I traced $2 billion in nonprofit grants and 45 states of lobbying records to figure out who's behind the age verification bills. The answer involves a company that profits from your data writing laws that collect more of it.
Posted by Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 634 comments
I've been pulling public records on the wave of "age verification" bills moving through US state legislatures. IRS 990 filings, Senate lobbying disclosures, state ethics databases, campaign finance records, corporate registries, WHOIS lookups, Wayback Machine archives. What started as curiosity about who was pushing these bills turned into documenting a coordinated influence operation that, from a privacy standpoint, is building surveillance infrastructure at the operating system level while the company behind it faces zero new requirements for its own platforms.
I want to be clear about what this is and isn't. I am not the author of the earlier r/linux post by aaronsb and I'm not affiliated with them. I titled this to draw attention on this subreddit because the privacy implications go well beyond Linux. Every source cited here is a public record.
What the bills actually require you to hand over
Most reporting on these bills says something vague like "age checks at device setup." The statutory language is more specific and more invasive than that.
California AB-1043, signed October 2025 and effective January 1, 2027, defines "Operating system provider" under Section 1798.500(g) as "a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device."
Every OS provider must then: provide an interface at account setup collecting a birth date or age, and expose a real-time API that broadcasts the user's age bracket (under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18+) to any application running on the system.
Read that again. Every app on your device gets to query a system-level API that returns your age bracket in real time. This isn't age verification at the point of accessing restricted content. This is a persistent age-broadcasting service baked into the operating system itself, queryable by every installed application.
Colorado SB26-051 (passed the Senate 28-7, now in the House) copies the same definitions in the same order, same penalty structure ($2,500 per child for negligent violations, $7,500 for intentional ones), same exemptions. The template is the ICMEC "Digital Age Assurance Act," and it's been introduced or is pending in Illinois (three separate bills), New York, Kansas, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, and at the federal level.
New York's S8102A goes further. It requires device manufacturers to perform "commercially reasonable and technically feasible age assurance" at device activation and explicitly bans self-reporting. The AG picks the approved methods. That means biometric age estimation or government ID verification before you can use a device you purchased.
Exemptions in all of these bills cover broadband ISPs, telecom services, and physical products. None contain any exemption for open-source software, non-commercial projects, or privacy-preserving verification methods.
The status right now:
| State | Bill | Status |
|---|---|---|
| CA | AB-1043 | Enacted, effective Jan 1, 2027 |
| CO | SB26-051 | Passed Senate, in House committee |
| LA | HB-570 | Enacted, effective July 1, 2026 |
| UT | SB-142 | Enacted, first in nation |
| TX | SB-2420 | Enjoined by federal judge |
| NY | S8102A | Pending |
| IL | HB-3304, HB-4140, SB-2037 | Pending |
| Federal | KOSA, ASAA | Pending |
The privacy architecture these bills create
Here's what concerns me most from a privacy perspective. These bills don't just verify age once. They create a persistent identity layer inside the operating system that applications can query at will.
The commercial age verification vendors who would provide this infrastructure (Yoti, Veriff, Jumio) charge $0.10 to $2.00 per check, require proprietary SDKs, demand API keys tied to commercial accounts, and operate cloud-only with no self-hosted option. Your age verification data goes to a third-party cloud service. Every time.
Compare this to what the EU built. The EU Digital Identity Wallet under eIDAS 2.0 is open-source, self-hostable, and uses zero-knowledge proofs. You can prove you're over 18 without revealing your birth date, your name, or anything else. No per-check fees, no proprietary SDKs, no data going to a vendor's cloud. The EU's Digital Services Act puts age verification obligations on Very Large Online Platforms (45M+ monthly users), not on operating systems. FOSS projects that don't act as intermediary services are explicitly outside scope. Micro and small enterprises get additional exemptions.
| EU approach | US bills | |
|---|---|---|
| Who's regulated | Platforms with 45M+ users | All operating systems |
| FOSS exemption | Yes, five separate mechanisms | None |
| Verification method | Open-source wallet, zero-knowledge proofs | Commercial vendors, biometric data to cloud |
| Cost to non-commercial projects | $0 | $100K to $2M/year |
| Privacy architecture | Selective disclosure, privacy by design | Full age data to vendor cloud |
| Works offline | Yes | No, internet required per check |
The US bills assume every operating system is built by a corporation with the infrastructure and revenue to absorb these costs. The EU started from the opposite assumption and built accordingly.
Who wrote the legislation
This is where it gets interesting. Rep. Kim Carver (R-Bossier City), the sponsor of Louisiana's HB-570, publicly confirmed that a Meta lobbyist brought the legislative language directly to her. The bill as drafted required only app stores (Apple, Google) to verify user ages. It did not require social media platforms to do anything.
Meta deployed 12 lobbyists across 9 confirmed firms for this single bill, paying at least $324,992 (described as a "very conservative estimate"). The confirmed firms include Pelican State Partners (who also lobby for Roblox, letting Meta frame this as "broad industry support" rather than one company's project), Adams and Reese LLP (the #1 ranked Louisiana government affairs firm), and State Capitol Solutions.
Nicole Lopez, Meta's Director of Global Litigation Strategy for Youth, testified at the House Commerce Committee in support. She also testified in South Dakota for a similar bill. She's Meta's national point person for these laws.
HB-570 passed unanimously at every stage: House 99-0, Senate 39-0. So why did Meta need 12 lobbyists? Because the votes were never the concern. The lobbyists were there to control the text and block amendments.
The key amendment battle came from Senator Jay Morris, who expanded the bill to include app developers alongside app stores after Google's senior director of government affairs publicly questioned why "Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on passing these bills." When Morris introduced his amendment, Meta went silent. The conference committee compromise maintained dual responsibility but kept the primary burden on app stores, which is what Meta wanted from the start.
At that same Senate hearing, Morris directly questioned DCA Executive Director Casey Stefanski about who funds her organization. She reportedly deflected, said she "wasn't comfortable answering," then under continued pressure admitted tech companies provide funding but refused to name them.
The advocacy group that doesn't legally exist
The Digital Childhood Alliance presents itself as a coalition of 50+ conservative child safety organizations (later inflated to 140+, though only six have ever been publicly named). It has been testifying in favor of these bills across states. Here is what public records show about its legal status:
I searched all four regional extracts of the IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File (eo1 through eo4.csv), which cover every tax-exempt organization registered in the United States. DCA is not there. No EIN exists for this organization.
I also searched for incorporation records in Colorado, DC, Delaware, and Virginia, plus OpenCorporates (200M+ companies), ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, GuideStar, and Charity Navigator. No incorporation record exists in any of them.
DCA's domain was registered December 18, 2024 through GoDaddy with privacy protection and a four-year registration. The website was live and fully formed one day later: professional design, statistics, testimonials from Heritage Foundation and NCOSE staff, ASAA talking points already loaded. This is not a grassroots launch. This is a staging deployment of a pre-built site. 77 days later, Utah SB-142 became the first ASAA law signed in the country.
DCA processes donations through For Good (formerly Network for Good, EIN 68-0480736), which is a Donor Advised Fund. For Good explicitly states in its documentation that it serves "501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations." DCA claims 501(c)(4) status. DCA is classified as a "Project" (ID 258136) in the For Good system, not as a standalone nonprofit. I searched all 59,736 For Good grant recipients across five years, roughly $1.73 billion in disbursements. Zero grants to DCA, DCI, NCOSE, or any related entity. The donation page appears to be cosmetic.
Bloomberg reporters exposed Meta as a DCA funder in July 2025. The Deseret News detailed the arrangement in December 2025. No version of the website, across 100+ Wayback Machine snapshots, has ever disclosed funding sources. Every blog post and testimony targets Apple and Google. Meta is never mentioned or criticized.
DCA's leadership traces directly to NCOSE (National Center on Sexual Exploitation):
Casey Stefanski, Executive Director, spent 10 years at NCOSE as Senior Director of Global Partnerships. Unusually, she never appears on any NCOSE 990 filing as an officer, key employee, or among the five highest-compensated staff. A senior director title at a $5.4M organization for a decade with no 990 appearance suggests either below-threshold compensation, an inflated title, or something else about the arrangement.
Dawn Hawkins, DCA's Chair, simultaneously serves as CEO of NCOSE.
John Read, DCA's Senior Policy Advisor, spent 30 years at the DOJ Antitrust Division investigating app stores and Big Tech.
NCOSE's own 501(c)(4) structure turns out to be complicated. Tracing Schedule R filings across four years reveals that NCOSE created "NCOSE Action" (EIN 86-2458921) as a c4 in 2021, reclassified it from c4 to c3 in 2022, then created an entirely new c4 called "Institute for Public Policy" (EIN 88-1180705) in 2023 with the same address and the same principal officer (Marcel van der Watt). By 2024 the original entity had disappeared from Schedule R entirely.
Despite NCOSE's website describing NCOSEAction as "created by NCOSE," and Schedule R listing the Institute as a "controlled organization," all 19 transaction indicators between NCOSE and the Institute are marked "No." No grants, no shared employees, no shared facilities, no reimbursements. Zero reported transactions between a parent and its own controlled c4 while staff move freely between them. Concurrently, NCOSE's lobbying spending tripled from $78,000 to $204,000, coinciding with DCA's launch and the ASAA legislative push.
$70M+ in super PACs, deliberately fragmented
Meta poured over $70 million into state-level super PACs and structured every one to avoid the FEC's centralized, searchable database:
| Entity | Meta's contribution | Type | Notable detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATEP | $45M | Bipartisan 527 PAC | Co-led by Hilltop Public Solutions |
| META California | $20M | State PAC | Chaired by Brian Rice, Meta VP of Public Policy |
| California Leads | $5M | State PAC | Union-partnered |
| Forge the Future | Downstream from ATEP | State PAC (TX) | Policy priorities mirror ASAA language |
| Making Our Tomorrow | Downstream from ATEP | State PAC (IL) | Also chaired by Brian Rice |
By registering every PAC at the state level rather than federally, Meta scatters filings across dozens of state ethics commission databases with different formats, different disclosure timelines, and no centralized search. Each filing is technically public. Aggregating them into a coherent picture requires manually querying each state. This is structural opacity by fragmentation.
Forge the Future's stated policy priorities include: "Empowering parents with oversight of children's online activities across devices and digital environments." That is functionally identical to the ASAA framing.
Of 20 Meta-backed candidates across Texas and North Carolina primaries, 19 won (Washington Post, March 12, 2026).
The firm that bridges both tracks
This is the finding that connects two things I'd been tracking separately.
Hilltop Public Solutions, a Democratic consulting firm, shows up in three distinct contexts:
- Co-leads ATEP, Meta's $45M bipartisan super PAC
- Involved in DCA's messaging coordination, per investigative reporting
- Connected to Forge the Future, the downstream Texas PAC with ASAA-aligned policy priorities
This makes Hilltop the first confirmed entity bridging Meta's political spending operation and the DCA advocacy campaign. The firm helping Meta elect "tech-friendly" state legislators also coordinates messaging for the nominally independent grassroots organization pushing those legislators to pass ASAA.
The dark money network
Meta's Colorado lobbying runs through Headwaters Strategies, paid $338,500 since 2019, with monthly payments jumping from roughly $5K/month to $14K-$30K/month starting July 2023 as state-level age verification bills accelerated.
Headwaters co-founder Adam Eichberg simultaneously serves as a registered Meta lobbyist in Colorado, as Chair of the Board of the New Venture Fund (the flagship entity of the Arabella Advisors network, $669M revenue), and as founding board member of the Windward Fund (another Arabella entity, $311M revenue). The Arabella network operates four entities from the same building at 1828 L Street NW, Washington DC, with combined annual revenue exceeding $1.3 billion. NVF transfers $121.3M per year to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) with no donor disclosure requirements.
I parsed the IRS Form 990 Schedule I filings across all five Arabella entities. That's 4,433 grants totaling approximately $2.0 billion. I searched for every child safety, age verification, and tech policy organization I could identify. Zero matches. The Schedule I grant pathway is definitively ruled out. If Meta money flows through this network, it would have to travel via fiscal sponsorship, consulting fees, or non-grant payments, which are inherently less transparent.
The Eichberg connection matters not because it proves a pipeline, but because the person receiving Meta's lobbying payments chairs the governance structure of the largest anonymous-donor-funded advocacy network in US politics. That structural overlap is documented regardless of whether money moves through it.
The company that benefits
Meta's own Horizon OS (powering Quest VR headsets) already has Meta Account age verification, a Get Age Category API, Family Center parental controls, Quest Store age ratings, and default minor account protections. I scored Horizon OS at 83% compliance readiness with these mandates.
Meta is not opposing these bills. In Colorado, I pulled lobbying records from the Secretary of State's SODA API and found Meta's four registered lobbyists on SB26-051 listed in a "Monitoring" position. Not amending, not opposing. Watching.
On every social media regulation bill in Colorado, Meta takes an "Amending" position, actively fighting changes. Across 117 lobbying records on 22 bills:
- Bills regulating social media: Meta position is "Amending" (fighting)
- The one bill putting the burden on OS providers: Meta position is "Monitoring" (watching)
Meta fights bills that regulate Meta. Meta watches bills that regulate everyone else.
In California, Meta spent over $1 million on state lobbying in the first three quarters of 2025 and publicly supported AB-1043, breaking ranks with its own trade associations (TechNet and Chamber of Progress both opposed it). Meta supported a bill that creates surveillance infrastructure at the OS level while leaving social media platforms untouched.
Meta's LD-2 filings with the Senate explicitly list H.R. 3149/S. 1586, the App Store Accountability Act, as a lobbied bill. The filing narrative includes "protecting children, bullying prevention and online safety; youth safety and federal parental approval; youth restrictions on social media." In the same filing, Meta also lobbies on KOSA and COPPA 2.0, which would regulate Meta directly. Meta supports the bill that burdens its competitors and lobbies to weaken the bills that burden itself. Both positions appear in the same quarterly disclosure.
The privacy questions
I've tried to present findings here, not conclusions. But from a privacy standpoint:
Why does the company that profits from collecting user data draft legislation requiring every operating system to collect age data and broadcast it to every installed application via a system-level API?
Why do these bills mandate commercial age verification vendors (Yoti, Veriff, Jumio) whose business model is collecting biometric data, while the EU's equivalent uses open-source zero-knowledge proofs that reveal nothing beyond "over 18"?
Why is there no data minimization requirement in any of these bills for the age verification data itself? AB-1043 creates a persistent age signal API. Who governs what happens to the data flowing through it?
Why does Meta fund an advocacy group with no legal existence in the IRS system to push legislation that creates new data collection infrastructure at a layer below Meta's own products, while Meta faces zero new requirements?
Why does the company whose lobbyist drafted one of these bills write it to specifically exclude social media platforms from the age verification mandate?
If the goal is child safety, why regulate the operating system, which has no direct contact with children, instead of the social media platforms where the documented harm occurs?
What you can do
If you're in CO, IL, or NY, these bills are still in committee. Comment on the record. System76's CEO met with the Colorado bill's sponsor on March 9 and the sponsor suggested excluding open-source software. The conversation is happening now.
Contact the EFF, FSF, and Software Freedom Conservancy with the specific statutory language and compliance gap numbers. They need to know these definitions cover volunteer-maintained software with no exemption.
Read the actual bill text. CA AB-1043 is searchable on leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. CO SB26-051 is on leg.colorado.gov. The definitions are what matter, not the news summaries.
If you maintain software that could be classified as an "operating system provider" under these definitions, start thinking about your response now. CA AB-1043 takes effect January 1, 2027. Louisiana HB-570 takes effect July 1, 2026.
Sources (all public records)
Bill text: CA AB-1043 (Chapter 675, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov), CO SB26-051 (leg.colorado.gov), LA HB-570 Act 481 of 2025 (legis.la.gov), NY S8102A (nysenate.gov), TX SB-2420, UT SB-142 (le.utah.gov)
Federal lobbying: OpenSecrets Meta profile (opensecrets.org, client ID D000033563), Senate LDA filing UUID b73445ed-15e5-42e7-a1e8-aeb224755267
Colorado lobbying: CO Secretary of State SODA API (data.colorado.gov, datasets vp65-spyn, dxfk-9ifj, df5p-p6jt)
Louisiana lobbying: LA Board of Ethics, F Minus database (fminus.org/clients/pelican-state-partners-llc/, fminus.org/clients/meta-platforms-inc/)
California lobbying: CalAccess (cal-access.sos.ca.gov), Bloomberg Government
Super PACs: Forge the Future (texasforgefuturepac.com), Texas Ethics Commission, Illinois State Board of Elections, Politico (Feb 2, 2026), Washington Post (Mar 12, 2026)
DCA records: WHOIS/RDAP (rdap.org), Wayback Machine CDX API (100+ snapshots), IRS EO BMF (eo1-eo4.csv), OpenCorporates, ProPublica, GuideStar
NCOSE: IRS Form 990 FY2020-FY2024 including Schedule R; NCOSEAction/Institute for Public Policy (EIN 88-1180705); original NCOSE Action (EIN 86-2458921) via Schedule R history
For Good/Network for Good: forgood.org, DCA donation page source (targetable_type=Project, targetable_id=258136), For Good 990s via ProPublica (EIN 68-0480736, 59,736 recipients searched)
IRS 990 filings: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: NVF (EIN 20-5806345), STF 2024 (sixteenthirtyfund.org), DCI (EIN 39-3684798), Windward, Hopewell, North Fund, NCOSE (EIN 13-2608326), ConnectSafely (EIN 47-3168168)
Campaign finance: CO TRACER bulk data (tracer.sos.colorado.gov), FollowTheMoney.org, FEC API (Meta PAC C00502906)
Reporting: Bloomberg (July 2025), Deseret News (Dec 2025), The Center Square, ACT | The App Association, Dome Politics, Pluribus News, Nola.com, Privacy Daily
EU framework: EUR-Lex (Digital Services Act, eIDAS 2.0 Regulation), EUDIW GitHub repository, T-Scy consortium
Technical: freedesktop.org, GNOME/KDE documentation, Meta developer docs (developer.meta.com/horizon)
Full dataset, OSINT tasklist, and all processed findings are published with sources embedded in each file: github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
This is an ongoing investigation. Pending: Texas Ethics Commission records for Forge the Future expenditure recipients, NCOSEAction's first 990 filing, IRS Form 8872 for ATEP, and FOIA responses from Colorado and Louisiana. If you have access to lobbying data from states I haven't covered (IL, NY, UT, GA), I'd appreciate a heads up.
