Because social media already has the age info exactly?
I think an OS and a web platform with accounts are different product categories. Not even sure what an interpretation of the bill that would affect meta would be.
Then it shouldn't be difficult to comply.
These are the same governments that file criminal charges when you compare lying leader to Pinocchio (Germany). The UK records something like 30 arrests per day for social media posts. Just imagine how much better they could do, if you were not pseudo-anonymous in the Internet!
For example a gambling site could require MitID auth, but only request proof-of-age and nothing else. You can see in the app which information is being requested, like with OAuth.
I don't want my kids to have access to gambling websites like Stake, but I also want to keep my digital identity anonymous. The eIDAS is a solution that achieves both of these goals.
If you can choose between the discord shitshow with a face scan, or a digital encrypted proof-of-age in a 2FA app you already use, issues and verified only by the government of your country (who have all your personal details anyway), what would you choose?
From wikipedia.
MitID is 2fa. You log in with username, then you have to open the app, enter password or scan biometric, then scan the QR code of the screen* and you are logged in.
He would need to be next to you every time you log in. I think that is too high friction to make it feasible on large scale.
* Assuming you open the website on the Desktop, and MitID on phone. If both on phone, skip this step.
Or you can just text him a screenshot of the QR code. You could probably even automate this.
I really don’t see the problem.
But I can not see how the legal framework could be better. Insults are illegal. Prosecution needs to look into all reported cases.
And Germany really did sentence people for calling Mr. Habeck "Schwachkopf", which is about as mild an insult as you can find.
The guy was sentenced for distributing forbidden Nazi materials.
The initial insult investigation was dropped, because of it being insignificant.
Did not know about this, here is the wiki: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwachkopf-Aff%C3%A4re
His house was searched because of it, but he did not get sentenced for it.
Reminds me of Pimmelgate https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Grote#Umstrittene_Reaktio...
The Swiss implementation of eID may be hint that governments may/will take the responsibility to implement and maintain the tech, but the multiple intrusions and lobbying by Palantir and friends in the EU gives me the ick.
Basically, the chinese, through WTO, managed to utilize corona to show politicians, regardless of color, the enormous power of complete digital control of the population.
Our spineless and incompetent EU politicians thought it very erotic, and are now ramming it down our throats.
I don't really see a way to stop this apart from moving to south america or africa, to a small country with a weak government.
So far. But they’ll keep lobbying and we’ll need to keep fighting.
> What examples of this do you have in recent years (post 2016)?
Digital Omnibus is another.
https://noyb.eu/en/gdpr-omnibus-eu-simplification-far-remove...
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/eu-digit...
This implies that regulation is codified. The clear pattern of EU digital regulation doomerism is generally pointing at shitty proposals which aren't approved and codified in law.
Digital omnibus is another proposal.
If "rammed and rushed laws" is legitimately a widespread issue, you should be able to find a good example of something codified which is not just a proposal?
I'm not saying we don't have to fight. But vocal opposition to proposals which ultimately don't make it into law is the system working exactly as intended.
They can try as often as they want and they only have to win once. We - as in those who don't want this Orwellian monster to be written into law - have to win all the time.
No, it is a one way street and thus creates an imbalance. EU regimes never push new legislation that gives more rights to their citizens, only try to limit them again and again.
> Gay marriage would still be illegal if unpopular ideas couldn't be reraised.
Gay marriage is a good example. It got passed despite being unpopular. In many countries where it was pushed by force from above, from the EU to the national level, it is still unpopular.
> Democracy is a balance, unfortunately you have to put up with fighting against the shit ideas as well as for the good ones.
The issue with democracy as we have it in the EU is the imbalance of power and responsibility. Given the EU regime's decisions in the last few decades, I consider it just a shell to push unpopular and undemocratic decisions to their member states, so lobbyists don't have to bribe everyone, just the EU regime.
GDPR is entirely unenforced, it's not worth the paper it's written on, and this is due to lobbying. The situation continues to this day. The DPAs simply throw reports of violations into the trash bin.
It's hilariously transparent - Ireland recently (less than 6 months ago) added a former _Meta lobbyist_ to their DPA board [0].
US Big Tech is now spending a record €151 million per year on lobbying the EU [1], and it's completely implausible to believe they're doing that with 0 RoI. "The number of digital lobbyists has risen from 699 to 890 full-time equivalents (FTEs), surpassing the 720 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). A total of 437 lobbyists now have continuous access to the European Parliament. Three meetings per day: Big Tech held an average of three lobbying meetings a day in the first half of 2025, which speaks volumes about their level of access to EU policymakers." It's impossible that this doesn't influence things.
[0] https://noyb.eu/en/former-meta-lobbyist-named-dpc-commission...
[1] https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/10/revealed-tech-industr...
