They literally just added a field in the JSON schema to support a birth date field which is completely optional and has no relevance on the project. People are so dumb.
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Not to mention that removing that field won’t make you adult. Without it you can either not go to certain websites or download applications from stores like Flathub or the system assumes that you are a toddler and only let you visit baby tv.
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The DOB field is different from name and address because it is a fixed attribute that never changes. Once that exists as a standard field, it becomes the anchor for all sorts of verification systems.
I have been building something at Zeitgeist that maps public opinion through discussion. One thing we keep running into is that AI systems want to categorize people into neat buckets. They will say "users under 18" vs "over 18" and move on. But real human disagreement does not work that way. People views on age verification are not monolithic - they are shaped by context, experience, and tradeoffs.
We are seeing this play out everywhere now. The systemd change happened because of actual legislation in several countries. It is not theoretical anymore. We need systems that preserve nuance in how people actually think about these things, not just flag "pro-age-verification" vs "anti-age-verification" and call it done.
The DOB field is different from name and address because it is a fixed attribute that never changes
(Preface: I’m not really disagreeing with your larger point) This is not really correct though. I have a computer and I’m in my 50s. So it’s in 50 year old mode. Now my grandson who is 7 is in front of my computer. What utility is the fixed age that was gathered years ago in protecting the actual child user in that case?
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