this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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The optional birthDate field gives other projects a standardized data source for age verification compliance.

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[–] Uncut_Lemon@lemmy.world 1 points 16 minutes ago

Maybe it should be a parents job to parent, and not leave it to governments and companies to parent children.

Most of these issues that age verification is trying to solve is a parenting issues. A teen is still going to likely find a way around this nonsense without any repercussions. It's a parents job to teach children how to be safe in public spaces and the etiquette required.

No idea why systemd is even bending a knee to any of this at all. Doesn't even seem like a problem systems should ever try resolve. That should be a distro maintner issue at worst case.

[–] obbeel@lemmy.eco.br 1 points 1 day ago

Well, it's clear Linux is getting a lot of attention on the desktop side of things. So it's important that all organizations involved make the right decisions for the public interest and the environment of Linux.

That means a community level of compliance that matches Big Tech capacities.

[–] Supercrunchy@programming.dev 104 points 2 days ago (11 children)

Of all terrible proposals coming up in this period, I'm still more-or-less ok with this system because the administrator is still in full control to set whatever date they want, and the field is entirely optional.

They call it "age verification" in the aricle, but there's no 3rd party "verification" whatsoever. It's just a field for the user birth date saved in the user metadata. This is IMHO acceptable because it doesn't force anybody to provide IDs or personal information to some random shady company.

I think calling it "age verification" is a bit confusing and will make people unhappy by default, but might be a smart move to make it compliant with the new laws coming out in this period (the user age was "verified" by the system administrator, after all).

[–] whelk@retrolemmy.com 21 points 2 days ago (4 children)

For me at least, it's less about the age field itself and more about the swift act of compliance with an absurd and overbearing demand

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[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

whereas I , out of pettiness, will switch an entire server to openRC to fuck over these assholes who only care about “line goes up”

[–] Vocalize8711@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

A man of culture, I see. Every system I admin runs SysVInit or OpenRC. I do not need a 'dictator' like systemd.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yep. Its honestly mild as hell.

Essentially legislation that says:

  • app stores have to have age categories to silo children, teens, and adults.
  • OSes have to have a field to collect this data from users when they set up their login, so it can be sent to app stores via API.

Its just a standardized system that should have been done ages ago, but was not a priority for standards orgs, so none stepped up - so legislation appeared.

I strongly argue that it should only apply to commercial OSes and app stores though - as they're the ones that primarily cause issues these laws intent to address.

Linux and FOSS have been caught in the crossfire in a privacy and personal data battle they were not involved in.

[–] lost_faith 27 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The boiling pot goes up 1C, then another 1C

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 29 points 2 days ago

The legislation is entirely to allow Facebook to get away with harming minors, so I wouldn’t call it mild in any sense of the word.

[–] jimmy90@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

the lemmy doomers must scratch their suicidal itch

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[–] TrivialBetaState@sopuli.xyz 50 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I disagree. While I totally understand that it is an optional feature that can enabled and enforced only by others, I am not happy that the developers of systemd rushed to include it into the JSON file with the user info. I would expect the developers to be a bit more resistant to requests by two US states and Brazil. Why are they making it so easy? I guess we will see a resurgence of systemd-free dirstros.

[–] InevitableWaffles@midwest.social 14 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Sorry, minor correction. Not all the systemd developers. One single dickhead wrote it and two chuds who work at microslop merged the PR made this happen. The git structure got hijacked. People are arguing over the validity and necessity of the PR while ignoring the broader goals this serves.

To be frank, I am so sick of this invasive nonsense. I have a son and you know how I'm going to manage access for him? Not fucking letting him have the damn computer before he knows how to use it safely. I grew up on Web 1 and web 2.0. They were much scarier places back in the day and easier to find.

Moreover, this also follows with the trend of sensationalizing threats to make the pearl clutchers feel this is a good choice. Its no different that how the news screams the US is unsafe with tons of violent crime to justify this kind of bullshit when violent crime has been declining on the whole.

This ginned up controversy serves one interest. Control access to knowledge so you never question the State again.

[–] Avicenna@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

This is singularly the worst time such a change could be implemented, so much so that I am almost looking for malintent.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

It also lets the Epstein class know who the minors are.

[–] PokerChips@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Can we have a rule that if you work for microslop then you are invalidated from working on any Linux project? Doesn't that sound reasonable?

They can fuck off. Time to check out Artix.