The EU has zero knowledge proof age verification systems, e.g. through your bank, which are secure and don't involve sending a copy of your ID and / or face scan to a dodgy US based 3rd party.
Or even kids whose parents don't have the technical knowledge needed
Yes I do agree the responsibility is with the parents, but it's these kids who are majoritarily affected by (bad internet actors) AND (bad offline actors)
What you’re proposing is similar to a “Google Free Village.” What we need is something that lets parents have some control by proxy without violating the privacy of the child or anyone else. I believe it’s possible to do so.
The Internet that we grew up on has been totally subsumed by scumbag marketing to the point that it’s unavoidable. It’s an addictive substance now. Stop pretending like the ways of the 90’s and 2000’s are still accessible.
A proper society raises their new generations.
Yes, rights and responsibilities fall mostly to parents, but I see no reason to make licentious activities difficult for parents to inhibit.
What is it you want to do on the internet?
We can have systems that allow anonymity (between client and server), but still put hardcore porn, gore, financial frauds and such out of reach of those without proof they're over 18.
Now, don't get me wrong, Palantir and it's ilk are a danger to society. But just because the military-industrial complex wants to use any excuse to control people, doesn't mean all of those excuses are wrong.
If we really embraced this logic, then should we look at returning to the laws from before the 'protect the children' push of the 20th century. Compare this to some countries where kids can go buy beer. I've read stories from people in less regulated countries who use to buy beer for their parents when they were underage, and nothing was stopping them from buying it from themselves if their parents allowed it (or failed to stop it). Even a concept like child labor, why should we regulate that out to companies to control instead of depending upon parents to parent? When you consider web access as a person having some sort of transaction with a company, it generalizes to a very similar position of if a parent or the government should monitor that relationship for harm.
No, they don't. And they can't.
As it stands one should be happy if Meta catches most calls for the extermination of an ethnicity on its platform, that they would provide capabilities that allows a kid to protect themselves from bullying or grooming is just unimaginable.
Of course, that defeats the entire point of the exercise.
(my MP is SNP, so I benefit from not being in the two party trap)
The next thing you are going to claim kids from young age shouldn't have fully unlocked smart phones, shouldn't install any app and so on. Where is the end of this? Are you telling me parents should spend more time with kids, heck even be their role models although it is much harder compared to just giving up on them and let the glorious internet and various fashionate toxic tribes raise them? Blasphemy!!!
It is not like parents are the only influential figures in a kid's upbringing, they are not the only role models, they should not be the only ones paying attention and guiding kids to adulthood.
Parental control options as they stand are severely lacking. If you add the actively predatory enshittification efforts conducted by seemingly all larges tech companies, you are left either forbidding your kid from accessing anything (this does not work if the kid's friends have access) or allowing far more than you are comfortable with.
Lets take YouTube as an example. As it stands you have the options of YouTube (with both the most wonderful content available on one hand, and toxicity and brain rot shorts on the other) or YouTube Kids - an app with controls that do not work. How about allowing parents to whitelist content and/or creators instead of letting the algorithms run the show?
Spotify is another example. How about letting parents control whether the kid's account is plastered with videos, podcasts and AI slop?
How about your run of the mill browser, letting parents review and allow websites on a case-by-case basis? Maybe my kid is ready for news sites but not Reddit? Maybe 4chan and 8kun are better reserved for the more adventorous adults as opposed to impressionable kids?
I agree that age verification is a bad solution, but what the hell are parents supposed to reach for? It's not like Silicon Valley are stepping up with any real solutions or even propositions to these problems, it is left for - at best clueless - politicians to navigate the problem space.
Raising a kid takes a village.
There's more money spent in lobbyism in the EU than anywhere else in the world. Lobbyism and downright corruption: like Qatari bribing EU MEPs [1] and police finding 1 million EUR in bills hidden at a MEP's apartment (in this case a bribe to explain publicly that Qatar is a country oh-so-respectful of human rights).
The EU is way more corrupt than the US and in many EU countries there's little private sector compared to the US. In France for example more than 60% of the GDP is public spending and all the big companies are state or partially state-owned or owned by people very close to the state.
And as to american companies bribing EU politicians: it's nothing new. IBM and Microsoft for example are two names everybody in the business knows have been splurging money to buy influence and illegal kickbacks have always been flying. It's just the way things have always been operating. Today you can very likely add Google and Palantir etc. to the list but it's nothing new.
EU politicians are whores. And cheap whores at that: investigative journalists have shown, in the past, the little amount of money that was needed to buy their votes. Most of them go into politics to extract as much taxpayers money as they can for their own benefit. They of course love to get bribes.
Also to try to not get caught, EU politicians voted themselves special powers and it's very difficult for the regular police to enter official EU buildings. I know an police inspector who went and arrested a MEP for possession of child porn: it required a very long procedure, way longer than usual, and the request of special authorization allowing them to enter the EU parliament (or EU commission, don't remember which but I think it was MEP at the EP).
