California's Assembly passed Bill 1856, amending the Digital Age Assurance Act to exclude operating systems and software meant to be freely copied, redistributed or modified from mandatory age-verification requirements. This shields most Linux distributions, though derivative projects with proprietary layers like Valve's SteamOS may still need to comply. The bill also fixes the DAAA's overly broad definition of 'user' and restricts sharing of age data to law enforcement requests.
California's Assembly Bill 1856 has passed both chambers of the state legislature and now heads to Engrossing and Enrolling before reaching Governor Gavin Newsom's desk. The bill retains an amendment carving out open-source operating systems from its age-verification mandates, an exemption first added back in May. Covered operating systems will need to collect birth date or age information during account setup and share a coarse age-range signal with app stores and developers via API.
California's legislature unanimously passed Assembly Bill 1856, which amends the state's Digital Age Assurance Act to exempt open-source operating systems from age-verification requirements before the law takes effect in January 2027. The bill redefines 'operating system provider' to exclude software distributed under licenses like GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache, removing Linux distributions such as Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch, plus BSD systems and SteamOS, from the law's reach. The bill now awaits Governor Gavin Newsom's signature after clearing both chambers with amended language covering app stores, package managers, and browser extension stores.
California's legislature unanimously passed Assembly Bill 1856, which carves out open-source operating systems and software distributed under permissive licenses such as GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache from the state's Digital Age Assurance Act. The bill also exempts software components not sold as standalone apps through app stores, covering package managers like apt and pacman, and excludes browser extension stores. The measure now awaits Governor Gavin Newsom's signature before the underlying law takes effect on January 1, 2027.
Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement with a coalition of 52 state attorneys general over allegations it designed Instagram and Facebook to keep children engaged despite known harms. The company admitted no wrongdoing, and the payout will be spread across a decade, softening its financial impact relative to Meta's more than $200 billion in annual revenue. As part of the deal, Meta must adopt the most extensive child-safety measures any major platform has agreed to, built around age-verification technology that remains unreliable.
Meta has agreed to an $18 billion settlement with 52 attorneys general representing 29 U.S. states over allegations it designed Instagram and Facebook to hook young users. The company admits no wrongdoing but commits to detailed platform changes for minors, with the payout spread across a decade, softening its financial impact given Meta's $200 billion-plus annual revenue.
Meta has reached a settlement with 29 US states that had sued the company over allegedly designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive and harmful to minors. Reuters reports the deal could cost Meta as much as $16.68 billion and would involve 52 state attorneys general, requiring Meta to adopt default usage limits during school and nighttime hours plus stricter age verification. The agreement still needs court approval but would let Meta avoid a trial that could have forced broader industry changes.
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