Here is a link to learn more about the bill.
It is also important to note this legislation also includes language for ongoing, real-time monitoring. Not just verification
Here is a summary from the link shared above:
Requires manufacturers of internet-enabled devices to conduct age assurance to determine a user's age category and provide all websites, online services, online applications and mobile applications on such user's internet-enabled device and/or application store manufactured by the covered manufacturer with a digital signal that such user is a covered minor as well as the age category of such covered minor via a real-time application programming interface (API).
I love the inclusion of the API acronym; all super serious sounding. Like these dumb pedophiles even know what an API is!
You are encouraged to have an opinion about this. It is obvious what is happening here.
Do you have the spine to be remembered?
We are at an epic turning point in human history. Those who rise to meet that standard are today's heroes.
The real world, filled with everyday people, needs individuals who embody a willingness to say "Get fucked!"
If this is your first time learning about heroics, look up information about the "hero's journey". Also known as the "monomyth".
It's okay to be new. What isn't okay is to sit on the sidelines in today's world.
You are alive today. Take full advantage of it.
The part that frustrates me the most about all of this is how it's a chess move towards a massive power-grab by the few and monied. What's more frustrating is how many people completely miss this, instead focusing on this first move.
We can argue the validity and the expense required in complying with such laws, especially the egregious "on every device" language. But that's not the point.
Up front, only the most powerful and well-connected will be able to comply and lobby for exceptions to this law. And the only feasible way to pull this off is with 100% cloud-connected devices that are already prepared to gather biometrics and basically stick a camera in your face. That means that Apple, Microsoft, every cellphone vendor, every cell network provider, are pre-selected as winners in this race. Anything else can't possibly come up to this level, and/or won't due to the obvious ethical conflicts it causes.
Looking at an even bigger picture, the problem sets up widespread de-facto censorship. It's surveillance and a cudgel for sites that don't participate in said surveillance, all in one.
We've already seen major social media consolidated and owned by the obscenely wealthy and powerful, who are nakedly well-connected with government. Requiring ID to use these sites effectively pushes anyone with a brain OUT of that space. Algorithms were already punching-down on our ability to coordinate and find common ground across the (largely artificially generated) political divide. Now, we're self-segregating and retreating to spaces like Lemmy. The proposed laws would make it much harder to start and maintain alternate media, and hosting an environment full of dissenting opinions would be well-documented and served to law enforcement on a silver platter if ID laws are adhered to. But if you don't comply? Be prepared to lose that whole site since it'll be illegal to do so.
I really wonder how much of this is being driven by fear of LLMs and truly distributed knowledge. Sure, the big corporate LLMs have safeguards built into them, but you can run many models on your home computer unrestricted.
Imagine someone asking an LLM for detailed step-by-step instructions on how to build a suicide vest from ordinary household materials. Sure, you can find that stuff online if you really search for it, but the search engines try really hard to suppress such results. Plus such a search might result in authorities being flagged. But the right LLMs might make anyone into an expert bomb maker.
Whether such open source LLMs are actually good enough to teach a complete novice how to build explosives, chemical weapons, of infectious agents is largely immaterial. Even if half of the home bomb makers manage to blow themselves up in the process, that still represents suicide vests and IEDs going from rare things requiring a skilled bomb maker to something anyone can build in their garage.
There are a lot of incredibly dangerous things that an ordinary person could build with the resources they have access to, if only they had the knowledge. And often just trying to acquire the necessary knowledge is enough to get you a knock on the door from the FBI. But an unrestricted LLM operating on an air gapped computer? Completely untraceable.
I wonder how much of this move to clamp down on free computing is a reaction to fears like this.