The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection • Hacker News Board

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#381

Post by HeWhoLurksLate » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

moffkalast wrote: post #361

belorn wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a bit confused by that comment. Are parents social responsible to prevent companies from selling alcohol/guns/cigarettes to minors? If a company set up shop in a school and sold those things to minors during school breaks, who has the social responsibility to stop that?

Well the parents entrust their kids to the school, so they would be the ones responsible for what goes on on their premises. In turn, school computers are famously locked down to the point of being absolutely useless.

That's really a district-by-district / school-by-school thing, some are significantly more locked down than others

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#382

Post by runarberg » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #373

runarberg wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming parents is a bit unwarranted, when on the other end we have business interests driven by perverse incentives of predating on children’s gullibility for their own profit. When you say “ We‘ll try everything ” that is simply not true, in particular what we do not try is strict consumer protection laws which prohibits targeting children. Europe used to have such laws in the 1980s and the 1990s, but by the mid-19…

It is literally the parents responsibility. You want to blame someone else. Raising a kid doesn't mean letting society raise them you have to make tough choices. If parents can't handle that they can give them up to the state.

I am not gonna blame parents while businesses are allowed to target children with ads about the newest mobile game. Children are very easy to influence, and this is exploited heavily by the tech industry, who shower children with advertising. This is predatory behavior, which the legislator and the regulator of western governments (including Europe) has allowed to proliferate.

We cannot expect every parent to be able to protect their children when they are being predated on by dozens of multi-million dollar companies, and the state is on the side of the companies.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#383

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #261

We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume. In the United States, you can get in trouble if you recklessly leave around or provide alcohol/guns/cigarettes for a minor to start using, yet somehow, the same social responsibility seems thrown out the window for parents and the web. Yes, children are clever - I was one once. If you want to actually protect child…

>We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable

The government took over most parenting functions, one at a time, until the actual parent does or is capable of doing very little parenting at all. If the government doesn't like the fact that it has become the parent of these children, perhaps it shouldn't have undermined the actual parents these last 80 years. At the very least, it should refrain from usurping ever more of the parental role (not that there is much left to take).

You yourself seem to be insulated from this phenomena, maybe you're unaware that it is occurring. Maybe it wouldn't change your opinions even if you were aware.

>If you want to actually protect children

What if I don't want to protect children (other than my own) at all? Why would you want to be these children's parents (you suggest you or at least others want to "protect" them), which strongly implies that you will act in your capacity as government, but then get all grumpy that other people are wanting to protect children by acting in their capacity of government?

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#384

Post by everdrive » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

9dev wrote: post #303

armchairhacker wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what would stop anyone from merely hosting porn in Romania or some country that didn't care about US age-verification laws A government could implement the equivalent of China's great firewall. Even if it doesn't stop everyone, it would stop most people. The main problem I suspect is that it would be widely unpopular in the US or Europe, because (especially younger) people have become addicted to porn and brainrot,…

That isn’t necessary because porn companies don’t exist to gift orgasms, but to make money. They need US citizens to pay them for premium content and subscriptions, and that dependency means they’ll have to comply with US laws.

The words of someone who does not actually look at pornography. The vast majority of pornography-by-consumption is free / ad-supported. Customers are not "paying" and those ads are usually the bottom of the barrel with regard to sleaziness or legality.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#385

Post by logicchains » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #348

estimator7292 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are legally prohibited from marketing and selling certain products like tobacco and alcohol because they historically tried to . Parents are legally and socially expected to keep their kids away from tobacco and alcohol. You're breaking legal and social convention if you allow your kids to access dangerous drugs. Capitalist social media is exactly as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Somebody should be held…

> Capitalist social media is exactly as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Most actual studies done on this topic find very little evidence this is true. It's a run-of-the-mill moral panic. People breathlessly repeating memes about whatever "kids these days" are up to and how horrible it is, as adults have done for thousands of years. I expect some emotional attacks in response for questioning the big panic of the day…

[flagged]

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#386

Post by friendzis » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

jmye wrote: post #356

Salgat wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if I ban my child from having any friends since they all have unlimited mobile access to the internet.

