The language suggests to me that GitHub would be a covered app store and a FOSS Linux distribution without an age gate API would be illegal in California (along with all programs that don't check the age API, e.g. `grep`), so it seems quite a bit worse in terms of killing free speech and culture than requiring adult sites to check id to me.

Notably, a "covered app store" doesn't seem to need to be... a store. Any website or application that allows users to download software is covered. There's no exemption for non-commercial activity. So every FOSS repo and programs like apt are covered? The requirement is also that developers will request the signal. No scoping to developers that have a reason to care? So vim is covered? Sort? Uniq?

Honestly I can't believe big tech would go along with it. Most of their infrastructure seems like it would clearly be illegal under this bill. Either there's something extremely obvious I'm missing or every lawyer looking at this bill is completely asleep at the wheel.

I hadn't thought about GitHub -I'm guessing the authors of the bill didn't either - but you're right, that is somewhat concerning. Still, I don't think it's the end of the world...

> The requirement is also that developers will request the signal. No scoping to developers that have a reason to care?

I don't see that requirement. Here's the sum total of the developer's responsibilities (emphasis added):

> A developer with actual knowledge that a user is a child via receipt of a signal regarding a user’s age shall, to the extent technically feasible, provide readily available features for parents to support a child user with respect to the child user’s use of the service and as appropriate given the risks that arise from use of the application, including features to do all of the following:

> (A) Help manage which accounts are affirmatively linked to the user under 18 years of age.

> (B) Manage the delivery of age-appropriate content.

> (C) Limit the amount of time that the user who is 18 years of age spends daily on application.

It would be nice if it had specific carve outs for things that aren't expected to interact with this system, but it seems like they're leaving it up to court judgment instead, with just enough wiggle room in the phrasing to make that possible.

If your application doesn't have a concept of "accounts", then A is obviously moot. If you don't deliver age-inappropriate content, then B is moot. The only thing that can matter is C, but I'd expect that (a) nobody is going to complain about the amount of time their kids are spending on Vim and (b) the OS would just provide that control at a higher level.

This is what worries me a bit, that this will be used as an excuse for walled gardens and so forth.

"We can't allow side loading because that would be illegal in terms of age verification".

I would love to be wrong about this though.