Some of you need to watch this video, and hang your head in shame.
Dylan Taylor has been receiving constant harassment, including threats to his life and safety, for actions done collectively by SystemD. The article by Sam Bent was explictly mentioned as part of the harassment campaign, and rightfully so.
I don’t think enough people realize that this is catastrophically bad. It’ll discourage people from becoming open source developers, it’ll discourage people from using Linux, and it’ll discourage legislators from taking the Linux community seriously.
If you ever wished ill upon another human being for complying with a relatively inconsequential law, you are better off never touching a computer again. The Linux community has collectively gone so far beyond what is acceptable here.
I don’t think enough people realize that this is catastrophically bad. It’ll discourage people from becoming open source developers, it’ll discourage people from using Linux, and it’ll discourage legislators from taking the Linux community seriously.
Sure, but personally, I don’t want a linux community that’s driven by corporate needs and governments that have been paid off by them. I don’t view it as a catastrophe, if that’s the version of “the linux community” that we lose.
None of that is to say that harassing devs is correct. It’s not, and never is. Harassing anyone with death threats and dogpiling is not on. But if we take that out of the picture, negative pushback that drives away devs that would otherwise have helped implement universal age gating isn’t something I’m terribly upset over, because I don’t want the version of community they’re taking us towards
this version IS the community and they’re not taking us anywhere where we weren’t already going.
linux is a much a product of our society as are other things like pop culture and capitalism. corporations of all sizes and reaches (ie red hat, ibm, google, facebook, etc.) have always steered the path and decided upon the development trends that linux has always taken and the only people who could have prevented or mitigated further centralized enshitification (aka the linux kernel developers group) bent over backwards to comply with the american government’s overreach when they kicked out russian developers.
age verification is just the next step into this overreach and it too is being driving from the same corporate/government source that forced us all to accepting things like systemd or libvirt/kvm (facebook for the former and red hat for the latter) to service their profit motives.
like american politics, it’s still possible to reverse the trend; but also like american politics; it requires a greater deal of collectivist action that westerners are unwilling to risk out of fear of losing their own tiny piece of the pie.
[the linux kernel developers group] bent over backwards to comply with the american government’s overreach when they kicked out russian developers.
I though that was mostly due to Linus being a typical Russia-hating Finn, but I never investigated.
i also wouldn’t put this past him given the reactionary tendencies he’s demonstrated in the past; but i suspect that a threat of non-compliance == treason from the federal government probably had a bigger impact.
and if you’ve ever had the displeasure of working for the federal government; you’ll hear horror stories of how capricious and draconian the selective enforcement of treason can be.
a typical Russia-hating Finn
Russia seems to have that effect on their neighbours (until those neighbours get invaded, annexed, and the population dispersed, so the area can be called Russia. See Karelia and Ukraine for some recent and ongoing examples). So sure, could be that.
He sure was a big ol’ dick about it I will admit. Saying anyone who disagreed was a bot or Russian troll really pissed me off at the time.
Its supposed to be open.
On a completely unrelated, off-topic note. Here is the same person talking about Google’s new “advanced workflow” for “sideloading apps” on Android.
The title of his blog post is “Google’s New Android Sideloading Flow Is a Fair Trade”…Figures.
You mention the title but not the content of the essay. Did you read it?
Edit: At first glance, the article seemed actually well-meant. Didn’t have the context of how bootlickery it was.
TL;DR is that he says his initial reaction was “frustration” but then he goes on to parrot everything Google said to justify this.
For example,
57% of adults worldwide experienced a scam in 2025
It is to protect people from scammers. It isn’t aimed at power users (Sounds very much like “It is to protect the children. This isn’t aimed at power users”).
There is no mention of https://keepandroidopen.org/ and what it means for developers of free and open android applications.
There is no mention of statements made by developers of applications like F-droid, Obtainium and Newpipe who have openly said that they do not agree with this step from Google.
There is no mention of how this can potentially demotivate individual android app developers and drive them away from the platform entirely (here is an example of this).
There is also no mention of how most of these malware, adware and nagware infested apps used by scammers are ironically on Google’s own Play Store.
Other that that, no. I’m sure I did not read the content of his essay carefully enough. More importantly, my opinion doesn’t matter. I’m just a reactionary idiot. But I wonder what the developers of those free and open source applications on F-droid, applications that cannot be installed via the Play Store (but their scammy fake versions can be), will react to this being called a “fair trade”.
Wow. Thanks for clearing that up. That was the first time I heard about the “advanced flow” and the criticism surrounding it.
Sure seems like a useful idiot at best.
