Really, I’m surprised that for all of the discussions on HN around these individual statewide acts that I see so little discussion of Meta as a primary force pushing them.
They don't but frankly no one who matters actually gives a s#it about HN anyhow.
HN is also much less representative of the demographics within the American tech industry now as well - almost all the references I see on here are stuff only men in their late 30s to 50s would recognize, and an increasing amount of users appear to be based in Western and Central Europe.
Heck, I'm on the younger end by HN standards (early/mid 30s) and when I introduced HN to my peers over a decade ago (this is my throwaway) even back then they complained that it was "toxic", "snooty", and "unhelpful". And it's reputation amongst the younger generation has only gotten worse.
HN has "SlashDot"ified, because most people are either in private groupchats on signal/imessage/discord or meeting each other with Luma invites.
Why does it matter specifically that Meta is doing it? This has long been a goal for intelligence apparatus and big tech: get rid of anonymity online to "fight terrorism" and sell ads respectively.
Don't get me wrong, it's good to know but it's not earth shattering information.
>Why does it matter specifically that Meta is doing it? This has long been a goal for intelligence apparatus and big tech: get rid of anonymity online to "fight terrorism" and sell ads respectively.
How does getting the OS to do age verification "get rid of anonymity online" or help "sell ads"? Assuming the verification is implemented in a competent way (ie. it's not just providing an id scan for any app to read), it's probably one of the more privacy friendly ways to implement age verification, that's also more secure than an "are you over 18" prompt on every website.
You've accepted the overton window shift that age verification is an inevitability and that we need to give up information to the operating system because any other way would violate our privacy! It's naive to see this internationally coordinated effort to "save the children" as anything other than the temperature in the pot being turned up.
> implemented in a competent way (ie. it's not just providing an id scan for any app to read)
What if there are vulnerabilities? You're inherently introducing more attack surface and providing more data than you would without these laws.
>You've accepted the overton window shift that age verification is an inevitability and that we need to give up information to the operating system because any other way would violate your privacy! It's naive to see this internationally coordinated effort to "save the children" as anything other than the temperature in the pot being turned up.
If you're trying to imply Meta is behind the "overton window shift", that's plainly not the case. The popular sentiment that smartphones and social networks are harming kids (thereby necessitating bans/verification) has been boiling over for a while now (eg. "The Anxious Generation, 2024", and the recent social media bans in Australia), and meta is just trying to get ahead of this with laws that favor them.
>What if there are vulnerabilities? You're inherently introducing more attack surface and providing more data than you would without these laws.
Probably less likely to cause vulnerabilities than web usb or web bluetooth , both of which gets some pushback here but nowhere as much an API that returns a number.
> If you're trying to imply Meta is behind the "overton window shift", that's plainly not the case
No, I'm saying the exact opposite: Meta is just one player in a campaign from intelligence agencies and other tech companies who want to normalize mandated prompts in your OS that collect information. Right now it's "just a DOB field bro" turns into "well... people can lie with the DOB field, let's just add a ID check step in that dialog" and build on it from there. Of course the pot has been boiling for a while and it's not just Meta looking for regulatory capture.
> Probably less likely to cause vulnerabilities
I don't care about likelihoods, this "feature" inherently introduces more risk and for something I don't even want on my computer. Even a small chance that this can be abused is unacceptable.
I find it odd when people write off policies as using “save the children” or “protect women” as if this isn’t something people are really capable of thinking. You fail to understand why the Overton window has shifted because you fail to understand people really are worried about their children
I don't know of any surveillance state act that used "protect women" as their top line, but maybe I missed it.
> because you fail to understand people really are worried about their children
No, I completely understand but that doesn't give anyone the right to start mandating that we give up our privacy in pursuit of that. That's sorta the joke with "save the children", it's meant to tug at your emotions and make you look like a bad person for not consenting to massive overreach.
> Why does it matter specifically that Meta is doing it?
Their entire top leadership has shown a multi-year tendency towards psychopathy and lying. Knowing Meta is pushing this bill makes me want to understand why my views and theirs randomly agree as well as carefully read the bill text for any signs Adam Mosseri was within 500 feet of it.
I've seen skepticism about the veracity of the claims, in part as various sources cited in the git repo pointed to todo files not actual data[1] (in that example was only just hours ago a source file was added, when the project still claims part of the conclusions are based on data said to be contained there).
Which has led some to suspect much is LLM generated and not properly human-reviewed, in addition to the very short timeframe from initial self-disclosed start of the research to publishing it online (mere 2-3 days) despite the confident tone the author uses.
Really, I’m surprised that for all of the discussions on HN around these individual statewide acts that I see so little discussion of Meta as a primary force pushing them.
There are probably many more people that would profit off of it on HN.
I wonder if Meta monitors their employees comments on HN?
