this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 26 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

I really don't understand what the value they see in putting age checks on operating systems. Like where is this coming from? Who whispered in their ear that OS age checks are something that need to be done?

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 points 30 minutes ago* (last edited 20 minutes ago)

Palantir

They have unique digital fingerprints for everyone already pretty much, but they are not linked to official government IDs so there is still uncertainty I think over identification.

This makes everyone's digital fingerprint linked on a government ID. Voila, now every person in America is known by Palantir and the government at all times (more or less). Great for genocide and targeting your political opponents and voters to set up sham elections.

It also tries to stop poors who don't have drivers licenses in America from organizing as they can't verify.

Now with Flock surveiling most of the US: Jaywalking or littering and a Democrat or worse, leftist? You are a criminal and intelligible to vote. Incoming trump 75+% win for an illegal 3rd term or Vance.

Thiel famously said "what if there was a way, through technology, to achieve your political goals without having to beg and plead to convince people who will never agree with you anyway"

[–] TeddE@lemmy.world 23 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

From what I can tell, the 'age' part is misdirection. They want to restrict computer use to the "good" people, to make it "safer".

Using age restrictions first allows legislation to be passed "for the children" using the idea of potential harm to theoretical children. However, in practice, legislators expect the implementation of the age check to be capable of checking anything else they want to about your identity, as a prerequisite for access. Probably using a combination of face scans and ID scans.

[–] Archr@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

This is just the slippery slope argument.

The California law does not require verification. Only attestation.

[–] RandallFlagg@lemmy.world 1 points 33 minutes ago

California, as of today, does not require any kind of verification to install an OS (how it's always been).

This law gets passed, now they require "attestation".

A year or two from now, they're gonna push for for actual age verification.

A year or two after that, the government will make a new law saying that your drivers license is no longer a valid form of identification, they're gonna need a retina scan or some other form of "bio" identification.

Next thing you know, you'll be pressing your dick imprint on your PC's automated Cock-Scanner-v4 encryption tray that pops out of your laptop like a cd-rom drive every time you need to check your email.

Slippery slope, indeed.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

I don't even understand what good this is. what does this do for them? The government has a database of identities and now it's going to have a database of identities with computers? for what? Steven uses Windows, Susie uses Linux.

if you're using internet at home or on a cell phone, they've already got your online identity or whatever. what is it that I'm missing

[–] SolarMyth@aussie.zone 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

It isn't even just the government, big tech wants this too. They want to be able to track everything you do with your computer, and that's more easily achieved if OS level identification is required. Big tech wants it for data harvesting and ad targeting, the government wants it for surveillance and narrative control. The end goal is government verified digital ID that will be required to use any operating system. There will be no anonymity anymore. This creates a panopticon effect in which people police themselves because they know they are always being watched. Furthermore, the information you receive in your social media feeds and web searches can be silently curated based on what is known about your political attitudes. It can all be managed by AI.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 50 minutes ago* (last edited 49 minutes ago)

they already have digital fingerprints. they don't need OS level anything to do this. smartphones are doing it all

[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 13 points 4 hours ago

You arent going deep enough. Its about building a web of all of your online identities to crush dissent and influence public opinion. Susie frequents anarchist.nexus under the user the_cloaked and there she seems to interact with another user, lilanarkiddy, a lot. Steven's windows computer also reported that he frequents the site, under the user lilarnarkiddy. And you see where that will lead to.