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I wonder how can you implement such a law without forcing people to identify online ? Will they enforce a digital ID that you need to use to access the web or s

I wonder how can you implement such a law without forcing people to identify online ? Will they enforce a digital ID that you need to use to access the web or social media ?

davesmylie 2y ago
A drop down list of birth dates/years "works" for most age restricted sites - I guess the logic is that if a user is lying about their age, it's not the sites problem. Article states that sites must demonstrate they are taking reasonable measures to enforce this though - a lot will come down as to how courts interpret that. If they go to the extremes of the KYC laws in australia I imagine a significant fraction of adults will not want to verify their age.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > extremes of the KYC laws in australia Can you provide more details about this statement? I never heard anything about it on HN discussions.
  - jeeeb 2y ago
    I’m not sure how unusual it is internationally but KYC laws in Australia will generally require 100 points of identification, usually satisfied by showing your passport and drivers license. Other options include recent utility bills, your birth certificate, medicare card etc. The system wasn’t really designed for the internet era and I think a lot of people would not be happy about handing all the personal info over to TikTok or Facebook
- alkonaut 2y ago
  > I guess the logic is that if a user is lying about their age, it's not the sites problem. If the law is to have any teeth at all, it should be the problem of the service provider. Say for example that a banned feature for minors is having media feeds based on past watching behavior. Lacking a reliable age verification it's simple for social media companies to remove the feature entirely for all users, if it's unreasonable or impossible for them to implement age verification.
- whstl 2y ago
  As much as I am grateful for most of GDPR, it has shown that leaving the implementation of anything to websites is a recipe for disaster. It's gonna be cookie banners 2.0. I bet a lot will just ask for a credit card number, like in those old scam fake-porn websites from the late 90s/early 2000s.
dyauspitr 2y ago
It’s happening on porn sites in some states in the US right now. When you visit the site, they ask you to validate with your ID.
- scrps 2y ago
  Hell of a time to run a VPN or a blackmail service... Porn site profiles with activity history + real traceable identities will make the Ashley Madison leak look quaint.
  - morkalork 2y ago
    How long are VPN services for consumers like that going to be viable? All the 5 eyes countries are trending in the same direction and they US isn't shy to press other countries to follow their regulations with the threat of being sanctioned.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    How so? Ashley Madison was a service for cheating. This would be for people watching porn - how is that worse? The history is extremely unlikely to be available to the id validator (beyond the domain at most). VPNs can't see the actual history either.
    - pc86 2y ago
      They're probably referring to the scope. Very few people were directly impacted by Ashley Madison (though there was at least one reported suicide due to the leaks), but lots of people watch porn and most of those people would not be too keen on their browsing history being leaked even if it's relatively tame, and especially if it's not.
      - clown_strike 2y ago
        The funny thing these days is that all porn is tailored to appear as far from "tame" as imaginable. The average PornHub user's history will be full of weird incest shit at the very least, not because of any specific interest in the genre but because so much generic heterosexual porn is labeled as such. Looks really bad for you if it makes the newspaper. So even "tame" leakage is 100x more embarrassing than it ought to be, and thus snooping on bf/husband's devices to humiliate them over their porn usage is normalized on relationship subreddits. Same goes for them plugging your email address into the password reset form to try to verify whether you have an account on any given site.
peebee67 2y ago
You don't! That's exactly what they're aspiring to here, following on from a well-established pedigree of Australian lawmakers and their dysfunctional relationship with the Internet.
- donohoe 2y ago
  You do! It already happens - just not for everyone. Example: https://m.facebook.com/help/582999911881572 https://m.facebook.com/help/582999911881572
sturadnidge 2y ago
The government is being deliberately non-prescriptive about that, as they are about what qualifies as 'social media' (statement of fact - no comment on the approach itself). Ideally the legislation is accompanied by a government digital service that allows 3rd parties to verify age _without_ divulging full identity, but I don't see that side of things being discussed anywhere down here :(
- threeseed 2y ago
  They seem pretty clear [1] about what social media is: Social networks, public media sharing networks, discussion forums, consumer review networks. [1] https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-12/Phase-1-Industry-Codes-%28Class-1A-and-Class-1B-Material%29-Regulatory-Guidance.pdf?v=1730953002185 https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-12/Phase...
- bigfatkitten 2y ago
  They haven't got the competence to implement it even if they wanted to.
addy34 2y ago
