No longer? That's an editorialized title, and it's super weird because this very article is from May, and this started back in April, and has been discussed numerous times on here.
Claude is only available to people over 18 years
111–120 of 612 posts
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#112In Germany, this seems to be the case for a long time already. I'm not sure if that's really what happened, but a few months ago my son (who's 17) complained that Claude locked him out when he was discussion school work and mentioning his age in a conversation. I did not see the conversation, but I could verify that his account was indeed banned.
The article was written in May, so its been months since that has been the case, probably everywhere and not just in Germany.
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#113Good that we have Chinese models now, we can host anywhere and use as much as we like without age verification. Also, what's the reason banning minors? Is AI bad for mental health? If so, should companies also ban them to prevent burnout of their employees?
If you'd told me 15 years ago that people would be running freely-distributed software originating from research labs in China on computers self-hosted in their own house as an alternative to authoritarian overreach and control by the US in internet-based services, I'd have told you that you were smoking some good reefer. The irony is that the authoritarian control hasn't gone away in China either, if anything it's e…
It's almost been 15 years since the Snowden leaks, and there were rumors going around before that. I don't think it would have been that outlandish.
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#114Ah yes, the usual drop down where we need to confirm we are above 18.
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
And parents are assumed to be responsible for their own children, not governments or corporations.
I agree about corporations. But alcohol and tobacco are generally prohibited from being sold to children; do you disagree with such laws? They help ensure that the parents aren’t bypassed. I agree that children should be able to use LLMs under parental supervision.
> But alcohol and tobacco are generally prohibited from being sold to children; do you disagree with such laws?
Yes, but merely on principle. I think alcohol and tobacco should be straight up banned unconditionally. Society resists this, so they banned them for children instead and called it a day.
I don't accept these ineffectual political concessions. If a thing is bad for children, then it's in all likelihood just as bad for the adults as well. So go all the way and ban it for everybody, not just children. Do it right, don't come up with these half measures that dehumanize children as a side effect.
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#116"May 18, 2026" is right there next to the title. Nothing changed.
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you'd told me 15 years ago that people would be running freely-distributed software originating from research labs in China on computers self-hosted in their own house as an alternative to authoritarian overreach and control by the US in internet-based services, I'd have told you that you were smoking some good reefer. The irony is that the authoritarian control hasn't gone away in China either, if anything it's e…
It's almost been 15 years since the Snowden leaks, and there were rumors going around before that. I don't think it would have been that outlandish.
My theoretical self 15 years ago absolutely would have believed the increased authoritarian overreach part (in US/CA/European business and political context). I would not have believed the "multiple ostensibly competing Chinese research labs are giving this away free to run on your own Linux computer, and it's very close to state of the art in capability competing with US-based paid SaaS".
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
They certainly can't infer my full name and address from what I've used Claude for in the past, but if I'm forced to hand over my ID and I do, then they would.
Haven't they reported "anonymous" users before to the police?
Can you source this? Seems believable but I haven’t heard it before.
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#119Claude Executive: Damn, we hardly know who our users are, can't we just force them to say their full name or ban them? Claude Product Manager: No, that'll piss people off too much, and sadly we can't just ask for ID either... Claude Executive: There must be some way we can force people to link their government IDs with our platform so our analytics get better and more accurate? Claude Product Manager: We could limit…
Age verification is not (should not be) the same as ID verification / storage / etc; the US needs laws similar to EU ones where companies can only get the minimum required PII. In the case of age verification that's zero, or a boolean value "yes this person is over 18" that they get from a trusted party like a bank.
Re: Claude is only available to people over 18 years
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
They certainly can't infer my full name and address from what I've used Claude for in the past, but if I'm forced to hand over my ID and I do, then they would.
Haven't they reported "anonymous" users before to the police?
I don't know, how is that relevant to them asking for IDs now and also still not yet knowing my full name and/or address?