This appears to be part of the “Parents Decide Act” announced earlier in April by Gottheimer, as just one step in the process. So expect a lot more to come. Some bullet point plans from it:
- Require operating system developers like Apple and Google to verify users’ ages when setting up a new device, rather than relying on self-reported ages.
- Allow parents to set age-appropriate content controls from the start, including limiting access to social media, apps, and AI platforms.
- Ensure that age and parental settings securely flow to apps and AI platforms, so content is tailored appropriately for children.
- Prevent children from accessing harmful or explicit content - including inappropriate AI chatbot interactions - by creating a consistent, trusted standard across platforms.Currently, the bill is only in the introductory stage so it hasn’t yet passed and become law, so if this is important to you in the US you may want to speak to your representatives.
Source [web-archive]
I am sorry, but isn’t it 99% not about “children protection” but general surveillance for everyone wrapped up in a “pretty” package that plays, again, on fears as the parenting and unforeseen future backed up with the “time-saving” features for those who are in a hurry within the same system?
I can’t wait to verify my age to all 14 operating systems in my car. My Traeger grill has an OS. So does my router. Does a bare metal super loop count as an OS? It did in my undergrad operating systems class. Do I need to verify the pilot’s age for all of the operating systems in an F35? Who supplies the ID for the OS in an ATM?
Downvote because your post is mostly tribalism. It’s “us users” vs “them evil state who want to surveil us”.
Have you actually spent time considering whether age verification is beneficial? Whether parents think that their children spend too much time online, or whether the teenagers think that themselves? Have you taken their input and concerns serious?
Many people i know irl are saying that children should spent less time online and maybe only in cleaner parts of the internet, which excludes a lot of sites. and they’re not saying that because they want to surveil everyone, but because they want to live a simple, unworried life that keeps them away from danger.
I think headbashing won’t bring us anywhere, we need to listen to people’s concerns and take them seriously, and respond with clever wits and thorough analysis.
oh and before any of you say “well, parents already have the ability to limit what children can do on their smartphones”. well, i did a lot of surveys about who knows these abilities, and who uses them, including here on lemmy, and the result is pretty bleak. 99.9% of people don’t know any parental controls, and many believe that there are no effective parental controls today. if you think otherwise, please provide examples.
if you think for one second that anything requiring digital ID or age verification in the united states under this current fascist regime will be anything but a detriment to the american people who are already being stolen from their homes, beaten, tortured, raped, killed, and shipped off to foreign countries, separating children from their families, they are raping children in ICE detention facilities so commonly that there is a noticeable rise in underage pregnancy inside these facilities. many of which go missing after the fact.
this streamlines child abduction for ICE agents and therefore streamlines child sex trafficking in the united states as a side effect of increased surveillance over the entire united states population.
quit being naive.
if parents really cared about their children online, they would either get them a dumb phone or even simply google how to install parental controls on their cellphones, routers, desktops, laptops, pads, etc.
having the state (especially this state) being responsible for parenting your children will leave them exposed to to fascism, fascistic ideals, and becoming victims themselves of trafficking and abuse by authority.
your entire post reads like someone who is terribly, terribly misinformed on the dangers and implications of this kind of state/federal level of control over the internet. and what that means not only for the children, but also whistle blowers, protestors, resistance members, unions, and average every day people like you who think that following the rules will keep you and your loved ones safe from harm.
being a good well natured person in the united states is quite literally punishable by death in the eyes of the law. keeping your head down and out of the way, following the rules, its as good as being complicit in fascism itself.
this law is fascist. end. of. story.
sorry you were mislead by billions of dollars worth of propaganda that makes it seem like a good idea.
Have you actually spent time considering whether age verification is beneficial?
Yes, and it’s not.
Whether parents think that their children spend too much time online, or whether the teenagers think that themselves?
That has no bearing on whether or not every single website, advertising service , and application needs access to my PII.
Have you taken their input and concerns serious?
Yes, but if they aren’t willing to take responsibility for themselves or their children, then I don’t really give those concerns much weight.
If ‘99.9% of people don’t know any parental controls, and many believe that there are no effective parental controls today’ is true then adding Government surveillance to the problem doesn’t help especially when children are much more tech savvy than your average poli and will find a workaround in about a week. You are also assuming that the parental controls they implement are going to be easy to navigate. I think it would be far easier to create new laws that make social media liable for harmful or explicit content they allow on their platforms.
That’s not tribalism, that’s holding your elected officials accountable.
Let’s go best case scenario for ya: How exactly is a law requiring more parental controls supposed to help parents who already don’t know how to use the parental controls available to them? Won’t this just be yet another thing they don’t bother to understand?
2181·8 days agoRemoved by mod
“Allow parents to…limit access to apps”
Which “apps”? Who determines which apps need to be age approved? Notepad? Couldn’t you write something horrific and send it with that app? Better let the government take that control for you and dictate to OS creators what your kids and you see. They will of course come for your apps next.
cries in age verification pencils and pens
It’s actually super simple. Those NPUs and secure processing extensions are going unused, so just have a government-provided model analyze frames before presenting them on the screen. They can even introduce it in an acronym-named act, “Prevent Explicitly Depicted Objectry”. /s
You wouldn’t believe what you can write in base64
They always name bill the opposite of what the bill does. It’s part of the sales campaign.
I would like to remind viewers that image is over 20 years old, and remains relevant (even more today than it ever was).
GrapheneOS is about to see a huge uptick in users.
Praying that Linux phones become more daily driver options.
GrapheneOS about to become illegal/probable cause for a terrorism charge. The goal is to criminalize everyone who opposes MAGA tyranny.
I’ll add that to my long list of reasons to stay out of the usa.
