this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
44 points (94.0% liked)
Linux
12644 readers
462 users here now
A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)
Also, check out:
Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Is it really not as easy for them as saying "hey btw don't use this distro if you're in California" and fully expecting nobody to comply? I'm not sure if Ubuntu is based in Cali in which case I can see it being more difficult.
Also this "age bracket" thing seems to have an obvious flaw in that any application that's running semi-regularly can just poll the API every day and find out the user's DOB by checking when they roll into the next bracket. It's actually leaking more data about children than about adults in that case. Brilliant.
On the other hand, it's one of the least intrusive proposals I've heard in this round of debate. The parent flags the account as a child, the browser sends one (or more, in this case) extra bit indicating if it should receive the adult content (whatever it might be) or not.
No ID verification, no face scanning, no credit card checks, no companies building profiles of everybody on earth and sharing them with shady institutions. Plus, it pushes the responsibility back to the parents, who (hopefully) know the child the best, and can adjust the restrictions either way if needed.
Now I can finally accept that the age verification issue is merely "controversial", instead of absolutely evil global conspiracy.
It matters not, it's still intrusive, and it's the foot-in-the-door to demand more.
If you let a nazi peek into your bar and stay, it's a nazi bar.