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The reason is that this whole push for age verification is nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content. If it was then this kind of solution wo

The reason is that this whole push for age verification is nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content. If it was then this kind of solution would be being legislated for. It’s just about making everyone identifiable.

slg 6mo ago
>If it was then this kind of solution would be being legislated for. What's more likely a global conspiracy to get age verification passed to allow these unnamed groups to identify everyone for some unknown purpose or politicians just not understanding tech? The way people try to pretend that there can't be any organic desire for these proposals is so bizarre and is a major cause for all these proposed solutions being so technically dubious. Refusal to recognize the problem means you won't be part of solving the problem.
- cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
  The politicians that want to identify everyone capitalize on organic desire for these proposals in the form of fear-mongering and "Think of the children!" Citizens that want these laws are unthinking drones who don't want to raise their children, and instead want legislators to do it for them. Politicians that want these laws are the people who, ideally, want to track your every move online for a multitude of reasons, not least of which are censoring speech and controlling narratives.
  - slg 6mo ago
    >organic desire for these proposals Even if everything you said was true and there was a global conspiracy among the politicians, the tech crowd consistently denies and demeans these organic desires. We could cut the legs out from under these politicians if we listened to these people's concerns, considered actual solutions like OP did at the top of this thread, and turned these people into allies against those politicians. But instead we deny the actual desire to protect children and accuse them of either having ulterior motives or being sheep, turning them into permanent enemies thereby empowering those (hypothetically) conspiratorial politicians.
    - jpfromlondon 5mo ago
      The public, and consumers in general often state a want or need for something that they don't actually want or that would harm their quality of life, it is correct to demean or deride these wants when they're identified, some aspects of human nature are amusing. But there is a global conspiracy, a synchronised effort among western leaders to implement near identical solutions to this engineered "problem", the responsibility remains squarely on the shoulders of parents, I say this as a parent.
      - slg 5mo ago
        >The public, and consumers in general often state a want or need for something that they don't actually want or that would harm their quality of life, it is correct to demean or deride these wants when they're identified, some aspects of human nature are amusing. Thank you for proving my point by doing the exact thing I said tech people do. Do you think that if you demean and deride enough people, the problem will go away?
        jpfromlondon 5mo ago
        >human nature >the problem will go away? ... It's more worrying to me that you think you can fix us.
- trinsic2 5mo ago
  You do realize that for whatever reason more and more people in government positions are on the path of authoritarian agendas? Its a pretty important topic right now. All of this privacy related stuff is happening in quick succession. I mean I cannot believe I have to post these, but here we go: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances-effort-to-check-kids-ages-online-amid-safety-concerns-00563005 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances... https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-behind-meta-154717384.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-beh... https://www.techdirt.com/tag/age-verification/ https://www.techdirt.com/tag/age-verification/
  - slg 5mo ago
    Your argument has two main flaws. First, it relies on an inherent connection between age verification and authoritarianism that is just taken for granted as true. Meta could easily be in favor of age verification because it reduces their liability and raises the barriers to entry for potential competitors. It doesn't inherently have to be authoritarianism. But more importantly even if that connection is true, your argument relies on the current proposals of age verification being the only way to satisfy the organic desire for protecting kids from the unfettered internet. OP gave an example that could be a compromise position that addresses the need and isn't authoritarian. Why can't you support that effort?
    - trinsic2 5mo ago
      I can support any effort that puts the responsibility into the hands of the parent without a mechanism that advances identity verification to protect their children. The way it stands now. this issue is being used by people in power to advanced an authoritarian agenda. Its really clear to see, if you only have the will to look.
      - slg 5mo ago
        >I can support any effort that puts the responsibility into the hands of the parent without a mechanism that advances identity verification to protect their children. Which brings us right back to what I said here[1]. We don't have to agree on the motivations behind this push. Even if you believe this is all an authoritarian conspiracy, that conspiracy could be undermined by proposals like OP's, but instead people make enemies out of these potential allies which just further empowers the people who you consider to be authoritarians. It's a failure of basic political coalition building. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957480
ocdtrekkie 6mo ago
