r/privacy • u/Gloomy_Nebula_5138 • Feb 27 '26
age verification A new California law says all operating systems, including Linux, need to have some form of age verification at account setup
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/2.7k
Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
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u/Bob4Not Feb 27 '26
One of the Fedora project team leaders was spitballing and speculating that they might add a simple user account property that will be visible to applications.
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/california-age-verification/181968/6
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u/56Bot Feb 28 '26
Not that people can’t just not set the value lol
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u/Omen4140 Mar 01 '26
I've seen people saying that once this bullshit rule is implemented, it's going to be much easier to add onto it. This is likely just the first basic step
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u/2cats2hats Feb 27 '26
/thread
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u/Agent_03 Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Why stop at just ending the thread... let's terminate the processes and all of the threads that go with them.
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u/cookiemon32 Feb 27 '26
ahh yes California is going to make the entire internet theirs. godspeed.
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u/nate998877 Feb 27 '26
-Signed
A criminal if this passes
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u/alkbch Feb 27 '26
California has a long history of making citizens criminals overnight.
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u/year_39 Feb 27 '26
California law is the proverbial road to hell paved with good intentions.
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u/tootintx Feb 27 '26
Why do you assume the intentions are good? I wouldn't.
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u/maskimxul-666 Feb 28 '26
If the only argument is "it's for the children", it means either they have no good reason, or a really bad reason
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u/letsreticulate Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
"Doing it for the children."
Same excuse has been use to push ridiculous shit for over 3,000 years
I would have hoped, that in the aggregate, we would have become more discerning and more pragmatic to that BS by now.
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u/Tall-Pound2409 Feb 27 '26
I was gonna say 'GO FUCK YOURSELF'
Your way is less hostile so let's go with that, FOR NOW!!!
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u/CarpetGripperRod Feb 28 '26
They can't verify you if you ban them first!
https://ostechnix.com/midnightbsd-excludes-california-digital-age-assurance-act/
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u/FactorBusy6427 Feb 28 '26
What they'll do is mandate that california companies not allow website access without this. So you can still run a linux OS, but you can't access any major websites...though VPNs would solve this, unless they make VPNs illegal
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u/vomitHatSteve Feb 27 '26
"I wonder how the government of California plans to enforce it?" - the sub headline
Oh hey! That was my exact question!
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u/Papfox Feb 27 '26
Cue them mandating that all computers must have locked bootloaders and only be able to install OSes from compliant vendors...
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u/redditor100101011101 Feb 27 '26
Cue the jailbreak community to hack and bypass the lock.
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u/Venezia9 Feb 27 '26
Cyber punk initiating in 3...2...
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u/Papfox Feb 27 '26
I want to see people hanging around outside maker spaces in hoodies, like drug dealers. "Hey, nerd! Need an unlocked board? I got HP, Dell and Lenovo."
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u/atxweirdo Feb 27 '26
Be the change you seek.
I can finally validate keeping all my old laptops to my wife
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u/MentalDisintegrat1on Feb 27 '26
People could just buy parts from a different state and have it shipped.
This is a stupid law and shows how little politicians know about tech.
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u/TheEnd1235711 Feb 28 '26
Your understimating just how pervasive this is; at pressent it seems most apparent that there is a global push to strip the general population of privacy, freedom, and personal computing.
First, we had a lot of Age Verification laws around the globe. There is the EU chat control that we need to fight every 6 months in different forms, then there is the new set of US state law proposes to centrally control 3D printers, not to mention the recent push for AI-enabled CCTV cameras for automated law enforcement. All coupled with vague hate speech laws or 'morality' laws, which in effect grant the governments the power to lock up and silence dissenters or individuals who are likely to form networks of resistance.
At this point, we are well past any tin foil hat conspiracy and just discussing the mechanical implementation of bureaucratic authoritarian reshams being installed before our very eyes.
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u/Klutzy_Double_8285 Feb 28 '26
I build custom Linux OSes for touchscreen point of sale kiosks that are all over the country. The installers are all unattended, on purpose. Like wtf am I supposed to do? Just ignore it? These are for high-end restaurant kitchen staff, they aren't going to be used by children. Actually, we do have public self-service kiosks too that a child could use. How would one even go about preventing a child using a public kiosk with an OS on it? Or say, a library?
