EFF and ACLU Urge Court to Maintain Block on Mississippi's 'Age Verification' Law (eff.org) 108
An anonymous Slashdot reader shared the EFF's "Deeplink" blog post:
EFF, along with the ACLU and the ACLU of Mississippi, filed an amicus brief on Thursday asking a federal appellate court to continue to block Mississippi's HB 1126 — a bill that imposes age verification mandates on social media services across the internet. Our friend-of-the-court brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, argues that HB 1126 is "an extraordinary censorship law that violates all internet users' First Amendment rights to speak and to access protected speech" online.
HB 1126 forces social media sites to verify the age of every user and requires minors to get explicit parental consent before accessing online spaces. It also pressures them to monitor and censor content on broad, vaguely defined topics — many of which involve constitutionally protected speech. These sweeping provisions create significant barriers to the free and open internet and "force adults and minors alike to sacrifice anonymity, privacy, and security to engage in protected online expression." A federal district court already prevented HB 1126 from going into effect, ruling that it likely violated the First Amendment.
At the heart of our opposition to HB 1126 is its dangerous impact on young people's free expression. Minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as adults to access and engage in protected speech online. "No legal authority permits lawmakers to burden adults' access to political, religious, educational, and artistic speech with restrictive age-verification regimes out of a concern for what minors might see" [argues the brief]. "Nor is there any legal authority that permits lawmakers to block minors categorically from engaging in protected expression on general purpose internet sites like those regulated by HB 1126..."
"The law requires all users to verify their age before accessing social media, which could entirely block access for the millions of U.S. adults who lack government-issued ID..." And it also asks another question. "Would you want everything you do online to be linked to your government-issued ID?"
And the blog post makes one more argument. "in an era where data breaches and identity theft are alarmingly common." So the bill "puts every user's personal data at risk... No one — neither minors nor adults — should have to sacrifice their privacy or anonymity in order to exercise their free speech rights online."
HB 1126 forces social media sites to verify the age of every user and requires minors to get explicit parental consent before accessing online spaces. It also pressures them to monitor and censor content on broad, vaguely defined topics — many of which involve constitutionally protected speech. These sweeping provisions create significant barriers to the free and open internet and "force adults and minors alike to sacrifice anonymity, privacy, and security to engage in protected online expression." A federal district court already prevented HB 1126 from going into effect, ruling that it likely violated the First Amendment.
At the heart of our opposition to HB 1126 is its dangerous impact on young people's free expression. Minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as adults to access and engage in protected speech online. "No legal authority permits lawmakers to burden adults' access to political, religious, educational, and artistic speech with restrictive age-verification regimes out of a concern for what minors might see" [argues the brief]. "Nor is there any legal authority that permits lawmakers to block minors categorically from engaging in protected expression on general purpose internet sites like those regulated by HB 1126..."
"The law requires all users to verify their age before accessing social media, which could entirely block access for the millions of U.S. adults who lack government-issued ID..." And it also asks another question. "Would you want everything you do online to be linked to your government-issued ID?"
And the blog post makes one more argument. "in an era where data breaches and identity theft are alarmingly common." So the bill "puts every user's personal data at risk... No one — neither minors nor adults — should have to sacrifice their privacy or anonymity in order to exercise their free speech rights online."
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
> "Would you want everything you do online to be linked to your government-issued ID?"
Exactly. The opposition to this has NOTHING to do with age verification or keeping kids away from porn "like porno mags."
It's about linking your identity to every single page you visit online. Able to be used by every single unscrupulous woke Democrat and every Trump aligned "actual Hitler" in government
For anyone wary of MS' new copilot, THIS should scare you far more.
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. This is exactly what this is about. That you got moderated to -1 just shows how abysmally stupid many people are, how unaware of history and how incapable to distinguish relatively minor concerns from critical ones. It is exactly these people that will cause the next fascist or otherwise authoritarian catastrophe because they vote in the person that tells them what they want to hear and do not even begin to understand that a working, liberal democracy (no, not that definition of "liberal") is far, far more important than "winning" the next election.
