280
submitted 4 days ago by davel@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

They’re basically minimum-viable products that by design can be used to violate the law in California when the Act goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2027.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 37 points 4 days ago

Can someone eli5 the idea? I don't get it, even after reading the page. But now I want one.

[-] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 41 points 4 days ago

They're breaking evil age verification laws on purpose as civil disobedience with cheap hardware

[-] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 20 points 4 days ago

OK, the disobedience was the part I didn't get. Thank you!

[-] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 14 points 4 days ago

Insofar as part availability isn't insurmountably impacted this also constitutes functional resistance to all manor of censorship and surveillance. If you can code, test on one of these

[-] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 7 points 4 days ago

I can, but I probably won't, because my backlog is full and overflowing. But it is cheap... damn.

[-] DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 18 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It's protestware, which is great.

[-] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 10 points 4 days ago

I agree, but now I am torn because I'm protesting the US as a whole right now.

[-] jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 days ago

California is adding a requirement for age verification for operating systems (or something like that) so each one of these violates that law by booting into linux.

[-] dan@upvote.au 15 points 4 days ago

Not just California. Several other US states are considering (or will be rolling out) similar laws, and Brazil's version has already rolled out this month.

[-] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 6 points 4 days ago

This was the part I got. But I wondered how that would help?

this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
280 points (98.3% liked)

Linux

63789 readers
697 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS