this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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There's still valid concern about this being a foot in the door tactic. Once an OS complies with this request what will the next one be? Why should this even be allowed?
Either way though, the reddit citation is a bit unnerving.
It's a gray area. If you have nothing to "protect the kids", the feds might force it on a "non-compliant" state right now considering the fascism permeating our highest governments.
We're starting to see desperate legislation more and more often. As a resident of CA, we had to vote FOR gerrymandering recently. It was disgusting, but it was direly needed to preserve democracy in the US.
It has to be a foot in the door. If all they do is say apps have to do this, it's ineffective at best. More than likely it's dangerous because now you have built the gate and whoever comes after you can just hire the bouncer to stand in front of it (or rather contract it out to the cheapest shittiest companies imaginable). I can't imagine this isn't part of their plan because if wasn't, you could still download an exe, MSI, deb, appimage, docker container, flatpack from anywhere and install it. Essentially the age game would do nothing except discourage use of the MS store, which is about the only good thing about it. :D
Sure, but reddit (& Lemmy) hyperventilating about this as if the milktoast laws are the same as full retenal scanning verified by Palantir has completely destroyed any sort of sensible discussion around this.
Personally I think doing nothing isn't an option and so the unverified age API approach is the least bad solution i've seen.
And much better than pushing the verification server side. The main argument I've seen against it is either:
slippery nipples means that at some point a different worse law could be passed, which is possible, but worse laws have already been passed elsewhere so if that was the intent they could have gone for it in CA/CO
Parents should watch their kids better, which is disingenuous as this is litterally adding a tool to help do that in a standard way, rather than some flakey survailance app.
To your second point, make it a tool that can be enabled by a parent then, don't make it a legal requirement for everyone. This is exactly like the latest Ring camera pet tracking debacle. Everyone saw the slippery slope threat and then reports came out that it was indeed planned for expansion. This is the same but worse, because ring cameras are optional.
Parents should parent and the government should keep their greedy data compiling fingers out of our person tech. They've proven time and time again that they can't be trusted to do the right thing.
The CA/CO approach doesn't give the government any data, this is what I mean about reddit induced paranoia making sensible discussion impossible.
This is nowhere near as bad as Ring, I don't get to control if Amazon are survailing me through my neighbors cameras, but I do get to decide what age input into my account setup screen, again trying to make storing my age sound worse than actual survailance tech linked to Palantir is insane!
Then I will refer to you first point. CA/CO now, full Id tomorrow. It's completely unnecessary. If you can't parent your child, don't have a child. It's not some paranoid delusion, it's how the government operates.
What is your reason for why this should be required instead of an optional tool that users can enable?
Another example is how if you setup an MS live account when setting of a new computer, your bitlocker key is saved on MS's servers. They recently turned some of those codes to the government to unlock user's devices. It's not exactly the same, but it just takes one update for an OS to send that stored information instead of just an API response.
Again you going of on tangents about MS, really doesn't make your argument seem grounded in reality.
Sure it could be an optional tool all OSes must support, instead of a mandatory local API, but neither of them are the same as MS uploading encryption keys.
Why not? It's exactly the same. You store creds on your computer, then they take them. The info has to be stored somewhere, and a windows update can take it. The point is that they have proved in the recent past to take user's private information to give to the government. If they can do it with bitlocker, they can do it with stored info.
But regardless of all of that, it shouldn't be mandatory anyway. It's never been about children, it's always about collecting data. If they are so hard on child safety, then give an optional tool to adults, and let them parent their children. Anything else is an overreach.
Even if this is all fear mongering, it's still a dumb idea that has no place in personal electronics.
So anything that isn't a stateless install is proof of mass surveillance?
Why stop there, do you file off the serial numbers of all your chips so that in the future an application couldn't possibly upload them?
That's a false equivalency. There's no identity tied to those numbers on a computer.
Anything software that I don't want on my install is a problem. Anything that ties my identity to my computer is potential for mass surveillance. They should just stay the fuck off our shit. Their proposed solutions won't protect anyone. Quit simping for the government, they don't have anyone's best interest in mind. Parent your children or just deal with the fact they may see some tits online.
I'm done arguing with you because you argue in bad faith for a cause that's bullshit. Either you don't know wtf you're talking about, or you support this bullshit. Either way, I'm done.
Do you use a username on your computer? Or login as anon every time.
It has a hostname, you can't get around that or do you exclusively use liveCDs?
I just don't understand your irrationality around your computer storing an UNVERIFIED date of birth for your account.
TBF it must be exhausting make up stuff to be mad at all day.
Doing nothing is actually an option, believe it or not! In fact, it's how things already were!
Sure, but it's a bad option, the kids aren't alright.