I understand their position but disagree with the tactics.

Yes, the age verification laws are incredibly bad for various reasons. I do not support them in any way.

However, they do exist and services are required to comply with them. Many services in this position use Linux and systemd. On those systems, systemd is the location where user data like this would be stored. So, from a software engineering perspective it only makes sense to include a field to handle this.

People were taking this engineering decision and treating as if it were a proxy for age verification laws. They were doxxing the developer and the comments were borderline inciting violence (and some not borderline at all). That’s the part I take issue with.

It’s slacktivisim.

Effectively fighting against age verification requires engaging with the political system, not spamming toxic comments on social media. The fight against age verification isn’t going to be won inside of git repos and no progress is made by attacking volunteer developers.

You’re right that it is an important issue, but the people that show up just to be toxic and violent are not doing the cause any favors and should be shunned from the community. These people were not actually members of our community, they were tourists following the outrage train and have since moved on to other topics for their next hit of outrage and self-righteousness.