I see so many people making a huge deal out of linux stuff adding support for the california age thing, and I'm like.
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@whitequark @rcombs I think there are two aspects here. One is the matter of unknown and untrusted folks inserting themselves into projects eagar to comply in advance. This expresses a disempowerment of communities and a surrender of editorial control to a fascist government. From this perspective, it's the statement of values that matters more than any practical effect.
facebook, google, tiktok, etc are tired of losing money to COPPA fines and this is their method of shifting the liability back onto the user
immediate and unquestioning compliance is critical to ensuring that even if the laws get fixed or repealed, they can continue to claim in court they're not liable for violating children's rights because these systems 'are everywhere'
CC: @whitequark@treehouse.systems @rcombs@treehouse.systems
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@whitequark @rcombs Is that a serious question? There is no law that says that we as the authors of a program have to modify it to behave in a certain way. If there is, it's unconstitutional. Even if it weren't, we wouldn't comply. It's complying in advance if nobody is holding a gun to your head or putting handcuffs on your wrists. Governments do not decide what we can write.
@dalias @rcombs it is my understanding that the UK Online Safety Act is this law and the UK government is very much ready to put you in jail for not following it
exactly how they want you to comply is... i'm not sure anyone really understands that clearly, but i don't think it is a matter of debate whether the law exists.
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@rcombs everyone knows young people will lie about their age. this enables them to lie about their age very easily. why the fuck would you put up a fuss about it
@whitequark @rcombs yeah, I've been lying about my age online since I was 24!
(in 1998. I was born in 1984)
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@whitequark @rcombs Is that a serious question? There is no law that says that we as the authors of a program have to modify it to behave in a certain way. If there is, it's unconstitutional. Even if it weren't, we wouldn't comply. It's complying in advance if nobody is holding a gun to your head or putting handcuffs on your wrists. Governments do not decide what we can write.
@whitequark @rcombs Even as a Linux business not up for civil disobedience, it's complying in advance if you don't go to court, either waiting for the state to take you to court, or preemptively suing to block enforcement. You wait until a court rules that you have to comply to do it (and then you deal with the fact that the upstream FOSS projects won't comply, so you have to maintain your own patches to comply, and you can use that hardship to help your case in court) rather than just agreeing to do it to begin with.
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I see so many people making a huge deal out of linux stuff adding support for the california age thing, and I'm like. you know basically every online service has been required to ask for your age since 1998? this is literally just "at account creation, the device owner can set an age field. to whatever they want. and then apps can query that instead of asking themselves."
you can set it to the unix epoch if you want@rcombs it's not an online service
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@dalias @rcombs it is my understanding that the UK Online Safety Act is this law and the UK government is very much ready to put you in jail for not following it
exactly how they want you to comply is... i'm not sure anyone really understands that clearly, but i don't think it is a matter of debate whether the law exists.
@whitequark @rcombs That law is about online service providers not operating systems you run on your computer. It's not related to this.
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@whitequark @rcombs Is that a serious question? There is no law that says that we as the authors of a program have to modify it to behave in a certain way. If there is, it's unconstitutional. Even if it weren't, we wouldn't comply. It's complying in advance if nobody is holding a gun to your head or putting handcuffs on your wrists. Governments do not decide what we can write.
@dalias @whitequark @rcombs Brazil's law requires OSes to implement age APIs
https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2023-2026/2025/lei/L15211.htm (^F "Application Programming Interface") -
@dalias @whitequark @rcombs Brazil's law requires OSes to implement age APIs
https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2023-2026/2025/lei/L15211.htm (^F "Application Programming Interface") -
@whitequark @natanbc @rcombs This isn't an answer in terms of case law there, but in general, we have long held that writing FOSS is expression, and that while building products (physical things, preinstalled systems, maybe automated installations? etc.) out of it might be subject to laws and regulations, nobody can tell us what we can or cannot write upstream. This is a principle we should continue to fight for. If we lose it we will regret that.
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@whitequark @dalias @rcombs From my reading, the OS provider would be held liable. The law does allow a simple warning at first, but it's up to a court and intent counts, so not implementing it intentionally would likely remove that option from you (^F "Art. 35" for the relevant part)
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@whitequark @natanbc @rcombs This isn't an answer in terms of case law there, but in general, we have long held that writing FOSS is expression, and that while building products (physical things, preinstalled systems, maybe automated installations? etc.) out of it might be subject to laws and regulations, nobody can tell us what we can or cannot write upstream. This is a principle we should continue to fight for. If we lose it we will regret that.
@dalias @whitequark @natanbc okay? but clearly a lot of downstream consumers are going to need the facility, so providing a standard (optional!) interface for it is prudent as an upstream infrastructure maintainer, to avoid obvious painful fragmentation?
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@dalias @whitequark like, even if you *did* intend to take this to court, the correct de-risk is clearly to implement the extremely simple required API in advance, so you can roll it out quickly and not end up in contempt if the court case doesn't go your way
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@whitequark @dalias @rcombs No idea, the law barely even mentions OSes, I doubt they ever considered anything other than Windows/macOS when writing that part of it. There's some room for arguing in court in the case of a Linux distro or similar on the basis of social purpose, but that's still lawyers and $$$
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@dalias @whitequark like, even if you *did* intend to take this to court, the correct de-risk is clearly to implement the extremely simple required API in advance, so you can roll it out quickly and not end up in contempt if the court case doesn't go your way
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@dalias @whitequark like, even if you *did* intend to take this to court, the correct de-risk is clearly to implement the extremely simple required API in advance, so you can roll it out quickly and not end up in contempt if the court case doesn't go your way
@rcombs @whitequark No, you don't get contempt for taking reasonable time to comply with a court order.
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@rcombs everyone knows young people will lie about their age. this enables them to lie about their age very easily. why the fuck would you put up a fuss about it
@whitequark @rcombs I still remember the advice on the Internet was never share your real name, age, and where you live.
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@whitequark @rcombs I still remember the advice on the Internet was never share your real name, age, and where you live.
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@whitequark @rcombs yeah it's a real shame
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@rcombs @dalias @whitequark where are these businesses related to desktop Linux that are going to be sued by the California AG and in which the AG can prove with a preponderance of the evidence the number of children affected by negligent violations? The fine depends on that.
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@rcombs @whitequark No, you don't get contempt for taking reasonable time to comply with a court order.
@dalias @whitequark you may well get the fine if the court rules against you and you'd been out of compliance the entire time without a preliminary injunction in place (and who knows if a court would grant one for this)
this is not risk any business should be expected to take