I am not claiming Meta wrote every one of these bills. Louisiana is confirmed by the sponsor; the others use a shared ICMEC template. I am not claiming there is a direct Arabella-to-DCA funding pipeline; I checked $2 billion in grants and found no evidence. I am not claiming child safety isn't a legitimate concern. What I am documenting is: the company whose lobbyist drafted HB-570 wrote it to exclude its own platforms; the advocacy group pushing these bills nationally has no legal existence and is confirmed funded by Meta; the same consulting firm bridges Meta's super PAC and DCA's messaging; none of these bills exempt open-source or non-commercial software while the EU equivalent does; and the mandatory age-signal API creates persistent surveillance infrastructure at the OS level with no data minimization requirements. The records are above. Draw your own conclusions.
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VValdez81@reddit
Mojo
VValdez81@reddit
Teen challenge
IGetHypedEasily@reddit
404media will want to talk to you. They love this kind of journalism.
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
u/404mediaco
KAS_stoner@reddit
I hope they do talk to you. 🤞🤞🤞
FaultyPly@reddit
If children’s safety was truly a concern, 80% of the political and elite class would be arrested tomorrow. It’s about money, control, and surveillance.
NdoplasmicRocketfish@reddit
This. If we have a real shit about kids we'd be jailing all these pedos first
ApprehensiveBoss4801@reddit
Also banning the baby murder that they call women's health care/abortion. Over 60 million murdered babies thru abortion.
KisekiFangirl@reddit
Way to change the subject because you care more about unborn babies than born kids
ApprehensiveBoss4801@reddit
Babies are babies if in the womb or breathing. Found a satanist! Probably simps for the Epstein alliance too.
KisekiFangirl@reddit
Fetuses are literally not babies, but nice try, Epstein's friend.
ApprehensiveBoss4801@reddit
They are and you will BIH with Epstein alliance. Midwits can only believe in lies and their own delusion, like calling someone epsteins friend that has never even come in contact with him or anyone like him. Keep posting though so others can see how satanic you are.
N0t_Dev@reddit
These aren't the same though, many women die from giving birth. Why should the parasite feeding off the women be granted life at the expense of the actual fully functioning human trying to give birth. In those scenarios people against Abortion are actively FOR murder of women, and want to save the parasites that are nurtured inside of women. Being against late stage abortion during a complication is disgusting imo. Being against early stage and particularly mid stage abortion is far fairer, but it's all case-by-case, and there are also many scientific arguments as to whether the parasite that is a fetus is even a baby or a human, it's eventually going to form into one sure, but in that state it's lacking many things that are uniquely human, and are quite similar to the fetuses of many other animals.
CoatAccomplished7289@reddit
Many women die from many things we allow people to do
ApprehensiveBoss4801@reddit
Especially diversity. Diversity loves preying on women but most do not care for that.
MindlessSpend1659@reddit
Ok how did turn into a topic about abortion but I think it’s time to end it right here
AzuraOnion@reddit
Unborn people are the best to be virtuous about because you don't actually have to do shit for it.
dmnsqrl@reddit
and not pretending that queerness/non-whiteness was inherently dangerous to kids/women
which is all deflection from those with power who are the actual abusers
Old_Movie_Fan_Ted@reddit
The state is the biggest bully of them all.
SvalbardSleeperDistr@reddit
Americans read a story about private profit interests having the state in their pockets and default to their infantile "but the state has to be the main culprit according to the property fetishist ideology my society is based on" condition.
heathm55@reddit
Not if you're a company with lots of money / lobbyists.
Astral-projekt@reddit
Hmmm what other country could possibly be the test bed for all of this I wonder? Hmmmmm 🤔hmmmmmm
Ijzerstrijk@reddit
If it was, they would have arrested trump as the pedophile he is.
PrimaLumiere_A1M@reddit
If you have control, you don't need to worry about money or debt.
ICookWithFire@reddit
Always has been
MidnightBlue5002@reddit
It's like people on Reddit have never heard of FVEY. They've been doing this for decades.
minirop@reddit
not everyone on reddit is from those 5 countries (nor heard about that)
ChromaticStrike@reddit
5 eyes is too long? Why choose a weird acronym?
TheHeroBrine422@reddit
I actually don’t know what that is. Although I assume most laws that are “to protect the children” are actually just politicians using that as an excuse to do something we likely wouldn’t want them to do.
Noldir81@reddit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
TheHeroBrine422@reddit
Ah ok. I had heard of that, just didnt know the acronym.
DISCONNECTlE@reddit
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
parrot-beak-soup@reddit
That's what capitalism is about when you boil it down. Anyone saying otherwise is a fucking lethargic devil.
charmghost@reddit
Palantir is why all of this is happening, data is power.
Most of these people don't care about children, in fact many of them are a true danger to children themselves. They got into politics to have power to not be held accountable when they do bad things.
Arxijos@reddit
Money speaks, people listen. The way of Murika.
3m3raldTux@reddit
It is the spearhead of an information war where the general populace of the world is finally becoming aware of the most evil group of people in the world.
KratosLegacy@reddit
Well fuck. It's progressing. There's a federal law now introduced.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250
https://lustra.news/en/us-congress/119/legislations/119_HR_8250/
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
Full dataset, OSINT tasklist, and all processed findings are published with sources embedded in each file: github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
hursofid@reddit
Github, owned my microslop? They'll happily turn it down
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
For security and integrity reasons, an independent website with it's own repository, email, and domain will be setup soon.
RileyGuy1000@reddit
An independent website would be good. If you want another git solution that's not scummy, I can also recommend Codeberg.
omicreative@reddit
I looooooooove Codeberg!!!
Nyctfall@reddit
Do you recommend CodeBurg because of the TOS changes in GitLab and BitBucket?
DrogieBfun@reddit
Instead of posting a shit ton of AI nonsense, you could have summed it up as the main culprit behind the age verification laws is Meta/Mark Zuckerberg. The line that always gives away that something is AI written is “this isn’t just, this is something” —-that line is a dead giveaway that it was AI written. But I agree these laws seem to have come out of nowhere and Meta does seem to be the culprit behind this BS.
Syrelian@reddit
A normal phrase used by normal people is a giveaway now? You do know these giveaway habits are born from copying and stealing real people's writings, they didn't come out of nowhere, this is a blind kneejerk assumption
fafefifof@reddit
"Instead of posting a shit ton of AI nonsense". Aside from being helped by AI, why do you personally think it's nonsense? "It uses AI therefore it's bad" is an opinion not an argument.
WarlockEngineer@reddit
Well one issue with such a long post is wondering if AI got everything correct or it hallucinated/misstated details.
fafefifof@reddit
No, actually, you miss the point of a human using a tool. The human remains accountable. At this point, if the information is wrong, we don't care about the AI, it becomes the researchers fault. Get that in your head, AI is a tool. The researcher could've gone onto the internet and found bad information in a different way. It wouldn't change anything about this specific post and the poster's responsibility of having tried to research the most truthful and real information as possible.
WarlockEngineer@reddit
Thanks for the ted talk lol
AI gets things wrong sometimes and requires proofreading, but people using AI to make stuff like that post are usually trying to save time, so proofreading is no guarantee.
fafefifof@reddit
First of all. Sigh. Two paragraphs is a Ted Talk for you? Sorry if your brain can't handle non TikTok inspired media constructs.
Second, again, no. If you contribute to the general idea that AI is a way for others (because of course, not you, right?) to repute accountability, then you're a bigger part of the problem in my personal opinion than everyone around me using AI to learn a lot about topics and writing posts using that knowledge.
mrGrinchThe3rd@reddit
Did you read through much of the post? I could tell it was written by AI, sure. I didn't have any troubles understanding it though! I'm not a lawyer and so perhaps some technical details aren't perfectly accurate, but let's be honest if a human wrote it that would be the case too! I don't have an issue with using AI to write a public post like this, as long as it's proofread and clear which I found it to be!
ChamplooAttitude@reddit
Just because AI is used to assist this research, as well as writing text for it, doesn't mean it's nonsense. So what if it was written by AI, as long as the content itself provides value and is good?
Which part of all this was nonsense? OP isn't the only person here who's been investigating this. There are a lot of us here whose research notes match the original post.
KarmaLack@reddit
That mdash is a dead giveaway the comment was written by AI
jasonbrownjourno@reddit
Good stuff. Mirror it on the big gits? If any of them are stupid enough to take it down, there's a handy little freedom-of-speech scandal to fuel fires.
I say this not as advice, but as someone who has watched from afar,1980s onwards, as tens of thousands of post-Watergate media companies across the US were borged into the half dozen today.
History never repeats, but rhymes?
Newsrooms used to fight these sort of fights, but they simply don't exist anymore. That fight now falls to citizen journalism, including anonymous forms where reports are argued on merit, not identity. Welcome to the #5thestate .. and what's left of the #4thestate !
Cute-Percentage-6660@reddit
Do you think these figures are also responsible for hte age verification pushes in non US spaces like the EU and the UK and such?
InfusedStormlight@reddit
I’d recommend hosting your own tangled.sh knot
ismaelolea@reddit
You can load datasets to Zenodo.org, also.
Substantial-Pop-2702@reddit
>Post is awaiting moderator approval.
How about Orwelldit?
SSUPII@reddit
It means the r/linux mods. There is nothing wrong there, and they accepted it
rafuru@reddit
I already made a copy in my codeberg account
biztactix@reddit
It would seem that some smart tech person could use Claude code to create an automated state search aggregator... To pull all this public data together into a single place...
Or just pull the data and post it in a standard format for others to use...
But fantastic work... In Australia our government transparency isn't quite as bad as the US... But it's certainly trying to be.... More government data in open formats for cross referencing...means people can get the real data, not the news bias!
Syrelian@reddit
A smart person could just write the solution themselves, rather than get an LLM to botch it repeatedly, the main problem you run into is API, trying to gather that much data that quickly is extremely difficult if your sources are uncooperative, APIs are the usual solution to that, letting programs bypass the troubles of trying to navigate a human-formatted website and access data more directly and in better formats sometimes
Annnnnd you can guess how likely it is that any of that shit has a publicly accessible API(if it has one at all, a lot of them are on horribly old systems held together with digital duct tape)
So manually crawling, downloading, aggregating, compiling, and converting all that data is a pain in the ass to program for and execute(not impossible, Google and many other megacorps do something similar with their web crawlers, but hard and a matter of resources)
A lot of the US's opacity isn't even intentional(plenty is, to be clear), so much as the natural friction of its scale, myriad states all independently handling their shit with the poor management of a government, and then it compounding on itself as it overlaps and connects to the Federal scale, and much of it being natural makes it in some ways worse, you can't Point at the cause and eject it, only attempt to fix or reform it
biztactix@reddit
Are you ok?
move_machine@reddit
Anthropic donated $20 million to Public First Action, a PAC that promotes Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn and her sponsored Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that will force everyone to scan their faces and IDs to use the internet under the guise of saving the children.
The legislative angle taken by companies like Anthropic is that they will provide the censorship gatekeeping infrastructure to scan all user-generated content that gets posted online for "appropriateness", guaranteeing AI providers a constant firehose of novel content they can train on and get paid for the free training. AI companies will also get paid to train on videos of everyone's faces and IDs.
As for why Blackburn supports KOSA:
If Anthropic, the PACs it supports and Blackburn get their way with KOSA, the end result will be that anything posted on the internet will be able to be traced back to you. Web platforms will finally be able to sell their userbases as identifiable and monetizable humans to their partners/advertisers/governments/facial recognition systems/etc. AI companies will legally enshrine themselves as the official gatekeepers and censors of the internet, and they will be paid to train on the totality of novel human creativity in real-time.
thesaddestpanda@reddit
"indoctrinated" says a lot. When this stuff finally happens any leftist or pro-queer or pro-feminist speech will be marked 18+. Toss in the SAVE act or its successor, and now you have an iron grip on both elections and the marketplace of ideas.
ConsciousSignal4386@reddit
The 'marketplace of ideas' is a scam. Only idiots anyone will 'fight fair', and it really is a logical fallacy to assume that the 'best' ideas will somehow, magically come out on top due to some mythologized capitalist process.
move_machine@reddit
Yup, the Heritage Foundation is clear in their Project 2025, of which half of its provisions were already implemented in the first year of Trump's administration, that they want to define LGBT topics and people as "sexually explicit", especially if they're visibly out in public or around children, which they want to make a sex crime.
Note that they want to make sex crimes punishable by death, the implication is clear: they are determined to put visibly LGBT people in prison or death row.
EmbarrassedHelp@reddit
One of the groups supporting mandatory age verification requirements, is already close to putting LGBTQ to death in Uganda. National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) probably already has blood on their hands.
Noldir81@reddit
The USA, land of the free. Free of what I've always wondered.
And this poison is slowly flooding the world. In that respect I'm glad Trump is burning bridges everywhere. Perhaps some semblance of democracy will survive that way
ShrubbyFire1729@reddit
That's... misleading at best.
The PAC is explicitly bipartisan, and is backing candidates across the aisle who support AI regulation, in opposition to the rival pro-industry PAC "Leading the Future", which has raised $125 million and favors lighter AI regulation.
There's no evidence the donation is specifically tied to KOSA or internet ID/facial scanning requirements, that's not what the PAC is even primarily about.
move_machine@reddit
You don't get to pick and choose what you like and don't like from what a PAC does because a company you like donated 20 million to it.
When Chick-fil-a donated millions to charities that discriminated against LGBT people, no on was like "well those charities give things to the poor! how unfair to focus on the harm they do!"
The truth is that $20 million is going towards pushing KOSA and Marsha Blackburn, even if you don't want to acknowledge it.
primaski@reddit
Holy shit...
SkyNice2442@reddit
are you thinking of sending your findings to propublica or wired?
https://propublica.org/tips
WoodenInternet@reddit
/u/Ok_Lingonberry3296 please do reach out to ProPublica and Bellingcat about this too.
EmbarrassedHelp@reddit
We need investigation reporting like what helped bring down Chat Control.
WatermelonWithAFlute@reddit
The mods took this down lol
Preindustrialcyborg@reddit
so thats why there was a sudden interest in all that age verification stuff.
Substantial-Pop-2702@reddit
Please don't use Reddit for these types of posts, this site is completely compromised.
asm_lover@reddit
Mirrored it to my personal codeberg just in case https://codeberg.org/svin/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
ondraondraondraondra@reddit
Already down.
dr_strang@reddit
up for me
ChaosDaemon9@reddit
Post on Hacker News as well.
omicreative@reddit
Can you elaborate how how you were able to track down the sources in this way. Did you use websites? FOIAs? I'm sorry, I'd be new to doing such research.
Right now we're facing interesting and similar types of legislation in Massachusetts. It is more directed at literally banning most of the internet for people under 13, limiting it to 2 hours for people under 18, and putting everyone else through identifying we are NOT a minor, else our accounts will be deleted or severely limited without due process.
The bill violates the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 14th amendments, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and a number of laws in our own Constitution. It's hitting headlines right now as the strictest most draconian bill of them all. It was secretly tagged onto a cell phone in school policy, much of which is supported but also has some dangerous language (like using software to disable phones against people's rights, device confiscation against property seizure rights and more.)
I asked myself, who would do such a thing? Our state has a serious vendetta with Meta right now but this isn't very "Democratic". But it seems this bill only hands it's all over to big tech and requires information for sites that don't even need it like Wikipedia, Craigslist, etc. It's a privacy nightmare, and going to absolutely demolish open source, and disenfranchise millions of residents that are none the wiser.
To make matters worse, the Governor snuck a proposal to make it even worse, in her budget proposal with things like snow removal smh. All of this is going on without ANY of the proper and usual legislative process and being framed as an emergency.
In trying to research where the language of this bill came from, we've hit a lot of roadblocks. It's STRANGE that blue states are pushing this too. It's suspiciously happening everywhere all at once. In the US, the UK, the EU, AUS, CAD, different countries. Different legislatures. Different parties. All pushing the same policies. At the same times. With the same language. This is coordination, not coincidence.
It's being marketed as progressive but it's hardly so. Just the opposite. I'm GUESSING that some legislators probably tried to COPY legislation that seems to have more legs in court like Florida's legislation, because the wording looks so similar. But then I wonder, where did Florida get this legislation? Where did California?
It also seems like Meta is playing "both sides of the fence." There is a trail of them pushing for this to be on Apple and Google. And also a trail of them fighting things like this as well, especially around NetChoice, who has (rightly) won many cases.
I hate to be supportive of Meta specifically, or Social Media "Giants" in general, but where they're defending our actual rights --- real ones -- they're not wrong. In Massachusetts, I don't think opensource options are going to be able to afford to keep up with the rules. And sites like Bluesky have had to ban whole states like Mississippi because they couldn't do the requirements. It's going to disenfranchise millions of people and they don't even know how bad. Big FAFO situation happening.
RealJoeCracker@reddit
This is diabolical. This is an identity thieves smorgasbord. I can’t believe they now want us all to do the things that law enforcement used to to tell us not to do to avoid being a victim of identity theft. Hackers are patient, this information is not just going to be isolated to data brokers. We saw what happened on discord, we are all going to get discorded if this allowed in America
Ok_Challenge_1668@reddit
Honestly? Utah's version is significantly more reasonable than what California and Louisiana passed. It's basically "Apple and Google have to ask your age and get parent permission for kids." Still has privacy questions like how they verify your age but it's not the same dystopian surveillance architecture that this post was describing about the other states.
bio3c@reddit
I'm not from the US, but great work on that research, this is insanity.
NoFap_FV@reddit
This is what money does
ScreamThyLastScream@reddit
People like to blame money, but I think this is what being a greedy immoral piece of shit does.
NoFap_FV@reddit
Ehm... So.. being greedy about money... And money is not the problem?
BrunusManOWar@reddit
It's the American mindset
"It's the owners, not the guns"
So instead of restricting guns they instead have school and mall shootings and stand there helplessly
JessHorserage@reddit
This coming from linux is very interesting.
ScreamThyLastScream@reddit
Correct. Can be greedy with chocolate, chocolate isn't the problem. It's you.
BigOs4All@reddit
Being greedy about simply eating chocolate doesn't lead to genocide. Being greedy about making money off of chocolate HAS lead to genocide.
ScreamThyLastScream@reddit
Still blaming money for some reason, it is the people that are pieces of shit.
Hot_Cryptographer797@reddit
So what is your solution? Get rid of money? Reform education? Regulate corporations? Tax billionaires?
AcousticDetonation@reddit
Tax everything above 100 million
2rad0@reddit
That won't fix much, you'd be better of taking all income above 100x's minimum wage 40/hr week salary, and redistributing it equally to everyone with or without income.
ScreamThyLastScream@reddit
Reform culture. Change values. Encourage behaviors.
