this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2026
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68
Fedora Project Leader Suggests Linux Distros Could Adopt Apple's Age Verification API (itsfoss.com)
submitted 10 hours ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 2 points 1 hour ago

What problem does this even solve? On Linux, what app would even be asking how old you are? Web browsers for sure, and maybe electron apps like Discord? But what else is there?

I'm on Bazzite (based on Fedora). I'm comfy with it, moving distros is a significant effort, so I'm very unlikely to ever jump ship. If I have to make a workflow that mirrors the official Bazzite images and neuters this age check, so be it. Not that complicated.

But I'm willing to bet the community will step up and maintain browsers/apps that don't have these age checks in the first place. Firefox has many forks that definitely won't, and Vesktop will probably stub this out when it inevitably comes to Discord. If there's nothing to ask for age verification, it doesn't matter what the OS can do.

I really don't see a need to burn a distro I'm comfortable with, even if the upstream maintainers are a little dumb. There a ton of ways to bend a Linux distro to your will without throwing your hands up.

[–] webp@mander.xyz 1 points 54 minutes ago (1 children)

Is there a swastika in that image?

[–] finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 39 minutes ago

I didn't see it until you pointed it out. Imo looks unintentional, just an unfortunate result of the circuit traces being arranged as they are.

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 2 points 2 hours ago

Linux Distros Could Tell Fedora To Eat Shit.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 7 points 3 hours ago

Because they are corporate-backed I can understand why Fedora would need to think about this, but I would never use them again. The surveillance state will stay the fuck out of my devices. The discussion also seems to be centered on GNOME?

[–] Peter1986C@piefed.europe.pub 12 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I have a feeling that a lot of those who replied have not really read the article, that contains some nuances. I do not like the idea of age verification, but the project leader's proposal is apparently not even official (and more like a hypothetical in a discussion thread on their forums.

Please read more than headlines, lol.

[–] esc@piefed.social 5 points 4 hours ago

But it's boring and won't give you the feelingn of being right.

[–] Xyphius@lemmy.ca 38 points 7 hours ago

[–] goatinspace@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago

[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 44 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Why do some people just have the worst fucking ideas...and why is "some" starting to feel like "most"

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 2 points 1 hour ago

Because media propaganda makes it seem as if the majority have certain views. People don't like to be on the outside so if the media can trick people into conforming then they will try that.

[–] wioum@lemmy.world 80 points 9 hours ago

How bout

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 28 points 8 hours ago

Ok well I suggest Fedora Project leader get fucked. Plenty of other good distros bub.

[–] DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 0 points 2 hours ago

This is gonna kill Linux, which I'm sure is the intention.

[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 8 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

As if their consoderation of adopting AI into their dev stack wasn't enough.

Anyone have any recommendations for distros like Fedora that don't have systemd and won't consider using AI, but do support KDE?

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 hour ago

MX Linux (Debian based) has a KDE version, and lets you choose a non-systemd init during the install.

[–] neonchaos@piefed.social 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I've been going down there same rabbit hole. Right now, I'm trying to learn Slackware. Happy for other suggestions though

[–] PushButton@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

If you are willing to go the Slackware route, take a moment to explore Void Linux at that point...

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 16 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

For solutions that back on actually "verifying" the age by requiring credit card or government ID, those suck.

As described, this is an administrator self describing the age, which doesn't mean much to anyone except kids of people who apply parental controls to systems their kids have access to.

Accounts already require your "full name" but we don't consider that "full name verification".

This proposal seems to be in the spirit of least intrusive means to let parents opt into this stuff if they want, with no ties to identity compromising third party/state "verification".

Question is whether this sort of solution that at least gives parents some chance will satisfy the lawmakers long term. For the wave of laws now, it seems to suffice to self attest age.

[–] FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi 6 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Accounts already require your “full name” but we don’t consider that “full name verification”.

They don't require anything. You can leave that empty or just put John Doe. All that is required for an account on a Linux system is a username and a password.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Well strictly speaking the full name field is always there, but a lot of people have the full name "".

But less pedantic, perhaps require was the writing word, but same principle, put whatever you want in dob field, default to 1970 or something.

[–] Attacker94@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

I don't think they were referring to Linux in general, I think it was specifically talking about Fedora

[–] nofate@piefed.social 12 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Glad I ditched Fedora a while ago.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

That's not enough. Just like with systemd, you will be made to care about what the corporatist Microsoft-garglers at Red Hat do, whether you use it or not.

[–] ajikeshi@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

age verification made easy:

user has internet access -> contracts can only be made by adults -> thus age is verified...

also... whoever provides minors internet access goes to jail

[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 16 points 6 hours ago

the whole point of age verification is control of adults. Kids are always just excuse, people who spout "think of the children!!" style rethoric always couldnt care less about kids. Those who do dont yell about it and actually do stuff to help kids, so its easy to tell them apart.