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This is also why 2FA using a mobile phone is being pushed so heavily and everyone wants you to log in with a google/microsoft/apple/faecesbook account. Corporations/governments want to end anonymity on the web.
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This is also why 2FA using a mobile phone is being pushed so heavily and everyone wants you to log in with a google/microsoft/apple/faecesbook account. Corporations/governments want to end anonymity on the web.
I remember the discussions many years ago that Facebook and the like were hoping they would eventually become legally required identification services for the United States government. Funnily enough, I don't know that anybody saw the obvious end-run through the corporations, negating the need to make anything official. We've been forced to multi-factor, and yes, that ties us to our device, which ties us to everything we do on that device. Which is a lot. Forced on us by the corporations that control nearly
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Corporations/governments want to end anonymity on the web.
If they succeed, they will end the Internet itself, it will become unusable for anything other than retail.
I dunno about anyone else but if I had to show my gods-be-damned government ID card just to use the Internet, I think I'd just cancel my access and forget about it.
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2FA is a separate discussion.
Re: Exactly (Score:2)
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I agree with you that anonymity makes it easy for people to anonymously spread bullshit. But it is easy for someone in a liberal democracy with free speech guarantees to say that anonymity isn't necessary. But talk to someone in Iran, Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia and it seems clear why anonymity is important. Some founders of the USA were hung for treason because of what they wrote. Others wrote anonymously.
Ultimately, this is a trade-off between allowing garbage versus suppressing legitimate discours
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Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison would like to discuss anonymity and the Federalist Papers with you.
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That you got moderated to -1 just shows how abysmally stupid many people are
I love when you try and insult people you only end up insulting yourself. -1 is the OP's starting score. No one moderated him to -1. This thread and the moderation history here shows the only stupid person here is you - passing judgement without the facts (as always) while in reality the world around you is nothing at all like you portray.
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What has Trump got to do with it ? Was this something introduced during his tenure earlier ?
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My first thought was that it could be done by adapting Yao's Millionaires problem [wikipedia.org]. The website reports its age limit as the value a, and the government reports (or authenticates) the user's age as the value b, with communication being done over an anonymous channel or routed through the user
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And even if they do, there would be nothing preventing a corrupt government from saying "You need to be 100 years or older to visit Wikipedia".
This is true. It doesn't solve anything but this is why if the government is going to be doing stuff like this in terms of hosting servers or systems for public use the code behind it should be open source and verifiable somehow so people can check the servers are running what they say they are running. I know there's ways around that.
I think about this many times because I love the idea of algorithmic re-districting so we can stop the silly game of how lines are drawn, just let a computer do it and publi
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Why should the service have to figure out if someone is old enough. Simply have the site advertise an age limitation, make the browser look at that. Since kids almost never can afford their devices without parental involvement, parent sets the birthday in the browser, locks that part of the config. Problem is 95% solved and the person responsible for the child is empowered without impacting everyone else. As a web site operator, it isn't their job to raise your child.
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
every single unscrupulous woke Democrat
Explain why every age verification law so far enacted has been by Repulbican/MAGA states.
For instance, Texas requiring porn sites to collect personal information of those that consume that.
That being said, I've yet to come across a child that has a device to access the internet that they were able to afford for themselves. So why are you demanding (since it's maga/republicans/conservatives that have implemented these laws) that complete strangers raise your children for you? Every child has a parent or guardian; it's their job to ensure they are not exposed to what they find objectionable, be it on the internet (take away the device while you aren't watching what they do) or instruct the library to forbid your child access to the facility without you being present. Simple, easy, and does not impact the way I raise my children. I wish maga/conservitives/republicans would stop trying to impose their cult on me and mine, you guys are the biggest snowflake Karens around.
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every single unscrupulous woke Democrat
Explain why every age verification law so far enacted has been by Repulbican/MAGA states.
I think you may have gone off half-cocked there. The full sentence was "Able to be used by every single unscrupulous woke Democrat and every Trump aligned 'actual Hitler' in government". In other words, christoban was dissing and distrusting the government, not one party or the other.