[–] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (8 children)

4 US states; California, New York, Colorado, and Illinois.

[–] PokerChips@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why are all the "progressive" states first in line?

[–] drspectr@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Big tech wants this, big tech has immense influence in most of these states.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

In at least Illinois, this is still in the proposal phase. The bad news is that there are also more draconian proposals that require government issue IDs.

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[–] GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Which values should I absolutely not manually write into the birthday field Json data, because they could break the DB on the other side when storing unsanitized input?

[–] massacre@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Asking for a friend?

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

I had problems with systemd before... but this capitulation to what is clearly an unconstitutional demand...

fuck systemd devs. fuck them all.

[–] texture@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (4 children)

ohh now theyve gone and done it.

normies are gonna start hating on systremd for this. which will upset the og systemd haters for hating systemd for the wrong reasons, thereby frustrating the og systemd haters and helping them achieve new yet unmet levels of hate for systemd.

just a guess

[–] forestbeasts@pawb.social 10 points 2 days ago

eh?

og systemd hater (ish) here, personally I'm hoping to team up with the new systemd haters. This is just yet Another reason to hate on it, haha. We can work together!

(granted we came to Linux (from Mac) lonnggg after systemd already got entrenched, but the reasons we hated systemd (before now) were the same sorts of "it's trying to take over everything" reasons that the og haters hate it for)

-- Frost

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

isn’t enough that we all hate the same thing? lets not overthink this. All I want is a socially-accepted smoldering crater

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago

Yes. I also hate feeling confused about where my hatred for SystemD firsts into the bigger picture

[–] DarkMetatron@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"normies" will not care at all

[–] texture@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

i mean sure, but ofc i meant normies in the context of linux

[–] voidsignal@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago (12 children)

Whatever the old farts will come with their stupid laws, SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS, it's Linux. It's always a sudo away from doing (or not) exactly what you (don't) want. I know. This is beyond their comprehension. Adding a field here is ok to me. Because if it ends up being used:

  • I can not set it
  • I can set it wrong
  • I can be 1000y old
  • I can have a different age for every request
  • I can prevent the shit accessing it from accessing it
  • I can uninstall the shit that is trying to access it

The only thing that will hurt from this are companies in CA, CO and wherever.

The average Linux user will not give a single fuck. I know I don't.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

A lot of people born January the first, 1970.

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[–] chunes@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So why not just remove the field then?

Because they are bootlicking and being complicit in shifting the Overton Window. Let's have guns everywhere, but the Internet is too dangerous.

[–] exaybachae@startrek.website 20 points 2 days ago

I like the idea of a system add-on that randomizes all user age responses with a different date that equals like 25-99years old (assuming 25 years meets the highest age for the applicable standards).

Not too dissimilar from a random MAC address generating feature.

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 25 points 2 days ago (8 children)

How to get age verification into linux? Easy, just tell Poettering that if he doesn't hurry up and do it first, some non-systemd approach might become the standard.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

the operating systems job is to negotiate between software and hardware. its there to make sure “my red triangle program draws the same red triangle on anything running this environment regardless of the parts used to build the machine”. its not there to rat you out to a surveillance state or advertisers or meta.

The idea that this protects children is insane and nobody believes this for a second. Hormones happened and little timmy has discovered the wonders of nudity and friction. age attestation doesn’t stop that. it doesn’t stop horrible people from preying on that. it doesn’t teach timmy the difference between fantasy and what a healthy relationship really looks like. it doesn’t address any of those things.

it tracks people. that is all it does. that is all it is for. and considering literal nazis are in power, nobody wants this. it does not solve a problem.

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[–] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 15 points 2 days ago (5 children)

its age attestation, not age verification (saying it vs proving it). also, dont give systemd shit about this bc they are just covering their asses in case more restrictive laws go through.

[–] whelk@retrolemmy.com 12 points 2 days ago

I think the fact that they acted so quickly to comply is the problem

[–] Jesus_666@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I am kinda giving them shit for when someone pointed out that they're essentially storing PII completely unsecured and their response was "you should use app isolation anyway". That is not a good security model.

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[–] Unleaded8163@fedia.io 17 points 2 days ago

They're not even really covering their asses. They don't make an OS, they make a small but important art of many distros. They're providing a clean, standardized way for Linux distros from RedHat to Ageless to comply with the law if they choose to. Some distros will comply with the law to the letter, others will not comply out of spite. At least the ones that comply will do it in a standard way.

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