But I am sure we can keep trying to do the same things that don't work and expect different results. Like regulations, or taxes, or whatever other blame shifting everyone wishes to participate in.
BigOs4All@reddit
Reading comprehension, bud. Learn it.
ScreamThyLastScream@reddit
You really should.
BigOs4All@reddit
This isn't even up for debate. Sociopaths and others with mental health issues you're referring to? They seek out power and wealth. They largely do this in places like America where they are rewarded more heavily and the incentives pay out. They DON'T do this as frequently in societies where the incentive isn't there (Nordic Countries).
So yes those mental health issues are the nexus as is emotional immaturity and poor upbringing in general. But money and therefore power end up exacerbating it massively. Don't like reality? Take it up with someone else.
Coroebus@reddit
It's a maladaptive behavior on the human's part. Something was broken in them and they can't/won't fix it and instead make the entire world miserable rather than understand that their parents did not in fact do the best they could and probably didn't not love them.
woah_haha_lmao@reddit
capitalist systems tend to reward sociopathy by way of letting you win with "any means possible" even if it means doing immoral and/or unethical things, the people that accumulate the most money usually "win" it by making sure competition doesnt get in their way, or by being a descendant of that kind of family member
the ratio of moral to immoral rich people is very heavily skewed to the wrong side
MichaelCrossAC@reddit
It is an inherent evil in all social hierarchies, since it not only promotes violent and cruel behavior as a way to "take shortcuts to the top," but it can also become self-immune and difficult to eradicate once unscrupulous people begin to use the privileges of such a system to extend their actions and shield themselves.
The duty of every society was to police itself to avoid this phenomenon of "this amount of power is already too much power," but we missed that train a long time ago (and we continue to miss it).
FunnyLettuce3370@reddit
Inflationary money creates the greedy immoral piece
red_nuts@reddit
You are correct. The problem is not billionaires. The problem is that we have terrible billionaires. I propose a program to recruit some angelic billionaires. Who is with me?
AX11Liveact@reddit
Money and greedy, immoral pieces of shit seem to have mutual attraction.
SkyNice2442@reddit
Immoral people will always exist, but money expands the amount of damage that they can inflict towards a populace.
ScreamThyLastScream@reddit
Wrong again, money enables good people as much as immoral people to have an impact on the world. Baby, bathwater. You commies sure come out of the woods when the word money is mentioned.
SkyNice2442@reddit
Not a commie, but it is clear that it is not working out in practice. There's no opposition that effectively lobbies for the opposite cause, because it wouldn't be remotely profitable for them to do so. Even if there were one, the fact that this exists shows that it does more harm than good.
No entity should possess this amount of power to undermine the interests of their voters.
Content_Wasabi_4213@reddit
how do you think you get money exactly
ScreamThyLastScream@reddit
Depends on who you are usually.
wonklebobb@reddit
it's ouroboros: money is both the goal and the tool to get there
SkyNice2442@reddit
The damage that billionaires do this is country is far too great. All of them should be severely taxed so that they can no longer negatively impact country through their selfishness.
IT_Warlock_@reddit
They deserve more than taxation.
bhison@reddit
Severely ~~t~~axed
SirDefiant3171@reddit
Agreed I actually kind of want to float this idea over to Bernie's desk or something so that he could create a new tax law calling it:
The E.P.S.T.E.I.N. Act; Eliminating Private Sanctuaries for Trafficking & Exploitation by Immense Net-worth Act: This law exists to prevent the next Epstein. It's unforgettable & frames the opposition as supporting or defending a pedophile's ability to hide severe crimes against children with their large wealth & influence. The same way that they are trying to frame all of these age verification bills as "protecting children", we can just use the same tactics against them to get actual legislation passed for regular citizens while making billionaires finally pay their fair share in taxes, fund SS & other programs, pay down the deficit, improve education in public schools & more. Any Dem or Rep who chooses to vote against the bill will be looked at with extreme suspicion as if protecting the predators instead of children & probably would be voted out of office immediately after.
OccasionallyImmortal@reddit
Billionaires can't accomplish much without corrupt people in power. Consider as well that this was done to avoid bills introduced elsewhere which placed age verification responsibilities on social media. Meta avoided the additional responsibilities by lobbying to make it belong to someone else. These bills don't exist because of Meta. Meta is just playing the political game to push these stupid laws onto someone else's inbox.
goldenroman@reddit
This topic obviously needs as much attention as it can get, but this was clearly written by an LLM, so doesn’t make much sense to compliment the research work. At best OP thought of a good question and made sure it was formatted well enough for Reddit. Not a bad thing but they should’ve been much more clear about what they’re telling us to read.
Syrelian@reddit
??? How do you take all this research, through myriad hoops, and go "Yeah that was an LLM"??? Are you just allergic to reading yourself? Cause it was clear, robust, and very well backed in a way an LLM does not manage
goldenroman@reddit
“Are you allergic to reading yourself?”
Lol, alright buddy. You clearly have no idea what “an LLM can manage.” It’s very obvious to those familiar. I just checked their comment history and found someone else who recognized it within seconds.
ChatGPT has a “Deep Research” mode.
The format is very predictable; it’s using rules of three a lot, brief, bolded lists that read like they were made in a single pass up on the fly instead of carefully selected/edited…
The cheesy, corny, “it’s not X, it’s Y,” is common throughout: “The definitions are what matter, not the news summaries. 🤓😎☝️”
TeaspoonWrites@reddit
Unfortunately it appears to be not so great work, if you go to the github it says Claude was used as a "research assistant" which means the entire "study" is suspect at best.
jasonbrownjourno@reddit
.. in which case, it should be super easy to find flaws, or at least one, right? There's even an 'issues' tab where you can raise 'issues' such as yours! Off you go, can't wait to hear what you find.
Technical-Seaweed808@reddit
How did this post end up hidden behind moderator approval? Had i not left this in a tab in my browser i could not even get back to the subs. But the info in the post is now being hidden. Where do we question the mods intentions and goals?
Altruistic-Smile-969@reddit
this is wild, the implications of those bills are huge for privacy. it really feels like they're setting up a system that benefits big corp interests while leaving smaller projects in the dust. if you're looking for a way to navigate this kind of stuff, houseofgolde could be helpful for figuring out how to position yourself in this landscape they create strategic blueprints and decision architectures for credibility
dorfsmay@reddit
Amazing work!
Definitely worth posting on /r/privacy
Have you contacted organizations and individual fighting for privacy rights like: * the Electronic Frontier Foundation (u/EFForg ) * the American Civil Liberties Union * TechFreedom * the Center for Democracy & Technology * the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project * The Intercept_ * Senator Ron Wyden * Senator Marsha Blackburn
ApprehensiveGap4186@reddit
Senator Blackburn? Lol she is literally named above as the enemy
powertoast@reddit
One of these is not like the others. Senator Blackburn has and continues to be one of the worst examples of how to create internet law.
Lindensan@reddit
I never thought Facebook is rich enough to singlehandedly change world to digital gulag
Lowetheiy@reddit
This reads like LLM generated, how do we know what is real and what is hallucinated?
micnolmad@reddit
My though exactly. I didn't even have to open the post before I suspected ai.
analogWeapon@reddit
This is too much great work to be just a reddit post. Thank you.
lifeintel9@reddit
I don't understand how the hell they aren't sued to the ground.
Like... they have no remorse. Besides, those news seem to be old and YET seems like it's not well known.
They're trying hard to keep that secret.
I'll read all the sources eventually
ButterflyMundane7187@reddit
Why is this in /linux? It belongs in places like /conspiracy.
omidus@reddit
So, who is calling their senator and congressmen here?
DMightyHero@reddit
Why are all your posts deleted? lol?
PGalileo@reddit
this just smells of a limited hangout, who even is this person?
Lucky-Side4721@reddit
The goal of age verification and digital ID is to suppress independent journalists and whistleblowers. We must protect our rights by opposing digital ID and age verification laws at all costs.
PlaneJoke6172@reddit
honestly this is wild to read. makes me think about orgs like sian chay that actually operate transparently with real community accountability. the contrast between genuine nonprofit work and whatever this shell group is doing is pretty stark ngl
siodhe@reddit
I love your research. But I have to add one disturbing possibility (like we needed that):
The bill doesn't say it has to be local API calls. It's entirely possible that it could be read as mandating a service to provide info, so that it could be invoked by your local app on behalf of some (for simplicity) a website, at which your computer has to respond directly to that website by sending the info out of band, including the age signal and IPs/ports of the related connection the invocation was for.
Now, why would anyone want that? Well, it could be argued that the local apps are less trustworthy than a single system service, or that the government wants to block sex offenders from being able to browse elementary school sites, or whatever it takes to invoke the old "Save the Children!" flag, corrupted as it usually is.
Later, an authoritarian government, could amend the KOSA or something to mandate that what's sent back is an opaque data block the government will just hand you. Said block would contain the age-signal at some offset, sure, but probably also various personal info and government opinion about you (party affiliation?) could be put in.
That last step is to define the protocol to not TLS, on the assumption that the data block is "already encrypted to protect you". That allows for Internet backbone routers to influence, log, or outright block your connections based on that content or what site you were trying to connect to. Not a member of The Party? Degraded connections, blocked from "objectionable sites", etc, etc.
Sure that all seems impossible in the face of what we believe about America, but it's also entirely straightforward for a tightly controlled federal government to convert KOSA into exactly this type of fascist Internet control.
Save the Children.
Loud_Willow_6742@reddit
Because what is happening seems to be orchestrated, it is important to construct timeless for every country to make it easier to find connections. With the help of AI, I have made a timeline of the events that lead to the current Brazilian legislation of internet ID'ing using child protection as justification. From what it looks like, it seems american big techs were heavily invested in Brazil, but on the surface they were pushing against age verification. Openly, they were against putting the responsibility and fining the platforms when minors use it. I suspect this might be a smoke screen to reduce suspiscions considering the data raised by OP. Moreover, the timing these laws were passed, as OP said, seems very similar. The push also started in 2022 and with a huge coalition of child protection entities, similarly to what happened in the US. I was not able to find any connection between those brazilian entities and the american ones, nor if most of them are legit. The biggest ones are funded by large banks like Santander. The timing of the events and nature of those entities are what seem to link everything together.
Moreover:
1-The current narrative is that big techs are *against* verification.
2-The ID'ing will be done by private companies (more on this later on other posts)
3-Nowhere in the law is stated if security measures need to be used to protect the privacy of the users
4-The law also includes operating systems
The following text is AI generated and the sources curated manually by me. The sources seem to reflect what the AI summarized accurately.
TIMELINE SUMMARY:
Loud_Willow_6742@reddit
Meta's Involvement in Brazil's Digital ECA (Lei 15.325/2025): A Comprehensive Timeline
Research compiled from the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies Open Data API (dadosabertos.camara.leg.br) and investigative reporting. All source links are provided in full.
Background: The Law and What It Does
Brazil's Digital ECA — formally PL 2628/2022, enacted as Lei 15.325/2025 (later also referred to in some outlets as Lei 15.211/2025, reflecting different numbering at different stages of passage) — is a child and adolescent protection law that updates the Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (ECA) for the digital age. Originally authored by Senator Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE) and introduced on December 10, 2022, the law places the compliance burden directly on digital platforms, banning self-declaration for age verification, requiring parental consent for users under 16, and imposing fines of up to 10% of a company's Brazilian revenue for non-compliance. It took effect on March 17, 2026.
The bill passed through both chambers of the Brazilian Congress but not without significant turbulence. Industry lobbying stripped a loot box ban from the Chamber version; the Senate restored it in the final text.
2022
December 10, 2022 — Bill Introduced in the Senate
Senator Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE) introduces PL 2628/2022, titled "Dispõe sobre a proteção de crianças e adolescentes em ambientes digitais." The bill establishes a framework for digital platform accountability around minors, including age verification, parental controls, and sanctions.
Source: Brazilian Chamber of Deputies legislative record
https://www.camara.leg.br/proposicoesWeb/fichadetramitacao?idProposicao=2477340
Late 2024
December 2024 — Senate Committee Approves the Bill Terminatively; Sent to Chamber
PL 2628/2022 is approved terminatively by the Senate's Comissão de Comunicação e Direito Digital (CCDD) in December 2024. "Terminatively" means the approval was final at committee level — no full Senate floor vote was required, as no appeals were filed by the December 5 deadline. On December 9, 2024, the Senate transmitted the bill to the Chamber of Deputies via Ofício SF nº 1353/2024. The bill had been previously approved by the Comissão de Direitos Humanos (CDH) under Senator Flávio Arns (PSB-PR) and by the Comissão de Constituição, Justiça e Cidadania (CCJ) under Senator Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO). The Senate text included a ban on loot boxes in electronic games.
Throughout its Senate passage, the bill was supported by the Coalizão Direitos na Rede (CDR), a network of more than 50 civil society organizations working on digital rights — including entities focused on research, consumer defense, and human rights. Among the organizations that participated in hearings or signed letters of support are: Instituto Alana, Data Privacy Brasil (Associação Data Privacy de Pesquisa), IDEC (Instituto de Defesa do Consumidor), IRIS-BH (Instituto de Referência em Internet e Sociedade), Agenda 227, and the Coalizão Brasileira pelo Fim da Violência contra Crianças e Adolescentes. The CDR explicitly supported the Senate text and called for its core provisions to be preserved during Chamber review.
Sources:
Senate official legislative record for PL 2628/2022:
https://www25.senado.leg.br/web/atividade/materias/-/materia/154901
Congresso Nacional bicameral record (transmission to Chamber):
https://www.congressonacional.leg.br/materias/materias-bicamerais/-/ver/pl-2628-2022
Coalizão Direitos na Rede — note of support and contributions (July 4, 2025):
https://direitosnarede.org.br/2025/07/04/nota-de-apoio-e-contribuicoes-ao-projeto-de-lei-no-2628-de-2022-que-define-protecao-de-criancas-e-adolescentes-no-ambiente-digital/
Coalizão Direitos na Rede — "Aprova Já" statement (August 15, 2025):
https://direitosnarede.org.br/2025/08/15/aprova-ja-congresso-pl-2628-avanca-protecao-das-criancas-e-adolescentes/
Educação e Território on Senate passage and civil society support:
https://educacaoeterritorio.org.br/reportagens/pl-sobre-direitos-digitais-de-criancas-e-adolescentes-e-aprovado-no-senado/
Senado Notícias on loot box provision and Senate-Chamber dynamic (August 21, 2025):
https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2025/08/21/projeto-que-protege-criancas-na-internet-volta-a-analise-do-senado
Loud_Willow_6742@reddit
2025
Early 2025 — Chamber Review: Platforms Push to Weaken the Bill
The bill is published in the Chamber on February 27, 2025 and assigned to the Comissão de Comunicação under rapporteur Jadyel Alencar. During the review period, a wave of 38 amendments is filed — 31 by deputies affiliated with PL (Partido Liberal), União Brasil, and Novo. The amendments are not pro-forma: they target the bill's core enforcement mechanisms and seek to reduce platform accountability. Alongside the amendments, 25 formal technical notes (notas técnicas) are submitted directly to the rapporteur's office by a range of entities, including tech companies, later obtained by Agência Pública via freedom of information requests.
Among the specific changes the tech industry pushed for: the outright deletion of the article requiring platforms to retain data on child sexual abuse content to hand over to law enforcement; and the removal of the "duty of care" (dever de cuidado) provision, which would have required platforms to proactively identify and mitigate risks to minors — widely considered the bill's most significant structural obligation. Both Meta and Google submitted technical notes opposing the dever de cuidado concept. The Conselho Digital, the tech industry lobbying association whose members include Meta, Google, TikTok, Kwai, and Discord, had submitted a technical note as early as March 2024 — when the bill was still in the Senate — which was formally incorporated into the legislative record by August 12, 2025.
The platforms had partial success. The dever de cuidado term was removed from the rapporteur's substitute text published on August 12, 2025 — a direct concession to positions filed by Meta, Google, and aligned deputies. The rapporteur justified the change by arguing the term created legal uncertainty. The article requiring retention of abuse data, however, was not removed. The complete deletion of platform liability provisions sought by the Conselho Digital was not adopted. On balance, platform lobbying shifted specific language in the bill's text without dismantling its central architecture.
Note on timing: the ghost-authorship of amendments filed by Deputy Fernando Máximo (União Brasil-RO) was not publicly known during the review period. It was only revealed in August 2025 when The Intercept Brasil analyzed document metadata embedded in official Chamber filings. That discovery is documented under August 14, 2025, below.
Sources:
Agência Pública on big tech technical notes and what platforms sought to remove (August 18, 2025): https://apublica.org/2025/08/pl-2628-por-que-big-techs-sao-contra-trechos-do-projeto/
The Intercept Brasil on ghost-authorship, August 14, 2025: https://www.intercept.com.br/2025/08/14/deputado-bolsonarista-emenda-lobista-meta-lei-criancas-internet/
economicnewsbrasil.com.br summary: https://economicnewsbrasil.com.br/2025/08/19/lobista-meta-emenda-deputado-protecao-infantil/
May 15, 2024 (Senate CCDD Hearing) — Meta's First Formal Congressional Appearance
Note: Although this hearing occurred before the Chamber amendment phase of 2025, it represents Meta's first documented formal appearance in the legislative process around PL 2628. Taís Niffinegger, identified in official records as Meta's "Manager of Public Policy for Safety and Well-being," appears before the Senate's CCDD (Comissão de Comunicação e Direito Digital). Other platforms present at this hearing include Google, YouTube, and TikTok.
Source: Brazilian Chamber of Deputies Open Data API
https://dadosabertos.camara.leg.br/api/v2
May 2025 — Influencer Felca Begins Activist Turn
Felipe Bressanim Pereira, a YouTuber and comedian from Londrina, Paraná, known by his online persona "Felca," begins pivoting from pure entertainment to social commentary. His first foray into advocacy targets online gambling — specifically the widespread promotion of games like "Jogo do Tigrinho" (Fortune Tiger) and sports betting platforms. This marks the beginning of what will become a pattern of Felca using his multi-million-follower audience for public interest reporting.
Source: brasilparalelo.com.br, August 2025:
https://www.brasilparalelo.com.br/artigos/panorama-completo-do-video-adultizacao-de-felca-sobre-a-exploracao-infantil
June 11, 2025 — Chamber CCOM Hearing: Meta and Google Testify
This is the fifth and final public hearing in the Chamber's review of PL 2628/2022, held by the Comissão de Comunicação (CCOM). It is the only Chamber hearing where Meta formally appears. The hearing is framed as being about "digital education, parental controls, and inclusion" — the softest thematic framing of the five hearings, and notably distinct from earlier hearings that addressed platform responsibility and data protection more directly.
