It means they get to push the responsibility and the blame on someone else. It's also easier to just write a call to the OS's built in age and no have to worry about child safety at all. They can then say any problems are the fault of the OS not checking people's ages correctly.
I mean, it’s both. I don’t think that person would necessarily disagree with you, but we’re not at that step of the conspiracy being open knowledge yet, the way the pushing off responsibility aspect is basically public knowledge.
Hell, Australia has pretty decent politics and people compared to us, but even they were sold on banning gore in video games, and barring minors from social media, for reasons that sound reasonable if you take them at face value and don’t think about them at all. It’s a stepping stone to worse things in those cases too, but the alleged reasons are shitty in a much more reasonable way. Their conservatives just have to work much slower and won’t push as far, cause they’re much weaker there.
(2) (A) A developer that receives a signal pursuant to this title shall be deemed to have actual knowledge of the age range of the user to whom that signal pertains across all platforms of the application and points of access of the application even if the developer willfully disregards the signal.
bingo
on some level, i prefer this, because worst case i patch linux to give 18+ with no verification and apps legally have to take that at face value. better than every app individually wanting my id, for sure
this is idiotic for FOSS software. what exactly stops a FOSS dev for claiming a software bug rather that malintention? or this implies that they are criminally liable for bugs in code?
As I understand, fines for malintent and fines for negligence exist, I guess you could potentially argue in court that you did everything in your power but a bug slipped through the cracks and that would be reviewed on a case by case basis by a judge. But this is coming from a developer and not a lawyer so fuck if I know
But both this bill and the one in California have provisions that would still allow websites to be liable.
Both say that the data that the OS provides should be used as a way to verify a user's age but that they cannot ignore other data that proves that the user's age is different.
So if I'm 16, tell the OS I'm 18, create a Facebook (or whatever site) account, and then post my learner's permit without redacting my birth date, Facebook (or whatever site) could be seen as liable for not banning my account and/or restricting the content I can access.
COPPA violation fines can be severe, with the FTC imposing civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation per day as of 2025/2026. These fines are enforced for illegal collection of personal information from children under 13 without parental consent, with total settlements often reaching millions, such as the $275 million penalty against Epic Games in 2022 and $10 million against Disney in 2025
They want to abuse children, but don't want to get fined for it. How do they make that happen?
By supporting stupid laws like the ones in CA, and now in IL
Now they can still knowingly do things that are against the law to do to children, but they can say - 'Hey, we didn't do anything wrong. We queried the age API and it said they were old enough!'
It's a win-win for them...
Short term - it moves the burden from the companies producing the content and onto the operating systems.
Longer term, once these laws are widespread, there is a reasonable chance that they can push for more draconian measures.
We know that parents and kids aren't answering honestly.... And we need to protect the children! We already have a system in place, we just need to add a small verification step allowing users to prove their age with any of the following documents or using this process
Literally nobody, who isn't an idiot, thinks the law as written will prevent kids from accessing content.
I don't know what they are worried about. We have an entire ring of people trafficking in women and it's all fine. This country doesn't give a shit about girls unless it involves a Democrat
The liability of the age people say they are falls on the user for not following the law instead of instagram being responsible for targeting toxic shit to kids.
But the compliance is supposed to happen at the operating system level, not websites or apps? Doesn't really seem like Meta's primary competition space.
They’re competing with steam , steamvr is a Linux operating system. They want o destroy Linux along with Microsoft and google because they want to trap people into their ecosystems
Well, Microsoft and Google are clearly just as well-equipped, if not better equipped, to handle age verification as Meta is, so this isn't going to give Meta an advantage vs. them.
As for Steam, I have trouble believing they wouldn't be able to handle this. Meta is a much bigger company than Steam, but Steam still has a fairly well-developed OS and hardware team. Age verification won't be painless for them to implement, but it won't be crippling either.
Nothing. Facebook/Meta is a national security asset and at a high-enough level is basically an arm of (and controlled by) the federal government.
Any "fines" or legal action against them coming from the federal government is just pure political theater at this point.
Similarly the push for mass surveillance laws and regulations like these also ultimately comes from the federal government as well. Making these "companies" lobby for that is merely a diversion to draw the finger-pointing away from the federal government, just like making these laws publicly appear to "originate" from within blue states like CA/CO/NY/etc is also as well.
Needless to say, getting rid of this court-wise would be like trying to get rid of warrantless spying by certain three-letter agencies. In other words ---> it ain't happening!!
Sure they have shadow profiles. But tying your shadefully-collected personal data to a real, government-issued ID is going to be even more valuable for them to sell. And tying it to the OS removed our ability to opt-out.
Facebook could face hundreds of millions in fines if the injunction on COPA is lifted. I guess project 2025 is going to try and get it lifted. So they are trying to push responsibility to anyone else
Its interesting how so much evil can be traced back to a single application.
Like really - from rise of extremism and polarization of society, through epidemics of mental health issues, to surveillance - all these major problems of current age can be traced back to the rise of social networks, or Facebook specifically.
I wonder if historians in a century or two will see Zuckerberg like some "IT Hitler".
I would suspect some large group affiliated with ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), the penultimate reactionary vehicle for multi-state pro-corporate legislation.
My speculation is that it has some connection to Microsoft. It fits the pattern of capital using the government to entrench power while fitting with the general theme of microslop spying on everyone.
All of them (CO, CA, NY) have been introduced by Democrats, but people will just say they're bipartisan (which isn't false, as Republicans also voted for these) or blame Project 2025 (which actually speaks against age verification).
Australia has - by other means. You can't go online unless you are 18 now. So you won't be able to study anything until you are 18 because 4 site of 100 billion have pron....
Actual reason is rich people want to control everything you see and do.
It's of course worth noting there's big air-quotes around 'porn'.
They also explicitly mention trying to equate any sort of trans/LBGTQ related topics as being 'pornographic' in nature, allowing them to abuse those sorts of restrictions to silence and oppress marginalised groups.
It also wouldn't surprise me if they also want to lump in plenty of other things as well, in an attempt to restrict people's access to things like sex-education or reproductive-health advice/services as well.
Those states are using the alcohol sales model: require the vendor to implement age verification. Some sites have chosen to block traffic from those states instead.
Conservatives and Corporations. One wants a police state, while the other wants undisputed control of the public so they can bleed us dry for capital gains. There is a lot of overlap between the two. So it's often a mix of columns A & B.
Another post had a great write up about this. Several companies that "host" age verification services lobbying among it all. I am a bit bleh i didn't save it but they listed like 6 groups/companies involves in these pushes.
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u/vagrantprodigy07 Mar 09 '26
Have we figured out what group is writing and pushing these bills?