this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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Exactly, it makes sense up and down the stack. Parent says junior is under 18 to the os. Os passes it into the browser, browser passes it along to sites, or prevents displaying them. There would of course be ways around it, but it solves 95% of the cases immediately, and lets us adults continue being adults.
Any sort of hardware attestation that non-trivially identifies a person to verify their age is going to be used to track and exploit people.
Anything less than that isn't going to be effective for the supposed purpose.
The moment we need photo ID or government issued keys to access computer systems, things will get a lot more ugly real fast.
That is not at all what we were talking about. California passed a law that only requires an admin on a PC to be able to create a child account which will be marked as under 18. Standard OS behavior there with permission systems that already exist. That then is passed up the stack. It's quite literally a boolean, one that was created by a parent. It's the most sensible way for a compromise.
What makes you think it will stop there? Once the groundwork has been laid for this framework, all they need to do is roll out v2 which requires a little more from the user, etc.
Most servers won't check this bit at first because they don't need to or care, but once the technology is in place, it won't be long before legislation mandating the checking of that bit begins to roll out affecting industries and providers that deal in topics and goods deemed to be bad for the children (it won't stop at porn).
Once that happens, minors will learn ways around the check (or parents will be lazy and give their kids access to adult logins, etc), and the "need" to enact stronger checks will be pushed for and...
Put all of it together and you're heading towards an Internet without anonymity in a couple of decades.
That's all 100% a slippery slope argument. Fact is is that they're already trying to do that. Saying no is only going to be ignored, as it already is. It's better to provide a solution that works that also respects our privacy and allows us to maintain control over our devices, otherwise they'll mandate the exact thing you're worried about.
We already have parental content filters, and have for literally decades. That didn't do the slippery slope bullshit you're claiming this one magically will. Giving people tools to help themselves is much less of a threat than forcing the compliance form the other end.
The speed is slower but the slope is slippery all the same.
Beware the fallacy fallacy.