The government currently tendering for providers of different systems. See here [1] and here [2]: Tender documents released on Monday show the technical trial is slated to begin “on or around 28 October”, with the provider also expected to assess the “effectiveness, maturity, and readiness” of technologies in Australia. Biometric age estimation, email verification processes, account confirmation processes, device or operating-level interventions are among the technologies that will be assessed for social media (13-16 years age band). In the context of age-restricted online content (18 years or over), the Communication department has asked that double-blind tokenised attribution exchange models, as per the age verification roadmap, and hard identifiers such as credit cards be considered. [1] https://www.innovationaus.com/govt-readies-age-verification-tech-trial-for-social-media-ban/ https://www.innovationaus.com/govt-readies-age-verification-... [2] https://www.biometricupdate.com/202409/australia-launches-tender-to-trial-biometric-age-estimation-and-alternatives https://www.biometricupdate.com/202409/australia-launches-te...
- nick3443 2y ago
  Sales of stick on mustaches will skyrocket
- strangecasts 2y ago
  The source for "double-blind tokenised attribution exchange models" is this report from July 2024, from the Australian eSafety Commissioner: https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-07/Age-Assurance-Issues-Paper-July2024_0.pdf https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-07/Age-A... They note that existing age verification setups largely either rely on providing ID, or on a combination of manual and automated behavior profiling (face recognition, text classification, reports from other users), both of which have obvious privacy and/or accuracy issues. The "double-blind tokens" point to a summary by LINC explaining how they _could_ be implemented with zero-knowledge proofs, but I could not find an article or a practical implementation (could just be a mistake on my part, admittedly) At _best_ you end up with a solution in the vein of Privacy Pass - https://petsymposium.org/popets/2018/popets-2018-0026.pdf https://petsymposium.org/popets/2018/popets-2018-0026.pdf - but that requires a browser extension, a functioning digital ID solution you can build on top of, and buy-in from the websites. Personally, I also suspect the strongest sign a company is going to screw up the cryptographic side of it is if they agree to implement it...
prawn 2y ago
No comment on the implementation, but I wonder if there's some value in just allowing parents to be able to point to this and say "No, little Fred, you're not allowed to have an Instagram account until you're 16. It's the actual rule."
- alfiedotwtf 2y ago
  I’m guessing you don’t have kids
  - prawn 2y ago
    I have three kids. They have access to devices they use primarily for reading and language/music lessons. They don't use social media and would likely pay a decent level of attention if (in addition to us having explained concerns about social media for children) we indicated that there was government advice/ruling around this.
    - sekai 2y ago
      > we indicated that there was government advice/ruling around this. Why would any pre-teen / teen care about what government thinks? They care what their friends think about that TikTok they saw during recess, though.
- technion 2y ago
  I'm listening to Australian radio right now and a group of mothers just made this exact point.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- dools 2y ago
  Yep, the "everyone else has BLAH" argument is a strong one. If we collectively take action through government to set a standard it is MUCH easier to shut down those self-fulfilling claims.
_AzMoo 2y ago
You don't necessarily need to actually attempt to globally enforce it. It's like speeding, right? Everybody knows the law, and a lot of people choose to break it. We can't check everybody's speed all the time, so instead we selectively enforce. The real change though comes from parent's perceptions. Right now there's age limits of 14-years-old on most social media platforms, however most parents just see this as a ToS thing, and nobody cares about actually violating it. Once it becomes law, the parents are suddenly responsible (and liable) for ensuring their children are not breaking the law by accessing social media. It's not going to stop everybody, but it'll certainly move the needle on a lot of people who are currently apathetic to the ToS of social media platforms.
- Affric 2y ago
  Not true. Only the social media companies will be liable. It’s an important part of the legislation.
  - _AzMoo 2y ago
    Yeah, you're right about the liability part. But regardless, as a parent of teenagers, being able to justify an unpopular decision with "it's the law" instead of "research shows it's potentially bad for you in the medium to long term" is extremely valuable.
jojobas 2y ago
Same as alcohol. If you supply your kids with alcohol, or even have it at home and they get drunk without your knowledge, you'll be in trouble.
- pests 2y ago
  Not sure that is the best example as many states have exceptions to allow parents to legally give their children alcohol so that scenario you devised could be completely legal.
sureIy 2y ago
Making it illegal could make it taboo, kids are less likely to talk about it in fear of "getting caught" and less talking means less usage. This is not like porn which is a solitary activity: on social media you have to be social and let everyone know… at least for traditional actually-social media, not content-consuming apps like TikTok. It's similar to alcohol usage: you can't stop it completely, but also you don't have 50% of kids bringing it to school.