Event details (from Chamber API):
Event ID: 76693
Time: 3:30 PM to 8:08 PM
Location: Anexo II, Plenário 11, Chamber of Deputies, Brasília
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w64FybZifnw
The hearing was convened at the request of REQ 9/2025 CCOM, filed by Deputy Jadyel Alencar (REPUBLICANOS/PI), who is also the bill's rapporteur. REQ 9/2025 specifically named and invited Taís Niffinegger of Meta. Confirmed speakers from the platform industry were Roberta Rios (Manager of Public Policy, Google) and Taís Niffinegger (Manager of Public Policy for Safety and Well-being, Meta). Subsequent requests added Google's Flavia Annenberg (REQ 13/2025 by Deputy Marangoni, UNIÃO/SP), Felipe Lacerda of the Entertainment Software Association/ESA (REQ 16 and 17/2025 by Deputy Cleber Verde, MDB/MA), Ricardo Campos of the Legal Grounds Institute, and Marina Fernandes of IDEC (both via REQ 21/2025 by rapporteur Jadyel Alencar).
What was argued. The industry's interventions at this hearing — consistent with positions documented across the 25 technical notes submitted to the rapporteur — centered on three main lines. First, platforms argued for differentiating the legal treatment of children and adolescents, emphasizing that the latter have a "growing autonomy" requiring orientation rather than uniform restriction. This framing had the effect of softening the bill's default protection model. Second, industry representatives raised concerns about the bill's "duty of care" (dever de cuidado) provision — the requirement that platforms proactively identify and mitigate risks to minors — framing it as legally uncertain and commercially burdensome. Third, on age verification, the industry position consistently argued against platform-level verification as impractical, favoring models that would distribute or redirect that obligation. What was not said publicly at this hearing but was documented in the technical notes: platforms sought the complete deletion of the article requiring them to retain data on child sexual abuse content to hand to law enforcement — a request that was not adopted.
What the hearing produced. Rapporteur Jadyel Alencar described the overall process as "a great puzzle" built from contributions across society. His substitute text (substitutivo), published on August 12, retained the duty of care provision, the data retention obligation, and the ban on behavioral profiling of minors for advertising — all of which the industry had sought to weaken or remove. The Conselho Digital's technical note was explicitly referenced in the rapporteur's report as having been received and considered. Its central requests were not adopted.
Sources:
Agência Câmara / saobentoemfoco.com.br (June 10, 2025 pre-hearing notice): https://saobentoemfoco.com.br/comissao-debate-educacao-digital-controle-parental-e-inclusao/
Portal Câmara official notice: https://www.camara.leg.br/noticias/1167830-comissao-debate-educacao-digital-controle-parental-e-inclusao/
Republicanos party account of hearing outcome (June 13, 2025): https://republicanos10.org.br/republicanos-na-camara/camara-debate-educacao-digital-controle-parental-e-inclusao-na-internet/
REQ document records (Chamber event page): https://www.camara.leg.br/evento-legislativo/76215
Conselho Digital account of prior CCOM hearing (May 21, 2025), documenting recurring industry arguments: https://conselhodigital.org.br/2025/05/conselho-digital-participa-de-audiencia-publica-na-camara-sobre-responsabilidade-das-plataformas-digitais-e-protecao-de-dados-pessoais-a-luz-do-pl-2628-2022/
Agência Pública on the 25 technical notes and what platforms sought to remove (August 18, 2025): https://apublica.org/2025/08/pl-2628-por-que-big-techs-sao-contra-trechos-do-projeto/
Data Privacy Brasil analysis of the rapporteur's substitute text (August 18, 2025): https://www.dataprivacybr.org/relatorio-e-substitutivo-do-projeto-de-lei-2628-2022-o-que-ha-de-novo-no-eca-digital/
Loud_Willow_6742@reddit
August 6–12, 2025 — The Felca Video and Its Political Shockwave
On August 6, 2025, Felipe Bressanim Pereira — a multi-million-follower YouTuber and comedian known as Felca — publishes a nearly 50-minute video titled "Adultização" documenting the exposure and exploitation of children and adolescents in Brazilian digital content. He chose not to monetize the video. It accumulates more than 20 million views in under four days and exceeds 42 million views within weeks. In the 11 days following its publication, official channels registered 261 reports of online sexual violence against children — 243 of them filed after the video went up, the highest volume for that period in six years according to the Ministry of Human Rights.
The political impact was immediate and unusually cross-partisan. Across the ideological spectrum, lawmakers praised the video and demanded action. The Chamber President announced legislation would be prioritized. At least 60 of 81 senators signed a request to open a CPI (Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito) to investigate the exposure of children by influencers and platforms. More than 32 new bills on related themes were introduced in the Chamber. The video effectively transformed PL 2628/2022 — which had been slowly working its way through committee — into a political emergency.
At the same time, part of the political opposition, aligned with Bolsonarismo, began reframing the existing PL 2628/2022 not as child protection but as censorship. The hashtag "PL da Mordaça" (Gag Law Bill) was pushed across platforms, with 38% of usage on X, 30% on Instagram, and 24% on Facebook. This narrative closely mirrored the "freedom of expression" arguments that Meta and other platforms had been advancing through formal lobbying channels since the start of Chamber review.
The timing is significant for the lobbying story: Meta's formal appearance in the CCOM hearing (June 11) and the ghost-authored amendments (April) both preceded the Felca video by months. Lobbying occurred in a low-pressure environment; it was the video that collapsed that environment.
Sources:
Gazeta do Povo profile of Felca (August 13, 2025):
https://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/vida-e-cidadania/quem-e-felca-influenciador-que-denunciou-a-erotizacao-infantil-nas-redes/
Gazeta do Povo on social and political impact:
https://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/vida-e-cidadania/adultizacao-felca-comocao/
RAP Growing comprehensive summary:
https://rapgrowing.com/felca-expoe-exploracao-e-adultizacao-infantil-nas-redes-video-viral-vira-cpi-projetos-de-lei-e-boom-de-denuncias/
Senado Notícias on CPI and Senate return vote (August 21, 2025):
https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2025/08/21/projeto-que-protege-criancas-na-internet-volta-a-analise-do-senado
Agência Pública on Bolsonarista campaign against PL 2628 (August 22, 2025):
https://apublica.org/2025/08/pl-2628-bolsonaristas-contra-lei-de-protecao-infantil-nas-redes/
Agência Brasil on PL 2628 overview:
https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/politica/noticia/2025-08/conheca-projeto-que-regula-redes-sociais-para-criancas-e-adolescentes
August 14, 2025 — The Intercept Brasil Reveals Ghost-Authorship of Meta's Amendments
The Intercept Brasil publishes its investigation into the April 2025 amendments. Analysis of metadata embedded in official Chamber document files shows that two amendments formally submitted by Deputy Fernando Máximo (União Brasil-RO) were not written by him: the actual author, according to the metadata, is Marconi Borges Machado, a public policy manager at Meta. The investigation makes visible what had been structurally invisible — a practice of direct corporate authorship of legislation, filed under a legislator's name without disclosure. When confronted by The Intercept Brasil, Meta confirmed the substance of the findings while framing it as routine, stating that its contributions to the PL 2628 debate "are publicly known" and that the proposals it made were "recorded in the rapporteur's report." The company did not comment on whether its lobbyists routinely draft legislation for Brazilian parliamentarians. The story arrives as the bill is approaching a floor vote and becomes a significant public liability for the platform industry's positioning.
Source: The Intercept Brasil (August 14, 2025): https://www.intercept.com.br/2025/08/14/deputado-bolsonarista-emenda-lobista-meta-lei-criancas-internet/
August 19, 2025 — Chamber Approves Urgency
The Chamber approves urgency request REQ 1785/2025 for PL 2628/2022, allowing it to go directly to the floor for a vote without passing through committee. The vote is held symbolically — without a formal roll call — before most opposition deputies arrived in the chamber. Opposition members demanded a nominal vote; Chamber President Hugo Motta declined, stating no written request had been formally registered at the Mesa Diretora, and moved on to the next agenda item. Motta then announced the floor vote on the bill's merits would proceed the following day, August 20, following a morning general debate session.
Sources:
Portal da Câmara dos Deputados (official): https://www.camara.leg.br/noticias/1190383-deputados-aprovam-urgencia-para-projeto-sobre-protecao-de-criancas-em-ambiente-digital
Correio Braziliense on urgency vote and confrontation with Bolsonaristas (August 19, 2025): https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/politica/2025/08/7230170-camara-aprova-urgencia-de-pl-da-adultizacao-e-motta-tem-bate-boca-com-bolsonaristas.html
Gazeta do Povo on the vote dynamics (August 19, 2025): https://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/republica/pl-da-adultizacao-urgencia-protecao-digital-menores/
NDMais on urgency approval and general debate composition (August 19, 2025): https://ndmais.com.br/politica/menores-nas-redes-camara-aprova-urgencia-e-comissao-debate/
Agência Pública on the urgency approval and the day's events (August 22, 2025): https://apublica.org/2025/08/criancas-nas-redes-bastidores-e-lobby-na-aprovacao-do-pl-2628/
Loud_Willow_6742@reddit
August 20, 2025 — Voting Day: Lobbyists in the Corridors
The day of the floor vote is marked by intense behind-the-scenes activity. The agenda had not been officially published that morning, but a vote was widely expected.
Rapporteur Jadyel Alencar spent the day in meetings with the Evangelical caucus, the Catholic caucus, and parties including PL and Progressistas. Major Bolsonarist figures including Bia Kicis (PL-DF) and Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) were present in some of these meetings. Key negotiations centered on the "autoridade nacional" — the designated enforcement authority for the law, which platforms and the political right both sought to weaken or replace.
Meta and Google each sent dedicated teams to the Chamber. The Conselho Digital — a tech industry lobbying association whose members include Meta, Google, TikTok, Kwai, and Discord — also had staff present. Representatives circulated through hallways and approached parliamentarians as they moved between the annexes and the chamber floor.
In the corridor connecting the annexes to the Salão Verde, a Meta lobbyist identified as Kaliana Kalache, the company's director of public relations, held an informal conversation with Deputies Gustavo Gayer (PL-GO) and Gilvan da Federal (PL-ES). This encounter was documented by Agência Pública journalists present at the scene.
By around 6:00 PM, the outcome remained uncertain enough that a rumor circulated suggesting Motta had changed his mind. At that point, Motta called rapporteur Jadyel Alencar directly, reaffirmed his commitment to the vote, and asked: "is the text ready?" The session was formally opened at 7:24 PM — 47 seconds after the final substitute text of PL 2628/2022 was entered into the system.
The Chamber approved the bill. The Intercept Ghost-authorship amendments were not incorporated into the final substitute text used for the vote.
Source — Agência Pública full account of the voting day (August 22, 2025):
https://apublica.org/2025/08/criancas-nas-redes-bastidores-e-lobby-na-aprovacao-do-pl-2628/
August–September 2025 — Senate Adds Loot Box Ban Back
The bill returns to the Senate for review of the Chamber's amendments. The Senate restores the loot box prohibition that had been removed from the Chamber version — a provision the gaming industry had lobbied to eliminate. This represents one clear area where lobbying succeeded in the Chamber but failed in the final text.
2025 (Enacted) — Lei 15.325/2025 (Also Referenced as Lei 15.211/2025)
The bill is signed into law. Key provisions of the final text include:
Ban on self-declaration of age (the "I am over 18" checkbox model)
Mandatory parental consent for users under 16
Active age verification obligations on platforms
Parental control tools required
Restrictions on behavioral advertising targeting minors
Semiannual transparency reports required from platforms
Fines up to 10% of Brazilian revenue (or up to R$50 million in the absence of Brazilian revenue)
Loot box restrictions (restored by Senate)
The law takes effect March 17, 2026. As of that date, compliance burden falls directly on platforms.
Sources:
Chamber of Deputies legislative record:
https://www.camara.leg.br/proposicoesWeb/fichadetramitacao?idProposicao=2477340
Quero Bolsa explainer on Lei Felca:
https://querobolsa.com.br/revista/o-que-e-a-lei-felca
Projuris legal analysis:
https://www.projuris.com.br/blog/pl-2628-eca-digital/
Data Privacy Brasil on bill's content:
https://www.dataprivacybr.org/relatorio-e-substitutivo-do-projeto-de-lei-2628-2022-o-que-ha-de-novo-no-eca-digital/
fightforthefuture@reddit
'Age Verification' mandates are going to ruin the Internet. They have always been a subterfuge for more data collection, more surveillance and censorship. We've been screaming this from the rooftops on other platforms and so glad to see the truth about what's lurking behind these laws claiming to be about 'kids online safety' being exposed here. Thank you for this incredible amount of investigative labor you've put in!
We've been campaigning against the spread of online ID checks and other dangerous 'kids online safety' Trojan Horse bills for internet censorship at BadInternetBills.com , but if anyone wants to take action against online id checks specifically, sharing this tool we created here to press lawmakers FWIW: https://www.stoponlineidchecks.org/
Good_Ad_6337@reddit
good info but this is the linux subreddit
3krok@reddit
taking the post down after many people already screenshotted it and mirrored it seems like an incredibly smart decision that definitely won't inadvertently verify the claims being made
starman881@reddit
Something something Streisand effect
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
Update: I've been banned on r/opensource after creating a new post when the first was filtered by the automod. My new, second post on r/privacy was likely mass reported and is awaiting moderator approval, as is the new post on r/linux. I urge you to bookmark, save, and share the website. It has been configured and hardened against common exploits and features a robust defense-in-depth approach against attacks, modifications to it's content, and otherwise. It also hosts the most up to date repository and more consolidated findings.
Objective-Stranger99@reddit
Have you considered Anubis or another clanker protection measure?
Horror_Astronomer_69@reddit
To be honest with ya, I think that times of free internet are over. Freedom is expensive, in times of crisis only rich people can afford the unrestricted access to the www. Peasants are gonna watch tiktok and goon to hub.
Horror_Astronomer_69@reddit
what you gonna do about it?
shakamone@reddit
webslop supports git based deploys, has a Monaco editor in the browser, and full git integration. if your comfortable with the terminal its instant
Tyzek99@reddit
Aren't meta literally spying on people that use their ar glasses? Are they trying to age verify everyone so they can spy on children or something??
brandrdrengr@reddit
hack the mother fucking planet. wake up, shitheads, we own this. nop slide these motherfuckers into the financial grave. does nobody know how to live without sucking on a fucking tit or fat government cock? what the fuck happened? YOU DO REALIZE THAT WE MAKE ALL OF THIS SHIT UP. WE WRITE THIS STORY. Fuck man, maybe it's time to stop helping.
thecrius@reddit
From the UK here, I'm sure we will see something similar, we are already quite fucked with Palantir but there is no limit to worse.
Yuiopeem@reddit
At least palantir targets individuals and not LGBTQ minorities, as someone who is against all of this bullshit palantir is evil but not as evil as this
spartacle@reddit
Also from the UK and you have no idea how Palantir actually works or what it does - AMA
-Tan54@reddit
Wow, nice work! Are there news outlets reporting on this?
FrankHarwald@reddit
Slashdot & Reason magazine did
Acceptable_Stress154@reddit
Phone screen repair tools
mackrevinak@reddit
archived version:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260313143853/https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/
SnowKierke@reddit
It's not available for me
FLX-S48@reddit
Turns out it was never about the children at all, who would have guessed?! /s
GoldSeeker518@reddit
Checking into privacy stuff is super important. Crazy how operating systems grab all this data with barely any checks. Walnut was great for finding privacy experts. They shared a ton of useful info. Setting it up was kind of a pain, but totally worth it.
creativeboulder@reddit
Thank you for the deep dive. I'll need some time to read through this before I can comment, but it's really appreciated
kkkkcrying@reddit
Hmmmm nem li & nem lerei
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
Ui.
vroomik@reddit
thanks for the great job you did, kudos Could you steelman the case for me, why children who use computers, shouldn't be surveiled and their content filtered, with the consent of the the parents obviously, seems simpler job isn't?
nutag@reddit
Impressive detective work how do I hire you for our privacy company?
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
DM me
Pheezy2002@reddit
Wow, looking into those age verification bills really opened my eyes! It's great you're highlighting privacy issues. Tools like walnut are awesome for professionals to connect and talk about stuff like this. Definitely keep it up.
1zzie@reddit
I hope 404media interviews you for their podcast. Write to them
Romona_Moran@reddit
TLDR it’s zuck
KingdomBobs@reddit
Thank you for your service good sir
Fuck meta and fuck our sellout government
roidrole@reddit
America isn’t even sold to the highest bidder. It’s sold for pennies
i_likebeefjerky@reddit
I see reports of politicians taking bribes, and it’s like 5 thousand dollars. It’s not always the super rich making bribes, most people would come up with 5k if it meant a law swung their way and made them more money long term.
GonzoKata@reddit
That 5k is just what you know about. its what they are bold enough to DECLARE in public that they took. It comes with agreements and perks that we'll never know about
i_likebeefjerky@reddit
Have you seen this happen or is it speculation?
Quiet-Owl9220@reddit
What if good people started bribing for good things? Is it crazy?
Indolent_Bard@reddit
Good people don't have millions of dollars to do this with.
Quiet-Owl9220@reddit
One does not need millions, we just established that even $5k could buy some influence.
Crowdsourced lobbying?
Indolent_Bard@reddit
Genuinely, why is that not already a thing? Or maybe it is.
Quiet-Owl9220@reddit
I guess when it actually matters we would simply be outbid. But at least it would cost the bastards more money.
g4nk3r@reddit
Its probably also high paying jobs, lucrative consulting contracts, board seats and other benefits that aren't cash transfers
Oorangootang@reddit
You can add being paid huge amounts for speaking at private events and book deals to the list. Oh, and crypto of course.
g4nk3r@reddit
Yeah, the ways to get some extra on the side are basically endless.
GonzoKata@reddit
Its sold so that advertiser for ad campaigns can roll in the dough.
Its all sold out and all that money goes to MEDIA COMPANIES.
That last $10,000 two nights before election looks really sweet when your whole campaign is based on ad pushes instead of helping people.
When you volenteer, what are you usually asking for? Money. Money for what? Advertising. Because how will your neighbors possibly know about it unless we take as much pocket change as we can from YOU, and then sell out your will anyway for mere thousands of dollars.
GrownThenBrewed@reddit
This was the most shocking to me, selling out the country with most likely an onflow effect to the entire world and it's only for like an amount an average high paying engineer would earn in a year. Certainly nothing to sneeze at, but I don't think I have a number to sell out the entire planet, especially on behalf of the Zuck
bobdobalina@reddit
no wonder we're all out
Zenkibou@reddit
I have the feeling that meta is doing this because there are laws that require social networks to check users age.