Your lack of understanding why age verification does not constitute it being a conspiracy for another reason. There is a antiregulatory crowd that will invent any possible excuse to suggest tech companies shouldn't be accountable and we should just leave the Internet be. Those people make a lot of money exploiting everyone, as it happens, and they also pay for journalists to tell you that it's all about violating privacy or something. (The same folks will tell you opening up Android for third party AI tools would be a privacy and security risk, and not ask you to notice it would just cost Google a lot of money.) We've been running essentially a social experiment on our kids for the past two decades and it has not gone well. Social media has had a toxic impact on kids. CSAM and child abuse are rampant, and most "privacy services" like disposable email and VPNs are the primary source. These are facts, whether you like them or not. There are, in fact, kids dying, school shootings, grooming, etc. which are all the direct result of our failure to regulate social media companies. Section 230 being the primary problem. OS-level age verification is likely the best route, as private information can remain on a device in your control, and a browser then just needs to attest to websites whether or not the user should be allowed access, without conveying more detail. Obviously anyone with a Linux box will have ways around it, anything based in your own device will be exploitable in some way, but generally effective for the average child.
- marcus_holmes 6mo ago
  > These are facts, whether you like them or not. [Citation Needed] As I understand it, the debate on whether social media is responsible for actual harms in kids is still open and ongoing. Social media has been found to do both harm and good for kids, and for some kids the good outweighs the harms [0]. Scientists are hoping to get some verification from the actual social experiments that we're conducting in the UK and Australia on this. Mandating OS-level age verification effectively means not allowing kids access to OSS platforms, a step way too far in my opinion. For instance, we would have to outlaw Steam Decks for kids. [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12165459/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12165459/ "Social media and technological advancements’ impact on adolescent mental health is complex. It can be both a risk factor and a valuable support system. Excessive and problematic use has been linked to increased rates of MDD, anxiety, and mood dysregulation, while also exacerbating symptoms of ADHD, bipolar disorder, and BDD. Simultaneously, digital platforms provide opportunities for social connection, peer support, and mental health management, particularly for individuals with ASD and those seeking online mental health communities. The challenge is finding a balance. Although social media offers benefits, it also poses risks like addiction, negative social comparison, cyberbullying, and impulsive online behaviors"
tzs 6mo ago
If it is about making everyone identifiable how come California's version doesn't require providing any identifying information when setting it up on a child's device?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- mindslight 6mo ago
  Because "making everyone identifiable" isn't an explicit design goal. Rather it is merely an implicit imperative (of Facebook et al, who are pushing these laws) that casts its shadow over the design. That shadow is what results in a design based around sending identifying information from the client to the server. Once this dynamic is normalized, servers will demand ever-more identifying information and evidence that it is correct. Note that this design does the exact opposite of giving parents control to protect their own children - rather it puts the ultimate decision making ability into the hands of corporate attorneys! For example, we can easily imagine a "Facebook4Kidz" site that does the bare legal minimum to avoid liability for addicting kids to dopamine drips, and no more. Client side software based around RTA headers would allow parents to choose to filter things like that out, whereas when the server is making the decision its anything goes as long as the corporate attorneys have given it the green light.
  - pocksuppet 5mo ago
    The California law makes it illegal for Facebook to demand anything more than just your age. That seems like the opposite of what they want.
    - mindslight 5mo ago
      As you've stated it, sure, for now. The point is that the dynamic is being set - the number of information-leaking security vulnerabilities in browsers should be headed downwards, not being increased with legislation. But also, does the California law actually prohibit Faceboot from locking your account and requesting "extra documentation" including government IDs and whatnot? That would be news in its own right.
Nursie 6mo ago
> The reason is that this whole push for age verification is nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content. The reason that mainstream politicians are pushing is because the public wants something done to protect their kids. Are there likely to be bad actors pushing for it for nefarious reasons as well? Sure. Are the 'solutions' inadequate and often tech- and privacy-illiterate? Absolutely. Is the entire impulse to demand that government 'fix' this issue wrong? Maybe. But the idea that this is all a smoke-screen from top to bottom needs to die. Not just because it's wrong, but because it's also unhelpful. If you wade into the debate saying "It's all a lie, this was never about the kids!" you're easily dismissed as a nut and an absolutist who doesn't appreciate that real people want their real kids to be protected.
- SoftTalker 6mo ago
  Yep, and the tech companies had years to address these concerns and did not, so now the creaky gears of government regulation are turning. They (meaning YOU, a lot of tech company employees who are now outraged about this) could have headed this off years ago and provided a solution on their own terms.
- lynx97 6mo ago
  So, why are those "real people" actually not willing to do their job? I am so pissed with parents who think the government is supposed to solve their own inability to raise a child.
  - Nursie 6mo ago
    Well for a start not all of them are very tech savvy, and we've built a world in which tech is essential to their day to day lives, including for their kids. If school demands the kids have a variety of devices to do their work, and they have no idea how to lock those down to exclude (for example) social media services that we know have been designed to be as addictive as possible, can you not see why they might want someone to intervene? (edit: Beyond that there are also tons of bad reasons, I'm not going to try and justify them. There are a lot of bad parents and just in general people who are not firing on all cylinders out there. And many of them absolutely love a government regulation to be brought in for just about anything. We can and should argue with these people and point out why they're wrong. But saying it's "nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content" fails here too.)
ufocia 5mo ago
Facts!