As for the Republicans being the ones enacting age verification, would their similarly rabid counterparts among the Democrats not do something equivalently dystopian if they thought it would serve the cause of DEI?
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Explain why every age verification law so far enacted has been by Repulbican/MAGA states.
Because JJJJJEEESSSSSUUUUUUSSSS!
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I paid less than $40 for my 2 year old renewed Android phone without a contract.
That's an awesome deal. My best was a new $100 Android. When your child shows up with a phone, did you know they were going to do that? What did you do about that?
It still sounds like to me you want to shift your responsibility to raise your children onto complete strangers with no obligation to you. As to solving the issue of kids and getting unsupervised access, I'm more interested in the 90% right now solution (configured birth day locked into the config by the purchaser of the device) that's unobtrusive
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To you, I probably have a novel reason for being against online age verification, in addition to thinking it's effectiveness is questionable. I believe age verification for adult material will send it under ground
That's not a novel reason. Prohibition proved that. Drugs proved that. Christianity started like that. Germ theory started like that.
Once it's underground, it only takes one child to pass on how to get to it for other children to learn.
Part of growing up. You did it. I did it. I find it morally offensive that once someone knows enough to ask the question to sequester the information. Part of being a parent is to commit to the imperatives one wishes to inculcate on to their children. This includes the things that are not good and wholesome. Sometimes at ages we consider "too young".
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"I've yet to come across a child that has a device to access the internet that they were able to afford for themselves."
A young teen, mowing lawns can earn enough money to buy their own tablet, phone, iPod, etc. and connect to public WiFi without a parent's knowledge. Yes, I know someone that did this.
"Every child has a parent or guardian; it's their job to ensure they are not exposed to what they find objectionable, be it on the internet (take away the device while you aren't watching what they do) or ins
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Still buying that good old Russian propaganda, eh? Three things I am certain of:
1. Russia started the war. Only a fascist stooge says otherwise.
2. It is the absolute moral duty and role of America to support Ukrainian freedom.
3. Putin is never going to start throwing nukes. Ukraine has now pushed well into Russia with NATO weapons, and he still hasn't done it. And he won't, because it will result in his own quick death. Even a small demonstration is very unlikely because very few of his nukes even w
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I came here to post something along the lines of what you wrote here, until I saw modders modded you down into the oblivion. But I guess I'll still add my $0.02.
If a single tactical nuclear bomb was dropped on the front line by Russia, the West would not with nuking Russia, but not because they're cowardly. It would be because they know that sort of escalation would result in mutual annihilation. My guess is that at that point, NATO would step in to fight Russia. At that point, Russia may decide enough
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Based on your signature, I can speculate your alignment, but still don't know why you're so pissed off. Nowhere in my post did I take Russia's side, or Trump's for that matter. I just speculated what may happen if Russia dropped a single tactical nuke on the front line. Your post makes it look like you're off your meds today.
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It used to be the Republicans who really didn't like Russia.
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Yep. Just think of folks like McCarthy that basically tried to crucify anybody friendly to the USSR. Seems that Russian propaganda, infiltration and Zersetzung have successfully and thoroughly corrupted a GOP that was never very smart to begin with.
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I'm pretty sure we get rid of Trump once and for all, and they'll resume becoming irrelevant. Every time they open their gods-be-damned mouths they incriminate themselves more and more, revealing what complete anti-American, anti-Democracy asshole they are
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"Therefore I'm voting for a self-proclaimed dictator who is backed by fascist pigs pretending to be 'Republicans!"
I hope someone shoots you in the head.
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The only ones wanting to censor anything are Republicans. It's why the porn industry has launched a campaign to warn people about Project 2025 [dnyuz.com] which would ban porn
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It is called "not being total scum", an idea which you obviously have to invest considerable effort into.
The problem (or not) (Score:5, Interesting)
If there are things you are not allowed to do at 17, then by all means stop 17 year olds from doing them. WITHOUT identifying 18 year olds or 65 year olds beyond the fact they are at least 18.