Sorry, I know it's a hard line for parents to tread and it's really easy to criticize parenting decisions other people are making, but the "everyone else is doing it so I have to" always seems as lazy to me today, as it probably did to my parents when I said it to them as a teenager. Is it more important to prevent your son from being weaponized and turned into a little ball of hate and anger, and your daughter from…

Is it more important to prevent your child from , or to not be seen as an adversarial monster?

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#387

Post by 2duct » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #362

2duct wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A monitoring solution might have worked for my case if my parents had monitored my Internet history, if they always made sure to check in on what I thought/felt from what I watched and made sure I felt secure in relying on them to back me up in the worst cases. But I didn't have emotionally mature parents, and I'm sure so many children growing up now don't either. They're going to read arguments like these and say th…

Should the state have force your parents to give you up for adoption? That's the social support the state can offer.

I don't think it would have helped, given the outcomes for foster children are near universally worse except in the most extreme cases of abuse. I did threaten to call CPS but I was, of course, berated for it and threatened that I would be taken away, so that shut me up. Since I was never assaulted I doubt it would have reached the standard for foster care anyway, yet the consequences still endure to this day.

I was told over and over by in hindsight unqualified persons that emotional abuse wasn't real abuse, so after a few years I was disinclined to seek help.

If I had had even one person that supported me unconditionally instead of none at all, even if that person wasn't a parent, I'm fairly certain I would have turned out differently. That was just a matter of luck, and I came out empty-handed. I never felt comfortable talking about what I was exposed to online with anyone, and that only hurt me further, but I was a child and couldn't see another option.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#388

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

trashb wrote: post #379

I would like to take the discussion in the other direction. How about we offer safe spaces instead of banning the unsafe spaces for kids. Similar to how there is specific channels for children on the TV. Perhaps the government can even incentivize such channels. It would also make it easier for parents to monitor and set boundaries. Parents would only need to monitor if the tv is still tuned to disney channel or simi…

>How about we offer safe spaces instead of banning the unsafe spaces for kids.

Children shouldn't be associating with other children, except in small groups. Even the typical classroom count is far too large. They become the nastiest, most horrible versions of themselves when they congregate. A good 90% of the pathology of public schools can be blamed on the fact that, by definition, public schools require large numbers of children to congregate.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#389

Post by SunshineTheCat » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #261

We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume. In the United States, you can get in trouble if you recklessly leave around or provide alcohol/guns/cigarettes for a minor to start using, yet somehow, the same social responsibility seems thrown out the window for parents and the web. Yes, children are clever - I was one once. If you want to actually protect child…

The greatest of uphill battles in today's current climate is trying to push anything in the realm of personal responsibility.

Politicians' whole basis for nearly every campaign is "you're helpless, let us fix it for you."

For the vast majority of problems plaguing society, the answer isn't government, it's for people changing their behavior. Same goes for parenting.

But unfortunately, "you're an adult, figure it out" isn't the greatest campaign slogan (if you want to win).

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#390

Post by antitoxic » Mon, Feb 23, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

I work at a European identity wallet system that uses a zero knowledge proof age identification system. It derives an age attribute such as "over 18" from a passport or ID, without disclosing any other information such as the date of birth. As long as you trust the government that gave out the ID, you can trust the attribute, and anonymously verify somebodies age.

I think there are many pros and cons to be said about age verification, but I think this method solves most problems this article supposes, if it is combined with other common practices in the EU such as deleting inactive accounts and such. These limitations are real, but tractable. IDs can be issued to younger teenagers, wallet infrastructure matures over time, and countries without strong identity systems primarily undermine their own age bans. Jurisdictions that accept facial estimation as sufficient verification are not taking enforcement seriously in the first place. The trap described in this article is a product of the current paradigm, not an inevitability.