Link: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/03/many-more-us-states-are-planning-or-already-have-operating-system-age-verification-laws/

In a blog post Richell notes that the New York version as far worse since it "explicitly forbids self-reporting and leaves the allowed methods to regulations written by the Attorney General" and so developers of operating systems and devices would have to have more than just your date of birth to put you into some age bracket like the California law seems to allow.

These types of laws seem to be popping up around the US. How long until this plague spreads to other countries?

These laws are stupid. If you want to protect kids, you should focus on getting parents the tools they need to lock down their kids' devices however they see fit.

If you want to protect kids

They don't.

I was there for the birth of the internet for everyone, sadly I'll be here for its death as well

I don't understand how anyone thinks any part of this is going to work out.

• The vast majority of machines online are fully automated, how do you validate the age of an automated account? If automated accounts are allowed without verification, how can you possibly tell the difference between them and an actual person?
• How do you handle old and foreign software? Are they going to start prosecuting individual people for running non-compliant software? Can't afford to update your old phone? Well now you're a criminal.
• Validating age requires private information to identify who you are. They have completely put the security of this information on each individual OS. Expect this info to be leaked.

This will never keep someone from viewing something if they really want to. All it will do is open up individuals to prosecution if they want to use any device anonymously.

Papers, please, comrade.

I don't understand how anyone thinks any part of this is going to work out.

Unfortunately, you do, but because you don’t have an authority fetish (guessing), you’re thinking about the law and how the hell it could be implemented.

However

All it will do is open up individuals to prosecution if they want to use any device anonymously.

This isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.

There are laws in the works outlawing VPNs too.

If you want to protect kids, you wouldn't let a couple random adults dictate their life, body, education, and web access just because they happened to give birth to them

It's sad that people who don't know what it's like will probably disagree with you, and to be honest I do not have a entirely better solution as it feels like it requires positive intent not specific stipulations (Russia and North Korea for example take it to the other side of the extreme). The width and depth of the human experience remains one of it's worst characteristics. 🫠

If they require authentication with some identity checking company, that's really bad

Is this to keep gramps from doomscrolling

They are trying to contain free and open source operating systems of all kind and as a bonus they get to stop people from using PCs and other devices anonymously.

The future is going to be workhouses.

That is kinda the point of the California one. The parents identify the device as belonging to a child when setting it up. There is no verification past asking for a date. The Illinois law also appears to be constructed in this way (I may have missed something though). The New York and Texas ones seem to require ID though the wording is vague. Utah and Louisiana outright require verification. Interestingly Louisiana's law explicitly considers children married under 18 not to be minors for the purposes of the law.

And it's downright fiendish that a 100% imaginary thing like money decides who lives and who dies, but that's the world we live in.

It's not that you're wrong, it's just that there are very few paths to a better solution. Perhaps the local people's militia should take all children at birth and raise them? Until that time it'd be neat if parents had a simple, affordable way to stop their eight-year-old from seeing hardcore pornography.

It already did for a few years. The US wasn't the vanguard of it.

These types of laws seem to be popping up around the US. How long until this plague spreads to other countries?

There was a post on r/linux and OP said there were lobbyists for this bill, and Meta was one of them.