I think it would be no problem to add some software to popular phones so they can be asked "is the owner of this phone at least 18, and is the person holding the phone in posession of a finger print or face that allows them to use this phone". And nothing else.
So you go to your phone store once with your ID, they install the software for you, and as soon as you reach the age, some porn site asks "are you 25", you press the finger print sensor, and the phone says "a person with the finger print of the owner is present, and the owner is 25 years old". Or it says "not 25 years old" or "don't know".
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You probably don't even need the phone store employee part (except for burner style prepaid).
If the account holder is 18+ let them have control of if a phone is owned by someone 18+ or not.
Account holder can then set if a phone on their account is 18+
This doesn't cover desktops, but seems a relatively simple and robust way to verify age.
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Mysteriously, the one 18 year old teenager owns 300 phones.
Or are we saying we can't factory reset these or change the biometrics after it's done? Who owns these devices, anyway?
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Yep, just like old times age verification.
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If the phone owner can set the age, they can set it to anything they want. They can be 18 and claim to be 25. Or 65 and get free entry to a museum for old age pensioners. Or 5 and get a free meal when "kids under six eat for free" at a restaurant. In other words the system is completely broken. Unless you add law
Re:The problem (or not) (Score:4, Insightful)
Technologically, this is possible and could easily be solved. But the reason behind "age" verification is not age verification. It is identifying everybody on the internet to profile, record, judge and eventually do selection on them. Selection in this sense here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This law wouldn't exist if not for lobbyists.
The question is, which ones are funding it:
1) The social media companies trying to prevent more onerous regulations
2) The companies that think this is juicy information for marketing and want to get in on that.
It's also possible that it's a mix of both.
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Yeah, but they still don't have the wherewithal to write their own bills. I don't even know if I've heard of a legislator in recent memory actually drafting a bill. They get it handed to them on a platter of often unknown origin. Just because it's written to cater to their beliefs doesn't mean that's the intention behind the curtain.
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But the reason behind "age" verification is not age verification.
You know that, and I know that. But if you start there you have a legitimate goal on one hand and sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist on the other hand (in the view of many people). So that puts you into a very bad position in any discussion. Like "think of the children" is a very wrong but very strong argument to many.
My suggestion gives an obvious and legitimate solution to the genuine problem of age verification. So repeat this solution to everyone. Now if someone tries to argue against it by sa
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You still think the problem of prevalent humans stupidity and the derived problem of some scum trying to exploit it is solvable. I do not anymore. And I have tried.
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I think it would be no problem to add some software to popular phones so they can be asked "is the owner of this phone at least 18, and is the person holding the phone in posession of a finger print or face that allows them to use this phone". And nothing else.
You could always require the phone be tied to the parents'/legal guardians' phones and that the parents would have to do the authorization. For the edge cases of legally emancipated, something could always be worked out where the date of birth (and nothing else) is added by an official organization that would handle it. The parents would then be able to do the equivalent of MDM similar to how it is done when you get a corporate phone.
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Make photo IDs into smart card. Put 2 certificates on the card: an ID cert that has name, address, DOB, driver's license class & expiry. Then have an age verification cert that just has birth date with no ID.
Re: The problem (or not) (Score:2)
Not every device is a phone. Most of the time, I prefer to use my desktop, which doesn't have any biometric input.
A public library computer shouldn't either.
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Third Party Companies need you SSN and address to (Score:2)
Third Party Companies need you SSN and address to do this!
For comparison (Score:2, Interesting)
This is almost identical to the requirements China puts on having internet in the first place.
Every phone, every fiber hookup, every internet cafe(no they don't still have these) require your actual photo ID on record to use.
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Indeed, it pretty much is. Funnily, China uses almost the same propaganda lies to justify it.
Re: For comparison (Score:2)
I'm vacationing in Vietnam right now. My passport was needed, along with a live video conference with what i presume was a government official, to get a SIM card at the airport.
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Here in New Zealand, I can walk into a supermarket and buy a SIM card; no ID or registration required!
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Here in New Zealand, I can walk into a supermarket and buy a SIM card; no ID or registration required!
