stravanasu

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/62594213

Denial Takes Hold as Teens Circumvent Australian Age Verification

The failure of the Australian age verification laws has left advocates with the only tool left in the chest: denial.

Denial Takes Hold as Teens Circumvent Australian Age Verification

The failure of the Australian age verification laws has left advocates with the only tool left in the chest: denial.

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/62536902 The ongoing discussions about age-verification and changes in Free and Open-Source Software and GNU Linux and related OSs made me realize a gross misunderstanding on my part. I think many other users may have the same misunderstanding (seeing many comments using the word “traitors”), and it’s important that we become aware of it. We must understand that using or saying “FOSS” or “Linux” does not automatically mean to stand up for human rights like privacy, for the community, against corporations, and similar goals and values. If we read the comments in those age-verification discussions we can see that many developers and possibly also users make statements like “the developers have no obligation towards the community”, “the law is the law, no matter what the community wants”, “we must comply”, and similar. It’s important to realize that many developers work on FOSS not out of consideration for the community, or for human rights, or against corporations. For them it’s just one kind of software development. We may have projects that are FOSS and pro-corporations or pro-surveillance. The “F” in FOSS stands for freedom to modify and distribute the software by/to anyone in the community. It doesn’t stand for “software that promotes / stands up for general human freedom and human rights". But of course there are also developers that work with FOSS because of such values. So for anyone who, like me, wants to use and promote software as an assertion of, and a stand for, human rights and against corporations, it’s necessary not to stop at “FOSS” or “Linux” but apply more scrutiny and more careful choices. Probably it’s always been like this, but the present times require extra awareness. I wish there was an acronym or other word that made this moral aspect of some FOSS development clear. This would help users to recognize software projects that share their values, and also those FOSS developers who do work for those values. Is there such a term already out there?

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/62536902

The ongoing discussions about age-verification and changes in Free and Open-Source Software and GNU Linux and related OSs made me realize a gross misunderstanding on my part. I think many other users may have the same misunderstanding (seeing many comments using the word “traitors”), and it’s important that we become aware of it. We must understand that using or saying “FOSS” or “Linux” does not automatically mean to stand up for human rights like privacy, for the community, against corporations, and similar goals and values.

If we read the comments in those age-verification discussions we can see that many developers and possibly also users make statements like “the developers have no obligation towards the community”, “the law is the law, no matter what the community wants”, “we must comply”, and similar. It’s important to realize that many developers work on FOSS not out of consideration for the community, or for human rights, or against corporations. For them it’s just one kind of software development. We may have projects that are FOSS and pro-corporations or pro-surveillance. The “F” in FOSS stands for freedom to modify and distribute the software by/to anyone in the community. It doesn’t stand for “software that promotes / stands up for general human freedom and human rights". But of course there are also developers that work with FOSS because of such values.

So for anyone who, like me, wants to use and promote software as an assertion of, and a stand for, human rights and against corporations, it’s necessary not to stop at “FOSS” or “Linux” but apply more scrutiny and more careful choices. Probably it’s always been like this, but the present times require extra awareness.

I wish there was an acronym or other word that made this moral aspect of some FOSS development clear. This would help users to recognize software projects that share their values, and also those FOSS developers who do work for those values. Is there such a term already out there?

I find it sad and very anti-democratic that they blocked my post, which is polite and respectful. The reply of the moderator was moreover rude: “Instead of starting useless drama here, seemingly in search of magic validation points” and “Go and protest somewhere else, to the people that can actually do something about it.”

Here’s my polite open letter:

---

I have been happily using KDE software, and especially the Kubuntu Linux distro, Plasma, and Dolphin, for almost a decade, on several devices. Of course I’m also a regular donor and affectionate follower.

It seems that more and more software developers in the Linux and FOSS ecosystem want to implement changes to comply with various age-verification laws. I understand that for the KDE developers and maintainers it might be a difficult decision whether to make this kind of changes or not. They have to consider “legal” aspects, collaboration with other developers, and, possibly, also what their user base think. What to weigh in, and how much weight to give to what, is of course up to the maintainers and developers.

I respect the choice that will be made by KDE. But I also want to make clear, in a respectful and polite way, that if such changes are implemented in KDE software and the Kubuntu distro, then I’ll move away from them, to other software and distros that do not comply (there already are some and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more).

“Well, who cares?” might the KDE people justly say. Partly I’m writing this open letter out of a feeling of friendship. It’s somehow like when you discover that a dear friend might have values very different from yours, so you have to break your no-longer-meaningful friendship, but you also feel you have to explain to your friend why, rather than going away silently. I also believe that many other KDE users think like I do, so this message does not come from me alone.

For me GNU Linux and FOSS is not only a choice about software: it’s also a choice about human values, human rights, and moral stances. These laws, besides being pointless, cross a threshold about human rights and values that I personally do not and will not allow (if this makes me a “criminal” in the egregious company of “criminals” like Claudette Colvin or King or Mandela, so be it). I want therefore to use software that also makes a similar choice, based not only on what’s “legal” but also on what’s “moral”. Besides appeals to politicians, marches of protests, strikes, and similar, also software choice is a form of protest and non-compliance; a stance.

