Social media is going the way of alcohol, gambling, and other social sins: societies are deciding it’s no longer kids’ stuff. Lawmakers point to compulsive use, exposure to harmful content, and mounting concerns about adolescent mental health. So, many propose to set a minimum age, usually 13 or 16.
In cases when regulators demand real enforcement rather than symbolic rules, platforms run into a basic technical problem. The only way to prove that someone is old enough to use a site is to collect personal data about who they are. And the only way to prove that you checked is to keep the data indefinitely. Age-restriction laws push platforms toward intrusive verification systems that often directly conflict with modern data-privacy law.
This is the age-verification trap. Strong enforcement of age rules undermines data privacy.
The mass majority of parents don’t parent. This is a different problem than the government is trying to fix. My first introduction to this was when NWA was causing a ruckus and got white christian womens panties in a kerfuffle that led to parental advisory labels on music.
Ultimately having the government force age ID isn’t about parenting. Its a pathway to further, easier surveillance on the public under the guise of “protecting the children”.
Bingo! And this is why we need to remind our governments that if this is really about “protecting the children”, we should not be sacrificing our own children privacy and safety, in the name of their safety!
Exactly. MAGA is never going to endorse a reasonable strategy that doesn’t allow them to connect our exact identities to everything we do online, because that’s the real objective. “Protecting children” is just an excuse to Diddy-Lube the Slippery Slope, as it ALWAYS is.