And because it can be hard to do it, they thought that offloading this task to third parties (operating systems) is better for them, so they are pushing this way.
The resulting technical solution is shit, but less liability for meta.
lsf_stan@reddit
yeah this was my first thought after looking through the post
I'm not defending Meta, but I can understand that, in the end it's easier to put that work on someone else. the OS
Fun_Debate3067@reddit
Meta and zuckerberg are a part of the bigger global power structure that wants the age verification. You are thinking about this in a shallow manner. You should be asking who started the global push for age verification laws in the first place, and why are both republicans and democrats in agreement about them, and who has that much influence.
Heritage foundation, the think tank that's helping sponsor these bills is the same think tank that pushed the project Esther, aimed to silence all criticism of Israel and Chews.
Also refer to my other comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/comment/oa8e4sx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
upbeatchief@reddit
I am curious, what kind if data are they looking for in particular. Faces, government IDs? And why?
You don't throw this much money after something unless you think it's extremely valuable.
Cute-Percentage-6660@reddit
Reminder that zuckerberg is complicit in at least one genocide due to taking 0 action to moderate myanmar facebook resulting in it being used to organize the rohingya genocide.
whatThePleb@reddit
Meta -> Heritage Foundation & Palantir
viera_enjoyer2@reddit
I hope this would be picked up by sites that talk about tech or linux. It's looks really well researched.
And also hope it doesn't get taken down again by corporate shills.
Coded_Kaa@reddit
Well it got taken down 😭
viera_enjoyer2@reddit
Meta is working over time.
IT_Warlock_@reddit
Hey, they paid good money to take this down!
Ghost-Mech@reddit
Which part? The post and git is still visible to me.
BackoffD@reddit
They took it down and when they realized the info breached containment on the internet they put it back up to keep pretending they're not working for shady interests
Coded_Kaa@reddit
It’s back 😭😂
NoJunket6950@reddit
Epstein guy moderators
helzblackdale@reddit
I hate mods. i truly hope they kill thmselves.
HackerNoGodYes@reddit
looks like it's back up now though?
AwareOfAlpacas@reddit
I hope that's due to the content and the work involved rather than the clean forms and presentation.
I feel like a lot of people rely on the latter, then skip reading in favor of a quick summary. "Looks well researched" means as much as "sounds well spoken".
We're in such a rush to move on to the next thing that we no longer take time to digest and comprehend the information on offer.
YummySalmonJerky@reddit
That's what I was thinking, too.
There are a few people who, by reputation, can present data and I'll accept it as generally true. But some rando on the Internet?
I mean, sure. Maybe it's all legit research, done by someone well-versed in this kind of thing, with verifiable sources and all that.
But likely it isn't.
WatermelonWithAFlute@reddit
you can check
asokatan0@reddit
but i think the main reverse card to fight this back is "OS dont have contact children, but social media", at the end if they want to pull something need to verify it, need proves that is that way, if OS are harmful or have any type of influence on children, then prove it, otherwise all these bills against OS should be rejected...
walushon@reddit
As much as I appreciate the research, did you really have to use an AI to write all this up? Now I'm not sure what's fact and what's pure AI slop. Kinda undermines your point.
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
https://tboteproject.com/verify/
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
A good update!
Hello, please consider donating to the project so I can further this research! Last week, I had met with one of the representatives pushing one of these bills, and while I cannot share further details about who, what and where it was, it so far, has made an impact. There are talks of excluding open source software, which would include Linux. I will post the results of this meeting sometime this or next week, but for the privacy and integrity of where it is headed, cannot share it at this moment.
Monero donations can be sent to the address on this webpage,
Support Findings: https://tboteproject.com/donate/
If you'd like to send a donation through a more convenient manner such as Paypal, DM me.
The donations raised by PumpFun so far will allow me to expand to new research projects, host new websites and an anonymous email server, and eventually, visiting more representatives within and perhaps out of state as an independent constituent, however, I recommend utilizing Monero for donations.
Thank you for your support!
The_Real_Grand_Nagus@reddit
CO Senate vote record:
https://leg.colorado.gov/bill_votes/28560
utrecht1976@reddit
This has to be repeated everywhere: If the goal is child safety, why regulate the operating system, which has no direct contact with children, instead of the social media platforms where the documented harm occurs?
Mindless-Tension-118@reddit
Tldr?
KingKoopa777@reddit
Zuckerberg cares so much about child safety that he's giving billions of dollars to politicians so they pass OS-level data collection and verification. And he's so humble that he's using shell institutions to do it, in order to not receive recognition for his noble and selfless efforts.
I mean, why wouldn't you trust the guy who betrayed and stole from the friend who gave him the money to start Facebook?
oldDotredditisbetter@reddit
+100000 meta pedo bucks
RoamingGeek@reddit
I'm more interested in the Global push for this and the entity behind it.
moist504@reddit
Getting into age verification and data use really opened my eyes. You gotta have transparency and control over your personal info. When I was looking into all this, walnut linked me up with privacy experts who shared some great insights. It really helped me get a better grip on things.
Valnar@reddit
From the text of AB-1043
From the OS side.
From the application side
These seem to be data minimization portions though?
digiphaze@reddit
Meta.... "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise."
khelvaster@reddit
You can shim the OS call so...what's going on? Are they going to make Fakes & Shima illegal?
Purity_the_Kitty@reddit
We already thought about our response. If embedded systems are considered operating software and require these provisions we will be closing all US offices, the board meetings already happened. No more moving to another state, no more playing games with this corrupt country, the vote was unanimous. The whole company will leave the US.
CyberAttacked@reddit
Tldr ; It’s Mark Cuckerberg (META)
Fun_Debate3067@reddit
No, he is just a frontman for you to directly blame while the real culprits get away with it.
Israel has officially declared it's "war on social media" as the most important one in achieving it's strategic goals. They recently bought US Tiktok, and have acquired the largest mainstream media conglomerate in the world, all with the help of the compromised US government.
Then they put their Chewish dual citizenship spies in the CEO positions of every single one of those companies. Now which ethnicity is Zuckerberg again?
This is an obvious push to identify the critics of Israel so that they can be isolated, fired from important positions or even deported.
mydickinabox@reddit
What is Chewish? All I find are bagel shops with that name.
chicken-hearts@reddit
dude thinks the world is controlled by jewish lizard people.
Fun_Debate3067@reddit
Ch=J. They are also in control of reddit, any comment mentioning them negatively gets banned, so you have to get around the AI that's scanning the comments.
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Fun_Debate3067@reddit
Fun fact, the new CEO of US tiktok, Adam Presser is a Chewish guy that participated in the Chewish world forum and bragged about pushing censorship against "anti semitism".
They are all connected. Wake up.
ItzSwirlz@reddit
Well done. Consider me part of the fight.
ItzSwirlz@reddit
Hi op ( u/Ok_Lingonberry3296 - pinging for this info) - it looks like in January 2026 the NH Legislature introduced something along the lines of ASAA. I don't have time to check for connections, but here it is, if anything it helps the timeline: https://gc.nh.gov//bill_Status/billinfo.aspx?id=2217&inflect=2
manchuck@reddit
NYS also has A3946 in the assembly, which is focused on porn. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A3946
aReasonableStick@reddit
I'm not in the USA but its still highly concerning especially when theres connections to the Heritage Foundation. I wonder if they put their silly bills in states controlled by Democrats to also try and push people away from potentially voting for the Democrats. It honestly wouldnt surprise me if these same people are also pushing for age verification in the EU and UK.
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
The Heritage connection is documented and it goes deeper than most people realize. Heritage Foundation funded three of the six named organizations in the Digital Childhood Alliance coalition, which is the group pushing these bills nationally.
Those three are NCOSE (National Center on Sexual Exploitation), the Institute for Family Studies, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The last two received $50,000 each specifically for a "Protect Kids Online" initiative that produced the policy research underlying the ASAA framework.
There's also a direct personnel pipeline. Annie Chestnut Tutor worked as a legislative assistant to Senator Mike Lee, where her portfolio included tech and telecom policy. Lee introduced the federal ASAA. Tutor then moved to Heritage Foundation as a policy analyst, where she now publishes reports advocating for the same bill her former boss introduced. Her testimonial was on the DCA website from its very first day of existence, before the organization was even publicly announced. She shaped the bill in Lee's office, advocates for it at Heritage, and endorsed the coalition pushing it from launch day.
On top of that, Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty (another DCA coalition member), was hired as Executive Vice President of Heritage Action for America in July 2025. So two of DCA's six named members are now functionally the same organization at the leadership level.
Meanwhile, a Heritage Foundation fellow named Dustin Carmack, who authored the Intelligence Community chapter of Project 2025, was hired by Meta in May 2024. So there's personnel flowing in both directions.
On your point about the EU and UK: the comparison actually helps illustrate the problem. The EU's Digital Services Act and related frameworks include explicit exemptions for open source software. None of the US bills do. California AB-1043 defines "Operating System Provider" as anyone who develops, licenses, or controls an OS on any general purpose computing device. That language covers volunteer-maintained Linux distributions.
Six US states have enacted or introduced bills from the same template and not one contains a FOSS carve-out. Whether that's intentional or just negligent drafting, the effect is the same. We will upload more files regarding the Heritage Foundation later this week.
ItzSwirlz@reddit
For those who don't track US politics: The Heritage Foundation is a right-wing "think tank", and. basically they help advocate for everything bad. I believe they also helped write Project 2025.
"Moms For Liberty" is a group of parents against diversity - so no LGBTQ+ - they are the ones behind a lot of book banning.
Aurelar@reddit
Heritage Foundation's founder has connections to the conservative Catholic cult Opus Dei. Look into it if you haven't already.
victoryismind@reddit
Would it include server OSes?
EmbarrassedHelp@reddit
I would recommend looking into how the Chat Control lobbyists/supporters in the Europe are involved here, as they have been pushing for age verification as part of Chat Control. Some of the major Chat Control supporters have American proxies (ex: Heat Initiative), and they receive their funding from American groups like Arabella Advisors (now called Sunflower Services).
I compiled a rough list of every organization involved here: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1rqwc1u/historic_chat_control_vote_in_the_eu_parliament/o9z5v9h/
To sum it, most of the funding appears to come from the Hopewell Fund, Oak Foundation, and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). The British billionaire Alan M. Parker controls the Oak Foundation, and British billionaire Christopher Hohn controls the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. The Hopewell Fund is controlled by Arabella Advisors (now called Sunflower Services).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabella_Advisors
I would strongly suspect that dark money from Arabella Advisors is being used here to lobby for age verification.
Fun_Debate3067@reddit
If you still think this is about democrats vs republicans at this point in time, you have already lost.
trashtruckelmo@reddit
I think they push it in States like NY and Cali hoping that other states just follow the trend and they can just watch the fire spread.
Thundachid@reddit
Yoti, Veriff, Jumio are the companies doing age verification in the UK, & the UK is not using the EU framework.
you can pretty much guarantee that the same people are behind the UK legislation.
silenceimpaired@reddit
This is also building infrastructure to censor. If someone chooses to not participate due to privacy concerns and selects the lowest age bracket … they will lose access to content that is deemed to be only for adults.
Now you’re probably think “adult content”… but YouTube has already labeled content they do not agree with as for adults only. Content that many parents would not mind their child seeing. Nothing will stop these platforms from labeling everything but cat pictures and the like as adults only.
For example… No political discussions… in other words this post on Reddit… adults only. “Children should not be involved in political decisions.” A somewhat reasonable stance… not old enough to vote… Maybe you even agree with this, but think… what of those of adults who verified to participate? Well eventually we will also have to verify our identities when facial scanning and IDs become mandatory to make this work… then the government won’t have to do any work to know who is a dissident posting on a political topic. And we already know government organizations that handle taxes have been weaponized… imagine them bringing other branches in… sorry but your land has been designated as a refuge for the Robin and Bluejay.
MattsyKun@reddit
This.
Adult content has been purposefully made difficult to defend. As someone that posts and exists in adult spaces that are pretty well moderated to keep kids out, we've experienced a lot of "Well, they're censoring XYZ content, so that's good" and "Why do you want to not censor this, gooner, check your hard drives". I think someone else described it as a self-terminating position; You can't debate it because the other side immediately jumps to "Why don't you want to protect the kids, pedo?" and makes it difficult to present nuance to the discussion.
As you said, nothing will stop these platforms. Once you hand those keys over, there's really no getting it back.
Ok-Win355@reddit
the term you're looking for is "thought-terminating cliche"
MattsyKun@reddit
Thank you, I was close-ish xD
jomarcenter-mjm@reddit
can you reviews if this: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2026/03/11/2513470/house-bills-ban-socmed-access-16-and-under
related or connected to Meta at all. the bill seem suspicious that the burden is on the platform level
Any_Worry_2471@reddit
Good work and it's a strong warning for us in the EU (again).
CarefulSignal9393@reddit
Yall have the GDPR, we don’t. America isn’t gonna last much longer without one
dupontping@reddit
We have the constitution, see how much that is helping us?
Laws don’t mean anything to these people.
SeldenNeck@reddit
common sense doesn't mean much either. If I buy a computer for my house, eventually my kids borrow it. Verifying owner age does not 'solve' a real world problem.
iamasuitama@reddit
Solves another problem for them: every person needs at least their own computer if not multiple.
mackrevinak@reddit
my 100% uninformed and cynical opinion about all this is that its just a way for them to get their foot in the door. if this becomes a thing then they will wait a few years for most people to acclimatise to it then "ah dam the children still arent safe so now we need to encrouch on your privacy just a bit more". rinse and repeat every few years
SeldenNeck@reddit
What this comes down to at the very end is " Elon can spy on everything you do as long as I get to supervise Elon and forcibly change his behavior when the mood strikes me."
CarefulSignal9393@reddit
Touché
oliilo1@reddit
Just pay attention to how much anti EU astroturfing is going on lately. They hate gdpr. [Ignore what I just said. What do you think about abortion?]:www.google.com
NSASpyVan@reddit
Much of what they are doing is lawlessness. And then they stacked the ultimate law decider authority, too.
BigDenseHedge@reddit
"Us" in the EU are soon going to have unionwide age verification laws, thanks to this splendid democratic institution.
Due-Negotiation9333@reddit
if your government passes a law you dont like, you dont coup your government
the only reason people think about leaving the EU is because its a legally available option, but i think we all benefit a lot from the EU, even if it will have its inevitable missteps
grishinsou@reddit
Some countries (Germany, France) benefit more than others
BigDenseHedge@reddit
Ask the Africans how they feel about it.
DarthSwimfoot@reddit
Am I the only one who finds it a little suspicious that this account is 2 weeks old, only had 2 comments elsewhere, and then suddenly starts dropping an apparently 2 billion dollars of tracking funds. Anyone?
aori_chann@reddit
Upvoting cause this shit can't keep happening. Let's scare the shit out of Zuckerberg's life
ArtAffectionate6250@reddit
'Republican driven' my ass.
Nice research, shitty bias.
newredstone02@reddit
about the EU age verification app : it's just a shit
You still need to send personal data to some 3rd party to veryify your age on the app, even though the apps don't know personal data
AgainstScum@reddit
Of course it's corporate capitalist.
Hazencruz@reddit
you mean like the people who own reddit?
AgainstScum@reddit
That's true. Iphone Venezuela.
glity@reddit
Wow thank you. As an aside if you’re willing to share feel free not to. Any ai agents you used to find or compile this type of information? I’m looking for a way to do this when looking into candidates and the actions they are likely to take based on stuff like in your research. An ai agent that outputs sources like this would help immensely. If this is not ai assisted then you are probably doing something past its current limitations and that’s amazing.
jomarcenter-mjm@reddit
Meta really try to push it worldwide. We have questionable age verification bill also in the philippines. Check around r/philippines
UpStartOverTurned@reddit
Pretty there's some scumfuq at the ad agencies that also wants to make sure their crap is being seen by people and not bots.
Panda_hat@reddit
As suspected, this initiative has nothing to do with age and everything to do with deanonymizing the internet and access to it.
Neferious indeed.
Unique-Estimate-2272@reddit
Same things are happening in other areas, and its going to get a lot more worse. A trust fund called Carnagie funded the 2023 UK Online Safety Act bill which basically opened the flood gates. It was obvious from the get-go that this was not just a regular piece of legislation to help with child safety. Already we are seeing this dystopian level of control seep into every faucet of the internet in every country but in the end it all boils down to one basic desire, money.
FrankHarwald@reddit
Related: Someone named Tech Dregs also dove deeper into this exact same matter: who's behind all these age-verification mandate laws that have appeared at about the same time:
https://www.reddit.com/r/netpolitics/comments/1rpz91p/tech_dregs_whos_behind_the_age_verification_laws/
geo_gan@reddit
So they haven’t changed at all since the Cambridge Analytica scandals years ago.
And in case you didn’t know they also managed to get their main competitor in the VR headset market to rival their own Quest headsets banned in America. Pico which has a parent company Bytedance (who own TikTok).
The Pico 4 was same price and much better ergonomically and functionally than the Quest 2 when it came out. Meta got it banned because they knew it would kill sales of their inferior product.
I would never buy a meta headset, ever again (I did have original oculus they also took over and shut).. Absolute cunts.
do-un-to@reddit
Every purchase we make has an impact in the world, directly or through links to links to links... With everything entangled it's hard to know how to tread the capitalist web morally.
Boycotting Facebook / Meta / Zuckerberg I think is a good, easy call. +1
geo_gan@reddit
Agreed
Neo_Techni@reddit
It's just weird how the left went from "requiring ID to vote is racist cause black people don't know how to get ID", to "requiring ID on every device we own protects children!" so fast.
Fuzzmiester@reddit
The left? nope. Authoritarians. And it was never 'black people don't know how to get ID' it's that there's a cost involved in getting ID (both time and money) Which disenfranchises people.
Authoritarianism isn't a right/left issue. It's one of those things which breaks the simple right/left argument. you always need another axis if you're going to represent it.
Authoritarian/Libertarian as well as Right/Left. https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/political-science/political-compass
Communism (at least what we've seen in the world) is left/Authoritarian. Socialism is left, but more centrist on Authoritarian/Libertarian
Facism is right/authoritarian, anarcho-capitalist is right/libertarian.
Neo_Techni@reddit
Yeah, it was. Cause politicians on the left are claiming they don't even know how, to defend that stance.
x dot com (separated in case this is one of those stupid subs that ban twitter links) WesternLensman/status/2025325707983835489
Known_Geologist1085@reddit
So, going to have to do video age verification when I ssh in to servers now? lol. Honestly, my plan is to tell any gov trying to assert shit like this to get fucked. If I don't live there I'm not obeying their fucking rules on any software I make.
