it absolutely is not. my first thought to seeing this is that they’re trying to reduce the resistance to the bill, then later add linux to it and not face as much backlash. basically, option 2.

dont be blind.

If they don’t accept “just enter your age” in a website they are not going to accept “just enter your age” on a OS. They are going, sooner or later, to require Microsoft to check users ID to confirm OS account age.

It’s not a fallacy when multiple countries/states have passed laws that explicitly demand some form of ID confirmation/scanning and others have stated an intent for it. It’s not a fallacy when you understand what the purpose of this push actually is.

The fact is the end result isn’t going to be compliance with the least restrictive standard but the most. That’s how regulatory compliance always works. You always comply with the most restrictive because it encompasses the least restrictive as well. Further if you stopped to think and analyzed history scientifically instead of it being a series of great man events or whatever you’d understand how capitalism in crisis reacts by crushing the working class using tools like fascism. That the 5-eyes spying abuse far from being some deviation from liberalism embody the deeper desires and wants of the modern western world to spy on and control their citizens and the world and that a free internet has been an incredible threat to state power since day one.

It’s just the first big moment where their propaganda failed, where their narrative was undermined was the Gaza genocide and they will do anything to prop up the Zio-Nazi entity occupying Palestine and prevent their other narratives from suffering the same fate in future. A man in the “free speech” loving EU was unpersoned FFS and can’t be given money, buy food, stay at hotels, use banks, anything for deviating too far from the approved EU narrative. These are the people we’re dealing with.

It’s also not a fallacy when AI has created a crisis for private/government spy fusion platforms like Meta, Google, etc in both gaining ad dollars due to AI bots being hard to discern so hard identifying humans is a must for not only spying but profits from ads.

For a long time the material interests of the massive tech companies and their financial backers and shareholders did not particularly benefit from this kind of ID law and so they pushed back and disallowed it. Now thanks to AI their interests align with those of the state, the capitalist propaganda organs, the moral crusaders. There is in other words nothing major standing in their way and tons of power centers pushing for this as a result of AI, the Gaze genocide breaking containment, etc and it has gained momentum.

It’s not going to be putting a number into a box. That is abusable and is functionally no different than what we already have now. It will be proper age verification similar to what social media is already starting to use.

This is also not about “child safety” either. There are already tools for providing parental controls. Improving and making these options more accessible should be the priority, not enforcing it upon everyone. That is why we are calling it out for what it is, thinly veiled invasion of our privacy.

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Exactly. It’s optional… as long as ypu don’t plan on using internet.

The way the iPad has it seems OK, where you can disallow apps, websites and set time limits.

You’re right. It’s INCREDIBLY simple.

And I’m saying this as a systems engineer. I do this for a living.

I would go a step beyond and just make it a mandatory screen as part of setup:

Will this account mainly be used by an adult, by a teenager, or by a child?

I think the “teenager” would allow a little more granularity in parental control, but the “teenager” would legally be treated as a minor.

And you mandate that browser manufacturers be able to read that as part of the account information, but not forced to provide it to websites.

And you mandate that websites be forced to put in place restrictions that prevent adult websites from being provided to children or to computers that don’t identify the user as an adult or as a child.

Restricting on the computer manufacturers’ ends is the wrong way to do it. Restrict on the websites’ end.

This would be simple. This would also not address the fundamental issue which is identification of bots vs. humans which are quietly destroying the online advertising industry (which, yeah, good riddance), which is what motivated Meta to lobby for online age verification to begin with. So it would fulfil the official purpose of age verification, but not it’s real purpose