frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Age Verification Lobbying: Dark Money, Model Legislation, Institutional Capture

https://tboteproject.com
64•mefengl•2h ago

Comments

panny•2h ago
And none of it matters. Netchoice is shooting down legislation as fast as grandstanding legislators propose it. The bill of rights doesn't have an age limit. If a 10 year old can own an AR-15, that same 10 year old definitely has 1A rights too. Freedom of speech. Freedom of assembly. They can decide who they want to talk to online without a parent getting in the way of it.
Xiol•1h ago
Doesn't apply to private companies.
SilverElfin•1h ago
A 10 year old can’t own an AR-15 in many states. But I agree that a 10 year old has 1A rights. The problem is that the Supreme Court shocked everyone when they recently ruled that age verification for porn is legal in a case against the state of Texas. That now has opened the flood gates for more states to violate civil rights.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/27/scotus-porn-ruling-opens-d...

152334H•1h ago
Here's the author's description of their work:

  ## Methodology and Tools

  This investigation was conducted by a human researcher who directed all research decisions, selected sources, evaluated findings, and wrote the public-facing posts. Claude Code (Anthropic's CLI tool, running Claude Opus) was used as a research assistant for:

  - Bulk data processing: parsing 4,433 IRS Schedule I grant records, 59,736 DAF recipients, 132MB of Colorado TRACER campaign finance data, and IRS Business Master File extracts covering all US tax-exempt organizations
  - Cross-referencing findings across 24 analysis files and identifying patterns that span multiple research threads
  - Drafting intermediate working documents and structured data summaries
  - Web searches against public databases (OpenSecrets, ProPublica, state lobbying portals, WHOIS/DNS, Wayback Machine)

  Claude Code did not independently choose what to investigate, decide what constitutes a finding, or determine what to publish. Every factual claim in this repository cites a primary source (IRS filing, Senate disclosure, state database, legislative record, or published reporting) that can be independently verified. The tool does not change whether Meta's LD-2 filing lists H.R. 3149, whether DCA has an EIN, or whether Stefanski admitted tech funding under oath. The records exist or they don't.

  If you want to verify any finding, the source URLs and database identifiers are provided throughout. Start with the primary records, not with this repository.

I find it valuable to know the author was responsible for selecting what sources & questions to analyse.
GardenLetter27•1h ago
LLM slop, they even left the 403 errors in the original dump, and accepted hallucinations.
SilverElfin•1h ago
I was not surprised to see Meta behind all this privacy invading stuff but Anthropic surprised me.
throwaw12•1h ago
Corporate lobby should be treated as bribing the politicians.

In ideal world (where we don't live), some of the primary goals of corporations and governments contradict to each other (and there is another body):

* Corporations - maximum profit at all cost to its shareholders

* Government (I mean the ideal one) - prosperity for its citizens

* UN - prosperity for the world (because governments can achieve prosperity for own citizens by exploiting other government citizens)

When they have contradictory goals, lower in the chain should not drastically impact the higher body's goals.

Corporate lobby is doing it, hence US is moving towards feudal system. Because corporations wants to exploit people at maximum speed and squeeze everything, but do not want to take the responsibility for nurturing the people.

Here is how it looks like:

    * You hire Sr eng, squeeze max out of them, lay them off
    * Demand government to have better education, so it can squeeze out next
    * Stop unionization at all costs
    * now we are seeing this with Junior positions, no one wants to nurture and grow them, everyone wants Sr+ engineers
spondyl•1h ago
This is a "productionisation" of the same content discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47362528

I would caution readers to do their due dilligence as the presentation may be fancy but that should not immediately translate into a signal of quality in itself given the author has disclosed using Claude Code for a chunk of this work.

While I won't outright discount the findings (as there is "too much" to reasonably verify), there are a few oddities around the source repo such as errors where Claude has tried to access sources, been denied and then noted as much or where it has seemingly fetched incorrect files and tried to interpret them (https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings...)

I am not under the immediate impression that the author has done thorough due diligence rather than just offloading that to readers by saying "You can just check the sources yourself"

Springtime•1h ago
Also not really a fan of the 'what they're hiding from you' tone it takes (even if that's the subject), like saying that because a website was made less than 100 days before a bill was signed it was a '77-day pipeline' to the bill (which jumped out as a dramatized rephrasing and not present in the original Reddit post).

It also doesn't inline link sources, like the Bloomberg article it mentions (this[1]). A more impartial voice and linked citations to allow quick reference would raise fewer red flags, even if the goal is worthwhile.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-25/meta-clas...

inkysigma•1h ago
I think this is the third time this has effectively been posted see:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47362528

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47365597

Madmallard•1h ago
HN: Please post substantive thoughtful replies only in these AI threads.

