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- Hacker News
- > The signal itself isn’t a birthday, it’s a bracket: under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, or 18 and up. Operating systems have until January 1, 2028 to have this built.
> Nothing in the bill requires a passport scan or a face scan at setup. It’s self-declared, the same way most apps ask your birthday today, just centralized once at the OS level instead of repeated app by app.
Maybe this is just a badly written law or purposefully designed to have basically no impact on anyone?
Or maybe the age bracket self-declaration part of this might make it a legitimately useful mechanism when a parent sets up a device for their kids. Their device declares “under 13” and apps and sites have to then follow the more strict social media laws which themselves should be relatively beneficial to the target audience.
In other words, the part that’s really privacy-destroying is the age verification, but that’s not part of this bill. The part that could be a benefit is the part where companies need to respect an age flag set by parents and comply with a concrete set of parental controls.
In other other words, it’s not left up to operators like Meta and Roblox to decide what age their users are, parents can set that device-wide and know it can’t be circumvented.
by Grombobulous - I love how everyone knows this has nothing to do with kids safety. However no one can or is willing to put up a fight. In the UK where I live its the same. Government does whatever they want and most of us just shrug our shoulders and say "that's messed up" and go on about our day.by buzzwords
- How has this fatalism been working out for your society?by anigbrowl
- Don’t worry. It will all burn down soon. This administration is preparing the narrative to "cancel the midterms" if they lose the senate and house. Using the illegal war as cover.by xyst
- The reason is ridiculously simple: people don't put up a fight because they don't want to be labelled as a peto or as someone not in favor of the protection of Children. This is primarily why this cudgel is brought out so often: it's very difficult to oppose because you risk getting shunned for it.by ethin
- Cool. I'd like to propose a federal law wherein every lawmaker, state or otherwise, musts either demonstrate they correctly enough understand the subject they're legislating over (for every single instance of legislative act they perform) or get approval from an actual accredited expert panel before being allowed to push any more inane bullshit that will help noone in the future.
- It’s a series of tubes! It’s not a big truck!by samgranieri
- I agree with literally everyone who thinks this is pointless and probably malignant. The problem isn't the visibility or the fact that weird stuff "exists" on the internet. The problem is advertisers "showing" it to people who didn't go looking for it. Ads and algorithms that decide what a person to see are 99.8% of this actual problem, and meta lobbying for something like this is just obvious self-interest to absolve them from any liability for showing kids damaging material, and to hit 2 birds with one stone, they get more PII to add to their "anonymized" aggregate data.
No good will come from this for the consumer. Websites are suddenly all going to start accurately reporting their content rating, especially ancient documents that have been "online" since before css and javascript were a thing. The only ones that will be implementing these checks will be adtech people that shouldn't have it in the first place. Letting out of touch geriatrics make tech policy decisions in a time when the bleeding edge is moving faster than ever is going to be disastrous for generations to come.
- Here's my slight defense of something like this, in theory. I have not read the text of the bill.
If OSes build a standards-based way to query age of user that is logged-in, where non-admins are not allowed to adjust the age bucket, then parents can configure devices on first use to have an OS-wide enforcement of age controls.
Apps and sites would query the OS, not individual app/site accounts, for user age and act accordingly.
Apps can then lock out certain features like algo feeds and adult content more consistently.
Responsibility for proper use is still on the parent, and no verification process is put upon the operators of sites.
Not sure how I actually think about this; I'm only putting this out for discussion.
- That is literally exactly what this bill doesby queenkjuul
- Storing age is no different to storing name or address to me, it’s just a field in /etc/passwd, and root can change it.by hdgvhicv
- Serious question: This is a out-of-box "ask for age" requirement. No one is "verifying" anything. Why are we using this misleading headline? Face scans, ID cards, all that stuff that makes everyone nervous, are specifically not a part of this. To imply that it is verification is propaganda.
As a parent, I'd be very happy with this "age declaration" method, as I also don't think the 'verification' others push for is at all worth the risks. All parents want is to put the devices permanently into a mode that flags it to third parties as belonging to a minor, so they can't just hold up their hands and say "idk they said they're 18" like they do today.
by xp84 - Step 1: Shift the burden from service providers to OS providers (on devices owned by individuals).
Step 2: Recognize that the system is trivially bypassed by a kid who sets up their own device without their parents' oversight or parents who just think this is a stupid law and lying for their kids. Or bypassed by anyone using open source operating systems which are (for a feature like this) going to be trivial to amend to always claim the person is an adult regardless of which account is being used.
