Tim Apple argued it was a violation of their engineers and managers free speech to make them engineer back doors

Wonder if they will stand up against this on the same grounds

https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

qazwsxedchac 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Short answer: No. Apple already caved in advance.

Longer answer: In the UK, Apple already implements age "verification" at the OS level, starting with IOS/IPadOS 26.4. If Apple had not implemented this, it would still be in compliance with UK law. Apple is anticipatorily obedient.

A company like Apple has visibility of the legislative pipeline in its markets. Looks like the UK was a test bed.

Lots of OECD countries, all at the same time, are pushing for online age verification or OS-level age verification, both equally intrusive and implemented in privacy-violating ways by conflating identity verification and age verification.

The end result is not protecttion of minors, but abolishing anonymity on the Internet. Social media companies claim to want the former, but in reality just want to shift liability to OS and device vendors. Governments happily accept the "side effect" of being able to find and root out dissidents.

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Random_BSD_Geek 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> abolishing anonymity on the Internet.

This is what Facebook wants.

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globalnode 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

there is no anonymity on the internet. the sum of your devices characteristics are close to unique anyway (i could be wrong but i think this is accurate). which kind of supports the hypothesis that this is about shifting responsibility for age verification due to laws coming from other countries recently. i have no idea how this will work on linux, it probably wont.

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ButlerianJihad an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> abolishing anonymity on the Internet.

Firstly, you keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.

On the Internet, especially forums such as HN, you are "pseudonymous". That is, you made up a name for yourself, and that's how you're known to others. At the very least, we are all identified by IP addresses, which are again, fairly stable and unique pseudonyms. There are nearly zero truly anonymous corners of the Internet, because anonymous communications are chaotic and anarchic.

Secondly, it was the NSF who mandated that everyone accessing the Internet must have an associated and authenticated account with an identity that is known to their provider. These rules went into effect in the early 1990s. Perhaps they have been discarded or observed only in the breach, but truly, nobody is a stranger on the Internet. Even if nobody knows you're not a dog, your ISP or your coffeehouse still know who you are, when you connected, what device and so forth.

So, please let us stop pretending there is "anonymity" here, or that there ever has been. Whatever you've done in the past, it will eventually be unmasked. Yes, people on Discord and Wikipedia alike are freaking out over this prospect, but it was always going to happen. We've been laying down a very permanent record for over 50 years. Eventually it will all be correlated with real identities, Facebook or not.

	▲	Random_BSD_Geek 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		o_O > Firstly, you keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means. I posted that word exactly once in this thread, and I was quoting someone else. But I like the Princess Bride too. No idea what you're talking about with regard to the 90s. I can only tell you I was on the Internet then and it was not as you describe. Regardless, there is a difference between "unmasked with a court order" and "everything you do online is tied to you for the benefit of ad brokers." We can have reasonable privacy protections and still allow law enforcement to function.

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yabutlivnWoods 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"In the UK..."

Good thing I live in the US?

	▲	2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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kmlx 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

i think Apple turned on age verification in Singapore, South Korea and the UK:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/125666

what a dystopian world we live in.

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politelemon 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I am continuously amazed by HN's ability to engage in apple pedestalism and ignoring everything else that goes against it.

They've already been pushing age verification out in several countries.

	▲	yabutlivnWoods 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What pedestal did I put Apple on by highlighting past behavior? Oh right I didn't. You're just inferring incorrectly. Another HN specialty. Other countries are not the US, btw. There are groups here ready to challenge such a move. Continually amazed at HN ignorance of geography.