Fuzzmiester@reddit
The US ones seem hell bent on entrenching the dominance of existing platforms, who can absorb the cost. while providing yet another speedbump for new platforms.
PwndiusPilatus@reddit
Funny how the first posts about the theory were down voted to hell and it was called a conspiracy theory.
Evening-Sense4779@reddit
Digital Childhood Alliance Inc's EIN is 33-2669790, and filed a Form 990-N electronically for 2024, indicating gross receipts of less than $50k
Melissa McKay is their Principal, and they are registered in Delaware.
213 N Market Street PMB 1039 WILMINGTON, DE 19801 is a mail drop.
mkey82@reddit
Looming technocracy bent on jamming their foot up our arse.
PagodaPanda@reddit
Mudahar and a channel called Deep Humor did aa video on this post. I even tried to get it in front of MoistCritikal since he was live a few hours ago. prob still is idk.
all I know is FB was caught up in lawsuits regarding privacy like 3 times I think. Of course it would be them to then try to charge the law globally to gain unfettered access to everyone.
AlarmDozer@reddit
More data to feed the fires of “AI” and surveillance, not surprising.
chalbersma@reddit
GECOS is back baby!
cat /etc/passwdfor everyone!djpeluca@reddit
Awesome work, this is amazing, congrats.
Do you thinks this lobby strategy was to actually impose the age verification agenda or to actually move the responsibility to the OS layer to avoid further work? Can’t connect the dots on my side, can anyone point me to the correct direction? Were any other attempts before that would affect meta’s social networks or this is the first attempt? Maybe the answer is that they did both, the knew the agenda and tried to manipulate it from the beginning. Anyone thinking something similar to this?
SirDefiant3171@reddit
I agree, companies like Meta just the jackpot with this one and were able to lobby for two different things for the price of one, I'm also thinking that they used the age verification for system OS because of California's already established privacy laws that would most likely conflict with them being able to collect actual data. So this was their way around that.
djpeluca@reddit
Nice insight, make sense, know the regulations and act to modify them. They probably saw this coming and started lobbying their solution
WachoviaOfficial@reddit
The research here looks awesome and I’m definitely looking forward to going through it all, but the fact that this reads like an LLM wrote it makes it appear less credible on the surface (and is kind of ironic given Meta’s involvement).
ChamplooAttitude@reddit
Just because AI is used to assist this research, as well as writing text for it, doesn't mean it is less legitimate. So what if it was written by AI, as long as the content itself is valuable and good?
OP isn't the only person here who's been investigating this. There are a lot of us here whose research notes match the original post.
spookyvision@reddit
no, it means exactly that: it's a fuckton less legitimate. LLMs have no idea what facts are.
remmus2k@reddit
How do you delegitimize a post? Just say an ai wrote it without proof.
WachoviaOfficial@reddit
Or, you know, read my comment properly. The research looks compelling, but the ChatGPT-esque phrasing with contrasting negatives, weird formatting, and overall tone looks like LLM output.
It would be like if Kermit the Frog showed up at Associated Press headquarters to hand over the fully unredacted Epstein Files. You’d probably really skeptical at first, even if the files were real, because the presentation of data matters just as much as the data itself if you expect people to believe it.
takingastep@reddit
Not the user you replied to, but I have a minor quibble:
What parts of the formatting look "weird" to you?
You're right that AIs have been using similar formatting for their output, but in this case to be honest, to me at least, it looks like proper formatting: easy-to-digest paragraphs, section headers of larger font size separating logically distinct subtopics, tables for useful comparisons.
I get the impression that even if OP used AI for the output, it... actually did a pretty good job of the formatting at least, though it does call into question the actual content.
utf9k@reddit
I'm not the commenter you responded to but here are a few things that stuck out to me. Admittedly this became a general ramble but ah well, I'll post it anyway:
A common writing trope that LLMs like to spit out is roughly "It's not just X. It's Y."
If you assume that "I" here is the author, it would be a bit weird for a human to be "parsing" filings instead of saying "I read the IRS filings". It's not unheard of but as far as the default word to reach for, I'd think it would be a bit less common.
"I scored" also just reads as a little weird to me. I don't imagine any human journalist would say such a weirdly specific thing with such confidence.
That said, I'm not going to comment on whether the claims are accurate or not because I haven't dug into the sources yet.
I also don't think use of an LLM as part of an investigation is means to dismiss the findings but in the past, you might reasonably see a lengthy investigation and take that as a signal of quality.
Given LLMs able to generate text cheaply and convincingly, the onus is on the reader to try and distinguish between a lengthy investigation crafted with care and a lengthy investigation that was broadly driven by an LLM and not verified in great detail before posting it online.
If we all shared the same signals, it wouldn't be an issue but some of the immediate "This is great stuff but too long to read right now" comments worry me a bit that it's going to be a while before the general public become more critical (media literacy wise) in identifying that large reams of seemingly high quality, well structured text does not immediately mean there is actually quality there anymore.
Even if the claims themselves were all factually accurate, there could still be the case of an LLM assigning intent where there is none for example. It's hard to know without having insight into the wider process of how the investigation was generated. Did the author let an LLM run free or did they use it as an iterative assistant? Did they have the skills to parse the underlying source material (some of which I can imagine is dense legislative stuff that certainly I struggle to read myself) or did they just take it on faith than an LLM parsed it correctly?
I guess at its core, this is kind of what bugs me the most when seeing hints of undisclosed broad LLM usage is that the effort to verify the claims are front loaded onto the reader. Presenting claims and then saying "Is any of this inaccurate" misses another dimension of "All of these claims are factually accurate in isolation but the narrative presented assigns intent where it doesn't exist or can be explained by coincidence".
To be clear, I have zero time for Meta and I would love nothing more for a shadowy conspiracy to be true because that lets you have a simple world view of good and evil where you don't have to think critically about anything.
Personally, I believe in many people with their own agendas all working together in proximity but that isn't the same thing as carefully orchestrated campaigns spanning across the board. I struggle with the idea of Meta rubbing their hands and successfully 5D chessing governments around the word but I do believe in the concept of "useful idiots" where there just happen to be plenty of groups who know each other and they're all doing their own little campaigns that all broadly align with Meta and other groups but mostly out of a coincidence. The outcome is the same but the intent is entirely different.
Anyway, I'm just a random stranger on the internet so what do I know haha. I should touch some grass but I am quite excited to dig into these sources and I would love this to be exactly what it looks like
FeikoW@reddit
Your response said exactly what I was thinking, thanks for that. It all feels so obviously LLM to me which makes me doubt the whole thing... Also each header starting with 'the X', 'The Y', etc.
takingastep@reddit
You've put my thoughts into words more accurately than I did, these are exactly the issues I was thinking of when I typed my earlier comment.
Those examples at the top are good to see; they'll help me keep a better eye out for signs of LLM usage.
The larger issues you raised are worrisome; I suspect most folks don't necessarily have the knowledge and/or wariness needed to judge the facts vs the intent separately like that. It looks like this can be a very easy (and subtle) way to manipulate public opinion. And since it's just words on a screen produced by LLMs, if it's good enough to pass for an actual human-made post, then who would be able to tell?
I get the feeling that LLMs are likely to get better and better at it as time goes on, which will make it harder and harder to tell if anything anyone else says online is at all true, or if it's half-truths with lies concealed among them, or just outright lies.
It's a social paradigm that seems tailor-made for separating people's minds from the real world around them, since it's becoming harder and harder to get factual, truthful information from other people. In such a social environment, it seems like people would only be able to believe what their senses tell them, and might end up discarding all others' opinions unless they were expressed face-to-face, in person.
This is going to be incredibly difficult for everyone to deal with.
remmus2k@reddit
Ngl, this looks like an ai response
WachoviaOfficial@reddit
LOL. That's because we're all A.I. in here, you know, 'Actual Idiots'.
remmus2k@reddit
That was pretty funny, you get an upvote from me
Sterbn@reddit
I agree. The reddit account is only 16 days old and the GitHub account for the repo they shared was created today. Seams kinda sus to me.
In the call to action, they suggest contacting the FSF and EFF. Why doesn't OP do that if they really cared about this topic. I doubt these organizations would benefit from thousands of people contacting them about the same exact thing and giving them the same information. This call to action really seems like something an AI would write.
One_Poet5599@reddit
Hard agree having read through it - this is a highly important topic for us to understand, but it’s very clear this was written by an LLM. All the “simplifying” asides, “here’s what I did” explanations of methodology (presumably indicating it followed the prompt), and binary conclusions. Really does eat into the credibility here on a topic we truly all need to understand and pressure our local reps about :(
Rog_Audio@reddit
Excellent wrap-up. Thanks for sharing.
vrabie-mica@reddit
Excellent work! I'll try to spread this around, and have saved a local copy of your post in case it gets whacked again by the bots.
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
Remember to share the website too, it's security hardened against most attacks that could take it down.
SirDefiant3171@reddit
Hey OP, is it okay if I copy your post & research into a letter to my Representatives, I have an idea that may help slow down or at least get the CA law suspended until further notice? I can DM you a draft of what I'm working on so far if you're interested too. If it works to stall the newly passed law in CA it might also help fight the other ones being introduced soon.
TheG0AT0fAllTime@reddit
Don't say that uh, out loud.
GlitchyRobo@reddit
Thank you for writing this up, this is vitally important work.
I think it's worth noting that the "National Center on Sexual Exploitation" is the 2015 rebrand of the organization Morality in Media, which, as wikipedia notes, is conservative "anti-pornography" organization known for their stances against queer people, sex education, and various other topics.
Their rebranded acronym, NCOSE, is seemingly designed to resemble that of the (more legitimate, though not without it's own problems) NCMEC.
I think it's also worth repeating that there is no evidence accepted among experts that pornography is harmful to individuals or society. This is not to say that some pornographic works cannot reflect bigoted worldviews, but this is true of all media
Morality in Media is absolutely not a trustworthy source and it's disgusting (though unsurprising) that American legislatures are buying into their nonsense so willingly
SirDefiant3171@reddit
Yes thank you this is exactly what I was talking about earlier that they changed their name this is literally the same group, I think that's why you can't find the business numbers & other information because they literally just changed the name of a different business, so maybe it takes a while for them to assign a new number
EmbarrassedHelp@reddit
NCOSE is also behind Uganda's attempt to execute all LGBTQ people in the country: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/30/us-far-right-group-influencing-anti-gay-policy-africa
They literally have blood on their hands.
Oblithian@reddit
Did AI write this? It looks like AI formatting.
SirDefiant3171@reddit
Even if it is AI I know for a fact that Meta & others like The Heritage Foundation are behind this cause ppl have been pointin this out already before this post, it's not new. If the person wants to use AI to write out all of this info, which is a lot, I would understand especially when there's so much goin on that it's hard to be able to focus cause they purposely make it so confusing & the DCA mentioned has literally changed their business name multiple times & just keeps rebranding as these different coalitions or whatever that are tryin to "protect kids" but they all do the same thing screw over consumers & their privacy
themightymike786@reddit
Meta is the mother of all evil 👿 if we stop using its products how they survive problem is us we keep using all its crappy spying product where we have many alternatives.
_shoegazi@reddit
Why was the post deleted? I read it earlier and it was great research
TheG0AT0fAllTime@reddit
Probably because it was AI slop
Oorangootang@reddit
Reddit is pretty evil now. The post didn't break any of the rules. You can find it elsewhere still.
InspectorBoat@reddit
The EU vs US table below doesn't really make sense. You're missing a column.
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
That is really strange as I edited and fixed that yesterday. I wouldn't want to implicate that someone/something or an administrator is editing this post, but I cannot recall editing this part or otherwise after I fixed it yesterday.
This is how it should appear and how it was edited to be fixed yesterday.
vpShane@reddit
Thank you so much for this.
Meowie__Gamer@reddit
I just want to use my fucking computer 😭
Soarin123@reddit
If you put your findings on IPFS network too I and others would happily pin it to make sure it doesn't go away
FreshBlinkOnReddit@reddit
Literally an AI generated post.
People have lost any sense of disbelief when something is formatted is a stylistically credible manner.
Son0fgrim@reddit
Facebook has ruined the internet in ways history students will study years from now.
Hazencruz@reddit
If we can get someone big like Elon Musk or Alex Jones to talk about this, it's over. It may already be over now, there's a bunch of lawyers and privacy orgs already winning fights against this shit in some states:
https://fixupx.com/prestonjbyrne/status/2029187801594392660?s=20
Mirracleface@reddit
The goal is technocratic feudalism.
There are even sites for ‘digital cities’ that already exist to sign up for.
thesixler@reddit
sorry but is there a TLDR that can be edited into the original post
RedditAdminsFuckOfff@reddit
Youtube (Google) just tried to force me to send them a fucking selfie (or other form of official ID) so they could "verify my age" so I could watch the Borderlands 4 DLC trailer, a few days ago. No I didn't do it, and no I'm NEVER going to do that for ANYthing. I live in the US btw, and they're trying this crap.
Gamerboi5777@reddit
You are not suicidal.
111100100@reddit
Wow! Impressive work!
Odd-Possibility-7435@reddit
Thanks for posting this. It seems obvious but it’s nice to have a trail. Can’t read it now as I’m travelling but saved this post to read through when I’m home with a cup of tea.
Dry-Tear-1486@reddit
This needs a tldr. Nice work. And I’m interested. But not that interested
This-Confusion-982@reddit
You should be. There's an attempt being made here to take away your privacy and freedom
daftmaple@reddit
I called it. Few days ago I mentioned that this is done by the big tech, they know how valuable data is, and they want to harvest as much as possible.
ZombiGrn@reddit
Lobbying has gotten crazy. Ive been tracking laws passed on law enforcement side due to lobbying as well as laws on agriculture
-Visher-@reddit
This stuff is so obviously a way of controlling us. I would’ve bet my first born son that these bills were backed by Meta, X, Amazon, etc. they all want our info and don’t give a shit about the kids.
Using the kids is just a way of convincing idiot voters, and it works.
random_hitchhiker@reddit
I'm worried this might expand to other countries
cristina_sena@reddit
It already has reached other countries. Brazil passed a law about it and it starts effectively next week. All passed under the excuse of protecting the kids. Look for Lei Felca if you want to know more details. Everything about it is extremely suspicious since it started with a YouTube video from a guy named Felca reporting "children adultization". From that they went to a law that enforces all of the things mentioned in this post.
Life_Detail_5471@reddit
Watch the fire spread, anything that happens in the US as long as it would help other authoritarian governments, they quickly adopt it and use the US as a playbook
Searching4Scum@reddit
Mark Zuckerberg should be placed on a deserted island and forced to play The Most Dangerous Game. He is a power crazed narcissist and lunatic and he deserves your red hot contempt
Llotekr@reddit
What if he already has an island where he voluntarily plays the Most Dangerous Game?
Searching4Scum@reddit
It wouldn't shock me if he did, but at least in my ideal scenario, he's the one without the firearm
sk0t_@reddit
Perhaps we can entice Iran to bomb his Hawaiian outpost
Searching4Scum@reddit
Oh man, now we're scheming
Njuh_0@reddit
Every time It's getting harder to distinguish west from china
zandarthebarbarian@reddit
So sadly true
Ill_Net_8807@reddit
i'd like to see a petition started that will have meta dissolved.
mikeymop@reddit
What is the point of the 13-15 and 17-18 bracket?
So pedos can quickly find their preferred minor? Like what?
Wouldnt <13 and <18 be sufficient?
Big_Wave9732@reddit
So question: Why won't folks using open source OSes be able to write their own modules to replace the ones that do the age verification?
edNavaMarquez@reddit
It’s not clear to me why you as an OS developer couldn’t use an open source digital wallet for age verification.
It seems like the risk that people are abusing the age restrictions would fall on the OS. As long as you are ready to take on that risk, do you still need to use one of those 3 vendors?
edNavaMarquez@reddit
Can you explain more about the privacy architecture?
It’s not clear why or if US operating systems need to use one of those vendors instead of an open source digital wallet.
donut4ever21@reddit
I wonder why Meta's competitors aren't fighting this? Also, I fucking always hated that lizard dude and this makes me hate him even more now. It's insane to me how people in the US allow this blatant bribery in their political system in a society they claim to be democratic with "no one is above the law" motto??
LavaCreeper@reddit
Meta competitors will also benefit from a system wide user information API
donut4ever21@reddit
They already get everything they want from their users. Literally everything.
FewChar@reddit
I think Zuckerberg wants to push the responsibility of online safety on to anyone else.
GodDogBanana@reddit
So, will people delete their meta accounts?
xyrus02@reddit
Thank you for this remarkable research. Gigachad!
anomaly256@reddit
Cipher_01@reddit
the roach king needs to hear of this. r/asmongold
Maskdask@reddit
Fuck these corrupt people
Derslok@reddit
Bravo, what a splendid research
nandospc@reddit
Wow, this is a massive work. I will send all these informations to my local and national representatives in Italy and to the "Garante della Privacy". This is insane.
OrinSorinson@reddit
And when you think you're somewhat knowledgeable of the scum in question, they go and prove they're even worse.
Meta, Zuck can go to hell. No wonder the bastard's building bunkers on remote islands.
Outdated8527@reddit
Holy Fuck!!!
Quick_Lingonberry_34@reddit
Fair enough.
Quick_Lingonberry_34@reddit
Exactly.
very-urgent-chicken@reddit
Thanks for this coherent information.
One of the things that disturbs me about all of this which I'm not hearing talked about much is not the thing the bills themselves purport to be about - age verification of users.
It's the idea of a government requiring a non-profit FOSS project to code anything.
Before now, if you were coding for a non-proprietary arch like x86, on a non-proprietary OS like Linux or BSD, there really only existed two enforceable legal requirements: Don't violate someone else's license terms, and don't hack someone else's system.
Aside from that, code what thou wilt. Write a whole operating system from the kernel up if you're brave enough. The precedent that this sets, that FOSS projects must contain code that the author didn't have any say about, goes far beyond the "age verification" issue that is being talked about so much here.
The precedent from this can be used to require virtually anything from FOSS in the future.
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
More research will be posted soon, as will a website with it's own repository.
Hearing 3: "Digital Education, Parental Controls and Inclusion" - June 11, 2025
Event ID: 76693 Time: 3:30 PM - 8:08 PM Location: Anexo II, Plenário 11 Request: REQ 9/2025 CCOM (by Dep. Jadyel Alencar) Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w64FybZifnw
Invited Speakers (10 confirmed):
5. KEY HEARING REQUEST AUTHORS (WHO INVITED TECH COMPANIES)
What happens in the dark always comes to light
RuinRes@reddit
My congratulations to you for this research. Good job.
