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.
Somehow everyone has forgotten about parental controls that have been apart of consumer grade home routers for years.
Parental controls are there specifically to allow parents. These settings allow a parent to block everything online only allowing access to approved lists of websites.
What is missing at a government level is a curation effort of websites, similar to Libraries that classify books by genres and appropriate age levels.
I would propose a government fund where Librarians or similar organizations can start this effort, and make these lists easily accessible within routers for non tech individuals, together with local initiatives and programs for parents that have a interest to learn more.
For power users lists like these already exists curated by public individuals very similar to pihole block lists and whitelists.
This concept would be the most privacy respectful IMO giving parents the most power to parent, while respecting everyone else’s privacy online including children.
The mass majority of parents don’t parent. This is the problem. 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!