Meta is being intentionnaly dumb [LWN.net]

Meta is being intentionnaly dumb

Posted Mar 26, 2026 17:19 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
Parent article: California's Digital Age Assurance Act and Linux distributions

The correct way to implement such a thing is to clearly define a (limited) set of legal age brackets in law and to have a public service that delivers "I am in the xxxx age bracket" time-limited (month ?) attestations. And then allow people to load those attestations in app and browsers. And forbid the remote querying of those attestations except for the cases mandated by law.

That would nicely protect users because the attestation is delivered separately, asynchronously, and contains zero private information (parents should make sure their kids can not copy the attestations like they make sure of a lot of other things, and distribution of attestation private copies should be prosecuted).

Do you think all Meta engineers are so dumb they can not conceive such a thing? Of course not. They just want either a totally broken system that absolves them from any responsibility, or a system completely controlled by a few corporations (themselves included), no scope limit between legal age check and pervasive privacy invasion, and nothing that would add friction to accessing toxic (high engagement!) material.

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Meta is being intentionnaly dumb

Posted Mar 27, 2026 9:55 UTC (Fri) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

> a public service that delivers "I am in the xxxx age bracket" time-limited (month ?) attestations

Doesn't have to be a public service. Your bank/local council/insurance company/employer can all attest your age bracket. An app on your phone that scans your passport/ID card can do it. All you need is a standard mechanism to trigger them.

The issue is more that in the US people desperately hold onto the idea that they can be totally anonymous to everyone, including the government, while ignoring that businesses and the government amass your personal data in a non-transparent way. Which mean your birth date and other personal data is already spread around, but you can't actually derive any benefits from it. Worst of both worlds.

Better to have a structured system where you can view and verify what data people have about you, and then be able to use that for your benefit. Like the aforementioned attestations.