OkDesk4532@reddit
F*ck the USA
MistakeMaker1234@reddit
You can say “fuck” here it’s okay.
Dewey_B_Long@reddit
TLDR: it's the noses (as always)
Familiar-Show-2393@reddit
try working the youtube channel named fern, they can help you put this out to a larger audience
MrTheCheesecaker@reddit
At least with the California bill, it's not a case of "every app on your device gets to query a system-level API", every application must query the API, regardless of whether they will use that information or not.
Ricoreded@reddit
That one unemployed friend on a Saturday /s
Genuinely impressive work bro.
Quick_Lingonberry_34@reddit
Not wrong.
envilZ@reddit
Call your representatives and tell them to fight back AGAINST BS.
PLYoung@reddit
> Every app on your device gets to query a system-level API that returns your age bracket in real time
It is kinda the whole point though. Shifting burden of collecting age to the OS level so that apps do not have to do it each manually in their own way. If the Os could not broadcast it to apps then there would be no point collecting the info in first place. Not that, that would stop the likes of Discord, etc moving forward with their plans of doing it manually anyway.
Not arguing for/against this. Just saying, it is either this or dealing with it in each app that provide content that might have to be locked to under-aged users cause the laws are gonna require it whether we like it or not. Best we can do it use OS that does not collect and apps that does not require the info, or just enter fake data since there is no verification (yet?).
snowdrone@reddit
Great work!
FreeZeeg369@reddit
rise up people.
kilkil@reddit
thank you for this public service 🫡
Elkanterax@reddit
Chat is this real
RainbowPope1899@reddit
Isreal
black1ight@reddit
Wow, it was known, just no proper links.
Kobe_curry24@reddit
Mark Zuckerberg
SPARTAN2412@reddit
Wow I had so many questions, and you answered them in this post, great post thanks.
Anzuweeb@reddit
Why am I not surprised.
helzblackdale@reddit
The original version of this investigation was posted to r/linux, where it was mass reported and pulled down pending moderator review (150 upvotes, roughly 15k views before being pulled down some 40 minutes after being posted)
The content that was suppressed names Meta lobbying firms, traces documented payments, cites Senate LD-2 filings, and links to IRS records. It identifies Hilltop Public Solutions as the first confirmed entity bridging Meta's $45M super PAC and the DCA astroturf campaign. This is the kind of content that a well-resourced actor would have reason to suppress.
I cannot prove the mass reports were coordinated rather than organic. That is the point of the tactic: Reddit's infrastructure makes it impossible to distinguish genuine community objections from manufactured ones, and it rewards the behavior either way by automatically removing the content.
BAN ME MOTHERFUCKING COWARDS! I DARE YOU TO BE THE WORMS YOU ARE MODS!!!! FUCK YOURSELVES IF YOU BAN ME!!!! YOUR PRECIOUS REDDIT SUB IS WORTH NOTHING IN THE FACE OF COWARDICE.
Sources (all public records)
Bill text: CA AB-1043 (Chapter 675, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov), CO SB26-051 (leg.colorado.gov), LA HB-570 Act 481 of 2025 (legis.la.gov), NY S8102A (nysenate.gov), TX SB-2420, UT SB-142 (le.utah.gov)
Federal lobbying: OpenSecrets Meta profile (opensecrets.org, client ID D000033563), Senate LDA filing UUID b73445ed-15e5-42e7-a1e8-aeb224755267
Colorado lobbying: CO Secretary of State SODA API (data.colorado.gov, datasets vp65-spyn, dxfk-9ifj, df5p-p6jt)
Louisiana lobbying: LA Board of Ethics, F Minus database (fminus.org/clients/pelican-state-partners-llc/, fminus.org/clients/meta-platforms-inc/)
California lobbying: CalAccess (cal-access.sos.ca.gov), Bloomberg Government
Super PACs: Forge the Future (texasforgefuturepac.com), Texas Ethics Commission, Illinois State Board of Elections, Politico (Feb 2, 2026), Washington Post (Mar 12, 2026)
DCA records: WHOIS/RDAP (rdap.org), Wayback Machine CDX API (100+ snapshots), IRS EO BMF (eo1-eo4.csv), OpenCorporates, ProPublica, GuideStar
NCOSE: IRS Form 990 FY2020-FY2024 including Schedule R; NCOSEAction/Institute for Public Policy (EIN 88-1180705); original NCOSE Action (EIN 86-2458921) via Schedule R history
For Good/Network for Good: forgood.org, DCA donation page source (targetable_type=Project, targetable_id=258136), For Good 990s via ProPublica (EIN 68-0480736, 59,736 recipients searched)
IRS 990 filings: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: NVF (EIN 20-5806345), STF 2024 (sixteenthirtyfund.org), DCI (EIN 39-3684798), Windward, Hopewell, North Fund, NCOSE (EIN 13-2608326), ConnectSafely (EIN 47-3168168)
Campaign finance: CO TRACER bulk data (tracer.sos.colorado.gov), FollowTheMoney.org, FEC API (Meta PAC C00502906)
Reporting: Bloomberg (July 2025), Deseret News (Dec 2025), The Center Square, ACT | The App Association, Dome Politics, Pluribus News, Nola.com, Privacy Daily
EU framework: EUR-Lex (Digital Services Act, eIDAS 2.0 Regulation), EUDIW GitHub repository, T-Scy consortium
Technical: freedesktop.org, GNOME/KDE documentation, Meta developer docs (developer.meta.com/horizon)
Full dataset, OSINT tasklist, and all processed findings are published with sources embedded in each file: github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
aphilentus@reddit
This is amazing work. I need to go through your sources but this looks put together very well. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I will be saving it to a document as well in case it gets taken down
bixtuelista@reddit
oh my god I am so sick of being a product.
StmpunkistheWay@reddit
In a separate post but closely tied to this was a Malwarebytes article regarding the the Discord ID push and the vendor that was pushing that.
https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verification-vendor-persona-left-frontend-exposed
Narrow-Ad6797@reddit
Tl;dr : mark zuckerburg
Ziprasidone_Stat@reddit
Bastards. I don't know how we fight this and other corruption.
images_from_objects@reddit
Please crosspost this to r/privacy. Excellent work.
AnEternalEnigma@reddit
It was https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1rsnm5i/a_reddit_user_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit/
Proof_Cable_310@reddit
So, what do we do?
ChaoticJanie21@reddit
I can only hope that CA AB-1043 will get struck down because it infringes upon free speech and privacy rights in court.
zandarthebarbarian@reddit
So they get paid every time someone uses age verification
Jezzrick@reddit
Wow
manual_combat@reddit
If only our major news outlets write articles that were this well researched and written…
Thank you for posting this. Do you have a website or Substack / somewhere we can read more of what you’ve read up on/ will continue to read up on?
Clairvoidance@reddit
EU really said federalize or bust
No_Wishbone3298@reddit
It's time for Meta to labeled a terrorist organization. This company needs to be torn down. It adds zero value to society...
Coaxalis@reddit
Didn't read, but more than sure it fucking zukerberger
Cute-Percentage-6660@reddit
You mean mr "complicit in the rohingya genocide" zuckerberg?
ZJL1986@reddit
I still regret signing up for Facebook years ago to see who was single at my college. Like zero clue Zuker would cause so much pain in my life.
Coaxalis@reddit
you married the wrong one? Suck isn't one to blame
SamosaSniper@reddit
Why doesn't no one read anymore?
fannyrosebottom@reddit
-_-
Chary-Ka@reddit
I don't not read every day.
Coaxalis@reddit
Iz your spik london?
imnotmarvin@reddit
Short attention spans due to a constant barrage of media tuned specifically for short attention spans. It really got going with 30 minute television shows. Now we're at 30 second videos. People used to read for hours. Listen to hours long speeches. They did these things fully engaged. Minds have been reshaped by the content we have at hand now. A lot of people are incapable of paying enough attention to read for an extended period. Not so much by choice as by conditioning. The world would be a better place if cell phones suddenly vanished. I'm not a Luddite, I just hate where we're at with attention spans.
Coaxalis@reddit
really no one?
you read my comment, I've read yours...
onesneakymofo@reddit
Wait, you just made me read your comment... Am I making someone read RI now like some Neverending Story thread
Coaxalis@reddit
INCEPTION
im-always-lying@reddit
Anything over fiver words I'll
Coaxalis@reddit
less is ignored?
RexWarfang@reddit
Get outta here bot
husky_whisperer@reddit
fuckerberg was right there
Blake9501@reddit
Fuck Mark Fuckerberg
Coaxalis@reddit
edited.
Content_Chemistry_44@reddit
Fuckerberg = METAführer
adenosine-5@reddit
I don't think the author read that either.
For example the "EU approach | US bills" table doesn't make any sense
Its probably just AI-generated text.
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
Formatting issued, fixed.
Coaxalis@reddit
fucking AI slop from every socket.
Greeny1225@reddit
fuck each and every person involved in any of this
elemepep-ton@reddit
Remember, op is in good health and they aren't planning any trips
supercheetah@reddit
You should see if you can get in touch with Taylor Lorenz, the journalist. This is the kind of thing she likes to expose.
MontyBoomslang@reddit
Well done on the research and the writeup. Really speaks to the state of media that this is the best researched journalism I have seen for a long time.
White_Dragon5@reddit
Then campaign, riot, sue. Do something other than just posting about it online.
SpeedyTheQuidKid@reddit
Maybe this can be the last push I needed to ditch f/b, I already cut back my use and half of my use of it was arguing with probably bots, against my better judgement. That company has been nothing but trash producing a trash website, stealing data and getting it breached while selling our data for profit, astroturfing and widening a much deeper political divide than would have happened otherwise, and generally being incredibly scummy.
AmlisSanches@reddit
How do we stop this! People we need to get together and push no to our goverment.
MichaelTunnell@reddit
Why did you delete this thread mods?
2rad0@reddit
Typically on reddit threads will be deleted and restored to prevent them from reaching the front page.
Express-Cucumber-364@reddit
welcome to reddit!
mrsenchantment@reddit
screenshotting every bit of this in case its gone forever 🙏
ArZeBeatRd@reddit
I don't quite understand. Aren't we - as users - in control of our operating system software?
New-Anybody-6206@reddit
I think you skipped over the word "provider." A user is objectively not providing anything.
ArZeBeatRd@reddit
I guess that you skipped over the part where is says that California is giving it's definition to what a provder is. They fill word with their own specific catalog meaning.
Now just read the bold text and exlude everything else.
The very text does actually include the users, too. The text gives California's definition of what a "Operating system provider" is. And that definition currently includes what effectively is the user.
New-Anybody-6206@reddit
I think you're splitting hairs here in a way that the court will not agree with you on.
I think a reasonable person would not consider a user as an operating system provider, even if they technically "control" the operating system software in some way.
In the end, the only person's opinion that matters on this is a judge or jury's, so we must defer to them on how to interpret that particular sentence.
siodhe@reddit
Yes. Which puts a liability on us, of up to $2500 per "minor affected". A liability that Meta is shoving onto us.
However the bill also exempts "The delivery of or use of a physical product".
Because it was written by a [fill in various reddit-banned words of your choice]
andexs@reddit
I feel like I'm the only person for age verification laws.... Social Media and the Internet is ruining our children. Not my children, because I'm a responsible parent, but all the irresponsible parents out there are just letting their kids run rampant with pornography, snapchat, cyber bullying, war footage, etc.
Before you say "just watch your kids activities!!!"
It's like saying "we don't need seatbelt laws, just buckle your kids up yourself!"
You're protecting the aggregate.
Cobolt-8@reddit
Correct! You're generally expected to have a level of competency on the internet and clearly you lack that if you actually think these laws are in our best interest. Why do os level age verification? Why not make companies like meta that actually host and provide those materials you mentioned do it instead? Please think about how bad your argument is after realizing companies and the government almost never works in your interest. If this was about kids, the entire staff of the white house would be arrested.
andexs@reddit
I meant them in general - not any specific implementation. I’d rather you need to be approved to get access to Facebook, Reddit, Instagram etc.
You have to prove that you’re of age. If it takes 2 weeks before you’re approved because it’s manual and tedious. So be it.
Next day prime delivery has ruined everyone for patience.
Cobolt-8@reddit
Ok so let's go with that reasoning then if you are ignoring the fact companies don't work in your interest. If we do id verification there will be a security leak and your identity will be on the dark web. Why do all of us adults have to deal with this to protect the kids? Why do we have to go through the risk of potential identity theft because someone who is a horrible parent and shouldn't have kids in the first place. We don't need these restrictions on everyone. Either be a better parent or don't have kids don't put it on us to take care of them
andexs@reddit
Oh no - my name and birth dates on the dark web in your fictional worst case scenario
Admirable-Evening128@reddit
hello bot. the problem is, you are not getting age-verification-laws. You are getting "age verification laws", AKA the stuff the billionaries at the epstein parties benefits from, instead of what you thought it said "on the tin".
Hitler took power in Germany on an agenda of sorting out crime and corruption, and people voted him in "to get rid of crime and corruption". What they actually got, was 6+ million innocent humans gassed, as part of the "deal". The goal was never to end crime and corruption, it was to bring power into the hand of hitler & his cronies. It is the oldest playbook, used in the roman senate two thousand years ago, before that with the greeks, and recently used in the US in 2016 and 2024. Soon, when they get to WW3, we don't even need to revisit history anymore, because we are MAKING history - again.
The people at epsteins parties were not playing roblox and using discord, they were billionaires. The same people who just bought the private information of you, your family and everyone you know, in a bargain sale together with today's best politicians, sigh.
Marble_Wraith@reddit
What in the Orwell...
Mental-Ask8077@reddit
Excellent work, thank you.
I would not be surprised either to learn that Thiel/Palantir is somewhere deep in the shadows behind this too, because it fits far too well with his aims.
-xKeita-@reddit
I hope this gets some action going but I have little faith in people, this is depressing
ADMINISTATOR_CYRUS@reddit
man that's some crazy investigation
_x_oOo_x_@reddit
I think it might be this simple: if Meta had to do age verification, their business would be bollocked: a portion of their userbase is under-age, and many of those who aren't regard the platforms as non-essential "entertainment" and would stop using them instead of handing over personal or biometric data to verify their age.
Meta also probably arrived at the conclusion that refusing to implement age verification would just result in their platforms being blocked. So what option are they left with? If users are forced to verify their age in order to use their computers at all, the "bounce rate" will be essentially zero. Meta still loses under-age users, but that was unavoidable.
I don't think they are intentionally targeting FOSS: it's 1% of their userbase or less.
BlindBattyBarb@reddit
Just came to explain what might be happening with DCA that means you can't find their EIN. They have a fiscal sponsor and that's the one that's receiving their $$. (For good I believe you called it) The DCA doesn't have to have a ein. They're using For Good EIN. Websites are public facing things I bet they agreed cause they're getting a nice chunk of whatever donations they're accepting for DCA. (Fiscal sponsorship usually requires this and it is usually just enough to cover the administration costs for the nonprofit that's the sponsor).They got started at very tail end so no matter money had changed hands. So until the 2025 taxes are posted they probably won't be found? Uncertain how that part works as I am currently learning about these orgs and haven't gotten there yet.
Is that bad? Eh cause politics bad yes but if a nonprofit can get started faster by having a fiscal sponsor and has some support while they're new. Could be a good thing for good nonprofits doing charity.
Strict-Carrot4783@reddit
Are you available to run for office?
goldenroman@reddit
An LLM wrote up this report.
Strict-Carrot4783@reddit
At least it's less than 80 years old.
goldenroman@reddit
Hey, that’s a great point
Christen_Color@reddit
I dont use reddit anymore but this was linked on a foss reddit alternative and I just wantwd to thank you for your research and comment to boost visibility
pcreed@reddit
Not surprised at this point. That’s literally their tactic and to us who aren’t sheep know this. The deniers are those who are either bots, employed by them, or ignorant and still brainwashed.
ssjailen@reddit
The OS-level age broadcast API is the part nobody's talking about. People hear "age verification" and think a one-time ID check. The actual statutory language in AB-1043 is a persistent real-time API that any installed app can query whenever it wants. That's not verification, that's a permanent demographic signal baked into the OS — and the vendors writing these bills charge per check, so privacy by design was never on the table.
The EU comparison is brutal. Zero-knowledge proofs, self-hostable wallets, FOSS exemptions — all of it already exists and is deployed at scale. The US bills just don't use any of it because there's no recurring revenue in "prove you're over 18 without revealing anything else."
Also worth noting — Pelican State Partners lobbies for Roblox alongside Meta. Roblox is currently facing 115+ lawsuits over child predator access and AG investigations in multiple states. They have every reason to want child safety obligations landing on Apple and Google instead of platforms. The "broad industry coalition" framing looks a lot thinner when you map the clients. If you want to see what actual game-level safety transparency looks like vs what Roblox tells parents, safeblox.org rates 100 of their games individually — the gap between their content labels and reality is exactly the problem these bills claim to solve.
Good work on the For Good records. The cosmetic donation page detail is something I hadn't seen documented anywhere else.
ChosenOfTheMoon_GR@reddit
Who would've thought...
greenfield-kicker@reddit
Very weird. I'm from Brazil, and there was this sudden push for this as well, I wonder if it's connected.
diesal3@reddit
Do you know if there is any data on the UK and AUS?
saras998@reddit
I know that the UK Conservative party leader is the one pushing for age verification. And the Canadian Conservative party too (Bill S-209). It's inexplicable.
AnEternalEnigma@reddit
Mark Zuckerberg has almost single-handedly destroyed the Internet that I used to know and love in the 90s.
saras998@reddit
It is both interesting and shocking that conservatives are the main proponents of age verification. Anybody know why? Conservatives usually being more in favour of freedom and privacy.
cauliflower3466@reddit
This is crazy, great job.
Im imagining if they just fucking paid taxes, what could we have instead of this....
And that's just on one topic.
techshot25@reddit
Incredible work. Who would’ve thought that politicians can just be bought? In truth, they run for office with intentions and speeches that entice emotions of mindless voters, then they get bribed to make laws that destroy individuals and competition just to benefit corporations and create legalized monopolies.
T8ert0t@reddit
You should be getting this to EFF, Arstechnica, Hackernews, and other places.
This is great work
Practical_Ad_2703@reddit
Fantastic work. Thank you.
