Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#151

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:11 AM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #34

Animats wrote: post #5

So, to post something in 2027: - You have to have an approved browser. - It has to be installed on an approved platform, Google or Apple, for which you have a valid account. - You have to have an account on the posting platform. - You have to get past moderation on the posting platform. That's without age verification.

You can't sign up for a Facebook account without giving a live selfie. Any image of your family you post will be scraped by Clearview AI, bypassing the restrictions that make it hard for you to create accounts, to create a worldwide facial recognition system.

FB's policy on this is patchy. I've known people who have had accounts for years, who were suddenly asked to provide a selfie - often after posting political content. Their accounts were then either locked down permanently, or unlocked.

I also know people who created accounts from scratch without needing a selfie while connecting exclusively through a VPN. (Only some VPNs, work apparently.)

Supposedly FB uses device ID tracking, so if you're picked for selfie ID on a device and try to create an alt, you'll be selfie-ID'd again.

Using a different browser on desktop solves the problem for desktop but not for mobile.

And so on. Basically it's doable, sometimes. And sometimes it isn't.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#152

Post by falsepositive44 » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:15 AM UTC

I think the solution would be to make the business model of surveillance capitalism unfeasible. If algorithmic social media would be prohibited from offering their services for free, it would solve most of the problems the age verification laws are trying to achieve. Kids would basically disappear if their parents are not paying for them. Most parents would disappear too in fact, which would be good for everyone's mental health. And it wouldn't remove choice. You can still choose to use use Facebook or TikTok, if you subscribe and pay. It would basically act like a slop tax.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#153

Post by somewhatgoated » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:25 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #5

So, to post something in 2027: - You have to have an approved browser. - It has to be installed on an approved platform, Google or Apple, for which you have a valid account. - You have to have an account on the posting platform. - You have to get past moderation on the posting platform. That's without age verification.

It’s the end of large scale “global village” social media - good riddance if you ask me; I’ve left it years ago for more private spaces.

I wonder though how it will affect places like 4chan. I don’t really know if it’s still as anonymous as it used to be but that’s like a cornerstone of their existence.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#154

Post by davkan » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:30 AM UTC

Can someone help me understand? Why is it not enough to just be able to manually set an age on local OS user account. If unset assume adult. If set applications can use it to verify age. Require admin permissions to change. All responsibility on parents to restrict admin and set the age. No data collection. No responsibility for services beyond a simple check. It seems like an incredibly simple solution with very little compromise on either side that gets everyone 95% of their stated goals.

EDIT: Oh it seems like that’s what the CA bill does? Seems good to me. I have zero problem with age restriction if age verification goes no further than mom buys kid iPhone enters birthdate, Instagram asks phone is user 18.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#155

Post by palata » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:31 AM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #7

palata wrote: post #2

Good arguments there, and for once addressing privacy-preserving age verification. I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship". Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children, and telling them "if…

> Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children at the expense of everyone and everything else all to not have to be an actual parent. These arguments are not coming from places of concern, they are coming from laziness and people taking advantage of that laziness to further even worse agendas.

> at the expense of

That's the thing: it's not trivial to know what is possible and what is not. If you look at the messages in HN, many (most?) messages about privacy-preserving age verification are (at least partially) wrong. Tech-savvy people clearly do not understand the technology in details, and somehow they assume that normies do understand and are simply fascists or lazy.

It is my opinion that telling a normal person that they are a bad parent (or a fascist) because you disagree with them is probably not the best way to convince them.

I believe in democracy, which means that I don't call everyone disagreeing with me a fascist. In a democracy, if most of the population wants privacy-preserving age verification and I don't, then I am in the minority and must accept it. My role as a tech-savvy person is to help "normies" understand what it implies. Again, not to tell them that they must be fascists if they disagree with me.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#156

Post by Symbiote » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:35 AM UTC

maccard wrote: post #124

gorgoiler wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you have to declare your accounts to border police prior to international travel.

You don’t “have to”. They’re requested when travelling to the US - but from my experience it’s not enforced (at least not consistently, I’ve never been asked why it was blank on my forms)

I thought so too, and said so at a meeting at work when some colleagues were unwilling to travel to the US.

It turns out close contacts of some of my colleagues have been asked to show their Facebook accounts at the US border. There was a recent rule change about it.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#157

Post by roenxi » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:36 AM UTC

palata wrote: post #2

Good arguments there, and for once addressing privacy-preserving age verification. I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship". Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children, and telling them "if…

> I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship".

It is worth recalling that "authoritarian" is a relatively neutral label for a political philosophy (like "liberal", "democrat", "capitalist" or "socialist"). It isn't that people are name calling, it is that authoritarian policies - like this one - consistently cause more harm than good. The label is basically a slur at this point because the disasters that the authoritarians trigger often veer into being massive and appalling spectacles. People tend not to be very evidence-based, so the people who lean authoritarian tend to try and rebrand to avoid being tarred with their philosophy's consistent failures, but it is still authoritarianism.

But the productive path forward isn't to try and be nice to the authoritarians and accommodate them with the rebranding. It is to adopt liberal policies. Like letting people read and comment anonymously on the internet.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#158

Post by palata » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:38 AM UTC

Avicebron wrote: post #4

palata wrote: post #2

Good arguments there, and for once addressing privacy-preserving age verification. I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship". Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children, and telling them "if…

Do you believe people should be able to traverse the internet anonymously?

Not sure what you mean. I am totally against surveillance capitalism and TooBigTech. I am in favour of end-to-end encryption and privacy-preserving tech.

I shouldn't have to show an ID to buy a newspaper or to load the website of a newspaper. On the other end of the spectrum, I should not be allowed to buy a gun without showing an ID (and all sorts of other constraints).

Somewhere in the middle, I understand that we don't want to expose 8 year old kids to pornography, but I don't think that one has to wait to be 18 or 21 to be allowed to access it. Same for social media. Where and how exactly we set the limit is a societal choice to make.

I also believe that "living in a democracy" doesn't mean that "everybody agrees with me, always". Many times I am in the minority. What matters is that people are informed. Telling them that if they disagree with you they are either bad parents or fascists isn't constructive, IMHO.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#159

Post by palata » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:42 AM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #6

palata wrote: post #2

Good arguments there, and for once addressing privacy-preserving age verification. I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship". Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children, and telling them "if…

There is a solution, it is regulating social media companies to stop abusing their users, and by extension, children. strict laws around adtech and tracking tech. more consumer rights, in other words - that’s why this solution comes off as authoritarian, because there is such a variety of ways to tackle this problem, and this is the most authoritarian one.

> there is such a variety of ways to tackle this problem, and this is the most authoritarian one.

If you think that privacy-preserving age verification is the most authoritarian way to tackle this problem, then you really, really don't understand authoritarianism.

Now if you have tons of better and practical solutions to tackle this problem, I would suggest you start writing about them. I haven't read a lot about those solutions (other than "just ask someone who is not me to do it"), what I hear is mostly people yelling that only bad parents and fascists disagree with them.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#160

Post by ranger_danger » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 9:47 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #28

>and that you can no longer post anonymously on social media. You cannot be certain that your criticism of the government will not be followed up by the authorities. sorry but I don't get this point. If you're on Instagram or Facebook, did you think fifteen different three letter agencies weren't already watching you? It has the word 'face' in the name, the entire point of that site is that people mindlessly share th…

> did you think fifteen different three letter agencies weren't already watching you?

I think there was a reasonable expectation of anonymity, at least relative to other users. In the past you could access facebook with a VPN/proxy (and for a brief time, even tor) and use any name you wanted. But with forced identity verification you lose that little bit of anonymity.