- sekai 2y ago
  > Making it illegal could make it taboo, kids are less likely to talk about it in fear of "getting caught" and less talking means less usage So like piracy? > This is not like porn which is a solitary activity: on social media you have to be social and let everyone know… at least for traditional actually-social media, not content-consuming apps like TikTok You don't? You can stay perfectly anonymous.
asdefghyk 2y ago
RE ".....how can you implement such a law..." Request the social media platform to implement the restriction. The large social media platform have billions $ cash , so if that "really want to implement it" it should not be a problem. However, I expect social media companies to "drag out every reason , why they can ot implement it..." - since it does not benefit the social media company. ... and would reduce its user base ...
- michaelt 2y ago
  > Request the social media platform to implement the restriction. The large social media platform have billions $ cash , so if that "really want to implement it" it should not be a problem. I'm sure that Facebook, Google and TikTok will be delighted to make it mandatory that Australians send in photos of their face, passport and driving license. But is it good for Australia to have their citizens hand such mountains of PII to unaccountable foreign megacorporations?
  - asdefghyk 2y ago
    RE "...is it good for Australia to have their citizens hand such mountains of PII to unaccountable foreign megacorporations...." NOT NEEDED , Mega Corp needs to have office in Australia where such documents are checked. Document never leaves Australia.
askvictor 2y ago
Well, funny you should mention that - the AU government ID system (used to access govt services like medicare and tax), has very recently been rebranded from MyGovID to MyID. Most states have already got digital drivers' licences.
alkonaut 2y ago
I don't think lawmakers should describe HOW things are done necessarily. Here it's enough to say that "unless you can be 100% sure your user is above age X, then you can't provide them service Y or feature Z". It might not even be the desired outcome to have identification, the better outcome could be to have feature Z stripped for all users (for example video feeds based on past watching behavior).
dredmorbius 2y ago
Law should not be excessively prescriptive, especially in the case of rapidly-evolving technologies (and business sectors) for all the obvious reasons. What's far more useful is to propose effective incentives and disincentives, and let the participants work this out for themselves. There are some useful principles and examples which come to mind: - Business is profit-oriented. Attack the basis of profits, in a readily-identifiable and enforceable way, and activity which pursues those markets will tend to dry up. - Business is profoundly risk-averse. Raise the risks of an activity, or remove protections or limitations on threads (e.g., Section 230 of the CDA in the US), and incentives to participate in that activity will be greatly reduced. Penetrating corporate and third-party veils would be particularly useful, in this case, of service providers (aiding and abetting in a proscripted commerce) and advertisers (profiting by same). Lifting any limitations on harms which might occur (bullying, induced suicides, addiction, or others) would similarly be crippling. As to how age might be ascertained: - Self-reporting. Not terribly reliable, but a decent first cut. - Profiling. There are exceedingly strong indicia of age which can be made, including based on a particular account's social graph, interests, online activity, location data (is the profile spending ~6h daily at an elementary school, and not lunching in the teacher's lounge?), etc. One strong distinction is between legislation and regulation, where the latter is imposed (usually with rulemaking process) through the executive branch (SCOTUS's Loper v. Raimondo being a phenomenally stupid rejection of that principle). Such regulation could then on a more flexible basis identify specific technical means to be imposed, reviewed, and updated on a regular schedule. - Access providers. Most people now access the Internet through either fixed-location (home, work, institutional) providers, or their own mobile access provider. Such accounts could well carry age (and other attestation) flags which online service providers could be obliged to respect as regards regulation. Jumping in before a few obvious objections: no, these mechanisms are not perfect but I'll assert they can be practically effective; and yes, there are risks for authoritarian regimes to abuse such measures, but then, those are already abusing present mechanisms. I'd include extensive AdTech-based surveillance in that, which is itself ripe for abuse and has demonstrated much of this already. (That said, I'd welcome rational "what could possibly go wrong" discussion.)
Hilift 2y ago
Remember the Silicon Valley episode where they would have been fined $21 billion for not verifying the age of PiperChat users? Same way. All companies are one slippery slope away from being fined by Missouri for not protecting children enough. Or Australia.
brtkdotse 2y ago
There’s a near-zero chance of getting caught driving without a license. Despite not having a drivers license checking mechanism, people generally don’t drive without a license because of the mere fact that it’s illegal. Societal signaling is pretty powerful.

