Comment on System76 on Age Verification Laws
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 9 hours agoSoftware freely adding an option to somehow report ‘this user is underage’ is unavoidably distinct from the government mandating any form of requesting, storing, or sharing the user’s age.
Even if you honestly believe there’s no connection to states demanding ID collection before looking at porn - how can you not understand the people recoiling at this? ‘I get it but you’re mistaken’ would see a polite argument. Your apparent bewilderment is inexplicable. ‘Microsoft legally requires your birthdate before you boot up and the internet will work differently based on that’ must be a dark aside in some Cory Doctorow story. How is it our actual reality, which some people think is normal?
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
Well, from a privacy/freedom standpoint, how is this different from a website requiring you to enter your age and/or asking you to confirm that you’re 18? They record your age, store it with your data, then let you continue. The fact that baffles me is that this is widely accepted as standard practice, and not a significant privacy concern, while having an account-level flag that does the exact same thing isn’t. Like, is it because its managed by the browser/OS/app store? In that case, why isn’t there the same backlash against the existance of things like system theme flags, user agents, and even usernames.
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
As if there’s no backlash for those things! No popular culture reflecting the baby boom on January 1st, 1900. No widespread browser plugins to make e-mail nags and sign-in pop-ups fuck off.
As if legally mandatory age reporting is in any way the same thing as haphazard adoption of a Dark Mode flag. Wikipedia’s not even smart enough to make Automatic the default.
On some level, a website named Porn Hub needing an interstitial that says ‘btw, this is porn’ is the original sin of the internet. It’s borne of the same puritanical horseshit that tried banning pornography entirely. It’s not about children. They’re the excuse. This ongoing moral panic uses them in a widespread and not entirely unsuccessful effort to deny adult-ass adults the things that most of them want. This has been happening my entire life, and yours, and is why I cannot respect the hair-splitting insistence that forcing your OS to report your age is - somehow! - totally unrelated, utterly disconnected, having nothing to do with the many conservative governments who want to track every video you ever jerked off to.
For the children.
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
I’m trying to give you the benifit of the doubt, but at this point you seem to increasing be resorting to insults, and arguing against stawmen, to the point where I’m having trouble even understanding what you’re saying. I’m doing my best to remain respectful and civil, but you aren’t returning the favour. That said, I am trying to give you a chance, and want to be open to being convinced. So…
If I understand what you’re trying to say, you think there should never be any prompt, warning, or other safety measure on any content? Not gore videos, not dating sites, not shock sites? Am I understanding you correctly, and if not, can you please restate your argument more clearly.