But why is Meta lobbying for this? The bills they push move compliance onto the app stores. And Meta doesn't run an app store. I think the execs think its some sort of 4D chess move to put liabilities onto their competitors. I'm not sure it will work out that way. Seems like FB has a lot more to lose than they think.

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gruez 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I'm not sure it will work out that way.

why? If age restriction get legislated into the OS, it puts a damper on further attempts on adding restrictions to sites, because they can point to the existing legislation and claim it's enough.

	▲	heavyset_go 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is like saying, well they passed a new 5% tax, and if they try further attempts at adding more taxes, they can point to the existing legislation and claim it's enough. COPPA already exists and they're insisting that it's not enough.

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Scandiravian 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They're pushing for an API at the system level, where they can query the age

Such an API can then be extended to provide location data to "help the police find bad guys", track purchase histories to "prevent fraud"; all the stuff that Apple and Google blocked fb from sniffing from user devices

It's circumvention of these privacy protections with added vengeance since now Google and Apple will be sitting with the cost of implementation and the liability

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gruez 14 hours ago | parent [-]

>Such an API can then be extended to provide location data to "help the police find bad guys", track purchase histories to "prevent fraud"; all the stuff that Apple and Google blocked fb from sniffing from user devices

/s?

In case this is serious, why do they need an age API to ask for a location backdoor API?

	▲	13 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
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	▲	Scandiravian 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The age API is not a prerequisite for adding a location API. You start with the age verification because "think of the children" is an easy sell, then a year from now, there'll suddenly be a massive worry about criminals using their phones for "crime-stuff", so we need to track where these people are - there's then already a system in-place for easily adding such a functionality A year after that it'll be online fraud that is apparently rampant My reason for this conclusion is that there's no good reason that age verification should live at the OS layer. It is technically cleaner and simpler to have it as an external service - just look at the amount of issues it's causing for Linux distributions FB are not dumb - they know this hurts Linux distributions, but they're an ad business and they need PII to sell those ads

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Spooky23 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They would be no longer responsible for doing it.

My kid had classmates as young as 8 using it. Facebook knows this.

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peyton 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Think of how many quadrillions of hours under-18 spend online. Ads for verified 18+ are more profitable.