cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/53271240
https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=2112&Initiative=false&Year=2025
To hell with this.
The first public hearing is this Friday, January 16, in-person and online. If you live in Washington, you can file a comment in advance rather than attend the hearing. Follow the link above and hit the “Send a comment to your legislators” button.
I contacted my rep and they got back to me. Made me feel a bit better about it going forward. Hopefully not just blowing smoke.
"Thanks for your message. HB 2112 has an extremely long path ahead before it could reach a place where I would have a vote on it, but I share your skepticism about the effectiveness of the proposed approach and will keep your concerns in mind in the unlikely event that the bill advances to the Senate floor in the 2026 session.
Best wishes, Jamie
Senator Jamie Pedersen
Majority Leader
43rd Legislative District"
Another surveillance law parading as concern for children.
Why this is dumb: Complying with these kind of requirements in any meaningful way is nearly impossible. Online age verification systems are easily circumvented at best. At worst, they require users to share lots of sensitive personal information, creating a great target for hackers. So most sites will just block traffic from the state, and anyone with half a brain cell will just use a VPN to get around the block.
“Ahh, so we also ban VPNs, got it.” - Actual politicians in the UK
Man, I really support the idea of preventing children from partaking in many online activities, as they’ve been proven harmful to kids, but there’s just no good way to implement it.
I mean, the best way to protect kids from harmful online material is to do things like limit and monitor their time online. But you can’t reasonably do that forever, so talk to them about the things they will encounter and keep that line of discussion open and honest. Trying to use technology to do the work of good parenting is lazy and ineffective.
Good parenting is always the answer to things like this, but parents are seemingly incapable of being good parents. That’s why I support the idea of something like this, as children should be protected from these awful social media companies that could not care less about the wellbeing of these kids, and parents seem to be incapable of managing it themselves.