I can do that in Germany. But can you activate it? I tried. I couldn't.
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Yes, I can, but it usually takes a few hours.
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So if someone distributes legal porn, you should not get identified. Or more like: Your SIM card should not get identified. If someone distributes child porn, nobody cares about age verificat
because religious fanatics (Score:2)
VPN (Score:2)
Thankfully there is no age or verification requirement to use a VPN.
TIL millions of Americans can't (Score:2)
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You are such a fucking imbecile.
You literally quote something saying "the same *First Amendment* rights" and go on to talk about non 1A rights. And no, minors' rights are not "afforded through their parents", whatever the fuck you think that means. Children have rights on their own account. It's why you can't do what you like to someone just because they're an orphan, you absolute bellend.
And then you start conflating needing an ID to buy alcohol with needing an ID to go on Wikipedia. You are so, so shit at
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Re:Minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as (Score:5, Insightful)
The EFF and ACLU are not complaining about the restriction to the constitutional freedoms of minors, though they should be a concern. They are rightly arguing that these schemes infringe on the constitutional freedoms of all, including adults. That they also infringe on the freedoms of minors is just a consequence. There might be ways to protect minors from inappropriate content, but forcing everyone to identify themselves is probably not the correct way. Naturally this will only become a concern the next time a pastor or some other "figure of authority" has their Grinder profile de-anonymized.
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The EFF and ACLU are not complaining about the restriction to the constitutional freedoms of minors, though they should be a concern. .
Did you even read the EFF's statement?
"At the heart of our opposition to HB 1126 is its dangerous impact on young people's free expression. Minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as adults to access and engage in protected speech online"
This is not about conspiracy. This is, first and foremost, an argument that minors should have unfettered internet access regardless of what parents or governments want. That's going to crash in higher courts, hard. Minors do NOT have the same rights to access as adults
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And who do you think should be controlling that access? There are way too many issues with having government rather than parents control this.
And a 17 year old should not be lumped in with a 12 year old and with a 4 year old in any law. But it varies more by the individual than it does by age.
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The parents should control it, as they do today. There is nothing in the government that is preventing your access to porn, just like they should not be preventing you from obtaining firearms or alcohol. There are certain restrictions on porn, guns and alcohol, which can be resolved by showing an ID but there are other schemes as well (third party such as bank verification).
What EFF is arguing that just showing ID is somehow limiting your freedoms, which is great if they want to extend this to all aspects o
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There's a big difference between showing an ID and giving someone a persistent copy and tying it to hardware or a browsing session.
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Swap porn for guns in your argument.
Re:Minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as (Score:5, Interesting)
We need this so parents can protect there kids
Parents can already protect their own kids. Giving media companies access to your personal information doesn't add to that. Giving your kids unfettered Internet access has plenty of its own problems without bringing social media into it.
And your whole web filter thing is silly. You don't need to MITM your whole network to make this work. You can blacklist the entire IP range.
A law to force social media companies not to commingle their IP address pool with other services to prevent blocking would do some good. Want to block Youtube? Block the IP addresses and be certain that it won't also block the Google web site or CDN cached javascript they are hosting for other sites.
Parental controls are terrible. We are better at managing employee devices through an MDM. So let's just get on board with services offering MDM services for parents.
None of this involves handing over legal ID to a corporation that has a massive advertising database.
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You can blacklist the entire IP range.
See now you are just lying. That might work for specifically facebook or something but practically half of the internet or more is hosted on AWS or Azure. You have been here long enough that you know this. You can't meaningfully filter by IP.
You can't filter by IP at all if its a phone, you can't control access at school, or the library etc. None of these approaches remotely work.
Yes I am calling you out as a LIAR, you tossing out technical solutions you know very well can't work. What you are doing is
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Suggesting something you don't like doesn't make it a lie. That's a silly thing to say.
If you're a big enough company you can use your own ASN with Azure/AWS. But you can still have just a single unique externally facing IP for even a huge service. That IP can be multihomed. Google hosts a huge popular DNS service with just two unique IPv4 addresses. You just have to require providers to do it. They like blending in with the crowd and being hard to block.
