Unusable 3151 ⁂

I think there are 3 reasonable options (that I’m pursuing currently):

Linux on a phone designed for Android

I’ve tried a few different models of phone. I’m currently running mobile nixos on a OnePlus 6, but waiting on Plasma Mobile to be fully functional. When I last played with it a couple months ago, the virtual keyboard was broken. Nothing else I’ve tried has had all features on the phone work.

A small Linux laptop with a mobile network card

I am trying to set up an MNT Pocket Reform as a phone replacement. The hardware is almost there. The software and firmware have a bit of a ways to go, but it has promise for a subset of people.

A Linux-first phone-like device

There are some phones that are set up with PostmarketOS or other mobile Linux distributions from the manufacturer, but they right now tend to be really pricey, under-performing, and don’t really have upstream support. The Mecha Comet seems to be another interesting option. I’ve pre-ordered one and I’m excited to see what it’s capable of.

people put too much “lab” and not enough “home” in homelab. we need more dust, more cables, more jank. love this.

You need to gain a lot of empathy and understanding for human beings that are being crushed under the heel of our systems.

If you don’t understand how a child can be manipulated by an adult online, I don’t know how to help you.

Having been in this advocacy space for a while, when it comes to the internet, most parents I talk to just don’t understand. It’s important to also state that many parents are working multiple jobs, are maybe single parents, and have very little time and energy for anything. That is not a personal failure, that is a systemic failure. At the same time, society is continually moving to an internet-first paradigm for everyone including children, and there is not much these parents can do to affect this situation. You need an internet connected device for schoolwork, for public transit, for after-school programs, and for socializing (because it’s where your friends are, which is a reality we need to wrestle with).

I agree that we don’t need age verification laws. At the same time, I disagree that there is no other solution. The certainly is no ONE solution and there are no solutions that will capture all edge cases, but seriously going after specific companies for their lack of care in moderation will certainly help. Better moderation tools for federated social media will certainly help. Better education for parents on how to moderate in the modern internet will certainly help. Better tools for parents to create their own gated systems for their own kids will certainly help.

related testimony from a fellow friend of the fediverse against a bill in Colorado from last night: here, starting at 7:12pm

Verify they are a kid and have kid only platforms. Not the other way around.

Just in case you weren’t aware, this also doesn’t work in practice. People are selling “age-verified” Roblox accounts to adults https://www.wired.com/story/robloxs-ai-powered-age-verification-is-a-complete-mess/

I’m upset at both ID gate laws and the lack of strong anti-trust action. I’m also not going to assume a person only talking about one at a given time isn’t also upset at the other. Discussions about what people “should” talk about are for leaders in organized movements to have with each other to create the most effective response. Doing so in a public setting like this isn’t high-minded or insightful, it’s a waste of breath. If you care about strategies and tactics, you can join an organized movement, move up in the organization, and have a real say.

I don’t know if you meant to, but you completely ignored the point. Your comment directly quoted @[email protected] and edited out “OS” and “browser”. You then began talking about how “services” have an obligation.

EDIT: I jumbled usernames. My bad.

just to contrast with @[email protected] here, I agree that this does not just fall on the parents. That is the same line of reasoning that gave us recycling as a solution for climate change. We need serious legislation and serious judicial action from our governments, and we’re not getting that. ID gate laws are a flimsy attempt to do something that looks good on the news and maybe even seems like a no-brainer to people who are unfamiliar with the technical side of things. These companies that show clear negligence need to be seized by the state and stripped for parts. Only then will companies (maybe) be scared into good-faith engagement to protect people that need it. Really though, serious anti-trust action would make a huge dent in this issue as it would have a chilling effect on a growth-first economy. Really really though, we need revolution against capital.

At its core, neither an operating system nor a browser is a service. They are effectively data that the users are serving to themselves. There are certainly some operating systems and browsers that contain the ability to connect a service as a plugin or (I would say) maliciously include a connection to a service by default such as targeted advertising, but those services are neither the OS nor the browser.

only if the data gets sent. it’s doesn’t have to be.

ostensibly, there is no need to send your location anywhere, as everything could be set up to be done client-side where you get a registry of published instance locations and sort them by distance to your current location.

nearly a century of coordinated, targeted anti-union operations by corporations and the federal government will do that.

Doesn’t look like it