Typical it doesn’t effect me so why are they doing it. You said your selff 57% is a huge number. And they hopefully can reduce that. People on here secerly underestimate the average person let alone the half of the people who are below average.
Why so many fucking bootlickers???
There is so many in the world it is actually crazy
You would think FOSS overall would be inherently leftist but apparently not lmfao
Yeah I’m not going to give this guy his desired victim role. He put a lot of effort into make privacy invading pull requests. Death threats and doxxing is too far but he deserves some insults.
No he doesn’t. We need to focus our anger on the legislators/ lobbiers (Meta in this case).
You know it’s possible to do both, right?
actions done collectively by SystemD
Nope. It only needs one maintainer to do the PR
It’ll discourage people from becoming open source developers
You know what will discourage Them more? Id verification
relatively inconsequential law
Give me your Id. Seriously, go and give me your ID with nothing blurred.
Give me your Id. Seriously, go and give me your ID with nothing blurred.
My age is 26.
That’s not what they asked
I also want to see your passport and your original birth certificate
That’s not what they asked
Wrong. That is all that is asked in the Californian legislation.
so far
That’s not what they asked
Yes, I know. I answered the question that reasonably follows from the context. Not their loaded question that assumes something which was not in the pull request.
I know a lot of people like to use the slippery slope fallacy here but even if that applies, you should limit your resistance to points where you actually have a leg to stand on. It’s not like the government would find it much harder to jump straight to age verification without this age indication step. Going all-in now just does all manner of a disservice to the cause of digital privacy.
what follows from context is you giving them your ID and birth certificate so he knows you aren’t lying about your age.
We’ll deal with that when it happens. Not fighting against an imagined threat by using the slippery slope fallacy.
Start by fighting the New York one.
except they are literally eroding privacy as we speak in this slope we have been slipping down on for a decade or two at this point, as if this is happening in a vacuum.
we can be mad at multiple things at once, especially when they are all part of the same effort.
You are right that it was a loaded question, and you had a smart answer, but the implication of this “inconsequential” change represented by the current birthdate is of course more invasive identification later.
Otherwise why would they bother, because as it is now it is useless or inconsequential.
Otherwise why would they bother, because as it is now it is useless or inconsequential.
The leading theory is that this is to help companies in California comply with the child online privacy laws.
Ah, another smart answer.
They don’t want to be correct, they want to be outraged.
This is the same Reddit-brained nonsense that ruined those communities.
I would like to live in a world that does not inspire outrage
He didn’t comply, he collaborated. It won’t deter anyone but pro fascist programmers from developing for Linux. Your defence of the indefensible says a lot about you, too.
We’re demanding that the government we pay for respect basic human needs. Privacy is not a luxury. It’s a need. They went to far with this shit so they can take the next mile. Fuck them all and fuck California’s lawmakers for doing it. We should be sending them letters of discontent too.
Lawmakers and politicians in the US ruin everything more and more everyday.
Relatively inconsequential law? Relative to what?
Death threats.
Also, basically anything the Trump administration has done.
Death threats are far beyond unacceptable, but it’s naive to think this policy is without consequence. It can take as few as 3 non-personal pieces of information (examples of personal: name, phone number, street address, SSN) to uniquely identify someone. Say the kind of car you drive, your employer, and your hair color. Together those are form a strong identifier, but now add age BY DEFAULT. Even a weak set becomes unique.
That is incredibly consequential. You could be implicated in a crime you didn’t commit, protesting becomes impossible, and everything you do or say will ALWAYS follow you. The balance between citizen and government becomes irrevesibly skewed. Just because your computer will volunteer your age.
This issue should be the issue we care about the most.
deleted by creator
complying with a relatively inconsequential law
This downplays the impact to privacy these laws can have but sure, personal harassment is bad.
Common right wing pattern:
- I do a fascist thing
- people call me a piece of shit
- I feel threatened
He feels threatened because people are explicitly threatening him.
it’s easy to solve the problem: don’t be a piece of shit.
You are already failing at that. Suggesting that he deserves the death threats because he did something you don’t agree with.
Nope, you are making that up, I never suggested that. I simply recognized the pattern: that dude is a nobody that did a rage-bait to get his 15 minutes of fame. And people like you are just helping, nobody is going to kill that idiot for this thing.
I seriously wonder if the death threats aren’t a false flag. Someone really wants to put more attention to this guy instead of people who have agency in actual decisions. Even the maintainers of repos that accepted his PRs should receive more attention than him.
I think it’s just a rage bait started by that guy only, but if the argument wasn’t so extremely niche it would get some momentum, like that dumb video about the Somali childcare of a month ago. Someone prominent on the right would retweet the guy crying that “the violent left are trying to kill meee!”. But I think the story will just fade away, in here and Reddit.