Also HN: LLM AI generated sloppa with errors even on top of front page.

clown emoji

lyu07282•1h ago
There is a global coordinated effort around digital id, banning end2end encryption, etc. the goal is ending anonymity online. As far as I can tell it's all coordinated through the World Economic Forum's "Global Coalition for Digital Safety" it started in 2021.

https://initiatives.weforum.org/global-coalition-for-digital...

It's not just the US, similar legislation in Australia, UK and the EU.

One thing we can look forward to is platform-side detection of 'illegal' material, so like you organize a protest in a private discord, discord recognizes the illegal act and automatically forwards it to the local police that give you a visit. This is where the road is headed.

1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

https://claude.com/blog/1m-context-ga
762•meetpateltech•18h ago•297 comments

A Survival Guide to a PhD (2016)

http://karpathy.github.io/2016/09/07/phd/
104•vismit2000•4d ago•54 comments

Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/qatar-helium-shutdown-puts-chip-supply-chain-on-a-two-...
587•johnbarron•22h ago•506 comments

You gotta think outside the hypercube

https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/you-gotta-think-outside-the-hypercube
64•surprisetalk•3d ago•18 comments

Show HN: Channel Surfer – Watch YouTube like it’s cable TV

https://channelsurfer.tv
513•kilroy123•2d ago•151 comments

The Isolation Trap: Erlang

https://causality.blog/essays/the-isolation-trap/
46•enz•2d ago•7 comments

Recursive Problems Benefit from Recursive Solutions

https://jnkr.tech/blog/recursive-benefits-recursive
24•luispa•3d ago•5 comments

Baochip-1x: What It Is, Why I'm Doing It Now and How It Came About

https://www.crowdsupply.com/baochip/dabao/updates/what-it-is-why-im-doing-it-now-and-how-it-came-...
14•timhh•2d ago•0 comments

UCP Protocol: The Internet Has 100M Shops and No Front Door

https://askucp.com/blog
4•defencetechhn•1h ago•0 comments

Mouser: An open source alternative to Logi-Plus mouse software

https://github.com/TomBadash/MouseControl
323•avionics-guy•16h ago•90 comments

Hammerspoon

https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon
289•tosh•16h ago•105 comments

Wired headphone sales are exploding

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260310-wired-headphones-are-better-than-bluetooth
145•billybuckwheat•2d ago•245 comments

I found 39 Algolia admin keys exposed across open source documentation sites

https://benzimmermann.dev/blog/algolia-docsearch-admin-keys
131•kernelrocks•12h ago•32 comments

Emacs and Vim in the Age of AI

https://batsov.com/articles/2026/03/09/emacs-and-vim-in-the-age-of-ai/
151•psibi•4d ago•88 comments

AEP (API Design Standard and Tooling Ecosystem)

https://aep.dev/
15•rambleraptor•3d ago•3 comments

Can I run AI locally?

https://www.canirun.ai/
1233•ricardbejarano•22h ago•305 comments

Parallels confirms MacBook Neo can run Windows in a virtual machine

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/13/macbook-neo-runs-windows-11-vm/
272•tosh•21h ago•382 comments

Atari 2600 BASIC Programming (2015)

https://huguesjohnson.com/programming/atari-2600-basic/
29•mondobe•2d ago•6 comments

Optimizing Content for Agents

https://cra.mr/optimizing-content-for-agents/
46•vinhnx•8h ago•18 comments

Digg is gone again

https://digg.com/
194•hammerbrostime•16h ago•176 comments

Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge84xqjg5lo
210•gostsamo•11h ago•118 comments

Megadev: A Development Kit for the Sega Mega Drive and Mega CD Hardware

https://github.com/drojaazu/megadev
5•XzetaU8•2h ago•0 comments

I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

https://lr0.org/blog/p/crocker/
77•ghd_•12h ago•114 comments

New 'negative light' technology hides data transfers in plain sight

https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2026/03/New-negative-light-technology-hides-data-transfers-...
89•wjSgoWPm5bWAhXB•2d ago•55 comments

Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/magazine/ai-coding-programming-jobs-claude-chatgpt.html?smid=u...
128•angst•2d ago•159 comments

Elon Musk pushes out more xAI founders as AI coding effort falters

https://www.ft.com/content/e5fbc6c2-d5a6-4b97-a105-6a96ea849de5
443•merksittich•18h ago•660 comments

Using Thunderbird for RSS

https://rubenerd.com/using-thunderbird-for-rss/
104•ingve•4d ago•29 comments

RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/fake-ram-bundled-with-real-ram-to-create-a-perform...
9•edward•1h ago•1 comments

Our Experience with I-Ready

https://moultano.wordpress.com/2026/03/12/our-experience-with-i-ready/
71•barry-cotter•10h ago•24 comments

Show HN: Context Gateway – Compress agent context before it hits the LLM

https://github.com/Compresr-ai/Context-Gateway
81•ivzak•17h ago•49 comments