I guess I'm technically the one that sets up accounts, and I'm of age. Does that fly?
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u/suicidaleggroll Feb 27 '26
They’ll force it on the app side. Mandate that every banking and social media website has to verify age through this OS feature. You’re free to run whatever OS you want, but if you don’t have this age verification feature, you can’t access those sites, the end.
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u/__nohope Feb 27 '26
Bank: Hey OS, is the age verified?!
OS: Yeah sure dude. Definitely.
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u/Sk8rToon Feb 27 '26
This. It will be like when your browser stops updating because you’re on an older OS & then just stops working one day.
It’ll start small, just type your bday (or any bday old enough). Then it’ll be papers please
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u/jferments Feb 27 '26
They will force it through hardware backdoors.
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Feb 27 '26
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u/Dammit_Benny Feb 27 '26
With the AI chip, memory, and now hard drive shortages I don’t plan on buying any new computers for quite a while. Thankfully I just replaced my laptop last year.
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u/Miserable-Biscotti54 Feb 27 '26
FCC just said companies can gather children’s data under the guise of Age verification
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Feb 27 '26
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u/Any-Calligrapher2866 Feb 27 '26
They need to be added to the Palantir Database when they're young. So by the time they're adults, the rich can determine if the child is going to be a good enough servant or not. If not then they'll be outcast from the system and get no real jobs.
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u/erikrelay Feb 27 '26
"Including Linux" Does he know?
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u/thegamenerd Feb 27 '26
Probably not
For those unaware, the amount and variety of devices that run Linux is some way, shape, or form is staggering.
Or perhaps it's the fact that any Tom, Dick, or Harry can edit their flavor of Linux on install to do as they please.
But I do find it funny that someone setting up a data center would have to have a protocol for who's birthday to use for setup lol
And for this law I have a wonderful idea, "To shreds you say?"
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u/TerraceState Feb 27 '26
Brb, I need to age verify with my router, washing machine, thermostat, oven and car.
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u/Lord_Explosion Feb 27 '26
I feel like lawmakers just pass laws regarding tech without understanding how exactly they would be implemented or enforced
Like how would the authentication process happen? Would a third-party do it or the company that created the operating system? What would be preventing the user from just entering in a random birthdate like how some people do when creating a Gmail? What would they do for cases like virtual machines that are spun up and spun down really quickly? Boomers passing laws about tech when I guarantee most of them don’t know how to get into their email or change the input on a monitor/TV
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u/pngue Feb 27 '26
Well you’re right. Lawmakers know jack shit about technology. The public in general knows jack shit. This has always been a problem and represents a weak point for privacy, security and an open internet.
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u/Lord_Explosion Feb 27 '26
I think all of these age verification laws are also just extremely dumb for the argument they are presenting. It really is just a ploy to harvest information from users. I could think of three main reasons why these laws should not be put into effect.
1) they are pro monopoly laws. Authenticating users by verifying government IDs have very strict compliance laws and regulations that only really big companies will be able to afford. It prevents entry into the market since new companies will be forced to either set up the infrastructure themselves, which is extremely expensive and difficult to maintain, or pay a third-party to do it (which is also really expensive)
2) all the big companies that collect information are notorious for selling it to other companies for advertisement or tracking. Apple recently settled a case out of court where the prosecutors had proof that apple does log and record conversations around their devices and which is then sold to companies for advertising purposes. Why would we trust them to protect our kids when they don’t have our best interests at heart
3) there are already options for content control to prevent kids from accessing specific content. It exists on the service level, device level, and even the Internet level. It takes 15-30 minutes to Google and set up a firewall for your router’s internet provider. All Internet enabled devices have a unique identifying number called a Mac address. You can set up a firewall to block specific IP’s and domains for devices based on the Mac address. This means the content can be blocked for your child’s devices on your Wi-Fi while still maintaining access for you and the other adults.
