this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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I've been posting this in other threads too and while the OS angle is huge, and worth picking a fight with, I haven’t seen any coverage over how this goes after developers too.
I think this is an attack on ALL open-source.
These bills are written by people who are clearly or maliciously tech illiterate and don’t understand either the terminology or the practical impacts. And of course it’s wrapped in ‘what about the children?!’
They include definitions like (paraphrasing; not quoting a specific bill, but New York, Colorado and California do this):
And then require both developers and operating system providers to handshake this age verification data or face financial ruin. I think the original intent or appearance of intent is that the store developer needs to do the handshake. I'm not a lawyer, but I can't imagine these definitions aren't vague enough that they can't be weaponized against basically anything software.
I have a github account, and have contributed to "applications". As I read them, these bills pose a serious threat to me if I continue to do so, as that makes me a "developer" and would need to ensure the things I contribute to are doing age verification -- which I don't want to do.
I think that even outside the surveillance aspect, the chilling effect of devs not publishing applications is the end-goal. Gatekeeping software to the big publishers who have both the capacity to follow the law and the lawyers/pockets to handle a suit. These laws are going to be like the DMCA 1201 language (which had much much more prose wrapped around it and was at least attempting to limit scope), which HAS been weaponized against solo devs trying to make the world better.
I fully expect some suit against multiple github repo owners on Jan 2, 2027.
I've emailed the office of Buffy Wicks, the author of the California bill, with similar details as the above. I haven't yet identified the authors of the NY and CO bills, but I'm working on that too. If you live in one of these places, please contact your state officials and tell them this is a bad idea -- and if you don't live there, keep an eye on your state bills.
It definitely is. And it's not incompetence or illiteracy, it's the powerful and government institutions coming after all things privacy, anonymity, and autonomy. I had this gut feeling in summer 2024 that they would eventually attack and functionally ban desktop Linux, BSD, GOS, and other privacy tools. I just didn't know how at that point.
They're locking us into their systems, their rules, their information. I implore everyone to look deeper than surface level analyses. If you think they pirated all the information on the global web just to train their AI, you're missing something. It's deeper. My theory is eventually, they will lock all hardware and networking to gather information from their sources, and only their sources. They will hold back real information and access to it, while feeding us only what they want the populous to think.
They want us enslaved to them, in body, in mind, in "spirit", in every way. The rich HATE us and genuinely want nothing but the absolute worst for us. Do not deceive yourself, these people are unimaginably evil and cruel. They want to hunt some of us for sport and feed the enslaved remainder us their delusional version of reality.
This is an attack, it is intentional, it is determined, and it is not stopping unless we stop it.
You gotta stop equating Microslop-owned GitHub with code forges/repositories. The first step is change language to be inclusive to other platfrom while not specially mentioning the proprietary, megacorporate option—such as saint code forge or VCS host. The second step is to create an account elsewhere as you primary spot. Our framing of these things matter, & if you don’t like the state imposing its will on you, the corporate option here is more or less an extension of the state (contributors in Yemen for example will be blocked under US sanctions, bug reporters will be required to agree to the ToS & data collection machine of Microsoft, if the capitalist class doesn’t like your project they will have it removed like Yuzu & yt-download while they will allow state-sponsor gangs like ICE to remain on the platform). Break out of “the network effect”.
What if we just rm -rf all the pedophiles instead?
THIS GUY IS THREATENING OUR GOVERNMENT
fucking sad but true
They're paid by people who understand all of this very well and will profit. That's the whole reason this exists.
Yes, that's the point. The more vague the "laws", the more control.
It's why libs have been lobbying for state control of "social media". It's a meaningless term that represents state control of all social interactions. That's the actual goal.
In NY:
Nily Rozic has sponsored assembly bill A8893
Andrew Gounardes has sponsored senate bill S8102A
Jacob Ashby has sponsored senate bill S3591