Parents Decide Act (H.R. 8250)
www.govtrack.us
To require operating system providers to verify the age of any user of an operating system, and for other purposes.

So, OS-level age-gating is going federal, which will effectively kill your rights to device ownership and what’s left of free speech and expression.

Enjoy your free speech while you still have it because this is a clear attempt to erase that right.

SOPA never died, it just went into hiding until time to reemerge, and now’s that time, this is basically SOPA in a save the kids trenchcoat.

  • tabarnaski@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    2 hours ago

    It could be a dangerous path indeed, giving the government full access to your phone. I’m not sure the bill says that though.

    But I think most people already do… A huge bunch of apps collect everything they can on you; tiktok used to be the worst. I wouldn’t trust a government less than a private company.

    I dunno, maybe forcing companies to put (or remove) specific features on their software could set an interesting legal precedent: it could be used to stop companies from pushing features people don’t want or designing apps with dark patterns.

    • paladin235@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Yeah, you are right that we already have huge attack surfaces from apps on phones and the phones themselves.

      I also agree some regulations and/or laws that prevent companies from engaging in their shady practices and dark patterns would be great if they were enforced and were not simply used to prevent competition by the large companies. I won’t hold my breath though.