There is already plenty of empirical evidence to support the claims of the harms of social media, but in spite of this, change is glacial.

I think at one point you could make the same argument about medicines. The problem is that politicians are appointed with a popularity contest.

I don’t remember all the arguments of the article, but when you think about it, the harms of social media are medical. It’s possible that we could expand the scope of the current medicine approval boards to include algorithms, with their job not being to understand the algorithm but to understand the research on mental health.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do think it’s an idea worth exploring.

In my view social media is probably not the problem, but the algorithms they use that are designed to be addictive and manipulative.

I saw an article once arguing that the algorithms should be regulated in a similar way to medicine. Give some base ingredients they can use freely (e.g. sort by newest first), then require any others to run studies to prove they are not harmful.

There would be an expert board that approves or declines the new algorithm in the same way medicines are approved today (the important bit being that they are experts, not politicians making the decision).

Lemmy is a different kind of platform. Twitter wasn’t for me, but I never clicked with Mastodon either. Some people like the microblog format but I just never got it, or maybe I never worked out how to use it probably.

90s me would have killed for speeds like that!

One time I was in a class where we had this beginner level web dev assignment, and we were writing HTML and CSS. We had to submit the assignment as a zip file.

When you open the HTML from the zip file in Windows without unzipping it, it can’t access other files in the zip file, namely the CSS.

The entire class failed the assignment because the teacher didn’t unzip the files first, and refused to entertain the idea they might have screwed up.

IMO the header should stay at the top as part of the page. I know where it is, I’ll scroll up to it if I need to.

Like you, I find a header appearing and hiding quite difficult in specific circumstances.

Just one team working on Teams, and they are doing their best to make it worse.

I for one encourage them, it apparently needs to be even worse before my work will consider changing

TBH this sounds to me like something specifically intended to not be an Australian-like solution, which they could have copied.

I am not sure what’s required of a bare bones Linux install (general computing device) that has access to a package manager (application store)!

Yeah perhaps. Or that “account” doesn’t really need to bw what we think of as an account.

Could it be covered, but they would still have to ask? It says if it wasn’t done at setup it has to ask, so perhaps an account-less OS would still be expected to ask for an age and provide it when asked?

Nah I don’t think it does. You don’t really get that because the intent of a law is important in court cases.

Mobile phones are specifically covered:

(g) “Operating system provider” means a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.

Windows doesn’t ask at install, and also this law requires them to ask for already set up accounts too.

This will make it a lot more visible.

Nah it seems it doesn’t apply to physical devices (except general computing devices as mentioned elsewhere)

(f) This title does not apply to any of the following:

(1) A broadband internet access service, as defined in Section 3100.

(2) A telecommunications service, as defined in Section 153 of Title 47 of the United States Code.

(3) The delivery or use of a physical product.

(3) seems to imply the OS that runs your switch or gas pump isn’t included. But I see nothing in the law that clarifies servers or any CLI only interface, or even any OS that doesn’t have accounts.

Where do you quote “reasonable” from? The only part of the law with that word is referring to a different, already existing law (or the bit about reasonable technical limitations causing the wrong signals sent in the API).

Ok I did it, I read the full text of the law, and you’re right.

The existence of Linux or anything not big tech and the broad range of options within seems to be ignored. Does a CLI only OS need to provide a GUI for its “accessible interface”?

On a different note, I did see the last point here:

(f) This title does not apply to any of the following:

(1) A broadband internet access service, as defined in Section 3100.

(2) A telecommunications service, as defined in Section 153 of Title 47 of the United States Code.

(3) The delivery or use of a physical product.

(3) seems to imply the OS that runs your microwave isn’t included.

I think the next bit from the article I didn’t quote explains that:

“(2) Provide a developer who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface that identifies, at a minimum, which of the following categories pertains to the user.” The categories are broken into four sections: users under 13 years of age, over 13 years of age under 16, at least 16 years of age and under 18, and “at least 18 years of age.”

I think the idea is that you would say that under 16s can’t use social media. Then you’d enforce this not with the horrendous Australian strategy of having everyone IDed, but instead you would enforce it by having an API that websites and apps could use that would tell them the age of the user.

So basically:

• Parent sets up device for kid and sets their age.
• Kid tries to download Facebook app
• Gets denied because they are under age
• Kid tries to go to facebook website instead
• Website sends request to browser for user’s age, browser asks Windows (or whatever OS) for age and provides this age back to Facebook
• Facebook denies access because user is under age

Windows might already have parental controls within Windows, but it’s the ability for apps and websites to know the age (or in this case age range) that is the important part.

I much prefer this than handing over ID.

Sorry but I don’t think the article text backs up the title?

The claim is that they have to enforce age verification, but the quoted law says:

Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.

Doesn’t this just mean it needs to ask for an age at setup, so e.g. parents can set it up with an age and they can automatically be restricted?

I don’t see anywhere actual verification is required, if you’re setting it up yourself then just lie?

Honestly, this sounds like my preferred path if we are gonna do anything.

Even better than a coin flip is asking this what to do then doing the opposite!

Depends if you count OEM licences that came with their device as purchases, which would be the vast majority of people.

He probably just wishes he put it in the contract signed with the mothers.

I guess the most plausible explanation is incompetence, there wouldn’t be a reason to do this on purpose (a backdoor), right? Since the company could have easily used different credentials per device that they store anyway?