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  "publishedAt": "2026-04-14T00:31:58.000Z",
  "site": "http://forum.palemoon.org",
  "textContent": "> I think you're missing the point here, which is _**control**_. The point of laws like these being made is not to go after every file sharer or open source developer, but to _create the control and leverage to be able to do so_ when it is advantageous to them. It creates yet another situation where independent development _can_ be suppressed if it is considered a threat (even a minor one) by the industrial-political complex. Most independent developers can't defend themselves in the US legal system because of the cost involved in litigating anything in the USA, and having a near guaranteed win for the plaintiffs if backed by this kind of law will absolutely guarantee that they can push beyond the initial stages and magistrate courts to make it a long and expensive case for defendants who are likely to lose in the end.\n> In a nutshell: it's setting up the system for unfair advantages and practices to further the levers available to big entities.\n\nI completely agree with you on this one. When I say I'm not that worried about this particular law, what I mean is that I think age verification itself is a distraction from whatever we should actually be worried about. My thinking is that they may well fully expect the laws to be struck down... but it doesn't matter because we get a lot of consequences that are useful to some parties even in that instance:\n\n1. It creates fear, a lot of developers may give up or abandon projects prematurely before the courts even settle the matter. A lot of users may also doubt the ability of smaller developers to keep up with legislation like this as it comes up and favor programs produced by companies that can afford to retain lawyers. Therefore, if the goal is to create FUD and centralize control, the law doesn't need to stick around to do it, the _threat_ is enough, and may even be the point\n\n2. It provides cover for projects that want to do this anyway. Without the bill, people would blame the projects themselves for even trying to implement such a thing. But now that it exists, anyone that complains can be pointed to this law or a similar one anywhere in the world, and told that it's a \"legal risk\" for user information not to be collected. And once the system is in place, even if the law is struck down, the bias will be towards keeping it around \"just in case,\" with excuses made whenever someone asks for a build-time flag to disable it.\n\n3. While we're all talking about this, it's taking up attention that might otherwise go to something else. That is, they knew this would be controversial and generate a lot of pushback, and did this now so everyone would start talking about this and panic, while they turn around and do something much more insidious (picture someone creating a lot of pointless legal drama and threats pointed at one target everyone focuses on, while making preparations to seize power in some other way behind the scenes). Perhaps even relying on this bill being struck down as the public sign that \"the system is still sane/reasonable,\" while in reality hundreds of worse things snuck in while the watchdogs who normally would have caught it were all focusing on age verification.\n\n4. This could be intended to create an instance of a \"decoy effect,\" that is to say it will make whatever comes next seem reasonable by comparison, with people going, \"at least it isn't as bad as age verification, we are lucky we didn't get that, be grateful.\" So, let's say the actual intention is maybe to require something like developer verification, something that says a developer cannot write and publish a line of code without providing their real name and registering with the government. They propose a law like this to protect kids, get push back because it would reveal personal information of children, seemingly back down, then the \"compromise\" is that it's developers and software publishers who are called upon to be the adults in the room, forced to disclose their identities, register, certify and promise certain things before publication of software, rather than inconveniencing children or users with a complicated account system or similar.\n\n5. If the goal is not really age verification, but actually just to make things harder for independent software developers, then the failure/success of this particular bill may not mean much. If the legal system fails as a lever, they have others they can pull that will never be reviewed by a judge.\n\nSo I guess it's somewhat accurate to say... I may not like what the bill represents, or the pattern it's a part of, but also kind of think it's pointless to play whack-a-mole with individual proposals like this. The only thing I think could make a meaningful difference is something like a digital Bill of Rights that guarantees certain freedoms. Without some kind of framework or foundation that prevents unreasonable laws from being proposed, we're always a judge having a bad day away from something truly awful. Rather than just fight against someone else's vision, we (that is, anyone who doesn't like this sort of system) need to sell our own vision. I don't know if that's likely to happen or not, but until it does, even bothering to actively resist and rail about a law like this is just treating symptoms without curing the illness.\n\n* * *",
  "title": "Forum and website • Re: The site and an idiotic bill",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-14T00:31:58.000Z"
}