Well this is truly bad. US national level OS-level age verification bill. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250/all-info

The text of it isn't out yet.

EDIT: Well the text is now out and it's as bad as you could imagine. It's not even just that you need to verify your age to access a website... operating systems must verify your age to let you *use a computer at all*

EDIT EDIT: Thanks to @Andres4NY for pointing out that it also holds responsible anyone who has any software shipped on the operating system of a computer, meaning FOSS developers eveywhere

"Brussels launched an age checking app. Hackers say it takes 2 minutes to break it."

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-brussels-launched-age-checking-app-hackers-say-took-them-2-minutes-break-it/
#ageVerification is and was a bad idea to protect minors online. The app stores sensitive data UNPROTECTED on the phone. I really don't know who works on such project in Brussels...

Embarrassing times for the European Commission after security researchers found flaws within minutes of using its age verification app. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-brussels-launched-age-checking-app-hackers-say-took-them-2-minutes-break-it/

(ICYMI: I have a blog post on why age verification laws are a bad idea to begin with: https://this.weekinsecurity.com/papers-please-age-verification-laws-threaten-everyones-online-security-and-privacy/)

RE: https://mstdn.social/@Holberg/116416481551022751

This is what I mean by "surreal fascism"

(This was an LLMs doing. )

The indispensable colleagues at @corporateeurope looked in detail at how the drive for "simplification" (destruction of EU legal protections for nature and workers) that has been storming through Brussels for the past year happened. Their report is out.

"This is what corporate capture looks like — and now it's documented. If you needed proof that corporate capture is real, structured, and operating at industrial scale in Brussels right now, here it is."

https://corporateeurope.org/en/2026/04/what-corporate-capture-looks

The "we're totally decentralized, bro!" social media platform #BlueSky is down at the moment. Which wouldn't happen if it was actually decentralized. So I'm posting about it on the #Fediverse

Love a fresh cup of hot irony in the morning.

Ansøgninger om nettilslutning fra nye datacentre blokerer for andre, så virksomheder der laver reel grøn omstilling kommer i kø.
Det skyldes at Energinet skal sige "ja" til alle ansøgninger om tilslutning og behandle dem i rækkefølge.

Politikerne må på banen så projekter der bidrager til den grønne omstilling får prioritet foran tech-giganternes behov for at bygge flere energislugende AI-datacentre.
#dkpol #dkgeeen #grønomstilling #energinet