this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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Here's the thing, open source is big business for the likes of Canonical and Red Hat. There is no need for any of this to be in the linux kernel, or even in the window system. It is a pretty trivial feature to implement as a simple add on, and those who sell Linux based OSes and support contracts will ensure that they can continue to do business in a market as large as California. The law is clearly not perfect, but it's also not awful. My understanding is that it does not mandate any kind of age verification, only age declaration. The idea is to let a porn website or similar ask the browser "Is the user 18 or older" and get a response based on an age provided when the user account was created.
If you accept that there is content on-line which small children should not access, then it follows that some type of age verification beyond "Click here only if you're old enough" is necessary. Something like this, baked into the browser and/or OS, is kind of the least bad option. When you look at the kind of AI age verification garbage some web sites and apps are starting to do, an age signal baked into the OS actually starts to look pretty good. If this gets adopted widely and sites start to take advantage of it to skip the "I'm totally old enough" button, I'll be happy to tell my OS what my birthday is... Jan 1, 1970.
This is still not good enough. Nobody but one woman is in jail for Epstein and you think this is for the children? We all need an account with an age signal? No ads or anything, promise.
No, that does not necessarily follow.
This is shifting responsibility for children away from the parents and onto software developers. But an argument could be made that it's the parent's responsibility to monitor their child's internet usage and prevent them from accessing things they should not access.
How about, instead of fining software developers for allowing a child to access inappropriate content, we fine the child's parents for allowing their child to access inappropriate content?
Here's the thing, this doesn't apply only to "those who sell Linux based OSes and support contracts". Read the blog post again and my recent comments at https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/55723652/24217066 and I hope you'll see the problems. 😐
I agree that it's a poorly written law, I mean it was written by politicians who don't understand what an OS is. My main point is that something baked into the OS and browser is better for a handful of reasons than most of the other 'solutions' we're seeing.