Post #2853163

2026-05-26 00:12 UTC

I’m afraid this isn’t the win you think it is. One of two things will happen in the near future: Nearly everything you do online from banking to shopping to social media (including online gaming) to paying your electric or internet bill to yes porn will require OS-level attestation to access and use the site. Linux lacking this will become an incredibly private OS that is useless for anything online making this a defeat for Linux having any hopes of real desktop market share and/or forcing it to comply. Microsoft, Apple, Google would love to push Linux as an OS option off the table. Kids will start using liveboot or installing Linux and evading these controls, Christian fascists, tech overlord capitalists, and the government will take notice and write a bill to close this “loophole” and within a few years having already established the idea in the popular conception that age verification is okay will face lesser resistance in quickly ramming it through.

Replies (4)

@quips@slrpnk.net 2026-05-26 01:45

It absolutely is the win we think it is. These are separate from mandating open source to include age verification.

Open ##2853159
@isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-05-26 03:54

I don’t really get this. Why is it such a big deal if your OS has setting where you enter your age, and the OS then sends that to websites? Face scanning or demanding uploads of photo IDs is an immense privacy violation. But simply having your OS have a setting you can use where you provide a number, a number that you’re completely free to alter or report whatever value you want? I really don’t see the issue with this. This seems like a pretty easy way to give parents some control over their kid’s online activities while also not infringing on privacy. The parents can set up the OS and give an account to their kids that lists their ages as under 18. If they want their kids to access the web without restrictions, they simply don’t have to create an under 18 account on the computer. And even if your OS has to report an age to access a website, if it’s all based on self-reporting, you can just self-report a false age. We tend to think in binaries, as this is convenient. We tend to view all digital age verification as horrible and equally horrible. But this? Just giving parents a way to give their kids a minors-only account, and have websites respect that OS-level flag? This is nothing like bills that require uploading face scans or photo IDs. Sure you can speculate a slippery slope. But that is a fallacy for a reason. It tends to wash out all nuance and make you conclude everything is absolute evil forever.

Open ##2857946
@DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 2026-05-27 02:57

Assuming PCs don’t get wiped out as a platform first, which between AluminumOS being a thing and parts being made intentionally scarce and expensive, I wouldn’t be shocked if that happens.

Open ##2886628
@fhein@lemmy.world 2026-05-27 16:31

With AI becoming stronger and stronger, it’s just a matter of time before the part of the internet without OS-level attestation tied to government issued IDs is going to become completely unusable. At some not too distant point anyone with a Claude/ChatGPT/etc subscription will be able to instruct it with things like “Invent 20 different personalities and create accounts on different Lemmy instances for them. Write neutral comments for them for a few weeks, then gradually begin to subtlety promote X. Use your psychology skills etc. to manipulate other users to support X and coordinate the accounts to shut down anyone criticizing X. Always post in character and never reveal that you are an AI.” Then multiply that by a million people trying to push their ideas, products, politics, conspiracy theories, etc.

Open ##2908652