A small set of people are merging changes to various Linux components to make sure every application knows your birth date.
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@wwahammy @artemis Like seriously. Even if you weren't going to consider complying with this unthinkable, adopting something like this that's a policy matter should be a process that requires a proposal and feedback from the community, with a long enough time window for that to happen. Not rushed-through changes by shadowy actors who show up just to do what some malicious external authority demands.
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@artemis @wwahammy this isn't complying in advance, it's complying with the law. Which passed unanimously through the California assembly and senate and was signed into law by Gavin Newsom in 2025. It's not going to be repealed.
Open source projects do not have the type of budget that allows them to merely ignore the law and shrug off fines and legal fees.
@smn@l3ib.org @artemis @wwahammy
DON'T FUCKING COMPLY at all. In advance or otherwise. -
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@ShadSterling @smn @wwahammy it's a nightmare. What's particular irking me rn is that the 'Freedom' brigade that have been SO vocal during the height of covid are now totally silent on draconian laws that will actually limit real freedom of speech. (surprise, surprise).
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A small set of people are merging changes to various Linux components to make sure every application knows your birth date.
This is being done rapidly by people with questionable justifications and being merged with no youth and few marginalized people involved.
@wwahammy Of course, the "spam" they're talking about is people signing up to tell them that this is madness.
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@wwahammy @ShadSterling @smn we are rapidly getting to a point (some would argue past a point) where resistance, for us white folks who've had little skin in the game, is going to mean real consequences and confronting the fact that the law is an ass.
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@wwahammy @ShadSterling @smn well yeah. Slightly different from where I sit (in Australia, having seen the 'sovereign citizens' on the socials, whining about face masks and traffic violations, rather than the political figures. They're just absent. )
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@artemis @wwahammy this isn't complying in advance, it's complying with the law. Which passed unanimously through the California assembly and senate and was signed into law by Gavin Newsom in 2025. It's not going to be repealed.
Open source projects do not have the type of budget that allows them to merely ignore the law and shrug off fines and legal fees.
"It's not going to be repealed," ok, but like, can we? Can we build a plan to get this reversed? I'm about to complain on the daily to my state reps, because I sure as hell didn't ask them to pass it, and they sure as hell didn't let me know this was even in the works.
If I got backing, I'd even do the work of getting a prop going to repeal this, I'm not even joking. Or should some other options be explored first? Is anyone else taking these steps? Can anyone hear me? Where is the pushback against this?
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A small set of people are merging changes to various Linux components to make sure every application knows your birth date.
This is being done rapidly by people with questionable justifications and being merged with no youth and few marginalized people involved.
@wwahammy
"Some things are silly AND evil, like candy cigarettes." -
A small set of people are merging changes to various Linux components to make sure every application knows your birth date.
This is being done rapidly by people with questionable justifications and being merged with no youth and few marginalized people involved.
@wwahammy these are definitely not unknown people. I guarantee you every single fucking one of them is a Meta or Google employee.
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@wwahammy there's no fucking way that these commits are not directly linked to Meta and their ilk. Absolutely none at all. These are the only companies besides IBM with the staff, and the only ones with the vested interest, as well as a LONG history of hiding, minimizing, or straight up lying about their involvement in things.
If the IPs aren't from Meta's ASN, they're employees using their home connection again, something the company has ordered them to do for breaking the law for example. -
@wwahammy @artemis @smn it does, but I don’t think that license change is meant to be a whole solution, and I’m not sure what better thing those orgs could do.
Until it is stopped, maybe it would be better if the ones not located in California just ignored it; it’s not like they can impose California law on the entire world
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"It's not going to be repealed," ok, but like, can we? Can we build a plan to get this reversed? I'm about to complain on the daily to my state reps, because I sure as hell didn't ask them to pass it, and they sure as hell didn't let me know this was even in the works.
If I got backing, I'd even do the work of getting a prop going to repeal this, I'm not even joking. Or should some other options be explored first? Is anyone else taking these steps? Can anyone hear me? Where is the pushback against this?
@crypticrainfall @wwahammy @artemis You can certainly attempt it but I don't have high hopes for a campaign to repeal a bill that passed unanimously and would be opposed by the likes of facebook. It's hard to imagine how to build the political capital to do that.
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A small set of people are merging changes to various Linux components to make sure every application knows your birth date.
This is being done rapidly by people with questionable justifications and being merged with no youth and few marginalized people involved.
Edit: I just saw your display name
Hi Eric 
I think you did a great job of highlighting the problems posed by that PR.
"I do not think every application, that can be written by literally anyone in the world should know and be able to share which of their users are under 18. That is a recipe for some of the worst possible human beings to know who to target for harm and abuse of all kinds.
Like has anyone run this by folks who work with kids in the digital safety space? How about kids themselves? How about people who aren't in the US. It seems like we've got the mostly male, middle-aged white American and maybe European software engineer viewpoints down pat. Those are not the only users of desktop Linux and if we're gonna change the relationship between those users (and potential users) and desktop Linux, then maybe they should be involved in whatever happens." -
Edit: I just saw your display name
Hi Eric I think you did a great job of highlighting the problems posed by that PR.
"I do not think every application, that can be written by literally anyone in the world should know and be able to share which of their users are under 18. That is a recipe for some of the worst possible human beings to know who to target for harm and abuse of all kinds.
Like has anyone run this by folks who work with kids in the digital safety space? How about kids themselves? How about people who aren't in the US. It seems like we've got the mostly male, middle-aged white American and maybe European software engineer viewpoints down pat. Those are not the only users of desktop Linux and if we're gonna change the relationship between those users (and potential users) and desktop Linux, then maybe they should be involved in whatever happens."@alice sometimes I am gud at writing
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@wwahammy @frumble @artemis @smn
Why even implementing such feature? XD I'm really lost wtf.> and helps support age verification requirements from recent legislation.
Why should we care about any legislation. It's open source for fucks sake. I should be able to can run it on my dildo if I wanted.
Even now I can drop this stupid commit and government could suck my dick. What if I run RToS on Arduino? Do I still need to add age flag XDD WTF.
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@wwahammy @frumble @artemis @smn
Why even implementing such feature? XD I'm really lost wtf.> and helps support age verification requirements from recent legislation.
Why should we care about any legislation. It's open source for fucks sake. I should be able to can run it on my dildo if I wanted.
Even now I can drop this stupid commit and government could suck my dick. What if I run RToS on Arduino? Do I still need to add age flag XDD WTF.
@grayrattus @frumble @artemis @smn make sure the dildo asks the users birthday first
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A small set of people are merging changes to various Linux components to make sure every application knows your birth date.
This is being done rapidly by people with questionable justifications and being merged with no youth and few marginalized people involved.
@wwahammy Grrrr
