this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Relatively inconsequential law? Relative to what?
It may be inconsequential in a literal sense if the law isn't enforced meaningfully, which is probably pretty likely. I don't really care what California law says and I doubt they'll try to convince me.
The law says an OS needs to have a way of entering a birth date.
Not the correct birth date, it doesn't need to allow checking it. Just any date.
That's inconsequential relative to basically everything else.
Two problems:
and
Death threats.
Also, basically anything the Trump administration has done.
Tying everything on the internet to a government ID is the end goal here. That is what all the age verification laws are enabling, intentionally or not.
In a land of ICE forcefully deporting people and people losing their lives in foreign prisons or just for resisting a little, do you not think privacy is more important now than ever?
This man took a step on the road of removing all of our privacy, and the community shouted "WTF DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!?!".
The path to privacy is to log off.
Who the fuck upvoted this shit?
That's quitter talk
Death threats are far beyond unacceptable, but it's naive to think this policy is without consequence. It can take as few as 3 non-personal pieces of information (examples of personal: name, phone number, street address, SSN) to uniquely identify someone. Say the kind of car you drive, your employer, and your hair color. Together those are form a strong identifier, but now add age BY DEFAULT. Even a weak set becomes unique.
That is incredibly consequential. You could be implicated in a crime you didn't commit, protesting becomes impossible, and everything you do or say will ALWAYS follow you. The balance between citizen and government becomes irrevesibly skewed. Just because your computer will volunteer your age.
This issue should be the issue we care about the most.