The same reason why the EU should have designed the UX for GDPR. NOTHING like that without specific implementation details should have been let ANYwhere near a production system. But, again, that’s something technical people understand innately and, because the EU has none, they don’t even have the ability to describe a system that wouldn’t have unintended consequences (because it needs to do x and not y as they do it never takes into account an exhaustive list of ‘not y’).
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Texas App Store Age Verification Law Blocked by Federal Judge
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This law enables parents to more effectively take responsibility for their kids by making it more difficult for the child to create a non-monitored non-family account.
I think that maybe moving the age verification to device registration might be more workable. i.e., parent buys phone, plugs in age of primary device user into the registration and the device itself is then locked down via family sharing and unable to be wiped/re-validated without the family head doing so.
This way the parent truly has control and verifying the age of the website user isn’t so much a problem, the check/validation moves to the device. It presents (back to Apple) a signed age verification ID certificate that the site can then verify with Apple.
Moves 99% of the burden off random web developers on the internet, parents have full control and Apple gets to put out another “family friendly” feature.
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This is why we have seperate legal definitions for libel and slander right? Because they’re both “speech”?
🙄
Libel and slander actually help prove my point. They’re both speech, but in certain cases, narrow exceptions can be imposed to limit speech. (And they’re defined differently from each other because historically, and these definitions predate the Constitution, putting something in writing was worse than saying it because written words could be reproduced. Obviously that distinction isn’t important in a world where everyone has a video camera in their pocket that can send the slander to virtually every person on earth).
When presented with potentially unconstitutional laws, courts don’t ask “is this speech or not” in the abstract, they ask whether the specific law burdens protected expression and whether it fits a recognized exception. And to quote the great Walter Sobchak “the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint.” So until the Supreme Court decides otherwise, lower courts are likely going to say laws like this one are unconstitutional, because a blanket age-gate on all apps absolutely burdens expression and doesn’t fit into one of those narrow exceptions.
It’s an awfully twisted path of mental gymnastics to get from
“libel and slander are both speech” to
Applications are speech
to
“shielding minors from legally dubious content” being a “violation of free speech”.
What next?
If i want to put up a banner (or, to avoid trespass, project it from outside using a projector) with something you disagree with inside your home, you’re legally compelled to let me do it, otherwise you’re violating my right to free speech?
Do you use an ad-blocker? Isn’t that restricting the “free speech” of the application (which according to you is absolutely speech) or site you’re using?
How about your firewall being a restriction of the “free speech” that some botnet (which, like it or not, is just another application) on the internet is using to attempt to compromise your router/internal host?
please…. you run an unfiltered connection to the internet, i presume?
It’s a massive leap to consider that requiring safety controls is a violation of some application/website’s “free speech”.
“libel and slander are both speech” to
Applications are speech
to
“shielding minors from legally dubious content” being a “violation of free speech”.
What next?
If i want to put up a banner (or, to avoid trespass, project it from outside using a projector) with something you disagree with inside your home, you’re legally compelled to let me do it, otherwise you’re violating my right to free speech?
Do you use an ad-blocker? Isn’t that restricting the “free speech” of the application (which according to you is absolutely speech) or site you’re using?
How about your firewall being a restriction of the “free speech” that some botnet (which, like it or not, is just another application) on the internet is using to attempt to compromise your router/internal host?
please…. you run an unfiltered connection to the internet, i presume?
It’s a massive leap to consider that requiring safety controls is a violation of some application/website’s “free speech”.
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No, it’s not. It’s been adjudicated repeatedly over decades. And it’s a good thing! The high bar for the government restricting speech isn’t accidental. “Protecting children” has always been the easiest justification for censorship, and courts are rightly skeptical of laws that give the state broad power to decide which ideas are acceptable, because history shows that once the government is allowed to restrict access to lawful expression by labeling it “harmful to minors,” that power is quickly used to suppress unpopular, controversial, or dissenting viewpoints.
No, courts have been clear that the right to speak does not include the right to use someone else’s property as your forum to speak. And I’m a private citizen, not the government, so the first amendment prohibitions on the government restricting speech don’t apply to me.
I’m not the government. If the government passed a law mandating ad blocker use that would certainly be an unconstitutional restriction on speech.
See above, I’m not the government, and I personally can prohibit whatever speech I want. In addition, a botnet is absolutely not protected speech. It’s malware/criminal conduct, which is a covered exception. The same way fraud and false advertising aren’t legal. It’s a narrow restriction on specific speech.
Courts don’t say “safety controls are unconstitutional”; they say the government can’t impose broad, prior restraints that burden adult access to protected speech in order to protect minors. And they consistently have for decades:
- Butler v. Michigan (1957) - Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a Michigan law that made it illegal to sell or distribute material that might be “harmful to minors,” even if it was lawful for adults was an unconstitutional burden on speech.
- Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville (1975) - Supreme Court struck down a law that banned drive-in theaters from showing films containing nudity if visible from public streets, supposedly to protect children. The court ruled the government can’t suppress protected expression simply because minors might see it, and that parents, not the state, are primarily responsible for shielding children from objectionable content.
- Reno v. ACLU (1997) - Supreme Court struck down a law requiring age verification for “indecent” online content, because age verification chills adult speech and the law wasn’t narrowly tailored.
- Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011) - Supreme Court struck down California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors, because video games are protected speech and free speech protections don’t change just because technology has.
That's not an improvement. Imagine if every single app you used asked for permission for photos/camera/mic/location/accelerometer/storage access/etc... every single time you opened it. that's what it feels like with cookie popups.
I've never had a site ask me more than once if I want to be tracked with 3rd party cookies. Even if it did, I'd prefer having the choice over just being unilaterally commercialized.
That's either a lie or you're using Brave Browser which auto accepts these popups.
Visit https://assetstore.unity.com and browse any item that has a YouTube trailer to accept cookie popups. Then come back 1-2 weeks later. Guaranteed it will ask you again.
At the very least visiting the site on one device will not remember your preference on the same site on a different device/browser.
No, I use Orion where available and Waterfox where it isn't.
Sounds like a website issue.
That's probably a good thing. I might want a site to remember my desktop but not my phone.
Then it's a lie.
All cookies eventually expire where they will have to ask you for permission again at some point. Unity is just one of thousands of common examples.
Then, again, "I've never had a site ask me more than once if I want to be tracked with 3rd party cookies." is a lie.