slg 6mo ago

>If it was then this kind of solution would be being legislated for. What's more likely a global conspiracy to get age verification passed to allow these unnamed groups to identify everyone for some unknown purpose or politicians just not understanding tech? The way people try to pretend that there can't be any organic desire for these proposals is so bizarre and is a major cause for all these proposed solutions being so technically dubious. Refusal to recognize the problem means you won't be part of solving the problem.

cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
The politicians that want to identify everyone capitalize on organic desire for these proposals in the form of fear-mongering and "Think of the children!" Citizens that want these laws are unthinking drones who don't want to raise their children, and instead want legislators to do it for them. Politicians that want these laws are the people who, ideally, want to track your every move online for a multitude of reasons, not least of which are censoring speech and controlling narratives.
- slg 6mo ago
  >organic desire for these proposals Even if everything you said was true and there was a global conspiracy among the politicians, the tech crowd consistently denies and demeans these organic desires. We could cut the legs out from under these politicians if we listened to these people's concerns, considered actual solutions like OP did at the top of this thread, and turned these people into allies against those politicians. But instead we deny the actual desire to protect children and accuse them of either having ulterior motives or being sheep, turning them into permanent enemies thereby empowering those (hypothetically) conspiratorial politicians.
  - jpfromlondon 5mo ago
    The public, and consumers in general often state a want or need for something that they don't actually want or that would harm their quality of life, it is correct to demean or deride these wants when they're identified, some aspects of human nature are amusing. But there is a global conspiracy, a synchronised effort among western leaders to implement near identical solutions to this engineered "problem", the responsibility remains squarely on the shoulders of parents, I say this as a parent.
    - slg 5mo ago
      >The public, and consumers in general often state a want or need for something that they don't actually want or that would harm their quality of life, it is correct to demean or deride these wants when they're identified, some aspects of human nature are amusing. Thank you for proving my point by doing the exact thing I said tech people do. Do you think that if you demean and deride enough people, the problem will go away?
      - jpfromlondon 5mo ago
        >human nature >the problem will go away? ... It's more worrying to me that you think you can fix us.
trinsic2 5mo ago
You do realize that for whatever reason more and more people in government positions are on the path of authoritarian agendas? Its a pretty important topic right now. All of this privacy related stuff is happening in quick succession. I mean I cannot believe I have to post these, but here we go: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances-effort-to-check-kids-ages-online-amid-safety-concerns-00563005 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances... https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-behind-meta-154717384.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-beh... https://www.techdirt.com/tag/age-verification/ https://www.techdirt.com/tag/age-verification/
- slg 5mo ago
  Your argument has two main flaws. First, it relies on an inherent connection between age verification and authoritarianism that is just taken for granted as true. Meta could easily be in favor of age verification because it reduces their liability and raises the barriers to entry for potential competitors. It doesn't inherently have to be authoritarianism. But more importantly even if that connection is true, your argument relies on the current proposals of age verification being the only way to satisfy the organic desire for protecting kids from the unfettered internet. OP gave an example that could be a compromise position that addresses the need and isn't authoritarian. Why can't you support that effort?
  - trinsic2 5mo ago
    I can support any effort that puts the responsibility into the hands of the parent without a mechanism that advances identity verification to protect their children. The way it stands now. this issue is being used by people in power to advanced an authoritarian agenda. Its really clear to see, if you only have the will to look.
    - slg 5mo ago
      >I can support any effort that puts the responsibility into the hands of the parent without a mechanism that advances identity verification to protect their children. Which brings us right back to what I said here[1]. We don't have to agree on the motivations behind this push. Even if you believe this is all an authoritarian conspiracy, that conspiracy could be undermined by proposals like OP's, but instead people make enemies out of these potential allies which just further empowers the people who you consider to be authoritarians. It's a failure of basic political coalition building. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47957480

ocdtrekkie 6mo ago

Your lack of understanding why age verification does not constitute it being a conspiracy for another reason. There is a antiregulatory crowd that will invent any possible excuse to suggest tech companies shouldn't be accountable and we should just leave the Internet be. Those people make a lot of money exploiting everyone, as it happens, and they also pay for journalists to tell you that it's all about violating privacy or something. (The same folks will tell you opening up Android for third party AI tools would be a privacy and security risk, and not ask you to notice it would just cost Google a lot of money.) We've been running essentially a social experiment on our kids for the past two decades and it has not gone well. Social media has had a toxic impact on kids. CSAM and child abuse are rampant, and most "privacy services" like disposable email and VPNs are the primary source. These are facts, whether you like them or not. There are, in fact, kids dying, school shootings, grooming, etc. which are all the direct result of our failure to regulate social media companies. Section 230 being the primary problem. OS-level age verification is likely the best route, as private information can remain on a device in your control, and a browser then just needs to attest to websites whether or not the user should be allowed access, without conveying more detail. Obviously anyone with a Linux box will have ways around it, anything based in your own device will be exploitable in some way, but generally effective for the average child.