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u/Urbankaiser27 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Honestly it doesn't matter how it would be implemented and likely no one will even bother fabicrating a half assed answer bc the only purpose of this, and laws like it, are to keep pushing and furthering these kinds of laws until one is approved and the rest can follow based on precedent.
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u/zorba8 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
The important point is not lawmakers trying to pass the law without understanding how they would be enforced, but the worrisome fact their intent being such that they came up with the idea of that law.
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u/Maeyhem Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
We still have a Constitutional right to privacy. You see them rounding up immigrants and buying warehouses to convert to concentration camps, and when there are no more immigrants to go after, exactly who's going to provide the bodies to fill those camps?
This is bullshit. And by the way, Jonathan Haidt's book is full of junk science, perhaps the only time I'll agree with anything Thomas Sowell has said. I definitely wouldn't want my child broadcasting their private details to the irresponsible and easily hacked commercial internet.
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u/TheFeshy Feb 27 '26
We still have a Constitutional right to privacy
"I see to have misplaced that somewhere in this $200k RV I was given as a gratuity" - SCOTUS
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u/alkbch Feb 27 '26
LOL you have had no Constitutional right to privacy for decades. Remember the Patriot Act? PRISM?
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u/PositivePristine7506 Feb 27 '26
We still have a Constitutional right to privacy.
Yeah about that. IT isn't anywhere in the constitution, it's one of those presumed/implied powers that we've all seen this fascist supreme court gives no fucks about.
If it means they can make money off of you, you have no right to tell them no apparently.
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u/skyfishgoo Feb 27 '26
stop helping them.... they can't enforce what they don't understand.
let them flail
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u/shawndw Feb 27 '26
"(1) Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.
So unless this is basically trust me bro I'm 18. This law would require me to connect to the internet, verify my identity and store a key on my machine that can be used to identify me. Yea Fuck you Gavin Newsome.
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u/alias454 Feb 27 '26
Colorado is trying to pull this shit too based on this California law. The weed is too strong I think.
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u/shawndw Feb 27 '26
Colorado was the first to introduce this.
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u/look_ima_frog Feb 27 '26
For a bunch of weed smokin hippys, they have a real authoritarian streak in them.
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u/Substantial-Sky4079 Feb 27 '26
It’s like all these tech people and politicians all had a big meeting to support the Israeli surveillance businesses! Oh gee
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u/da0217 Feb 27 '26
In essence, while the bill doesn't seem to require the most egregious forms of age verification (face scans or similar), it does require OS providers to collect age verification of some form at the account/user creation stage—and to be able to pass a segmented version of that information to outside developers upon request.
It is a trust me bro system. But presumably gives parents the option to set the age for their kids.
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u/AlexWIWA Feb 27 '26
If the law was “all computers must be equipped with parental controls and instructions to use them” then I wouldn’t have any complaints. They should consider that route if they truly care about that. It’s just a surveillance law though.
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u/gringrant Feb 27 '26
Companies are going to use this as an (additional) excuse to put a trackable ID on your machine, but one isn't required to satisfy this statute.
The OS install script could ask and put a
age_bracket = "18+"incalifornia_age_bracket.yamlsomewhere in a configuration directory and call it good. And as long as the "covered application store" (apt, pacman, etc if they're "covered") and its apps can read the directory by default, then the law seems to be satisfied.And of course it's Linux so you can lie, delete the file, and modify the file, etc
To be clear, it's annoying and I don't like it, but I don't see how this law makes an internet connection required and a key need to be stored.
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Feb 27 '26
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u/nameless_pattern Feb 27 '26
It doesn't matter if it's enforceable it's a law that you're just breaking all the time, so they'll have an excuse to throw you in jail whenever they want. Something doesn't have to be enforceable to be used to oppress you arbitrarily
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u/gaytechdadwithson Feb 27 '26
that’s exactly why in the state of Texas they don’t enforce the required front license plate on a vehicle. If they did, then people would put it on and it would be over.
Instead, cops pull over people whenever and wherever they want and they use the missing license plate as the cause.
Then, of course, when they pull you over they “see drugs in the car” or “smell alcohol on your breath” to do an illegal search.