I wonder how can you implement such a law without forcing people to identify online ? Will they enforce a digital ID that you need to use to access the web or social media ?

davesmylie 2y ago

A drop down list of birth dates/years "works" for most age restricted sites - I guess the logic is that if a user is lying about their age, it's not the sites problem. Article states that sites must demonstrate they are taking reasonable measures to enforce this though - a lot will come down as to how courts interpret that. If they go to the extremes of the KYC laws in australia I imagine a significant fraction of adults will not want to verify their age.

throwaway2037 2y ago
> extremes of the KYC laws in australia Can you provide more details about this statement? I never heard anything about it on HN discussions.
- jeeeb 2y ago
  I’m not sure how unusual it is internationally but KYC laws in Australia will generally require 100 points of identification, usually satisfied by showing your passport and drivers license. Other options include recent utility bills, your birth certificate, medicare card etc. The system wasn’t really designed for the internet era and I think a lot of people would not be happy about handing all the personal info over to TikTok or Facebook
alkonaut 2y ago
> I guess the logic is that if a user is lying about their age, it's not the sites problem. If the law is to have any teeth at all, it should be the problem of the service provider. Say for example that a banned feature for minors is having media feeds based on past watching behavior. Lacking a reliable age verification it's simple for social media companies to remove the feature entirely for all users, if it's unreasonable or impossible for them to implement age verification.
whstl 2y ago
As much as I am grateful for most of GDPR, it has shown that leaving the implementation of anything to websites is a recipe for disaster. It's gonna be cookie banners 2.0. I bet a lot will just ask for a credit card number, like in those old scam fake-porn websites from the late 90s/early 2000s.

dyauspitr 2y ago

It’s happening on porn sites in some states in the US right now. When you visit the site, they ask you to validate with your ID.

scrps 2y ago
Hell of a time to run a VPN or a blackmail service... Porn site profiles with activity history + real traceable identities will make the Ashley Madison leak look quaint.
- morkalork 2y ago
  How long are VPN services for consumers like that going to be viable? All the 5 eyes countries are trending in the same direction and they US isn't shy to press other countries to follow their regulations with the threat of being sanctioned.
- viraptor 2y ago
  How so? Ashley Madison was a service for cheating. This would be for people watching porn - how is that worse? The history is extremely unlikely to be available to the id validator (beyond the domain at most). VPNs can't see the actual history either.
  - pc86 2y ago
    They're probably referring to the scope. Very few people were directly impacted by Ashley Madison (though there was at least one reported suicide due to the leaks), but lots of people watch porn and most of those people would not be too keen on their browsing history being leaked even if it's relatively tame, and especially if it's not.
    - clown_strike 2y ago
      The funny thing these days is that all porn is tailored to appear as far from "tame" as imaginable. The average PornHub user's history will be full of weird incest shit at the very least, not because of any specific interest in the genre but because so much generic heterosexual porn is labeled as such. Looks really bad for you if it makes the newspaper. So even "tame" leakage is 100x more embarrassing than it ought to be, and thus snooping on bf/husband's devices to humiliate them over their porn usage is normalized on relationship subreddits. Same goes for them plugging your email address into the password reset form to try to verify whether you have an account on any given site.

peebee67 2y ago

You don't! That's exactly what they're aspiring to here, following on from a well-established pedigree of Australian lawmakers and their dysfunctional relationship with the Internet.

donohoe 2y ago
You do! It already happens - just not for everyone. Example: https://m.facebook.com/help/582999911881572 https://m.facebook.com/help/582999911881572

sturadnidge 2y ago

The government is being deliberately non-prescriptive about that, as they are about what qualifies as 'social media' (statement of fact - no comment on the approach itself). Ideally the legislation is accompanied by a government digital service that allows 3rd parties to verify age _without_ divulging full identity, but I don't see that side of things being discussed anywhere down here :(

threeseed 2y ago
They seem pretty clear [1] about what social media is: Social networks, public media sharing networks, discussion forums, consumer review networks. [1] https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-12/Phase-1-Industry-Codes-%28Class-1A-and-Class-1B-Material%29-Regulatory-Guidance.pdf?v=1730953002185 https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-12/Phase...
bigfatkitten 2y ago
They haven't got the competence to implement it even if they wanted to.

