Oh really? They are doing all of this because they are (supposedly) "protecting kids?"
Why should I bother reading an article written by somebody who is so confidantly wrong straight off the bat?
this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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Like parenting?
There are always better ways to ruin the Internet. For example, allowing me to post comments on things.
They are not protecting kids. They are implementing mass surveillance while pretending it will help kids, knowing it will not
social media already does mass surveilance
They aren't ruining it to protect kids
It’s for surveillance under the facade of being to protect kids
Corporations are ruining thw internet
This is the best solution I've seen that isn't simply having parents do parenting.
I don't see any downsides to it that wouldn't be present in far more invasive identity tracking.
My personal opinion, your OS should be able store age in a somewhat standardized fashion, with age settings locked in by the owner/admin.
Content should be able to send a request asking the OS if you're old enough to view with a simple yes/no response. This is only one level more strict than the current "Are you over 18?" landing page. The yes/no response also generally limits age fingerprinting.
Sites should be fined out the wazoo for making age requests that are telemetry fishing. Requests are only allowed for legally mandated age gates.
No response by the OS sends you to the current practice of a yes/no splash page.
This make the only true "age verification" a decision between the device admin (usually a parent) and user (the child). No ID checks or other BS. Nothing mandatory for anybody but giving parents the flexibility to limit their child's exposure to age gated content. The OS can even ask "it looks like you're setting up an account for a minor, want us to also set the DNS to something age filtered"?
...
Granted you could also just talk to your kid about internet safety, but most parents aren't that good at open conversation.
Content should be able to send a request asking the OS if you’re old enough to view
You've got it backwards. This is letting them frame the narrative. There's no need to tell anyone else anything about yourself when requesting content. The local device should be where any content filtering happens.
If you're in a kid mode, it should block the incoming content, not rely on a third party to give a shit about blocking itself.
No chance for "whoops we fascismed" that way
My opinion: The other way around puts the onus for violating the law on the OSes.
Also the telemetry is the same either way:
"Are you over 18?" Yes/No is basically the same signal to the server as "This content is rated 18+" followed by downloading more content or not.
It's also vulnerable to basically the same brute force age guessing which should be outlawed, e.g., "This pixel is for 5+, that one is 10+, ....." Until you get the user's age, but that also should be considered a violation by the website and not the OS, in my book.
Policing the OS is like policing credit card companies for kids buying cigarettes. It could work but it's not really their responsibility to check.
Also, my personal suggested approach leaves room for the OS not to disclose age and we're just back to the normal Y/N checkbox or calendar drop down on a website.
Finally, when a website tells the device the content is 18+, the device can't go "but wait, is it the kind of 18+ I'm okay with??" It'll still get blocked either way. End user effect will be the same.
Nothing about my proposal fixes fascism because they can always write a new law with more restrictions. Fascists gonna fascist, but without a working system, they can play the "protect the kids, give pornhub your full ID" card all day.
Except your yes/no it's what traps you in the block all or nothing scenario. Having local devices be able to filter based on content tags would be way easier to implement and allow for nuance.
We have already had keyword filtering for decades.
If I wanted to I can block it at the network, either thru the router or adguard home. Also like YouTube and other non porn/18+ sites do more harm than porn sites for kids.
Keyword filtering is complementary to but not a replacement for age tags. The problem with keywords is they are:
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practically infinite, and thus almost impossible to keep on top of an allow/blocklist - you have to be technically savvy and well informed (which does not describe most of the population) to manage a tag list
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basically saying you can just ignore laws you disagree with on content access
I agree that there should be more responsibility on parents not governments to decide what their kids can/cannot have access to, but I also am not full libertarian on this view - there is content that is well documented as being clinically inappropriate for children to access and should eb regulated IMO.
Just like we have seat belt or helmet laws, smoking/drinking ages, etc. not everything should be up for people to "do their own research" on, and negligent parents should not be giving their children carte blanche access to the internet.
We've tried this before. In 1997. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_Selection
The push for this form of age verification is to "close the loop" of strong identity between a physical person, and online content access. And unfortunately, all the relevant parties are aligned on this one:
- Site owners want to prevent non-people AI from accessing their content
- Authoritarian leaning governments want to track and control who gets access to what, and who can even make content available in the first place
- Ad Companies want to make sure ads are being served to real people
- Operating system vendors can kill open source by ensuring this is mandated at the OS level, in a non-bypassable way, so signed/TPM/closed source nonsense.
- Parents who don't understand the technology enabling this but believe that this 'protects the kids' will also support it.
Aside from the problems stated in the other replies, another problem are the differing standards of what kids should or shouldn't access.
There are some websites some parents would be fine with their kids accessing that other parents could consider obscene. Given that much of the argument is giving back control to parents, the definition of 'obscene content' shouldn't be decided for them. This is especially true given that if conservatives had their way, all LGBTQ content would also be age restricted.
The reason a lot of us take issue with the age-verificarion steps is that while the stated intent is saftey, we are prtty sure none of those guard rails will be implemented. Noone will enforce the fines of telemtry harvesting and fines not high enough are just the cost of doing business.
Noone trusts the entities pushing for these changes to be good stewards of these additional data points and most tech experts are skeptical that they will be effective to begin with. The benifits are negligable and the erosion of user privacy (as pitiful as it is with everyones personal wiretaps) is unacceptable.
Parents and tech companies, if they want features like this need to go back to the drawing board and try again, use the parental control features already embedded in devices and stop trying to shove Orwellian shit into every new requirement.
Why not other way around? Website send which age appropriate and OS is set by admin to not display if age not match?
Edit: Or make standard list of "content tag" which classify content for parent to deckide? And fine site out the ass if not send correct tag. Decision 100% at parent hand no telemetry possible, except maybe if keep loading site but can only confirm no tag blocked.
My opinion: The other way around puts the onus for violating the law on the OSes.
Also the telemetry is the same either way:
"Are you over 18?" Yes/No is basically the same signal to the server as "This content is rated 18+" followed by downloading more content or not.
It's also vulnerable to basically the same brute force age guessing which should be outlawed, e.g., "This pixel is for 5+, that one is 10+, ....." Until you get the user's age, but that also should be considered a violation by the website and not the OS, in my book.
Policing the OS is like policing credit card companies for kids buying cigarettes. It could work but it's not really their responsibility to check.
Brute forcepixel valid concern, but that why tag might better (and tracking pixel should illegal anyway). Also parent then has control to allow different thing depend on what they think ok.
But think this not os thing, this browser thing. Since most based on big project (chromium, firefox, webkit) if base implement parental control most other will automatically get. And display blocked for set range or set of tag usually not difficult. If in HTTP header could even do in OPTION response before any data sent.
If they want for "app store" maybe become difficult. Then recommend policy maker to sponsor standard library for check implementation.
Honest though any force to have block implement just stupid, parent should get tool to enable where want and get proper education on it, and child too. This decision of parent not fucking government. And education is government fail, not parent.
Edit: but also this more force of implement parental control than force to check user. Enforce should really be on website to send correct information and then parent decide what to do with.
It could be part of the solution. This is imperfect of course, and making this foolproof is a fool's errand, so education is necessary as well.
It's imperfect as it's not selective and affect all devices in a home, so adults would often disable it when it gets in the way. If it stays enabled a home, children could counter this by switching DNS, using public WiFi, using a friend's or neighbor's WiFi, ...