today's reason I fucking love the open source community: Ageless Linux, a brand new Debian-based operating system specifically designed to break the law by giving children access to computers that explicitly refuse to track their age.
reblog this post to help a child break the law
oh goddamn this whole page goes so hard actually, please go read it. what an impressive, visceral takedown of this dumb law
No, seriously, go read it.
The Cudgel
A law that the largest companies in the world already comply with, and that hundreds of small projects cannot comply with, is not a child safety law. It is a compliance moat. It raises the regulatory cost of providing an operating system just enough that only well-resourced corporations can afford to do it.
And:
the law is not about protecting children. It is about building compliance infrastructure.
Also:
The dropdown menu that asks your age is not there to protect you. It is there because a legislature required it. The correct response is to lie. Everyone knows this. The legislature knows this. The platforms know this. The child now knows this.
[...] this law was never meant to be enforced against everyone it covers. It was meant to be enforced selectively. The large platform companies already comply. The small ones can't. The Attorney General has sole enforcement discretion. A law that gives a single office the power to selectively impose $7,500-per-child fines against any operating system distributor in the state — while ensuring that only the largest corporations can avoid liability — is not a child safety measure. It is a tool for selective prosecution. The children are the justification. The discretion is the product. We are trying to make the selective part difficult. If the AG wants to enforce AB 1043, we would like to be first in line. We are a clear violation. We are documented. We are findable. We are daring them. If the law is worth enforcing, enforce it against us. If it is not worth enforcing against us, ask why it exists.
this is so badass.