addy34 2y ago

The government currently tendering for providers of different systems. See here [1] and here [2]: Tender documents released on Monday show the technical trial is slated to begin “on or around 28 October”, with the provider also expected to assess the “effectiveness, maturity, and readiness” of technologies in Australia. Biometric age estimation, email verification processes, account confirmation processes, device or operating-level interventions are among the technologies that will be assessed for social media (13-16 years age band). In the context of age-restricted online content (18 years or over), the Communication department has asked that double-blind tokenised attribution exchange models, as per the age verification roadmap, and hard identifiers such as credit cards be considered. [1] https://www.innovationaus.com/govt-readies-age-verification-tech-trial-for-social-media-ban/ https://www.innovationaus.com/govt-readies-age-verification-... [2] https://www.biometricupdate.com/202409/australia-launches-tender-to-trial-biometric-age-estimation-and-alternatives https://www.biometricupdate.com/202409/australia-launches-te...

nick3443 2y ago
Sales of stick on mustaches will skyrocket
strangecasts 2y ago
The source for "double-blind tokenised attribution exchange models" is this report from July 2024, from the Australian eSafety Commissioner: https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-07/Age-Assurance-Issues-Paper-July2024_0.pdf https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-07/Age-A... They note that existing age verification setups largely either rely on providing ID, or on a combination of manual and automated behavior profiling (face recognition, text classification, reports from other users), both of which have obvious privacy and/or accuracy issues. The "double-blind tokens" point to a summary by LINC explaining how they _could_ be implemented with zero-knowledge proofs, but I could not find an article or a practical implementation (could just be a mistake on my part, admittedly) At _best_ you end up with a solution in the vein of Privacy Pass - https://petsymposium.org/popets/2018/popets-2018-0026.pdf https://petsymposium.org/popets/2018/popets-2018-0026.pdf - but that requires a browser extension, a functioning digital ID solution you can build on top of, and buy-in from the websites. Personally, I also suspect the strongest sign a company is going to screw up the cryptographic side of it is if they agree to implement it...

prawn 2y ago

No comment on the implementation, but I wonder if there's some value in just allowing parents to be able to point to this and say "No, little Fred, you're not allowed to have an Instagram account until you're 16. It's the actual rule."

alfiedotwtf 2y ago
I’m guessing you don’t have kids
- prawn 2y ago
  I have three kids. They have access to devices they use primarily for reading and language/music lessons. They don't use social media and would likely pay a decent level of attention if (in addition to us having explained concerns about social media for children) we indicated that there was government advice/ruling around this.
  - sekai 2y ago
    > we indicated that there was government advice/ruling around this. Why would any pre-teen / teen care about what government thinks? They care what their friends think about that TikTok they saw during recess, though.
technion 2y ago
I'm listening to Australian radio right now and a group of mothers just made this exact point.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
dools 2y ago
Yep, the "everyone else has BLAH" argument is a strong one. If we collectively take action through government to set a standard it is MUCH easier to shut down those self-fulfilling claims.

_AzMoo 2y ago

You don't necessarily need to actually attempt to globally enforce it. It's like speeding, right? Everybody knows the law, and a lot of people choose to break it. We can't check everybody's speed all the time, so instead we selectively enforce. The real change though comes from parent's perceptions. Right now there's age limits of 14-years-old on most social media platforms, however most parents just see this as a ToS thing, and nobody cares about actually violating it. Once it becomes law, the parents are suddenly responsible (and liable) for ensuring their children are not breaking the law by accessing social media. It's not going to stop everybody, but it'll certainly move the needle on a lot of people who are currently apathetic to the ToS of social media platforms.

Affric 2y ago
Not true. Only the social media companies will be liable. It’s an important part of the legislation.
- _AzMoo 2y ago
  Yeah, you're right about the liability part. But regardless, as a parent of teenagers, being able to justify an unpopular decision with "it's the law" instead of "research shows it's potentially bad for you in the medium to long term" is extremely valuable.

jojobas 2y ago

Same as alcohol. If you supply your kids with alcohol, or even have it at home and they get drunk without your knowledge, you'll be in trouble.

pests 2y ago
Not sure that is the best example as many states have exceptions to allow parents to legally give their children alcohol so that scenario you devised could be completely legal.

sureIy 2y ago

Making it illegal could make it taboo, kids are less likely to talk about it in fear of "getting caught" and less talking means less usage. This is not like porn which is a solitary activity: on social media you have to be social and let everyone know… at least for traditional actually-social media, not content-consuming apps like TikTok. It's similar to alcohol usage: you can't stop it completely, but also you don't have 50% of kids bringing it to school.

