alt Hacker NewsI'm not sure why Meta's lobbying is harped on so much when all of Big Tech benefits from this; Zuckerberg is just the fall guy. Tech companies love the idea of identity / age verification so they can target ads more effectively. My general feeling is also that privacy is a thorn in their side when it comes to integrating more deeply into people's lives.
There are also state actors at play here who would love if computing without ID became a very niche thing to do. Obviously their top line would be "fighting terrorism" and "saving the children" but in reality we've seen how these organizations (ICE, NSA, etc.) abuse their power and spy on people without warrants.
tl;dr: there is much more at play here than Facebooks interests alone.
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> Zuckerberg is just the fall guy
This is likely because of Zuck's testimony in the very recent court case where he testified exactly that the "best place" to do "age verification" was in the operating system.
This was but a few weeks before all these, largely very identical sounding bills, suddenly started appearing in state houses across the USA.
because Meta's lobbying has been publicly identified. When the other companies are found to be spending millions of dollars to push these age verification laws, then they, too, will be harped on.
> I'm not sure why Meta's lobbying is harped on so much when all of Big Tech benefits from this
Because meta will not have to spend real $ to add/support age verification, plus they get to point the finger at someone else for age issues.
Fall guy or not, Zuckerberg's influence on my life has been entirely negative. From addictive social media feeds, to anti-competitive acquisitions that ruin once good products, to crap like this - he's the worst, most destructive CEO in tech. Even Oracle at least provides some value through their database products. Meta can go die in a fire.
Google and Apple certainly don't benefit from this - they can serve more ads, track more data, and assume you're authorized to spend a gazillion dollars in a game if they don't know you're a child.
One example of this was last year when high-profile apps like Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans were found to have privacy policies on their websites restricting users to 13+ so they could track and advertise more while their Android and iOS apps were designated for all ages so they could get more downloads.