What is really likely to happen to you if you use an OS that doesn't comply with age verification laws.

2026-03-19 16:26 UTC

Okay you are ready to take a stand for freedom! You are going to use an OS that isn’t going to bend the knee and comply with age verification laws. I solute you, comrade! Here are the likely consequences of your choice: The Feds aren’t coming after you. You aren’t going to be out on a watch list. What will likely happen is that if you try to log into your Facebook account you will get a message that says “Your Operating System is not currently supported. Your user experience will be limited to Groups labeled “Everyone”.” That’s basically it. Your personal user experience will be limited to “kid friendly” areas of the Internet. (Same with apps and games.) That’s the real driver of these laws. Facebook and other app producers know that the days where they can just shrug off child predators using their products is coming to and end. Regardless of your opinion on age verification is as a solution, child predators are a real world problem and it’s not just the parents fault. The platforms have some responsibility too. Which is exactly what Facebook and the others specifically don’t want -responsibility for their own platforms. That’s why they are pushing for these laws that off load their responsibility onto the OS makers. Then they can just say “Oh, we don’t have any responsibility for this child being abused in our platform. We asked the OS what the user’s age was and the OS reported 18+. What else could we have done?” So, that’s the consequence if you choose to use an OS that refuses to comply. You’ll just be relegated to the kid friendly version of website, games, and applications. (On the other hand, if your OS chooses to falsely report to a website or an app an age for a child that is abused, then the OS should also be held responsible. But at that point you can go ahead and blame the parents too for letting their child use an OS that isn’t safe for them to use.)

Replies (3)

@MissesAutumnRains@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-03-19 22:23

Call me a cynic, but I absolutely do not believe that companies “know that the days where they can just shrug off child predators using their products is coming to and end”. I don’t believe they give a fuck at all. In fact, if somehow a case made it to court and the court laid the blame at the foot of, say, Facebook, or whatever company, for a child being harmed, they still wouldn’t care because the money they make simply existing as is so wildly outstrips any fine they could possibly be levied that it doesn’t make economic sense to do anything differently. There is real damage being done now and no one seems to care enough to stop it. Why go through all this negative PR about privacy violations if you can just keep doing the same thing? Now, I can’t claim to know what the “real reason” these laws are being passed is, but if I had to hazard a guess, it would be because it gives more accurate data on users to sell and it is cheaper to advertise to your users when they directly tell you their age. Now, you can freely show pornographic ads, gambling ads, whatever, to your adults without ever having to worry about buying user data to know who will receive it. If a kid sees porn, well, you shouldn’t have let them on an adult account.

Open ##783399
@eskuero@lemmy.fromshado.ws 2026-03-19 23:10

Everytime somebody posts something complacent like this telling us not to worry I remember a piece of speech by Arnim Zola in the Winter Soldier movie. “Hydra was founded with on belief that humanity could not be trusted with it’s own freedom. What we did not realize is that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much, humanity needed to surrender it’s freedom willingly. […] For 70 years, Hydra have been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed. Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice it’s freedom, to gain it’s security” www.youtube.com/watch?v=E486XjhYHh8

Open ##783535
@Maerman@lemmy.world 2026-03-20 05:17

Nope. The stats show that most child predators are either someone known to the child already, or other minors who don’t know better. ‘Stranger danger’ is a moral panic that is not rooted in reality.

Open ##784471