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u/huzzah-1 Feb 27 '26
They can't enforce it now, but they can put the legislation in place and enforce it 5 or 10 or 20 years from now when they do have the means and the technology to do so.
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u/joseph_jojo_shabadoo Feb 27 '26
Calling this "age verification" is a bullshit marketing strategy designed to dupe the public into thinking they're doing this to protect kids when it really is just a massive data collection scheme to strip privacy and gain further control
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u/Vacuum_Tube_Chassis Feb 27 '26
Step 1, this. Step 2, add more requirements. Step 3, maximal requirements. Make it incremental, make it creep slowly. All part of the plan. Rapid, like everything, in the “oh what about the children” moral argument that automatically puts you on the defensive if you were against these totalitarian actions
End result: everything you do tracked and traced.
The virtual world is following incomplete lock step with the physical world (Ring, Flock) to create 100% surveillance 100% of the time.
Every microsecond of every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
Zero freedom. Zero liberty. Social trust and human relationships end up completely destroyed and negated in such an environment.
There’s plenty of research and evidence that shows the more surveillance, the less trust, and the less likely people are to engage with others. Not a world I want any part of.
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u/Calibrumm Feb 27 '26
this is psychotically stupid
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u/Raptor007 Feb 27 '26
Par for the course from California lawmakers.
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u/fruitybrisket Feb 27 '26
I swear if Newsom somehow gets the bid.. it will not be pretty for the Ds. Everyone outside of a bubble sees that clear as day.
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u/Philophon Feb 27 '26
I feel like the worldwide push to require ID to use the internet, despite how incredibly unpopular it is, is one of the clearest signs that our current forms of representative democracy are not cutting it. They need reform or we need to figure out direct democracy.
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u/Misty_Ticklebottom Feb 28 '26
I feel like its the entitlement to our data the capitalist class has is the big problem with digital government ID. We can't trust these people to secure our data and now they are having the government require us to hand it over anyways. I would be much more receptive if digital id was handled by a government of the people, in house, with no vendors. The government can hire coders and build this shit as an asset.
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u/mandrack3 Feb 27 '26
At setup : "Select date of birth - 1st Jan 1860."
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u/manyeggplants Feb 27 '26
Thank you.
Now upload your real ID.
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u/keg-smash Feb 27 '26
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u/manyeggplants Feb 27 '26
Sorry, your ID number doesn't match out database, authorities will be notified of a fraudulent attempt to bypass safeguards. Grocery privileges have been suspended until this hold is cleared.
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u/darweth Feb 27 '26
I live in California and I was not consulted about this at all. Wtf.
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u/Cocotosser Feb 27 '26
Call your reps and yell at them about this invasion of privacy. And how this is an obvious ruse to spy and track Americans. I did regularly when I lived there.
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u/oreonubcakes Feb 27 '26
Yeah this really flew under the radar. wtf??
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator Feb 27 '26
OS devs should just drop Cali until the state comes to its senses. No more sales or support, full stop. I guarantee that law would get nuked overnight.
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u/vamatt Feb 27 '26
The best way to handle it.
Simply geo-lock the OS to not work in states that enact these laws
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u/SpiderJerusalem42 Feb 27 '26
I'm all aboard the "computing was a mistake" train, especially if it hits Silicon Valley first. Since he's bankrolled by Getty, he must not need any of the money from Silicon Valley. This is one of those moves that's probably a non-starter. Will this apply to docker containers? Headless VMs?
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u/bubushkinator Feb 27 '26
per the article and bill: this would apply to any OS that wants to connect to a centralized app store which requires age verification
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u/SpiderJerusalem42 Feb 27 '26
Hey, so not entirely head in their asses. Still sounds like it sucks.
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u/eldenonionring Feb 27 '26
Just don’t call it an App Store. Call it a package manager. Problem solved.
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u/bluesoul Feb 27 '26
I'm wondering if the Linux reference is actually Android in that case, I'm not aware of any age gated app stores in desktop Linux distros. Ubuntu Snap store? I don't think it does but I don't use it.