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/62278765

Software changes for compliance with age-verification laws are being pushed a bit everywhere in Linux-development; for example:

• In Systemd, already merged.

• In xdg.desktop.portal (a portal frontend service for Flatpak and other desktop containment frameworks), still open.

• In Arch Linux, still open.

• In Freedesktop.org, still open.

It’s interesting that it’s the same small group of people behind these pull requests, and that discussion threads in them have been locked owing to a great amount of negative criticisms.

They say “we have to comply with the law”. Which also means that if “the law” in the future will require proper verification, handling to 3rd-parties, or whatnot, then they will comply.

Well, it’s their right to. They don’t owe anything to anyone, and are under no obligation to report to users or to the community, nor to pay heed to anybody’s wishes.

If things proceed in this direction, we users may at some point have to choose between privacy-friendly Linux distributions or legal Linux distributions. People who, like me, are worried, need to start thinking about concrete actions to take before it’s too late: where to develop such distros? which channels to download and distribute them from? And so on. (And of course, more generally we need to write and protest to politicians, organize protest marches, go on strike, refuse to comply…)

It’s good to remind to those who keep on repeating the words “legal” and “illegal” that for example Nelson Mandela was, technically speaking, a criminal who did and promoted illegal activity. This happens when laws become immoral.

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/62278765 Software changes for compliance with age-verification laws are being pushed a bit everywhere in Linux-development; for example: In Systemd, already merged. In xdg.desktop.portal (a portal frontend service for Flatpak and other desktop containment frameworks), still open. In Arch Linux, still open. In Freedesktop.org, still open. It’s interesting that it’s the same small group of people behind these pull requests, and that discussion threads in them have been locked owing to a great amount of negative criticisms. They say “we have to comply with the law”. Which also means that if “the law” in the future will require proper verification, handling to 3rd-parties, or whatnot, then they will comply. Well, it’s their right to. They don’t owe anything to anyone, and are under no obligation to report to users or to the community, nor to pay heed to anybody’s wishes. If things proceed in this direction, we users may at some point have to choose between privacy-friendly Linux distributions or legal Linux distributions. People who, like me, are worried, need to start thinking about concrete actions to take before it’s too late: where to develop such distros? which channels to download and distribute them from? And so on. (And of course, more generally we need to write and protest to politicians, organize protest marches, go on strike, refuse to comply…) It’s good to remind to those who keep on repeating the words “legal” and “illegal” that for example Nelson Mandela was, technically speaking, a criminal who did and promoted illegal activity. This happens when laws become immoral.

Software changes for compliance with age-verification laws are being pushed a bit everywhere in Linux-development; for example:

• In Systemd, already merged.

• In xdg.desktop.portal (a portal frontend service for Flatpak and other desktop containment frameworks), still open.

• In Arch Linux, still open.

• In Freedesktop.org, still open.

It’s interesting that it’s the same small group of people behind these pull requests, and that discussion threads in them have been locked owing to a great amount of negative criticisms.

They say “we have to comply with the law”. Which also means that if “the law” in the future will require proper verification, handling to 3rd-parties, or whatnot, then they will comply.

Well, it’s their right to. They don’t owe anything to anyone, and are under no obligation to report to users or to the community, nor to pay heed to anybody’s wishes.

If things proceed in this direction, we users may at some point have to choose between privacy-friendly Linux distributions or legal Linux distributions. People who, like me, are worried, need to start thinking about concrete actions to take before it’s too late: where to develop such distros? which channels to download and distribute them from? And so on. (And of course, more generally we need to write and protest to politicians, organize protest marches, go on strike, refuse to comply…)

It’s good to remind to those who keep on repeating the words “legal” and “illegal” that for example Nelson Mandela was, technically speaking, a criminal who did and promoted illegal activity. This happens when laws become immoral.

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/62271746 Add a required birth date prompt (YYYY-MM-DD) to the user creation flow, stored as a systemd userdb JSON drop-in at /etc/userdb/.user on the target system. Motivation Recent age verification laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc. require platforms to verify user age. Collecting birth date at install time ensures Arch Linux is compliant with these regulations. The pull-request discussion thread has been locked, just like it happened for the similar thread in Systemd, owing to the amount of negative comments…

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/62271427 For those interested, the Systemd release that’s planned to include the controversial ‘birthDate’ field to user records, complying with age-verification laws, is v261 (see ‘milestone’ in the pull request). This release seems to be planned for May. The current release, from some hours ago, is v260.1. I see that Ubuntu Noble (24.04) just updated to v255.

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/44781501 GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification or an account. GrapheneOS and our services will remain available internationally. If GrapheneOS devices can’t be sold in a region due to their regulations, so be it.

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/44781501 GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification or an account. GrapheneOS and our services will remain available internationally. If GrapheneOS devices can’t be sold in a region due to their regulations, so be it.

On matters like VPN providers, DNS providers, and similar topics, often one would like to find websites with recommendations and reviews from other people, especially testers or “experts”. But it’s SO difficult to find trustworthy websites! A good one is www.privacyguides.org Do you know of any other good, trustworthy ones?