Online threats to children are real, but the headlong pursuit of age verification that we’re seeing around the world is unacceptable in its approach and far too broad in scope — and we simply can’t afford to get this wrong.
To be clear, parents’ concerns are valid and sincere. Few people would argue that kids should have unfettered access to adult material, to self-harm how-tos, to social media platforms that manipulate them and expose them to abuse.
But it’s the very depth of those worries that is being cynically exploited. Age verification as is currently being proposed in country after country would mean the death of anonymity online.
And we know exactly who stands to gain: The same tech giants who built the privacy nightmare that the internet is today.
Stating the obvious.
META was a major lobbyist for all of the state bills we’ve seen so far. There’s probably more. Or META is taking the lead because most hate them already, which provides a nice distraction from anyone else involved.
Tech and data centers want our data. What better way for a complete data set is there? I’m sure Palantir is in there somewhere.