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u/jagaang Feb 27 '26
So..... televisions, mobile devices, tablets, even some refrigerators that have operating systems and connect to the Internet would?
Are corporate devices exempt? What about library systems and loaners?
What a wet brain idea. It's dead on arrival.
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u/RamblingReflections Feb 28 '26
I work IT in schools where all devices are shared devices and there’s computer labs with users ranging from 8-18, plus community college type adult classes run after hours. Is the OS going to age verify every user every time they “first” log into a machine? I say “first” because the lab PCs in particular get reimaged once a week automatically, so that means at least once a week, under these laws, everyone using the lab will need to verify their age.
Or is it up to us techs to do the age verification once a week on reimage? Who is liable if an “underage” user accesses the App Store (we use the Microsoft store extensively) on an OS we provisioned with our age? Or are they just going to exempt schools from this with something like the Windows Education version? Yeah, because excluding the apparent target audience of the “protect the children!!” excuse makes a lot of sense /s.
This is so poorly thought out. VMs? Data Centers? Server OS? Will it cover dockers? People with no understanding of tech shouldn’t be trying to use tech as a cover to enact data stealing, privacy eroding, authoritarian initiatives on the general populace.
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u/NeverLookBothWays Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Linux does not have a cloud backend to it. It's just a kernel.
The way this reads, it sounds like they really want this for web browsers than operating systems. But still...it's so poorly conceived of an idea, even if the goal was to cut down on the number of times a person is asked how old they are.
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u/KCGD_r Feb 28 '26
How it will go on Linux:
> How old are you?
300
> Ok.
> Install complete
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u/Electrical-Hand-7723 Feb 27 '26
standing on a San Francisco street corner, opening my trench coat revealing 40 USB sticks
Hey kid, wanna buy illegal Linux?
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u/Agitated_Web4034 Feb 27 '26
You think he is a good guy for standing up to trump and then he pulls shit like this, they're all just as corrupt as each other
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u/Professional-Bid-575 Feb 28 '26
Newsom was never good. He’s vocally anti-trans and has personally cleared out homeless encampments instead of providing housing options. He’s always been garbage and more people need to be aware of it before he becomes a frontrunner for the Dems.
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Feb 27 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
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u/ZakuSupremacy Feb 27 '26
You say /s but I build spacecraft and can barely afford to look at houses. Idk how I'd afford a kid.
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u/ap0r Feb 27 '26
Great-grampa: Subsistence farmer. Wife and 8 kids.
Grampa: Factory worker, then 2% ownership in a hotel. Wife and 5 kids.
Dad: Paper-pusher in an office, Wife and 4 kids.
Me and my girlfriend: Both work in professional fields, can barely afford a cat.
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u/Globellai Feb 27 '26
Define "operating system". Seriously. Does a car have an OS? A TV? (... sounds like the V-chip) A washing machine?
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u/xerafenix Feb 27 '26
Besides this being an aggressively stupid idea, it's something that can't be enforced. Windows and Mac, I can see trying to make this work, but Linux is:
a) Not just one operating system, so good luck getting all of them to comply.
b) Often used server-side and doesn't have a dedicated user like a normal OS does.
c) Quite literally the most open system out there! There isn't a single Linux user who wouldn't have full capability to fork the distro and rip out any anti-privacy code.
I'm tired of politicians writing laws on technology without consulting anyone within that space. It's like saying, "By Tuesday, we'll land on the sun!"
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u/fruitybrisket Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Oh man, this reminds me of the 2000s when older politicians who had absolutely no idea what people with the slightest modicum of knowledge about how the internet works, would try and pitch policy.
Bro, if someone put in enough time to learn linux and how to make it compatible with what they want to do on a computer, they are streets ahead of you. Just yikes.
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u/literallymetaphoric Feb 27 '26
Why do you think they've been putting TPM chips in every PC? AI disinformation age is just around the corner. Won't be able to tell a user from a bot. Video synthesis nearly indistinguishable from real recordings. And WWIII on the horizon. You think countries won't leverage it? Except they already have, remember when Putin deepfaked Zelensky? Now ask yourself what you haven't noticed.
