The investigation you linked to is entirely hallucinated by LLMs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47659552 (tboteproject and the "Reddit researcher" are the same person).

They also added this page since I posted that comment: https://web.archive.org/web/20260411112604/https://tboteproj... where they claim their website is "under surveillance" because it got a few thousand requests from Google Cloud et al, most of them to a single page. This really shows how low their standards are.

I share your wariness of the LLM garbage, but I believe the conclusions are correct. This has Facebook's stink all over it. I worked there and know of what I speak.

So we should believe the hallucinations because they sound like something that could be true? Does the LLM in the middle somehow makes it more trustworthy than if GP had just shared their own pattern-matching conjecture?

No. I think LLMs are garbage. Separately, and unrelated: I think Facebook is behind these bills. The LLM may be garbage and still sometimes produce a correct result.

Ok, but then we should look for an actual source beyond "Don't worry that it's garbage, it smells ok in this case."

You are arguing with something I did not say.

Yes, it would be nice to know with certainty who is behind these bills. It sucks how much opaque money influences American politics.

Josh Gottheimer's press release[1] on HR8250 mentions the "Meta Parents Network." I don't know what that is, but it does have "Meta" in the name.

Buffy Wick's noise about AB1043 claimed it was passed with the support of tech companies. I have spoken directly to one person close to AB1043 who told me Facebook argued against AB1043. I have doubts. But if true, I suspect they were not arguing in good faith and had ulterior motives.

In the end, no matter who is secretly lobbying for or against age verification bills all over the planet, the bills are terrible, and we should fight them.

[1] https://gottheimer.house.gov/posts/release-gottheimer-announ...

There's an SMBC strip that makes your exact point, except they intended it as satire, whereas you seem to mean it in earnest.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/aaaah

I'm confused by how my point got so lost.

I think Facebook is behind these bills. I think that from personal experience working at Facebook.

That an LLM may have arrived at the same conclusion is unrelated. LLMs are garbage. Don't use them.

We're trying to have a discussion about facts, not opinions.

I typoed the second link and can't edit anymore. Correct one: https://web.archive.org/web/20260411112604/https://tboteproj...

I was relieved to hear it was an emotionless mega-corporation catalyzing this, and not a sudden competence of evil bureaucracies in the USA and Europe.