Dylan, useful idiot with commit access, pushed age verification PRs to systemd, Ubuntu & Arch, got 2 Microslop employees to merge it, called it 'hilariously pointless' in the PR itself, then watched Lennart personally block the revert. Unpaid compliance simp.
“It’s just a harmless field; what’s the big deal?”
The big deal is that it’s on the heels of age verification bullshit that fascists are pushing through with the help of tech bros, so that they can eventually push all of us into a scenario where we have zero privacy.
It’s not the adding of the field itself or the fact that it can be filled with nonsense. It’s the reasoning backing it.
“But it’s the law!”
Yeah, fucking and…? It’s a stupid mass surveillance law disguised as a protection, and per usual, it’s written like vague dog shit. This is the smallest part of the wedge. More will come of this and if developers like this keep volunteering themselves to help the fascists, we will all be fucked. Here’s an alternative approach: just don’t add this. You can fight back by not fucking implementing this. Easy.
You don’t understand.
The alternative to device based private attestation which is what this is or could be part of is constant online verification by Palantir.
Is every time you want to view porn or adult content you have to verify your real identity so evil corporations and the government who pays them know exactly what your fetishes are and can blackmail you. So they know exactly what you’re posting online because you have to face-scan and ID-scan to set up an email account, a social media account, any account with anything that allows posting content online. Is training the population not to enter a date for their kids or themselves when setting up a computer or device account for the first time, once but upon demand scan their face, scan their ID, comply, sit meekly in fear because everything they do online is known.
What does this know? Your birthday. That’s nothing. As it stands it you can enter anything you want. Fight them when they come to add a verification system to this and point out parents would be in a position to set this up for their kids anyways and its just spying. Fight on stronger ground.
We’ve already lost the maximalist position. The internet scanning and ID verification has already been enacted in several states and countries and we risk a world where it becomes the norm and hosting companies drop anyone who doesn’t implement it because they’re made liable as well. This stuff won’t be repealed. People don’t live in democracies. They live in a dictatorship of the wealthy and the corporations. Your dissent doesn’t matter and it cannot reach most tech illiterate people who have far more pressing concerns than to riot over this.
This is a compromise solution and I wish more people would see it. If you can bend you don’t break. If you don’t bend and your enemy is the government they are stronger than you and they will snap you like a twig.
Linux desktop market share is too small to matter. And if you make this push fail then the only alternative, the only viable solution these politicians who are being cajoled and urged to implement this will see is online live-scan face and ID verification and it’ll sweep everything. You’ll have destroyed the internet and having saved Linux won’t matter. After that it’ll be a quick move to ban encryption that the government cannot break and ISPs will block traffic they can’t inspect. Game over. A simple maneuver from the place you force them to by refusing to cooperate and enact this compromise, privacy-preserving solution. We need strong defensible positions to protect privacy and the internet and free software and to understand that the old ways have been lost, they’ve died, they’ve been strangled and a compromise position must be taken up to endure and avoid a total loss.
I was just following orders!
this same person would be chuckling to themself about how pointless this all is as he locks the door on the gas chambers.
Also, they will use it as a means to lock content they don’t want. Like in some jurisdictions it’s already forbidden to share any kind of LGBTQ information even medical with minors… Even in EU, like Hungary. Clearly this age verification will be used for this too. And people not willing to age verify will be locked out too.
It’s part of their campaign of forcing conservative ‘values’ onto everyone.
Yep, then using linux will be illegal, great fucking idea boss
You’re welcome to be a spineless muppet trying to obey unethical laws, but I won’t be.
Nope, I am a muppet whose livelihood depends on them respecting the law. If you are from one of the godforsaken regions doing stupid laws you should vote against them, I need to comply with your laws because I need to work to feed my family.
You can call me a spineless muppet all you want but I am not the cause stupid laws exists, take it on the californianas for that crap, they elected the idiots doing this. I vote our own idiots and until now they made it clear this bullshit is not on their table, thank you wery much but I did my part.
“then you should vote against them”
Oh you think they asked if they could implement these? And btw, it’s coming to your country soon too. This is a global movement
Only in California and Brazil. And I suspect neither has a shortage of people able to add this field.
Exactly, make your own fascist distro with a fork of systems and leave the original landscape alone
Only thing you get out of this compared to the alternative of malicious compliance is opening yourself up to attack. You can still fight this without painting a big target on your back.
Is there any evidence that they would go after random FOSS projects that aren’t hosted or developed in the relevant jurisdictions? Don’t comply in advance.