At this point there are three possible futures that are worth considering:
1. Throw out the rules because they're stupid and everyone with any common sense or sense of decency has been saying it since the start. The service provider is responsible, not the OS developer or device manufacturer. (Best case)
2. Keep the stupid rules on the books and pretend they work. Let the service providers off the hook. (Second best case)
3. Create more rules that effectively cedes more control of personal devices to the government to make this actually work, but the effect of this is to essentially outlaw OSes like Linux and many, many devices and even raw hardware without a government permitted OS pre-installed. (The worst case)
(3) is extreme, but it's the only way that this law actually has the desired effect. (1) and (2) are the most likely outcomes, but reflect that this whole exercise is just a waste of time.
by Jtsummers - Two reasons people are arguing against it:
It moves the Overton window, making worse things easier to pass in the future. And it enforces requirements on projects the state should have zero jurisdiction over.
by JoshTriplett - What does that mean, practically? The person who installed linux on that particular device is liable?
>no algorithmic feeds for minors by default
Any choice of what content to display is an algorithm. Maybe they want a simple or easily explainable algorithm?
by LPisGood - > Any choice of what content to display is an algorithm. Maybe they want a simple or easily explainable algorithm?
That's a paraphrasing of what law says. The law is more clearly defined:
> "Addictive feed" means a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met: (1) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user's device and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users; (2) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on data controlled by user-selected privacy or accessibility settings or technical information concerning the user's device; (3) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information that is not permissible under this definition; (4) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media by a specific author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to as described by paragraph (3), be blocked, prioritized, or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not permissible under this definition; (5) the media is direct and private communication between users; (6) the media is recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user; (7) the media that is recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a preexisting sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or (8) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this Act. "Addictive social media platform" means a covered platform that offers users or provides users with an addictive feed as a part of the service provided by that website, online service, online application, or mobile application.
by kube-system - They want an explanation of what an algorithm is. The world is full of people using words they don't understand and sometimes of them work in legislatures.by harvey9
- Presumably this means no targeting the user's preferences and just showing everything by newest/most liked.by koutakun
- The text of the bill is here: https://ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus/FullText?GAID=18&Doc.... There's about 3.5 pages of text defining this.
The relevant text doesn't call it an "algorithmic feed" for what it's worth. They define an "addictive" feed and it's essentially any kind of personalized recommendation.
> "Addictive feed" means a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met.
by duped - > Any choice of what content to display is an algorithm. Maybe they want a simple or easily explainable algorithm?
Phrases can have meanings beyond just a naive combination of the words in them. And indeed "algorithmic feed" in the bill means what what we all understand that term to mean when we aren't paralyzed by pedantry.
> Under the law, [...] these users will only be shown content they request or search for or that is posted by a creator or friend they follow.
You may disagree with the motivation behind the bill, but you do the discussion a disservice to assume the people writing it are incompetent enough to not define their terms.
by delecti - "Illinois now requires operating system providers, open source projects included, to build age verification by 2028"
however
"nothing in the bill has teeth against someone with no business presence in Illinois"
by stevenalowe - > Any choice of what content to display is an algorithm.
You could argue about the language and the meaning of "algorithm", but for practical purposes I'd consider a manually-curated feed to be non-algorithmic.
by Marsymars - Since TFA can't be bothered, here's the text of the actual bill: https://my.ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus/FullText?GAID=18&...
- So in red states porn is being used, and in blue states TikTok and Instagram are being used. Is anyone tracking who is behind the concerted efforts here? For example, which organizations, executives, lobbyists and politicians are valid and responsible parties?by bnjms
- This seems to have more information. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_b...by skinfaxi
- You raise an interesting point in the first sentence. It might be that age sniffing could actually violate the US constitution.
As for lobbyists: I think we can probably determine the key lobbyists, e. g. if we map the data and names. And ideally also the money given to them. Ultimately they are faceless though, because corruption is easily exchangeable. The issue here is systemic though. The US "democracy" no longer exists due to that corruption. It is not rule by the people but rule by bribery.
by shevy-java - These bills all suddenly appeared, as if by magic, in multiple state houses only a very short time after Zuck was on the stand in the Facebook trial early in the year testifying that "the right place to do age verification is in the operating system".
Now, granted, correlation is not always causation. But it sure stinks of something Meta had their lobbyists push just after Zuck's testimony so as to shift the liability risk of handling age appropriate material away from Meta properties and onto operating systems (Microsoft, Apple, Google (Android)).
by pwg - I used to run a parental controls startup and after talking to lots of parents, I can tell you this sentiment is shared among most parents. Parents on both sides of the isle think they're going to keep their teenagers off the internet forever, I had parents look me straight in the face and say their child wouldn't be allowed online until she was 16.
Parents aren't interested in the nuance of good and bad guys, they see the internet, think it's too much trouble to keep around, and want it blocked. I suspect politicians are just mimicking this sentiment after talking to thousands of parents
by guywithahat - Its ad tech, as always.by deadbunny
- Tech incumbents whose businesses are reliant on selling ad space need to designate who is a verified human on the internet as soon as possible or their businesses go to zero once the entire web is AI bots and all the traffic is fraudulent and worthless, so they have to play as many angles as they can to achieve this.by int32_64