Removed by mod
Counterpoint: fuck this guy for complying with the technofascists in advance like the bootlicker he is.
first off, please announce that the video is from that brody clown so people can not click on that slop; needless to say, I ain’t watched it so I don’t know or care what points was made in it.
second, what OP is doing in OP and his bonehead comments is purposefully pushing a strawman argument, false dichotomy, red herring, and all the other logical fallacies in order to posture as a hero or whatever they got going on between their ears - if you’re anti this bullshit “law” then you are also pro physically harming poor FOSS “contributors”.
this fucking “contribution” shoulda been shot down like any other troll/bullshit plaguing every other FOSS project beset with ai bots and carma-farming typo-fixers and the like, and if by some mistake their “contribution” was accepted, here’s a chance to reverse it.
cali ain’t the world, which by and large ain’t got no such idiocy on the books. and if it did, I wouldn’t bootlick my way to submitting a patch to incorporate it; I would, in fact, oppose it any way I could.
that clown of a “contributor” has a history of simping for the backwardest ideas, antithetical to FOSS and I don’t care one bit what he has to say on any one topic.
Funny to see someone else with an active distaste for his videos. He sets off predatory alarm bells in my head and feels smarmy to me.
Needless to say, I ain’t watched it so I don’t know or care what points was made in it.
cali ain’t the world, which by and large ain’t got no such idiocy on the books. and if it did, I wouldn’t bootlick my way to submitting a patch to incorporate it; I would, in fact, oppose it any way I could. that clown of a “contributor” has a history of simping for the backwardest ideas, antithetical to FOSS and I don’t care one bit what he has to say on any one topic.
If you refuse to listen to the experience of the person the Linux community has been harassing, then don’t comment.
what OP is doing in OP and his bonehead comments is purposefully pushing … and all the other logical fallacies … if you’re anti this bullshit “law” then you are also pro physically harming poor FOSS “contributors”.
Many Lemmy users have explicitly called for violence against Dylan Taylor, and many more have brought forwards implied calls to violence. The Lemmy community is broadly 50:50 on their support for said calls for the violence.
I’m commenting on your shitty takes. second, if you’ve spent decades (that’s plural yo) on this planet, then you’re familiar with the concept of a hyperbole. a hyperbole is a purposefully exaggerated statement in order to draw attention to the importance of an issue. e.g. I could eat a horse - no you couldn’t, you’re just mildly inconvenienced with what you think is hunger.
consequently, there’s a distinction to be made between actual calls to violence (of which I haven’t seen any on this platform) and vividly voicing disgust and anger.
Excellent. Just having his face out there will discourage him for good, once he gets the backlash.
There is a special guillotine for this wannabe parasite.
A mistake without regret must be punished. They are not kids acting silly. I don’t feel comfortable with a foot on my neck, even when that foot isn’t pressing very hard.
What you are really asking is how far will people go to defend freedom? Look at history, my friend.
He didn’t have to do this. If he wants to do his part to make everyone else’s life worse, then he will have to face the consequences for it.
Nah useful idiots like this deserve the shit they’ll get.
Some more for the “I haven’t seen any calls to violence” crowd.
he should have chilled the fuck out over deepthroating boots as soon as he saw them. Fuck around , find out.
What I’ve learned is that it’s basically impossible to convince people that the only real way to solve this is violent revolution.
I’m glad to hear he’s getting his shit fucked, maybe he’ll roll back the commit.
EDIT : This fucker is lucky with the amount of hate he’s getting, there’s plenty of people who hate his guts over what he did, and didn’t personally reach out to yell some sense into him
I guess he should try his hardest to get his bootlicking commit rolled back
The Lemmy community is broadly 50:50 on their support for said calls for the violence.
-
There’s astroturfing. Careful with judging community vibes by obviously votes but also comments.
-
There is more to “The Lemmy community” than what’s on display on .ml.
-
When you discover the reason for his bootlicking you will be ashamed of your words and deeds.
So they added a date of birth field. Not technically doing anything wrong but a concerning direction morally. If it wasn’t for the fash / authoritarian bullshit in the world that field wouldn’t be a problem.
However, the question is how should the Linux community respond. Rather than grabbing pitch forks we should do what the Linux community does best. Support the alternatives, be it a fork or a replacement stack.
I’m watching for what lands and becomes popular. It seems inevitable that Devs in countries that aren’t forcing ID checks will build what we need. I hope to see either a fork of systemd free from redhat influence (always suspicious of large corps), or a true set of alternatives that can realistically replace the systemd stack.
