this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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I can't imagine they'll enforce this on every flavor of Linux. Also, pretty sure it's just asking for a box where you enter your own age at installation. Nothing even verifiable. What would the penalty for not doing it even be?
$2500 fine for negligent failure to do it.
$7500 fine for deliberate failure to do it.
With increasing penalties and enforcement mechanisms for continued noncompliance.
Will they be able to enforce those fines on anyone outside of California? Maybe, maybe not. Remains to be seen. May depend on your local jurisdiction's level of cooperation.
For the OS dev or the user?
For the developer.
It's a pretty wild thing to attempt enforcing here. It's not like kids don't actually immediately find the work-around for this stuff. And this one doesn't appear to be anything more than an age tied to the user account of your OS. Simple to move around.
But this "for the kids" crap is always lip-service at best, and something more nefarious at worst. The US foster care system is a prime example of that kind of thing gone rampant.
I think the concept is that when a parent sets up a device for their child, they'll enter the child's age during the setup process, not giving the child an opportunity to lie about it.
But, yeah, there will be numerous ways around it, for sure.
Factory reset the device and redo the setup with a different age.
Run a VM inside the device and set up the VM with a different age so they can access restricted content from within the VM.
High possibility of nefarious online services/apps being developed that take the age string sent by your OS/browser to websites, intercept it, and change it before sending it out. (And probably track you while doing so.)
Simply access smaller and/or international websites that don't ask your OS/browser for your age.
Find adult content on websites/services (like Roblox) that are supposedly child-friendly, but have poor content moderation and a lot of adult content.
... just to name a few obvious ones.
Also ... I really wonder if developers will think to increase the user's age over time or not.
Like... If you enter your age as 16, then use the device for 5 years, will it update your age to 18 after two years and therefore change it to an 'over 18' age string?
And what about just creating another user account under the same OS? I guess the parents could password lock access to other accounts and keep a child account from being able to create a new one, but I've met parents and their lack of basic technical understanding.