Mastodawn

About the bill to require OS age verification (https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250/all-info).

1. If you want to protect kids you could require that OS makers above a certain size build in an OS level parental mode that the parent can fully customize based on their family's particular needs and values which would not be undermined by updates. (Currently I cannot with Edge because it repeatedly interferes with settings I've selected for my kids' sake. I haven't been impressed by existing parental controls generally.)

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Elisabeth M 16h ago

2. Kids are the vast minority of OS users. To require age verification doesn't benefit kids so much as it hurts everyone else.

3. Age verification is not about protection but surveillance. Why does the OS maker need this information? Why are they the ones who need it?

4. It doesn't begin to answer the next questions: if a user is a minor, what will be off limits? Who will determine which sites for example are blacklisted and which are, say, educational? Is this really a federal decision?

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Elisabeth M 16h ago

5. This bill, however it gets written, is anti-innovation, anti-freedom and anti-privacy. Indie OS makers - from small companies to open source to hobbyists - shouldn't have to figure out how to comply with a federal surveillance campaign. Parents should be free to set their own limits. Users should own their systems, have the ability to reject unwanted features, and be able to rest assured their computer is not reporting on them.

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Elisabeth M 16h ago

6. It's also anti-safety. Domestic violence survivors need the ability to use the Internet anonymously, in a way that cannot be traced back to them. Sometimes their lives and their kids' lives depend on this.

7. Speaking of which: what about libraries and other public computers?

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Elisabeth M

If you agree with this statement feel free to co-sign it. I turned it into a petition using @resistbot, so it can be sent to our elected officials.

https://resist.bot/petitions/PXMIPF

#resist #resistBot #os #us #surveillance #surveillanceCapitalism #legislation #privacy #infosec #pleaseBoost

Say NO to OS age verification

Join 1 people. As your constituent I urge you to vote down the bill to require operating system (OS) age verification (HR8250). This bill is not yet written, but… Sign and Resistbot delivers your letter in minutes.

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