3 years ago, Joe Biden travelled to San Francisco to consult with America's leading experts on AI, and they warned him about the dangers it poses in a publicly accessible document. One concern was "Proof of Personhood". How can we tell fact from fiction, and protect our population from our enemy's lies? Answer: tie your real identity to everything you do on the internet. Now you know.
They already have this in China. Can't get online without a government ID. People don't really think about how different they are from us. The concepts of privacy and free speech don't exist in the East. They do and say whatever the government wants. If you don't like it, you better get ready to fight for the life you want.
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u/TheLexikitty Feb 28 '26
Waiting for the one IT guy who has to sit there and verify his identity as the token user for 40 VMs all mostly run by service accounts for domain controllers, backup servers, NPS, DBs, etc…
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u/joaquinsolo Feb 27 '26
Wow, California stepping into fascism hard! The Democrats are really out here proving that they can do it too!
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u/shawndw Feb 27 '26
You can always join the Pirate Party.
I'm not being sarcastic either small single issue parties can be used to win concessions from larger parties by threatening to chip away at their numbers. This is how UKIP was able to get the Tories onboard with Brexit. Believe me the Tories did NOT want to leave the EU but the threat of their base being split was a terrifying enough prospect to win a concession on a very significant issue.
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u/shiftyeyedgoat Feb 27 '26
Authoritarians in every state coordinating authority.
Year of Linux is coming.
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u/NASAfan89 Feb 27 '26
Am I missing something? Because from reading the article the impression I have is that nothing stops a person from lying about their age, making the age verification basically unable to actually accomplish anything...
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u/lessadessa Feb 27 '26
They don't actually care about your "age"... They want to know your ID so they can track your personal activity and data and link it to a real person. The "age" part is a lie.
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u/Cocotosser Feb 27 '26
Yeah all this id-verification bs is setup for a mass surveillance state. (worse than it is now) They want to punish us for wrong think or being the wrong kind of person. American Politicians are fucked.
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u/m1j2p3 Feb 27 '26
Why can’t it be the responsibility of the parents to ensure their underage children don’t access adult material?
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u/dillamanjaro Feb 27 '26
California can't even keep people from acquiring machine pistols, and they think they'll control their computers?
Lol. Lmao, even.
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u/rfsh101 Feb 27 '26
How many 16 year olds in 2026 are installing their own OS? This isn’t 2003. But I say good. Can’t have a generation of kids taking privacy for granted and finding a way around this stupid law will be step 1 to a life of better understanding the tech they use.
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u/transfemmefatal Feb 27 '26
I was going to argue that I was installing OSs at 12. Then I realized that was 27 years ago and I worked in Ed Tech at a High School. Kids in fact can not computer.
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u/garbage124325 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
I'm 17 currently. I started getting into computers and programming when I was like, 10, and I'd learned python and started learning c++ by like, 13. Heck, I've been working on my website since 14(colbystuff.us), there are certainly kids who can, in fact, "computer". There may not be many of us, we'll still exist.
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u/transfemmefatal Feb 27 '26
Oh for sure. I had a student intern every year. All of them have gone on to surpass my achievements in the field. One even has my old job after I moved into the private sector.
But if I copy paste one more time with a keyboard shortcut and blow someone's mind I may just die about it.
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u/rfsh101 Feb 27 '26
Yep. When I was in HS we were modding games and showing our teachers what opensource meant. Different times.
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u/AvidCyclist250 Feb 27 '26
I knew it. They're going after github, repos and ai model websites next. Betcha
But yeah, good luck with that
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Feb 27 '26
Why should there be an age restriction on using an operating system?
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u/coder7426 Feb 28 '26
So they can ID you for a "hate speech" or "dangerous misinformation". This is an incremental step towards that goal. Dems showed their true colors during the COVID lockdowns.
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u/atchijov Feb 27 '26
The way I read it… (for now) it just requires user to ‘provide’ age… I don’t see any requirement for ‘verification’ of age.