They don't but frankly no one who matters actually gives a s#it about HN anyhow.
HN is also much less representative of the demographics within the American tech industry now as well - almost all the references I see on here are stuff only men in their late 30s to 50s would recognize, and an increasing amount of users appear to be based in Western and Central Europe.
Heck, I'm on the younger end by HN standards (early/mid 30s) and when I introduced HN to my peers over a decade ago (this is my throwaway) even back then they complained that it was "toxic", "snooty", and "unhelpful". And it's reputation amongst the younger generation has only gotten worse.
HN has "SlashDot"ified, because most people are either in private groupchats on signal/imessage/discord or meeting each other with Luma invites.
Why does it matter specifically that Meta is doing it? This has long been a goal for intelligence apparatus and big tech: get rid of anonymity online to "fight terrorism" and sell ads respectively.
Don't get me wrong, it's good to know but it's not earth shattering information.
>Why does it matter specifically that Meta is doing it? This has long been a goal for intelligence apparatus and big tech: get rid of anonymity online to "fight terrorism" and sell ads respectively.
How does getting the OS to do age verification "get rid of anonymity online" or help "sell ads"? Assuming the verification is implemented in a competent way (ie. it's not just providing an id scan for any app to read), it's probably one of the more privacy friendly ways to implement age verification, that's also more secure than an "are you over 18" prompt on every website.
You've accepted the overton window shift that age verification is an inevitability and that we need to give up information to the operating system because any other way would violate our privacy! It's naive to see this internationally coordinated effort to "save the children" as anything other than the temperature in the pot being turned up.
> implemented in a competent way (ie. it's not just providing an id scan for any app to read)
What if there are vulnerabilities? You're inherently introducing more attack surface and providing more data than you would without these laws.
>You've accepted the overton window shift that age verification is an inevitability and that we need to give up information to the operating system because any other way would violate your privacy! It's naive to see this internationally coordinated effort to "save the children" as anything other than the temperature in the pot being turned up.
If you're trying to imply Meta is behind the "overton window shift", that's plainly not the case. The popular sentiment that smartphones and social networks are harming kids (thereby necessitating bans/verification) has been boiling over for a while now (eg. "The Anxious Generation, 2024", and the recent social media bans in Australia), and meta is just trying to get ahead of this with laws that favor them.
>What if there are vulnerabilities? You're inherently introducing more attack surface and providing more data than you would without these laws.
Probably less likely to cause vulnerabilities than web usb or web bluetooth , both of which gets some pushback here but nowhere as much an API that returns a number.
> If you're trying to imply Meta is behind the "overton window shift", that's plainly not the case
No, I'm saying the exact opposite: Meta is just one player in a campaign from intelligence agencies and other tech companies who want to normalize mandated prompts in your OS that collect information. Right now it's "just a DOB field bro" turns into "well... people can lie with the DOB field, let's just add a ID check step in that dialog" and build on it from there. Of course the pot has been boiling for a while and it's not just Meta looking for regulatory capture.
> Probably less likely to cause vulnerabilities
I don't care about likelihoods, this "feature" inherently introduces more risk and for something I don't even want on my computer. Even a small chance that this can be abused is unacceptable.
I find it odd when people write off policies as using “save the children” or “protect women” as if this isn’t something people are really capable of thinking. You fail to understand why the Overton window has shifted because you fail to understand people really are worried about their children
I don't know of any surveillance state act that used "protect women" as their top line, but maybe I missed it.
> because you fail to understand people really are worried about their children
No, I completely understand but that doesn't give anyone the right to start mandating that we give up our privacy in pursuit of that. That's sorta the joke with "save the children", it's meant to tug at your emotions and make you look like a bad person for not consenting to massive overreach.
> Why does it matter specifically that Meta is doing it?
Their entire top leadership has shown a multi-year tendency towards psychopathy and lying. Knowing Meta is pushing this bill makes me want to understand why my views and theirs randomly agree as well as carefully read the bill text for any signs Adam Mosseri was within 500 feet of it.
> my views and theirs randomly agree
That's probably a sign that you should reevaluate your views.
> That's probably a sign that you should reevaluate your views
On its own? No. We probably agree on the need to drink water, that doesn’t mean I should now die of thirst.
I think? the most recent version of that post is https://web.archive.org/web/20260314074025/https://www.reddi..., which is "awaiting moderator approval"
I've seen skepticism about the veracity of the claims, in part as various sources cited in the git repo pointed to todo files not actual data[1] (in that example was only just hours ago a source file was added, when the project still claims part of the conclusions are based on data said to be contained there).
Which has led some to suspect much is LLM generated and not properly human-reviewed, in addition to the very short timeframe from initial self-disclosed start of the research to publishing it online (mere 2-3 days) despite the confident tone the author uses.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20260317184359/https://lobste.rs...