The community will drive the change. Put down your pitch forks, pick up your keyboard yourself, or just support the good Devs instead.
I expect someone will just make a systemd patcher package that removes the field and provides clean error handling for anything that tries to use it.
I don’t care if that optional field exists in the config. Implement age verification if you want, just don’t make it mandatory. My working laptop with Ubuntu has fingerprint verification, which I can disable. I didn’t even know about this functionality before. If this stays in systemd like this, then whatever
I think the discussion we should be having instead is engineering ethics.
I think Dylan’s letter clearly showed he isn’t really involved in “FOSS radical” circles and has the usual engineering mindset (that was described in the Sam Bent blogpost). Not that I personally blame him, engineering schools raise students for this, and the corporate structure further enforces it with the strict hierarchies where you do whatever management orders you to do. What’s important is that there are many devs who clearly aren’t tied into the ethics discussion part of engineering. There’s even research on engineers’ attitudes afaik, and its conclusion was that freshly graduated engineers’ first response was to implement changes without thinking about the ethics part, and after further prompting and discussion, they could be convinced that this change was bad and they need to push back.
I’ll leave a two links here so when people iwsh to read, they know where to find good stuff.
- Constructive Technology Criticism Annotated Syllabus - I know Medium sucks but the scribe.rip copy I saved suffers link rot
- Awesome critical tech reading list - you can just
git cloneit and read it without browser
I don’t wish Dylan harm, and I’m not doing anything to him. I also believe nobody here is sending threats. If you saw the video, you probably noticed that it contained a screenshot from 4chan. 4chan users have been known for terrible behaviour and they are conspiracy-minded fascists, who also oppose this change (others fascists would like this as long as it’s not them being spied on). I’m almost completely sure that they are the ones doing the bullying, not users from here.
I’d prefer if the age verification landscape would be fragmented an unusable, compared to systemd offering it in a consistent manner. Websites will use the offered APIs and will use it for extending fingerprinting. No, fake birth dates won’t save you. Even the disabled canvas API is used for fingerprinting. It just shouldn’t be exposed at all. Not that it matters because every other OS will comply and desktop linux is negligible.
The arguments presented in the video won’t convince anyone who bully people on the internet. They are most often fash and they believe that only power matters. Bullying is exerting power over people, and if they succeed in bullying them into reverting the change, they will be satisfied. Not that I think it will achieve anything, but they do. They follow Carl Schmitt’s teachings.
On “better ways to make a change”: If somebody doesn’t live in the US, and lives in sort of a dictatorship, they can neither affect murican lawmaking nor do their govt listen to anyone other than a few. If this age attestation/verification shit comes into place, their only choice here would be to go and not install systemd-userdb (or use linux without systemd). The disabled API would probably break even more websites than disabling 3rd party javascript. Their govt could also use the fingerprinting to spy more on citizens (they prolly already do).
As a thought experiment: please recommend them a better way than bullying. No, not living in a shithole country is not an option. No, they don’t have the spare money to found/donate to an existing org that fights against this. Also, companies pushing this would just outspend them.
There’s also the aspect of corporate influence over linux. It directs changes in order to further business interest over normal users’ interests. Personally, I prefer companies be out of linux and would accept lower-quality things. But also, I think the ones most hurt by these laws are the system integrators (mentioned in the video), who actually need to do things that align with normal users’ interests.
On the parental control thing: yes, age things could be used for it, but the parents know better than the computer, and user settings would be preferable (for example, kid should be able to this and that program, open this site, but not others). I think it shouldn’t be the websites who decide. Yes, parenting takes a lot of time, but we can’t substitute it with automatated fence-building.
Edit: elaborate on "fascists.
I also believe nobody here is sending threats.
I wouldn’t be so sure of your tribe. 19 users so far upvoted a comment with among other concerning bits:
if you’re anti this bullshit “law” then you are also pro physically harming poor FOSS “contributors”.
A good response. Informative, mature, and well thought out.
I don’t wish Dylan harm, and I’m not doing anything to him. I also believe nobody here is sending threats.
True, but publicly wishing ill upon someone for something as trivial as this (i.e. something with zero basis in the real world) is extremely toxic. The odds are slim he’d ever be seen on Lemmy, saying the kinds of things some people here have been saying publicly demonstrates a tremendous lack of empathy and maturity. And that this community is so accepting of those kinds of words is a real problem.
There’s also the Sam Bent article, that was posted here on Lemmy. That’s probably the most directly harmful thing someone’s done. By sharing that article it’s possible someone here was inspired to harass him, and even though nobody probably did the risk is non-zero.