Impressive_Bag_3505@reddit
how long before the child molesters at the governement create their own app to find the nearest children?
they'll have all the data...
exhaustedexcess@reddit
Metas a cancer, I can’t wait for the day that some country charges him with crimes against humanity and ships him to The Hague
DepartmentChemical54@reddit
one interesting thing i discovered is that the company who does the age verification for bluesky is a subsidiary of Epic Games - the publishers of Fortnite and the same company who were fined $520m by the FTC for violations of children's privacy. lol.
https://bsky.social/about/blog/09-10-2025-age-assurance-approach
https://www.kidswebservices.com/en-US/services/age-verification
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13351982
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games#FTC_child_privacy_settlement
epicRedHot@reddit
"[removed]"
if there was even the slightest doubt it was real, it is certainly gone now
flanVC@reddit
why was this removed? fuck jannies
Interesting_Word622@reddit
"Post is awaiting moderator approval"
r/Linux is compromised
IndigoGouf@reddit
I wonder which specific involved party paid off the mods.
mr_MADAFAKA@reddit
"Post is awaiting moderator approval." why wtf?
socookre@reddit
Here comes the Streisand Effect.
Heavy-Top-8540@reddit
So if you wanted to fight back you'd have to admit this isn't a "both sides" affair. And that would ruin your on-line cred. So, even though the fact that almost all of the these bills are originally pushed by Republican legislators, we'll pretend this is really "bipartisan" and this block any chance we have of stopping these bills.
Guess I'll be alone in flouting them.
bdsee@reddit
How is it not also the Dems when they are voting for them? It might be Republicans in the background but you are a fool if you think people like Zuckerberg are Republicans, they are Themselficans and their ideology is their own wealth and power first and foremost.
Heavy-Top-8540@reddit
How are Republicans not themselfagains?
bdsee@reddit
Everyone is to an extent, but you have missed the point, big tech was all in on the Democratic party for a long time, they supported all the progressive agendas etc...and then their leaders have about faced on a dime. Republicans as selfish and stupid as they may be are not pretending to switch their ideologies up repeatedly for their personal gain via influence peddling.
Heavy-Top-8540@reddit
In what fucking universe?!?!
bdsee@reddit
They don't, the switch their ideology up based on the authorities within the party and conservative talking heads say. They literally oppose everything the Democrats do when in power, that is their driving ideology.
Zuckerberg and the like literally just adopt the politics of the moment publicly and privately just lobby for whatever gives them wealth and power.
Heavy-Top-8540@reddit
Are you ok? Did you hit your head?
Ok_Lingonberry3296@reddit (OP)
Republican involvement is involved in the post as is Heritage Foundation involvement.
ScreamThyLastScream@reddit
This is how shitty stuff passes in congress, people blindly support whatever vilifies or validates their own side. Working as planned I guess.
djao@reddit
It says right in the post:
Obviously both parties voted unanimously for this idiocy. How is it not a both sides problem?
rnnn@reddit
https://web.archive.org/web/20260313090844/https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/
Elyndria@reddit
Upvote this!
CouchMountain@reddit
Commenting with keywords for people to find it easier:
mirror backup archive deleted removed link
remmus2k@reddit
Thank you for this
ViegoBot@reddit
Lol mods doing some coverups.
NoJunket6950@reddit
Why are the mods being pieces of shit and censoring this post?
HiddenKrypt@reddit
Why do you think? Reddit is owned by the same forces implicated here.
NoJunket6950@reddit
Make them disable the whole reddit. Fuck these people.
ckay1100@reddit
Removed? Bruh
DarthCloakedGuy@reddit
Why are the moderators hiding this post
Skubmeister@reddit
mods are fags, did you really expect anything else?
Cappabitch@reddit
What pisses me off is none of this matters, nor will matter. We can all know the truth and none of us will stop it.
CaperGrrl79@reddit
CAN any of us stop it?
Rudd-X@reddit
Why was this deleted???
doskeyslashappedit@reddit
yo why did mods remove this post
bboozzoo@reddit
Why has the post been removed?
Express-Cucumber-364@reddit
First time on reddit? lol
Oorangootang@reddit
Not just posts, comments too. I don't see some of my comments anymore...
metux-its@reddit
Why has this post been censored ? Someone here doesn't want us to know that Facebook/Meta is trying to destroy GNU/Linux ?
Deadmanjustice@reddit
Mods, get this shit restored.
_dotdot11@reddit
So tech company shareholders in the US are trying to kill open source software by bankrupting open source devs through an endless firehose of "negligent child endangerment" fees. Ignoring the fact that their software is built upon open source contributions. Classic shareholder-focused mindset of "win now, dont care about later". Can't wait to see how that turns out for them.
aginglifter@reddit
It was basically just Meta.
Odd_knock@reddit
Wtf “post awaiting moderator approval?” Mods are shit.
BothDivide919@reddit
Removed by mass bot reports. Heres a link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260313143853/https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/
basilosarus@reddit
this is just for censorship, control the narratives, information flow. despite all their attempts, people started thinking independently. WEF Clowns never wanted this. so much for lectures of democracy and freedom of west. Frank Zappa is way ahead of his time in this prediction!!
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Cliler@reddit
"This submission has been removed due to receiving too many reports from users."
It would be interesting to see what type of "users" are those.
DaftPump@reddit
Hacker News picked up this story and they mention the archive copy.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47362528
They won't delete it due to politics like this sub probably did.
DaftPump@reddit
Why?
Allasdair@reddit
Similar to other commenters, I have also saved a copy in case this gets removed.
The scariest thing isn't what's already here (and its terrifying). It's what comes next.
If this shit passes and stays, this gives meta the power to reference age statistics and hardcode specific data to each group's feeds. (They're kind of already doing this, but it'll be way more precise.)
And since everyone believes what they read on the internet meta gets to see in real time how they can divide and containerize opinions and ideals.
Probably for political and financial gain. - (one of many examples) Push these negative ads, news and other info to these age groups in this area. Suddenly there's a protest, or a riot, which distracts them from seeing bigger moves. Target younger age groups may be deterred, or defeated seeing its impossible to overcome the consistent challenges that's always on their feeds.
Brainwashing the youth to line their pockets. Subduing and confusing the adults and elderly to ensure they don't retaliate against them.
wysticlipse@reddit
Could you send me a copy please?
Allasdair@reddit
That's wild, I snagged it just in time.
Give me some time, I'll get it linked unless someone beats me to it.
wysticlipse@reddit
Thanks! I managed to finish reading it and then as soon as my page auto-refreshed after I sent it to a friend it was gone.
Allasdair@reddit
Someone beat me to it using way back machine! Here's the link: https://web.archive.org/web/20260313090844/https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/
silenceimpaired@reddit
Copy please?
WoodenInternet@reddit
Can you link the copy you have? It got removed
slacka123@reddit
https://web.archive.org/web/20260313090844/https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/
Allasdair@reddit
That's wild, I snagged it just in time.
Give me some time, I'll get it linked unless someone beats me to it.
DatDraggy@reddit
Ofc Reddit nukes OP. Corrupt ass system. Let's just end it all
Hothera@reddit
There literally isn't any "age verification" in those bills. It just requires operating systems to include a drop-down during setup where they can select whatever they want.
sterlingemc@reddit
"Removed"
dacostafilipe@reddit
Was it the same content as this git repo? : https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings/tree/main
Fit-Benefit-6524@reddit
for god, thank you for your servers
Fant_Aztic@reddit
Unblock the post
Sol3141@reddit
No promises for having guessed that before. But hey at least there's proof now, thanks.
EfficiencyThis325@reddit
Glad I printed a pdf of this post before it went pending moderator approval..
micseydel@reddit
You should really post this to your profile and not just subs where mods can delete it.
MelanieUdon@reddit
Think there's any links to the UKs online safety act?
asm_lover@reddit
why was it removed?
Andreus@reddit
Every single executive at all of these companies, every single astroturfing PAC employee, they all have to be jailed for life. Even the slightest association with these anti-privacy laws must be punished so severely that nobody dares propose them ever again.
Life_Detail_5471@reddit
Jailing won't help as those in charge of the government will bail them out, the message they need to know is they aren't safe on any corner of the planet, that we are after their l1f3
Fade78@reddit
You should edit your post and put an executive summary so when we share the link, we could paste it, so people would know it's worth reading.
With moltbook acquisition, Meta can sense what's going on and can influence agent discussions, therefore agent actions. So meta is making a power move on influence and privacy. With this, they can protect whatever activity and put whatever they wish on the throne, has demonstrated in the Cambridge Analytica case.
jmooroof2@reddit
is this shit going to be the mark of the devil
usa_reddit@reddit
Unblock this POST MODS!
Life_Detail_5471@reddit
This should be sent to more perfect union
aPOPblops@reddit
could you post this in places other than an a niche OS forum? Maybe on politics, or law, or something more mainstream
why_cant_i_@reddit
Already mass-reported and removed. Very telling.
ledoscreen@reddit
It seems that society isn’t opposed to it in principle. This is indicated by the attempt to negotiate an exemption from the bill for open-source software, where the argument is, as it were, the difficulty of enforcing the law.
This means the battle has already been lost.
“If you aren’t opposed to being raped in principle, then you will be raped.”
AutoModerator@reddit
This submission has been removed due to receiving too many reports from users. The mods have been notified and will re-approve if this removal was inappropriate, or leave it removed.
This is most likely because:
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Cold_Soft_4823@reddit
how many spam accounts do you have holy shit you're dedicated to spamming your LLM generated slop bro. third time in a week? get outta here
gortmend@reddit
This is some amazingly deep, professionally written research. Why are you posting it here and not a newspaper?
GleeFullyBaked@reddit
Keep up the good work OP. Well researched, well organized and hopefully widely received.
InnerContext4946@reddit
Please check your DMs, OP.
prince_pringle@reddit
Whoever you are, I hope your safe, your the kind of person they will try to kill. There’s a lot of money at stake here, and the people at the top right now are murdererss, straight from 1984.
Good on you for doing this, amazing work and I hope we get control of our society from the super wealthy/corrupt regime.
Acceptable-Lock-77@reddit
Only 6.5k upvotes. Wtf reddit. Use the emojis and get this higher in rank.
Quatro_Leches@reddit
It's Israel + U.S intelligence, they want ultimate control over media.
DioEgizio@reddit
great post, but I'm not surprised about who's behind this. fork found in the kitchen
superkp@reddit
On the one hand... "yeah, no shit." It has been clear for a while that the people at these companies are not interested in the tech, they are interested in the power, and what you're describing is a very normal way of rich assholes accumulating more power.
On the other hand... It's really cool that you did all the legwork and clearly marked the whole trail for this giant fucking net of bullshit.
Extra_Quiet_5256@reddit
so before i start reading this, this only applies to the US presumably?
Qwerty_Police@reddit
Most of the social apps everyone uses are based there so realistically, the entire world should be concerned.
Vortex252@reddit
whis is wild!
anime_cthulhu@reddit
I live in one of the states affected by these bills and I've written to my state senator. I will update post an update if they respond.
evultrole@reddit
Boo. Don't write 900 page shit with AI.
Boo.
YMK1234@reddit
To me this screams: move the Linux Foundation and any dev possible to Europe. Plain and simple as that.
TensionPurple6815@reddit
Corporations shouldn't be writing laws. Like what the actual fuck? This whole system is fucked, and broken beyond repair at this point.
AdvocateReason@reddit
Everyone involved should be blacklisted.
Narananas@reddit
What about Australia? Any relation at all?
phoenixero@reddit
Make sure to save your references just in case "by chance" they become offline
RYNOCIRATOR_V5@reddit
Lad do us a favour and do the same tracking for the UK's Online Safety Act please.
fioletowy_zolw@reddit
Whoah great research, hope it gets much more public resonance
Apostle_B@reddit
This is higher quality investigative reporting than most of what I've seen in mainstream media... keep that up! And thanks, this is extremely interesting and very, very important information.
DISCONNECTlE@reddit
I guess they’ll get more money from the data of people who don’t care than they lose from the people who care just getting offline. Our metadata isn’t enough, they want our real data now.
omnicidial@reddit
So this is like if a night club got caught serving underage kids and endangering them, so to solve that problem instead of the night club paying for their own bouncer they required the parents of every child in the area to come check IDs outside their club every night even if they didn't ever go to the club.
Complex_Union_5132@reddit
Besides contacting representatives what else can we do?
critacle@reddit
Fuck the GOP. They are pushing this the most.
But fuck every democrat who voted for it.
Fuck the Zuck while we're at it. Harvard boys love ruining the world.
Board_Game_Nut@reddit
When it comes to privacy and controlling the population in general, there isn't that much difference between the GOP and the Dems, especially because most are technologically ignorant. Anything tagged with "protect the children", doesn't get much scrutiny.
MadeByTango@reddit
It's always about corporations. The GOP exists to strip regulations. The DNC exists to prevent corporate liability. Both are mandated to insert private equity into public services anywhere there is an opportunity. All of the protect the children, identity politics, and faith based stuff is used to wedge it through. Then we spend our time protecting the social issues that are simpler to grasp while they bury the real fuckery in the bottom of the bills.
TheLegNBass@reddit
If you haven't, you should reach out to Coffeezilla on YouTube. He does investigative journalism and this is the type of story that he'd be able to follow up with research, get professionals involved, and help bring this to a wide audience.
silenceimpaired@reddit
This is probably driven to get identity tracking into Linux since so many are abandoning Windows.
dont-email-dont-call@reddit
Can you repost this on a substack? Also I recommend reaching out to Taylor Lorenz she might be interested in amplifying this research.
mjb2012@reddit
Not sure what good it'll do, but I'm pinging Colorado news outlet u/thecoloradosun, which might want to report on and further investigate this. Maybe u/The__Newsman Kyle Clark as well.
Tea_Buddy06@reddit
Nice work. This need to be on the news.
tipsup@reddit
Well done 👏
L1qu1d_Gh0st@reddit
That's very impressive work for a reddit post. Kudos, OP.
InstanceTurbulent719@reddit
Damn only 26mil a year is enough to buy most American politicians??
10StringsTooMany@reddit
Thank you for sharing your research. It is very enlightening post.
phrendo@reddit
What do we peasants do?
andyjustice@reddit
I think it's because once you have to have any data point such as your age verifiable. Basically all The anonymity goes away. At least at the big bulk level which is what they would care about on tracking in manipulating and processing your data.
DamnGoodCovfefe@reddit
Remarkable research. Thanks for your work.
random_hitchhiker@reddit
Ff
duplicati83@reddit
Thank you for doing this work.
Fuck Meta. Fuck the republicans. Fuck them allllllll.
RayneYoruka@reddit
Wild.
LifeguardNovel6805@reddit
So we'll force everyone to have a verified digital ID to use the internet, to protect "the children", but we won't prosecute the known trafficking, rape, abuse, exploitation, and murder of children by highly-placed people in our own government, when we have all the evidence, and a law passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress compelling its full disclosure? Have I got this right? Do I have the full picture?
You know, it's kind of hard to argue against the "conspiracy theory" that the world is being run by a relatively small group of Moloch-worshipping, cannibalistic child abusers when, in fact, we are, everyone knows it, and there's apparently nothing that can be done about it.
SayY3sSir@reddit
Having worked for a company in this space, I can promise you this is all part of the panopticon surveillance state being built. They have to keep records like your driver's license and the US government knows people don't want this so they're hiding it behind long user agreements you don't read.
Tkj5@reddit
I am shocked. Shocked.
Well not that shocked.
NfamousFox@reddit
Based post. Commenting for engagement.
lightwhite@reddit
This is top-tier due diligence done on the topic. You have done well!
Educational_End_2182@reddit
why dont we use all that ai we hate to create press kits to send to news stations, youtubers?
Aromatic-Sense-4276@reddit
Thank you for sharing
timtim2000@reddit
I think this one fits r/conspiracy to
Business-Ad-5344@reddit
Unfortunately this probably means that stuff like id.me are complete corruption/theft/russian.
Rookvrouw_Joke@reddit
OP time to clarify you are not suicidal. This is phenomenal.
hikeit233@reddit
TL:DR citizens united ruling ruined the US and now meta and others fully own it.
Winter-Ad843o@reddit
It was definitely malicious mass reporting. My post in this sub was also opening people's eyes to the whole situation, and after racking up a ton of likes and views, it got nuked because of mass reports.
INITMalcanis@reddit
u/AnsibleAnswers
$2,000,000,000 worth of reasonable parental requests....?
AnsibleAnswers@reddit
Two things can be true at once. Meta et al are drowning in COPPA fines.
theadwaita@reddit
Fucking demonrat party for real.
nandru@reddit
Impressive investigation!! This should reach r/all!
catinterpreter@reddit
It's international. You're missing a lot of it if you've limited yourself to the US.
DR_CAWK@reddit
Man. Fucking bravo! I saved this to a document in case it gets deleted again.
Normally when I see a well researched post it's in r/wallstreetbets for some DD. This is way better.
Everyone please upvote, share, and more importantly; send it to the media. If they keep getting contacted and pointed to this post then there is a chance they might pick it up.
apxseemax@reddit
I actually read most of your post, but I will not pretend that I understand half of it.
For now: thank you for pouring so much energy into this investigation! I hope sincerely, that it will lead somewhere and magazines and news will pick up on it.
DankeBrutus@reddit
As always one must ask "cui bono?"
githman@reddit
This is an absolutely outstanding investigative work. OP deserves a medal.
BetaDeltic@reddit
That looks like a lot of work. I'll read it later, but you might want to crosspost this to r/privacy, if you haven't already.
zxuvw@reddit
If i say who is behind this age verification crap, I'll get banned from every platform 🤷🏽
Content_Chemistry_44@reddit
Hey, wait. This is "democracy"... so, vote against it, and problem solved! And fire all those politicians.
JohnLambda@reddit
Good work
cyh555@reddit
thanks for looking into this
UnfilteredCatharsis@reddit
Commenting for the alg, good work OP
ruff_dede@reddit
Reddit doesn't boost by comments.
-drunk_russian-@reddit
Hey, mind if I use and translate some of your investigation? I'll, of course, give you full credit for your research.
AlexMullerSA@reddit
Upvote
l8s9@reddit
Corporate Congress! Companies run America not the gov-ment or the people. (The people haven't run nothing since the 1770s)
binlin@reddit
This could really use a TLDR at the top.
n3tninja1@reddit
Fucking research Chad bro right here 🫡
roidrole@reddit
Engagement, go
BigReception26@reddit
someone with spare points boost this post i dont want to give money to reddit
this needs to make front page
d33pnull@reddit
mfw not r/conspiracy
muwtant@reddit
This needs more attention.
CandlesARG@reddit
israel?
Accomplished-Owl6875@reddit
Stunning work! Eye opening indeed.
Franko_ricardo@reddit
What a based post.