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.
He makes a lot of fair points that adding a birthdate to the systemd records doesn't mean it has to be filled out... until it does of course! What happens when the new law passes that not filling out your user records is a felony?
The prescription of "talk to your politicians" is the same liberal hogwash that got us here. Millions of people came out against the 2003 Iraq war in the US and it still happened. The lack of imagination about how to resist and limiting your actions to begging powerful people not to do bad things will be the death of us all.
Of course, the developers could *choose* to not implement that change and make software that could not be used legally, in the same way that users can *choose* to not fill that field and risk being brought to justice. But for the user to be able to make the choice, the developer must implement it 🙂
Yeah lots of options for not building fascist infrastructure into formerly-free software. And here we are watching people freely make the wrong decisions.
Isabel Ruffell
António Manuel Dias
Princess Unikitty