I am not convinced we can find a cross that is able to bear his weight

Sigh 😔

According to the guy doing birth date pr, we should pre-emptively comply, so yeah... how about enforcing bans on promotion of LGBT propaganda that has been law in Russia since 2013? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Russia#National_laws

The law subjects Russian citizens found guilty to fines of up to 5,000 roubles and public officials to fines of up to 50,000 roubles.[citation needed] Organisations or businesses will be fined up to 1 million rubles and be forced to cease operations for up to 90 days. Foreigners may be arrested and detained for up to 15 days then deported, as well as fined up to 100,000 rubles. Russian citizens who have used the Internet or media to promote "non-traditional relations" will be fined up to 100,000 rubles.

Oh I know, lets introduce a field that stores an array of your nationalities, so any app developer can request your nationalities and adequately fine you for spreading illegal content online if you are Russian citizen. After all you can do that using a linux machine, so we gotta identify this now too. And the law also applies to foreigners. This law has been in place far longer than California or BR one. Who gets to pick and mix which laws apply and which don't? But wait its okay its just an optional array, you don't have to use it...

Do you now see how insanely dumb this is? I am neither in Russia or USA, why should I have to put up with a censoring mechanism?

Parental controls already exist in linux, they are entirely optional to those who want them, we do not need those controls to be rolled out to every user!

Not to mention

• My router, an Asus one has parental controls settings already
• My ISP router, bog standard one has parental controls settings already
• My ISP account has parental controls settings already at account level, if Ia m not technical enough, I can call them and ask them to set it up
• My phone provider has parental controls

There are already parental control packages exist in the Linux infrastructure which are not tied to low level modules such as systemd https://github.com/biglinux/big-parental-controls if you want, you can install it. Its fork is available in the Arch ecosystem for example that mentions it complies with the BR implementation (https://github.com/jersobh/arch-parental-controls)

• This is entirely optional package that claims to be privacy orientated (I haven't tried it) that a system administrator can install if they wish.
• My router, an Asus one has parental controls settings already
• My ISP router, bog standard one has parental controls settings already
• My ISP account has parental controls settings already at account level, if Ia m not technical enough, I can call them and ask them to set it up
• My phone provider has parental controls

Why do I need MORE parental controls shoved down my throat when I do not desire it nor wish for it? But this time in a core component of alot of linux distributions.

Oh and before you tell me "but ExoticCherryPigeon, its an optional field", sure, but here is the example of the slippery slope curtsey of UK:

Take a look at the history of this act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_age_verification_in_the_United_Kingdom
We are now at the point where I need to use a CC to tell some 3rd party that I want a wank.

And what else is happening now? They are suing websites not based in UK! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Act_2023#Enforcement, but that's not all, although not at the law stage, there are some talks about also now restricting VPN's https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/uk-government-says-it-may-age-restrict-or-limit-childrens-vpn-use-following-new-consultation.

A lot of websites also not based in UK jurisdiction have simply self censored UK users before they get ISP level blocked.

If this is not an example of a slippery slope, I don't know what is!

TL;DR tools already exist, we do not need more tools that will be a privacy nightmare

How is it different? The ready acceptance of additional fields specifically for age verification is clearly proof enough that any further bullshit will be accepted just as quickly. PR description clearly outlines it is for the sole purpose of age verification...

Its not suitable for proving your age. Its adding a field which is a stepping stone to future gating and more control over something that isn't even applicable to most of the users of the system.

Why not then add a live filter to ensure that you don't call Putler's war in Ukraine and call it "SVO" as you are supposed to? Its the law over there and many years older than this one. People already have gone to prison for not complying with it. But hey lets make that a part of linux too. Its law after all... Do you see how stupid it is to blindly comply to something that doesn't even apply to you?

Its only one state, the rest of the world for now still have some fucking sense. If anything its disproportionate to appease a local government with global systems, whats next? Appease North Korea? Or Putin? Block Linux from working in Ukraine? How fucking insane is this dipshit to add changes to a global product for a thing that affects only 40m people out of fucking billions?

Fair enough that's pretty surprising, so even Arch is not safe from lunatics... That is disappointing. As a Manjaro user, I am likely to pick up their changes via both systemd and since Manjaro is Arch based... Sad and disappointed by useful morons who have no fucking clue.

i desperately need to know the rest of the story

The law is completely not here, it affects very few people in the world, so they can bugger off with this nonsense change

nail ~~on~~ in the head