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Comment by gzread | Hacker News Reader

Because they want market share, and throwing a hissyfit over being asked to add an "I am over 18" checkbox is not good PR. If Debian starts refusing to work in California because it doesn't want to add a checkbox, it will simply be replaced by someone who adds that checkbox and doesn't throw the fit.

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As the article says, it's not about just checking a box:

"Every OS provider must then: provide an interface at account setup collecting a birth date or age, and expose a real-time API that broadcasts the user's age bracket (under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18+) to any application running on the system."

Fine, a drop-down menu, not a checkbox. They're throwing a hissy fit over a drop-down menu with 4 items.

You're missing the rest of it. It takes whatever you put in that dropdown menu and broadcasts it to the rest of the operating system including -- for instance -- your browser. The browser then uses that information to decide what to show you. The same would apply to any other app designed to receive it.

You can call what's happening in this thread a hissy fit, but how does that compare to $70 million in lobbying to get this added to operating systems? Isn't that a bit more of a fit? When you look at who is behind the bills, do you look at their history and wonder whose best interest they might have at heart?

How many other things in the operating system are like that already? Every file in your home directory, for instance?

There is no requirement that the OS has to verify the person's ID. It literally just requires a dropdown menu to select your age bracket.

I disagree slightly. It may not be good business, but it could be good PR, situationally. I expect a lot of 2nd-tier distros will refuse to implement it, and see a boost in their installs as a result.

Debian, Ubuntu, etc., they'll all fall right in line because the clear and immediate losses will outweigh any PR issue.

When they fall in line and add the age bracket drop-down menu, we'll keep using them because throwing a hissy fit over a distribution allowing you to select your age bracket is very obviously stupid.

Stupid take.

The issue is obviously not with adults needing to click a drop-down.

Some of the main issues with this legislation are:

1) Makes it much easier for predators of all kinds to identify and target children on their computers

2) Impossible to implement (i.e., servers don't have a person)

3) The infrastructure this bill introduces will be used by the state and corporations to destroy our last vestiges of privacy and anonymity

The age bracket dropdown will not be used to destroy your last vestige of privacy and anonymity.

It's a slippery slope, my friend. Take care now.

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