[–] aReallyCrunchyLeaf@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

I know this is tongue in cheek but kids should be able to use the internet. It's important that kids become digitally literate and the wonders of the internet are great.

It's so obvious that social media has made the world an objectively worse place and this is just another extension of that. Social media companies should face consequences when they harm children, full stop. Personally, I'd be fine with banning social media outright but I understand some may have free speech concerns. However, I don't see how the interests of corporate capital and the attention economy can be squared inside this circle. Corpos will always want to maximize screen-time and they don't give a hot fuck who's brain they melt. Unfortuantely we live in a world where even the president of the US is a demented pedophile rapist so I don't have much hope for people like Zuck seeing the consequences of his actions.

Social media is a societal disease and until we actually deal with the root of the problem, which honestly doesn't have anything to do with kids at all and really boils down to capitalist incentives and their relation to the attention economy, we will continue to see harms inflicted upon the digital citizens of the world.

[–] Adam_Crock@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I hope OpenSuse doesn't follow, or I will have to switch to a fully community distro that have already said the f word to age verification

[–] cenzorrll@piefed.ca 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The antix linux call gets stronger and stronger for me everyday. I have it on a 23 year old laptop and it runs quite well, although it isn't as clean as a using a full DE. While I do like running an enterprise grade OS, I'm happy to ditch any weak-willed organization that won't stand up for itself or it's users and become a radical antifascist communist cypherpunk hippie anarchist (on the outside).

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 hour ago

I believe MX Linux shares a lot of devs with Antix, but offers full DE's.

[–] mrnobody@reddthat.com 8 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Whoever the fuck supports age verification should be hung!!! Fuck that shit!!

[–] mech@feddit.org 29 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

Fuck age verification, but the fact that this comment gets even a single upvote seriously worries me.

[–] aReallyCrunchyLeaf@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago

If we're talking about the criminals who are harming children (social media companies, roblox, etc) and actively pushing to influence legislation that allows them to continue this behavior while punishing the rest of us while taking away privacy for normal people, then idk. Prison seems too generous for those scum.

I think the commenter here might be referring to regular people who are powerless and/of less than informed on the subject which I of course disavow. But if somelike like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk never see the inside of of a prison cell, which is much more than they deserve, there is no justice in this world.

[–] mrnobody@reddthat.com -1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

It's the welcoming of surveillance with open arms! IF "protecting the children" is what we're after, TRULY honestly after, then social media would be banned for anyone under the age of 18!

The fact that Zuck KNOWS this (Meta and its current format) is the problem he pushes all blame to everyone and everything else. And like IDIOTS the government listens-mostly because they're all bought and paid for anyway. FB did studies back in 2014 (that's right over 12 years ago) or earlier to prove it wasnt addictive, and found it to be worse than they thought so they buried it!

My guess is, before the hearing, Zuck and crew agreed this is the way to get gov off his back and also get gov MORE data and surveillance. It's a win-win. Every obedient citizen who doesn't know/understand technology says "OK I guess" and everyone else with half a spine and understanding... Takes a stand!!

Facebook first released for 18+ users as it was for college and you needed your school's .edu address to open an account. To grow the userbase, it was opened up to more and more users which then lead to more and more deceptive practices to always get that YoY growth.

Meanwhile, it acts as an escape from reality as people hate their own lives, and "influencers" are the fakest ones feeding consumerism to others, because "if you do this one thing you can be good too" shit.

Personally, if you directly do anything to mislead/misguide others for your own selfish gain, you should feel awful about holding back those around you, instead of working together to fight the system! Unfortunately, right now, too many people feel inadequacies, so we're getting to the point where we say "fuck it" and so we do anything to get ahead...

The TL;DR is: It's no longer about connecting people, it's about money, data, and control! Pretty much ALL social media is a cancer designed to keep users engaged to distract them from the shitty world around them as it falls apart.

In the wise words of Sam Flynn, "We need to work together, it's the only way!" 😁

[–] mech@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not talking about the age verification, I'm talking about hanging people who support it. Y'all need to get a sense of perspective.

[–] mrnobody@reddthat.com -1 points 5 hours ago

I know that's what you're talking about, and honest to God I'm being serious that it's so offense and disgusting for anyone NOT in gov to support this!! It's THAT fucking crazy!!

I don't care if you're left or right leaning. This is not a political thing at all, it's purely bowing to the fucking overlords with money who give NO FUCKING SHITS about anyone else!

[–] TheObviousSolution@thebrainbin.org -2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Devil's advocate, is it really that bad for someone who is a parent to be able to easily zone of their Linux distro for their children? And yeah, I get there are a number of methods to do this like locking down accounts, but something like this would have the potential of automating whom the rules apply to.

[–] esc@piefed.social 0 points 4 hours ago

No it's a prefectly reasonable stance, but having wrong opinion or even thinking the wrong way is disallowed.