAM generator, GrokAI.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crrn054nxe7o
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musks-grok-undressing-problem-isnt-fixed/
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/article-848034
Social media are accustomed to shifting operational costs elsewhere.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/elon-musk-ai-startup-xai-raises-6-billion-1235909709/
They don't want to pay employees for content creation or moderation.
Remember who gave Musk a ton of money for xAI, Alwaleed bin Talal.
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/05/saudi-prince-alwaleed-bin-talal-invests-elon-musks-24b-ai-startup
Meta is likely getting similar investment from the fossil fuel industry ...
3/
... in their efforts to end any democracy acting on climate.
The Epstein Class is desperate to cover up the trade in children & women.
https://apnews.com/article/usaid-rohingya-exploitation-trump-budget-cuts-ebd7a05e2f507b810194e71ae6b3c515
The rights of the disabled aren't even a blip on the radar screen for fascist billionaires like Zuckerberg.
He'll fund a genocide or coup for anyone.
Remember, the fossil fuel industry's role in genocide.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/IRAN-MYANMAR/JET-FUEL/jnpwkonqrpw/
Severe foreign aid cuts imposed this year by U.S. President Donald Trump, along with funding reductions from other countries, shuttered thousands of schools and youth training centers in camps for Rohingya in Bangladesh and crippled child protection programs. In addition to unwanted marriages, scores of children as young as 10 were forced into backbreaking manual labor, and girls as young as 12 forced into prostitution. In a statement to the AP, the State Department said the U.S. has provided more than $168 million to the Rohingya since the beginning of Trump’s term and had “advanced burden sharing and improved efficiency” in the Rohingya response.
My guess?
Linux developers may have patrons that they don't want to irritate.
My observation is that swift unemployment in a day job follows when a FOSS developer fails to fall in line.
@ tante@ tldr.nettime.org is just one example I can cite.
Age verification is getting unprecedented levels of support from funded mass malign influence campaigns.
@Npars01 @iaruffell @ammdias I note that Meta is among their supporters.
I just went to their website, and the first thing you see is this blurb saying, “The Linux Foundation is a neutral, trusted hub for developers and organizations to code, manage, and scale open technology projects and ecosystems.”
NEUTRAL!
NEUTRAL!
Tell me you’re beholden to your corporate overlords without telling me you’re beholden to your corporate overlords.
@gtsadmin @ramsey @iaruffell @ammdias
There is no fate but what we make.
Linux will not be subsumed into Meta's plans for state surveillance.
Why?
Linux people ascribe to John Oliver's credo...
@Npars01 @iaruffell @ammdias This is why tech companies hiring FOSS maintainers or key developers is fundamentally malicious and something we should not accept.
If they want to fund the people working on the commons they depend on, they need to do it in ways that do not give them, or even give the appearance that they have, editorial control over anything.
As one of them myself, I can say this is not terribly hard but it requires standing up for yourself and your project. Communicating that control over it is not for sale and that terms of engagements need to acknowledge that.
@Npars01 @iaruffell @ammdias There's no need to guess: Linux developers that are trying to address this are concerned about legal exposure.
Ultimately, if CA decided to bring suit against one of the vendors or projects, the law would *probably* be overturned, etc. But that costs a ton of money that vendors don't want to spend and projects do not have. The EFF has said that they believe the law will apply to the distributions, regardless of whether they are based in CA or not.
I'm a bit concerned about the frenzy over this: it seems to have originated with a right-wing personality and is taking on a tone similar to the anti-Mono and anti-systemd brigading that was particularly nasty. And people are turning on FOSS developers in a particularly nasty way now. It's not helpful, and it's not conducive to solving these problems. Disagreeing with the way projects/distributions are handling it is fine, of course -- but people should be able to argue without slinging hate at people at the first sign of disagreement. We should be better than that.
From what I've seen so far, none of the proposed ways to comply with the CA age-verification requirement are even difficult to disable.
There is too much badness going on right now for this kind of vicious infighting.
Note: I wrote about all this here: https://lwn.net/Articles/1062112/
In any fascist movement, the instigators who are profiting from the infighting are fomenting "divide & conquer" media strategies.
It takes nothing for Meta to pay to launch a "hate for hire" malign influence campaign.
Just as people kept secret radios during WW2, people will form mutual aid groups to subvert these efforts at state surveillance, until we can expand the Supreme Court and get these laws overturned.
Hate is too strong a descriptor, yes, agreed.
My assumption is the callous indifference of unacknowledged male supremacy.
"The weak are meat & the strong do eat"
Cloud Atlas
Technology is geared to serving the so-called "strong" & ignoring the plight of the most vulnerable. Built into the "Might Makes Right" credo so prevalent in those circles.
The first sign of civilization arising from barbarism: A healed femur
@iaruffell @Npars01 @ammdias Sorry, but no; I've seen a fair amount of hostility being thrown around in the last week or so on this topic. Hate is appropriate.
As far as age verification vs. a11y, I don't think this is anywhere near an "apples to apples" comparison.
Accessibility is a problem on Linux, no doubt, and there's not enough being done there.
However: it's unclear to me what legal requirements are not being followed *and* whether they apply to volunteer projects. The thing that has caused a lot of concern with the age-verification stuff is that it clearly is meant to apply to anything that looks like an OS.
Secondly, we're talking orders of magnitude difference in addressing a11y versus a single "supply a user's age bracket" requirement. Implementing a simple API vs. the work across the stack to improve a11y are two very, very different things. I'm sure you must know this, so it's odd that you would try to juxtapose the two as a good faith question.
If a state or national government were suddenly requiring specific a11y requirements that obviously applied to distributions like Fedora and Debian, then I expect we'd be seeing discussions about the implications. As far as I know, they are not.
I've followed a11y discussions around Linux for a long time; I can't recall anyone suggesting that there were *legal* requirements that were not being met. ISTM that, by now, somebody would've gone after vendors like Red Hat for commercial workstation products if that were the case.
I don't mean in any way to dismiss concerns about a11y on the desktop, but the two are not seriously comparable.
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