@rfc1036 Fan of systemd here, albeit one concerned by its direction lately, and yes, I'm aware the DoB field could be interpreted multiple ways.

HOWEVER:

Nobody in my feeds who is concerned about the DoB field can remotely be described as "fascist". The fact you see some of the people complaining on X does not mean the concerns originated with a fascist group, or even on X itself.

The insult doesn't even make any sense. Why would fascists care what systemd is, let alone oppose it being (unintentionally I hope) infrastructure to an age verification system?

The systemd devs chose to implement this feature, and announce it, at a time when everyone is very jumpy about the California law. It was inevitable there would be concerns about systemd implementing something that is a prerequisite to implementing the mandate of that law on GNU/Linux based OSs.

It may be unfortunate timing, and a coincidence (I hope), but that doesn't mean that civil libertarians and anti-fascists (who are 100% of the group on my feeds opposing this) aren't going to be jumpy about it. And systemd's unpopularity in many circles means it does need to treat particularly carefully and make good decisions, looking at the world at large, not just at whatever tech thing it happens to be trying to solve.

Rather than insulting good faith critics, systemd needs to be run by people with a little more awareness of the world at large.

You guys messed this up. Stop insulting those who are worried, and fix it.