You can't filter by IP at all if its a phone, you can't control access at school, or the library etc. None of these approaches remotely work.
Who's giving them a phone with unrestricted Int
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I am not saying its a lie because I don't like it. I am saying its a lie because I factually know it does not work. I have been responsible for enough web filtering projects at enough big companies with enough HPCs and big enough budgets to know! That is in environments where just strait out breaking shit, is more or less an okay outcome in most cases.
You can your own ASN yes; but few do, because most don't need it and don't really want it because, wait for it, blocking and filtering become harder when yo
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not to commingle their IP address pool with other services to prevent blocking would do some good
We don't have the IP addresses to make that work. The whole comingling of services is a necessity for the internet to function at the scale of which it is currently built. But hey we only spent 2 decades not solving that problem with IPv6 which would have made what you said possible.
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We don't have the IP addresses to make that work
Google hosts a major DNS platform with just two IPv4 addresses. It's called multihoming and you can have one IP address resolve to multiple different servers depending on geographic distance and the shortest route, and then within the datacenter by internal means. Very much a solved problem.
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If they have the same first amendment rights, they must have the same second amendment rights as the second amendment is a protection against the government taking your first amendment rights. Simple as that.
Children have certain rights afforded to them, but certainly not the same first amendment rights of an adult. Their parents are responsible for them until age of majority or until they are considered emancipated. Orphans have someone appointed to them in loco parentis, again, otherwise they would have t
Re:Minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that in order to verify age, everybody, explicitly including adults, would have to give their identity and information to verify that identity to every site they visit.
Online privacy would cease to exist.
It's not about kids. It's about everybody.
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in order to verify age, everybody, explicitly including adults, would have to give their identity and information to verify that identity to every site they visit.
As poster gnasher719 suggested below, you only have to share the information that e.g. "user is above 18 y.o." through a ID wallet app. Maybe this project in Mississippi is terrible and needs to be repealed, but in general it is possible to implement age verification that preserves privacy. It is in project this way in other countries.
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through a ID wallet app.
Which would no doubt be run by a commercial company who would have access to this and likely wouldn't even be forbidden from using this information for advertising. Prohibiting selling the information just means they'll be the advertising company.
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There are many schemes I can think of that would not only guarantee privacy, it would make it even more secure.
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There are many schemes I can think of that would not only guarantee privacy, it would make it even more secure.
And which one is it that Missisippi is mandating must be implemented effective tomorrow if the court lifts the stay?
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What an idiotic statement, you clearly have never read the constitution, which is consistent with your political viewpoints, you must be quite ignorant of the basic rights afforded to a US Citizen. I'm guessing based on your statement that you think First Amendment is solely the right to speak and the Second Amendment only applies if you are a member of the government military.
The First Amendment enumerates amongst other things, the right of citizens to petition the government. A citizen casting a ballot is
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There's also the small detail that the US constitution does not apply exclusively to US citizen. For example the first amendment will apply also to foreign citizens exercising it within the US borders, though they might not share that same right in their own country. It's a law of the country, and as such it applies to anyone within the country. Irrespective of their legal status in the country, I might add.
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Foreign citizens have had certain rights granted to them later. There are still restrictions if you are not a citizen, not just on first but also all the other amendments. You cannot run for office, you have limited capability to address the government, there are additional restrictions on firearms and free movement. Basically congress extended parts of the constitutions but there is no guarantee to that (basically that is one of the legal theories behind Guantanamo Bay)
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Fuck off.
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Because they gradually "lost" the right to vote under Jefferson/Adams. Learn your history, before that women, blacks and others could and often did vote.
Basically Jefferson got really worried about ballot stuffing, especially in the South because large families and their servants voted as a "bloc", series of laws were enacted that limited access to the ballot box, the 19th amendment and subsequent cases clarified the first amendment right to vote.
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However it changes nothing of the reality that I stated, nor does it make your original statements correct and accurate either. I believe we're done here.