marcus_holmes 6mo ago
> These are facts, whether you like them or not. [Citation Needed] As I understand it, the debate on whether social media is responsible for actual harms in kids is still open and ongoing. Social media has been found to do both harm and good for kids, and for some kids the good outweighs the harms [0]. Scientists are hoping to get some verification from the actual social experiments that we're conducting in the UK and Australia on this. Mandating OS-level age verification effectively means not allowing kids access to OSS platforms, a step way too far in my opinion. For instance, we would have to outlaw Steam Decks for kids. [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12165459/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12165459/ "Social media and technological advancements’ impact on adolescent mental health is complex. It can be both a risk factor and a valuable support system. Excessive and problematic use has been linked to increased rates of MDD, anxiety, and mood dysregulation, while also exacerbating symptoms of ADHD, bipolar disorder, and BDD. Simultaneously, digital platforms provide opportunities for social connection, peer support, and mental health management, particularly for individuals with ASD and those seeking online mental health communities. The challenge is finding a balance. Although social media offers benefits, it also poses risks like addiction, negative social comparison, cyberbullying, and impulsive online behaviors"

tzs 6mo ago

If it is about making everyone identifiable how come California's version doesn't require providing any identifying information when setting it up on a child's device?

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
mindslight 6mo ago
Because "making everyone identifiable" isn't an explicit design goal. Rather it is merely an implicit imperative (of Facebook et al, who are pushing these laws) that casts its shadow over the design. That shadow is what results in a design based around sending identifying information from the client to the server. Once this dynamic is normalized, servers will demand ever-more identifying information and evidence that it is correct. Note that this design does the exact opposite of giving parents control to protect their own children - rather it puts the ultimate decision making ability into the hands of corporate attorneys! For example, we can easily imagine a "Facebook4Kidz" site that does the bare legal minimum to avoid liability for addicting kids to dopamine drips, and no more. Client side software based around RTA headers would allow parents to choose to filter things like that out, whereas when the server is making the decision its anything goes as long as the corporate attorneys have given it the green light.
- pocksuppet 5mo ago
  The California law makes it illegal for Facebook to demand anything more than just your age. That seems like the opposite of what they want.
  - mindslight 5mo ago
    As you've stated it, sure, for now. The point is that the dynamic is being set - the number of information-leaking security vulnerabilities in browsers should be headed downwards, not being increased with legislation. But also, does the California law actually prohibit Faceboot from locking your account and requesting "extra documentation" including government IDs and whatnot? That would be news in its own right.

Nursie 6mo ago

> The reason is that this whole push for age verification is nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content. The reason that mainstream politicians are pushing is because the public wants something done to protect their kids. Are there likely to be bad actors pushing for it for nefarious reasons as well? Sure. Are the 'solutions' inadequate and often tech- and privacy-illiterate? Absolutely. Is the entire impulse to demand that government 'fix' this issue wrong? Maybe. But the idea that this is all a smoke-screen from top to bottom needs to die. Not just because it's wrong, but because it's also unhelpful. If you wade into the debate saying "It's all a lie, this was never about the kids!" you're easily dismissed as a nut and an absolutist who doesn't appreciate that real people want their real kids to be protected.

SoftTalker 6mo ago
Yep, and the tech companies had years to address these concerns and did not, so now the creaky gears of government regulation are turning. They (meaning YOU, a lot of tech company employees who are now outraged about this) could have headed this off years ago and provided a solution on their own terms.
lynx97 6mo ago
So, why are those "real people" actually not willing to do their job? I am so pissed with parents who think the government is supposed to solve their own inability to raise a child.
- Nursie 6mo ago
  Well for a start not all of them are very tech savvy, and we've built a world in which tech is essential to their day to day lives, including for their kids. If school demands the kids have a variety of devices to do their work, and they have no idea how to lock those down to exclude (for example) social media services that we know have been designed to be as addictive as possible, can you not see why they might want someone to intervene? (edit: Beyond that there are also tons of bad reasons, I'm not going to try and justify them. There are a lot of bad parents and just in general people who are not firing on all cylinders out there. And many of them absolutely love a government regulation to be brought in for just about anything. We can and should argue with these people and point out why they're wrong. But saying it's "nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content" fails here too.)

ufocia 5mo ago

Facts!