Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

(i.e. Politicians are selected from average people, often on things like appearance, charm, charisma, voice, snappiness, being less-bad than the other candidates, standing for the voter's preferred party, etc. not based on intelligence or systems thinking; so why would they be better reasoning about 3rd order effects than average people? And they are elected on short terms, so why would they be more interested in spending time trying than others?).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Miliband_bacon_sandwich_pho...

- A 30 year prison sentence for tansporting a box of zines in Texas [1]. To do so they invented "antifa" as an organization out of whole cloth and will now use those convictions as further proof. I've seen this compared to the Salem witch trials;

- Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident, was detained and there is still ongoing deportation proceedings. What for? Organizing a peaceful protest at Columbia against the genocide being committed by Israel [2];

- Renee Good and Alex Pretti who were simply protesting ICE were killed essentially in cold blood and there have been zero consequences;

- Over 700 charged under the Terrorist Act in the UK for expressing support for Palestine. Defenders will argue Palestine Action is a designated terrorism group without asking why. Also, that's how it always works. Slavery was legal once. Freeing slaves was illegal. Does that make the Underground Railroad a terrorist organization? Today it would;

- In ~35 states in the US to work for or in government you have to express varying degrees of loyalty to Israel or at least commit never to boycott Israel eg [3]. To date, the Supreme Court has never substantively taken up these cases as the clear First Amendment violation they are;

- In PA, the Swarthmore 9 are being charged over their protests with the bullshit charge of "defiant trespass" [4];

- In Australia, in the wake of the Bondi shooting, new anti-"hate crime" legislation was passed that is so broad and sweeping that the Greens claim you could be charged with criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu [5].

- Numerous examples of the administration pulling funding and bringing colleges to heel over not cracking down sufficiently on Gaza protests.

So why I find these tired tropes about China so exhausting and lazy is because:

1. Look at what's happening here and in the West at large; and

2. Ironically, China has a system for age verification that actually works and the answer is really simple. The government issues the IDs. It can verify the IDs. We do this all the time with employment (eg E-Verify). You can even do it in such a way that the app doesn't get any sensitive information.

But it's like people say "you can't trust government" (even though the government already has all that data) and then thinks that a private company is the only possible solution (eg Peter Thiel's Persona).

If you've gotten this far you should know that at no point in any of the above have I argued for age verification. So far all I've said is that there is an absolute double standard in the fearmongering around it and that is it possible to create a relatively effective regime for it without handing everyone's data to Peter Thiel.

I think it's inarguable at this point that what we're doing now has been a dismal failure and something's gotta give. I think we should start by attacking the financial incentives here, namely:

1. Tech companies already use behavioural analysis to guess your demographics. If they figure out you're under 18 you should have a restricted experience. That should include no advertising, a much more limited algorithmic feed, etc;

2. Stop tech companies from being able to sell advertising to minors. Don't allow an advertiser to target an audience that includes minors as best as the tech company knows they are minors.

I personally think we could eliminate a bunch of harm just by attacking the advertising incentive here.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jun/...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil

[3]: https://www.txdot.gov/manuals/csd/ncp/standards_for_contract...

[4]: https://iacenter.org/2026/06/27/swarthmore-9-on-trial-for-pr...

[5]: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jan/21/criti...

If attaching your real self to everything is so important, why does it only seem to restrain those without power, while those with the most influence can say whatever benefits them and face no consequences?

(This otherwise great in theory idea is mooted by the fact that remote legislative votes are a terrible idea, as security is a shitshow literally everywhere.)