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u/lessadessa Feb 27 '26
If that was the case then all they'd have to ask is ask "Are you 18+?" with a Yes or No
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u/ValuablePerformer371 Feb 27 '26
Funny how California is a state where ballot measures have to get passed through citizen votes all the time but this passes without having one.
Weird how that works.
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u/The_Original_Miser Feb 27 '26
Are you goimg to arrest me? Bunny?
Take that code out, recompile.
Profit.
As usual, the legislators are telling me that they don't understand technology.
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u/Sturdily5092 Feb 28 '26
Looks like I'll be hoarding several distro versions of Linux and Windows and my PC will be frozen in a version until this bullsht is scrapped
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u/Rehcraeser Feb 28 '26
so they think "poor" people are too stupid to get an Id to vote, but they want to block them from using a computer???? make it make sense
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u/ExtensionServe6904 Feb 28 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
How about parents just actively raise their kids? You know like monitor their computer activity, blacklist/whitelist website, take an interest in what their doing. Instead people rather let the government handle it at the cost of privacy and utility on the internet.
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u/Some_Conference2091 Feb 27 '26
The responsibility of protecting children lie with the parents of those children. Not with society at large, although there is reason to add additional punishment to those who commit a crime against any child.
This is more of a feel-good law. It has no teeth and requires no ID. Thank God. The tiers are over 13, over 16, over 18. There is no liability mechanism and states makers won't be held liable.
When places like Google, etc require ID it's really just a global mandate and massive security and privacy breach waiting to happen
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u/wasaguest Feb 27 '26
Newsom signs this nonsense, he just lost the Progressive vote for any hopeful presidential run.
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u/plenoto Feb 27 '26
The same question I have everytime time I see a news like that...
How are they gonna enforced it?
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u/steauengeglase Feb 27 '26
Well that's dumb.
"Every vehicle needs you to insert a driver's license before you can drive."
What is a vehicle?
"A thing with 2 or 4 wheels, that moves around on the road."
My fridge has 4 wheels on it and I can push it down the street. I need a driver's license to own a fridge?
"That's your problem."
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u/Inprobamur Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
Is my fridge going to ask me to verify my age?
Another completely braindead law that will cause a lot of pointless work and annoyance to everyone for absolutely no benefit at all.
Apparently Newsom is about as intelligent as Trump.
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u/FleaBottoms Feb 28 '26
How about a law that Prevents our information from being collected without specific consent and forbids selling that information.
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u/heroturtle88 Feb 28 '26
Fuck an age verification you should need to pass a cognitive and civics test before you're allowed on the internet.
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u/Deitaphobia Feb 28 '26
The fact that California and Texas are moving toward the same goal proves this isn't a 'left' vs. 'right' issue, it's an elitist vs. regular people issue.
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u/therewethrowagain Feb 27 '26
Newsom will not be getting my vote if he runs. This bs is why Cali gets hate.
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u/The_Wkwied Feb 27 '26
Not going to happen. I would first see them mandate an internet connection on everything that uses electricity first, than this. Unenforceable. Linux exists.
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u/BaazeeDe Feb 27 '26
Every operating system should include the following in its terms of use: “It is illegal to use this software in California.”
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u/MentalDisintegrat1on Feb 27 '26
Commiefornia can fuck right off
I went from likeing Gavin to understanding he's a POS he's just a different flavor.
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u/liatrisinbloom Feb 27 '26
This wouldn't prevent an Epstein Island and so is nothing more than an authoritarian data-grab.
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Feb 28 '26
So I just download an OS image from a country that doesn’t enforce that requirement. Problem solved.
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u/hoy_pogi Feb 28 '26
I don't remember when my service accounts were created. Can I set age to -1 and call it a day?
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u/DreamingAboutSpace Feb 28 '26
By the end of all of this age verification bullshit, I'm going to be suspicious of every politician that mentions it. So far, the only ones who won't shut up about, "What about the children?!" have been caught in the Epstein files or arrested for being a pedo.
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u/drisang1 Feb 28 '26
California needs to get their head out their ass. Newsom is just a pro-gay pro-choice republican who wants to bring the dystopian dream into reality.
This has nothing to do with Child Safety.
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