sekai 2y ago
> Making it illegal could make it taboo, kids are less likely to talk about it in fear of "getting caught" and less talking means less usage So like piracy? > This is not like porn which is a solitary activity: on social media you have to be social and let everyone know… at least for traditional actually-social media, not content-consuming apps like TikTok You don't? You can stay perfectly anonymous.

asdefghyk 2y ago

RE ".....how can you implement such a law..." Request the social media platform to implement the restriction. The large social media platform have billions $ cash , so if that "really want to implement it" it should not be a problem. However, I expect social media companies to "drag out every reason , why they can ot implement it..." - since it does not benefit the social media company. ... and would reduce its user base ...

michaelt 2y ago
> Request the social media platform to implement the restriction. The large social media platform have billions $ cash , so if that "really want to implement it" it should not be a problem. I'm sure that Facebook, Google and TikTok will be delighted to make it mandatory that Australians send in photos of their face, passport and driving license. But is it good for Australia to have their citizens hand such mountains of PII to unaccountable foreign megacorporations?
- asdefghyk 2y ago
  RE "...is it good for Australia to have their citizens hand such mountains of PII to unaccountable foreign megacorporations...." NOT NEEDED , Mega Corp needs to have office in Australia where such documents are checked. Document never leaves Australia.

askvictor 2y ago

Well, funny you should mention that - the AU government ID system (used to access govt services like medicare and tax), has very recently been rebranded from MyGovID to MyID. Most states have already got digital drivers' licences.

alkonaut 2y ago

I don't think lawmakers should describe HOW things are done necessarily. Here it's enough to say that "unless you can be 100% sure your user is above age X, then you can't provide them service Y or feature Z". It might not even be the desired outcome to have identification, the better outcome could be to have feature Z stripped for all users (for example video feeds based on past watching behavior).

dredmorbius 2y ago

Law should not be excessively prescriptive, especially in the case of rapidly-evolving technologies (and business sectors) for all the obvious reasons. What's far more useful is to propose effective incentives and disincentives, and let the participants work this out for themselves. There are some useful principles and examples which come to mind: - Business is profit-oriented. Attack the basis of profits, in a readily-identifiable and enforceable way, and activity which pursues those markets will tend to dry up. - Business is profoundly risk-averse. Raise the risks of an activity, or remove protections or limitations on threads (e.g., Section 230 of the CDA in the US), and incentives to participate in that activity will be greatly reduced. Penetrating corporate and third-party veils would be particularly useful, in this case, of service providers (aiding and abetting in a proscripted commerce) and advertisers (profiting by same). Lifting any limitations on harms which might occur (bullying, induced suicides, addiction, or others) would similarly be crippling. As to how age might be ascertained: - Self-reporting. Not terribly reliable, but a decent first cut. - Profiling. There are exceedingly strong indicia of age which can be made, including based on a particular account's social graph, interests, online activity, location data (is the profile spending ~6h daily at an elementary school, and not lunching in the teacher's lounge?), etc. One strong distinction is between legislation and regulation, where the latter is imposed (usually with rulemaking process) through the executive branch (SCOTUS's Loper v. Raimondo being a phenomenally stupid rejection of that principle). Such regulation could then on a more flexible basis identify specific technical means to be imposed, reviewed, and updated on a regular schedule. - Access providers. Most people now access the Internet through either fixed-location (home, work, institutional) providers, or their own mobile access provider. Such accounts could well carry age (and other attestation) flags which online service providers could be obliged to respect as regards regulation. Jumping in before a few obvious objections: no, these mechanisms are not perfect but I'll assert they can be practically effective; and yes, there are risks for authoritarian regimes to abuse such measures, but then, those are already abusing present mechanisms. I'd include extensive AdTech-based surveillance in that, which is itself ripe for abuse and has demonstrated much of this already. (That said, I'd welcome rational "what could possibly go wrong" discussion.)

Hilift 2y ago

Remember the Silicon Valley episode where they would have been fined $21 billion for not verifying the age of PiperChat users? Same way. All companies are one slippery slope away from being fined by Missouri for not protecting children enough. Or Australia.

brtkdotse 2y ago

There’s a near-zero chance of getting caught driving without a license. Despite not having a drivers license checking mechanism, people generally don’t drive without a license because of the mere fact that it’s illegal. Societal signaling is pretty powerful.