- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- privacy@lemmy.world
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- privacy@lemmy.world
- linux@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.wtf/post/39686444
Per the very first reply on their thread discussing it in their forums, which I linked directly to for the post title:
We’ll NEVER require any verification or identification from the user.
However, what’s gonna happen should the attempts to age-gate the XDG portal screw over alt-init distros like Artix too? My guess is maybe they start blocking regions which force age gating like Arch Linux 32 is doing.


Fair point. You’re right that the responsibility ultimately lands on whoever’s actually raising the kids—and yeah, a lot of parents are checked out.
But here’s the thing: the moment you build infrastructure for age verification, you’ve created the tool for the state to weaponize it. Doesn’t matter if it started as parental controls. Once the mechanism exists, it gets repurposed. We’ve seen this cycle play out everywhere.
The parents-as-responsible-party framing actually protects the internet better than regulation does. It keeps the enforcement decentralized and human-scale. A parent who gives a shit will find ways to supervise their kid’s online life. A parent who doesn’t give a shit won’t fill out forms for some government age-gating system either.
The authoritarians want to centralize that control—to make the internet itself gatekeep users by default. That’s the attack vector. Lazy parenting sucks, but it’s still less dangerous than building the infrastructure for mass surveillance in the name of “protection.”
Meta’s the one doing the lion’s share of the lobbying for this shit.