To be clear, that was just an expression of frustrated cynicism rather than a warning of any actual policy change. Also, it’s law enforcement in Spain and France that have actually been doing stuff like that so far; I just wouldn’t be surprised if US cops jumped on the bandwagon.
Can’t blame you for wanting to stay away from the US, though!
I didn’t think you were being serious.
Been running GrapheneOS for years now. Started with a Pixel 3, then moved to a Pixel 6 Pro, and now have it on a Pixel 9 Pro. It is ridiculously easy to install and use, and is regularly updated. I love it!
Seconded. On my third (and hopefully final) Pixel running GrapheneOS. Was using a Samsung Galaxy A7 in my teen years, then I got smart and got a Pixel 4 XL to load up GrapheneOS. Things were going well until the Pixel 4 XL spicy pillow (battery) incident.
My next Pixel was a Pixel 6 Pro, and that one was…fine, but yeesh, that thing made me hate Google’s Tensor modem, AKA the modem that is neck and neck with Exynos for being THE WOOOOOOOOOOOORST!
Currently rocking the Pixel 8 Pro, and it has a much better Tensor chip.
Hoping my next GrapheneOS phone will be a Motorola if their recent partnership bears fruit (and a phone with better, preferrably Qualcomm, modem).
I’m cautiously optimistic on Motorola, don’t particularly want to buy a Google phone to avoid Google.
I preordered the jolla phone with sailfish OS… hopefully that will be a good alternative to todays monopoly
I’m sorry are you thinking you will be allowed to use your non-sanctioned devices on the phone networks?
No they will be blocked at the network level to ensure the safety of children.
You may select a phone from a nice compliant brand, like Apple, Samsung or Google.
Any further attempts to avoid letting the government protect you will result in you being added to the watchlist we share with Peter Thiel.
Promise? Sounds like a feature, not a bug
who would like to have real “PALINTIRs” to moniter children.
Sadly the Sailfish phones tend to be very outdated on their Android compatibility, and with the new Verified Device API from Google even Graphene is having issues and the only two Play Store apps I still used have quit working on Lineage.
Ill just use web browser shortcuts, i guess i dont really care that much about apps anymore.
A lot of places are making incomplete web versions, or outright cutting access outside of the app, they all want that sweet sweet spyware in your pocket.
I dont know of single service I use that doesnt have a website
I just put postmarketos on my spare OnePlus 6T. Pretty satisfied with it so far. Plasma mobile suits me better than gnome mobile or phosh.
As a parent, I have zero faith in any system like this. I’m all for more parental controls(like what Gnome 50 just implemented), but I don’t want anything(program, web browser, video game, etc) to be able to query any kind of “age” field on an account on my system.
I don’t want ANYONE to know if my child is using a device. And if that means I have to create an adult account for them, then so be it. I don’t want my child’s information being scraped and imported into some random database that gets leaked or sold to nefarious actors.
Companies would love to know the age of a person using a device
There is a reason why Meta is pushing for age verification. They love children due to the fact that advertisers love to get children hooked early on a product
The Epstein class wants to know who the minors on the internet are.
I mean I only have one person I’m interested in flirting with and I think it would be helpful to know which spaces have minors in them. Not required tho. I really don’t want to be sharing bootyhole memes with 12 year olds. If I did I’d be on roblox.
Fortunately this space is small enough we’ve got a regular contingent of us old farts (and a few young folk) who keep dropping by. Youngest person I am aware of is 18 (and no one needs to out themselves to disapprove that).
And since it's us old farts:
I mean I only have one person I’m interested in flirting with and I think it would be helpful to know which spaces have minors in them.
So do pedophiles. For (hopefully) the opposite reason.
I’d be fine with this, honestly. It will justify me throwing out all of my electronics and moving to the woods to live out a simple, happy life.
Until you’re like the poor guy I met who couldn’t get out of the courthouse’s parking garage because you pay with an app and he didn’t have a phone.
If I’m showing up at a courthouse, I will not have driven myself there. Likely I’ll have arrived in cuffs.
I guess jury duty is optional where you live?
It is if I throw the letter out.
This guy understands free will!
I ain’t no fucking peer.
You sound like someone who would be more valuable to the state as a prisoner anyway! That’s in no way an insult.
I’ll fist fight the governor for my freedom. The governor is a middle aged woman, so I like my odds.
Sounds like that barrier is in desperate need of a hatchet
When I pulled up the dude was trying to push the gate up
You guessed it straight to jail.
Just don’t get a major infection. That will end your fantasy one way or the other.
What are doctors going to do anyway? Doctors are scam artists and fluoride makes me gay. I’ll just die.
Are you a frog?
LOL
If it’s required then parents don’t decide shit
Thank GOD! FINALLY I’ll get a Chance to give the Epstein Class my CHILDS personal Information!
Friendly reminder that anyone who writes DRM is a traitor to the human race. Find a job that won’t haunt your conscience.
Agreed. Or locked bootloaders for that matter
It doesn’t sound like the parents are the ones deciding, though.
If it’s called “parents decide” why they implement it as “government and corps decide”? 🤔
I’ve been talking about this “CEOs should think as parents” thing for years now. It was seen in a good light back then.
Well, I’ll certainly be looking into alternative, user privacy focused devices going forward. I’ll miss tap to pay and Android Auto / Carplay but I’ll adapt.
Well you won’t be here because all -ALL - social media sites will require an age code.
Did you miss the word “all” in the headline?
Not every OS is developed in the US. Graphene is developed in Canada, for instance.
Sorry for assuming your nationality, but by my reading, I don’t think the US government would allow a foreign OS to operate inside the US if it didn’t abide by these rules.
The free flow of information empowers the proles, time to take it away.