American companies bribing EU politicians should scare you indeed: it's been ongoing since forever.
> The Swiss implementation of eID may be hint that governments may/will take the responsibility
Switzerland is in Europe but it's not in the EU: it's not representative of the insane corruption present in the EU institutions.
Most of those folks would not call it lobbying because of the negative associations of the word. “We have activists, our opponents have lobbyists.” But it works the same way.
It is specifically protected in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Emphasis mine.
Of course, when money becomes a significant portion of how the second one happens, things can get complicated.
A significant portion of both of your suggested halves are “complicated” by money.
Everything is complicated by money. I wish we were better about shielding politics from money. So much about society in general is about money, it ain’t easy.
Your breakdown was so simple, it was simply wrong.
So in a democratic society where free speech exists there's only so much you can do to prevent that.
Power corrupts.
The issue that should rather worry you is that people
- don't delete their Meta/Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram/Threads/... account because of this proposal,
- don't strongly urge friends and colleagues to do the same.
Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney
Doing ID or this fake age verification with anything other than a physical secure element is a dumb regulation that going to create its own regulatory arbitrages and spawn very powerful and profitable black and grey markets. Poor laws create criminal economic opportunity, and digital id is just creating a massive one.
Between Meta being behind a digital id initiative under the pretext of alleged "age verification" and the Debian project leads pivoting to political objectives, it appears gen Z now has a cause to build tech against and fight for. These are dying organizations that cannot innovate and they've attracted a pestilence that is pivoting them to the easier problem of political maneuvering. as it's easier to militate for what nobody wants than to make something anyone actually wants.
The upside is that people get to be hackers again. Tools to cleanse our networks and systems of Meta and other surveillance companies and the influence of these compromised organizations are an OS install and a vibecoding weekend away.
What does this mean? Free software was always a politics of itself.
Nothing to do with street design - most suburbs have a park a safe walk near any house. That kids are not walking there is nothing to do with street design.
there's a general issue with rise in protectionism
However, the ending though, really feels like they're one step away from anti-vax, anti-education, and pro-hate pro-bigotry.
This case really feels like an over-reach. But to condemn the entire system because they have an interest in making sure the country functions and sets minimum standards of life and care is not a "bad thing". The government represents the collective decision-making of millions, hundreds-of-millions of people.
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water because one cop (in rural Georgia of all places) over-reacted.
I'm pretty sure most kids older than 12 do have access to kitchen knives. And actively use them too.
I generally agree with your point. But at the same time access to the internet resouces and to gun or a chaisaw is not the same.
I have no problem securing a few items if my home, but I have no control over whatever is available on the net.
Sure, I can write some firewall rules or create "kid's account" on a streaming platform, but I can do this for every single known service, chat, IM group etc.
One way to traumatize 4-year old, I'd say an effective one.
Is this a thing?
My 10yo has used all three of those things. If there were some legislation requiring they be "secured" before my son could be in my presence, obviously I'd oppose it, along with every other reasonable parent.
In this case, it is the data from the website, not the electronic device itself, that is seen as the item being transacted and regulated by age gates, no? The attempts to actually regulate it do feed back into changes on the electronic device, but the real cause of concern (per the protect the kids argument, if that is the real reason is debatable) is a company providing data directly to a child that parents find objectionable. That transaction doesn't have a parent directly involved currently.
Controlling the device itself and saying free game if a parent has allowed them access is a bit like saying that if a parent has allowed a kid to get to the store, there should be no further restrictions on what they can buy, including any of the above three items.
Microsoft has a trillion dollars in liability now because every historical OS is illegal, and every adult user of that historical OS (that you don't ask for their age) is a monetary fine.
$2500 fine for Microsoft for letting me continue use Windows 10 in Colorado, cause they never asked my age.
Also hilariously the law openly FORBIDS checking the user's identity to verify age. It says you MUST NOT collect any more information than is necessary to comply with the law. And complying with the law only requires that you ASK the user to TELL YOU their age, so my non-lawyer take is that if you do anything else like checking ID you can and probably will be prosecuted
I looked at the original analysis and it was fraught with language that leads to specific conclusions. It was most certainly LLM aided, if not generated.
I am not ascribing malice, but the author seems inexperienced with the repercussions of making assertions out of partial knowledge.
Also: Good grief, this article is also written via LLM! Human+machine comes up with theory that goes viral, and then Humans+machines amplify it? Is this the brilliant future we have to look forward to?
When a company such as meta pursues mass-sniffing, is it still a company or is it just a spy-agency? Meta isn't even hiding this anymore. I am glad to finally understand why these "age verification" is pushed globally. Meta pays well.
The research has a lot of these:
> LIMITATION: Direct PDF downloads returned 403 errors. ProPublica Schedule I viewer loads data dynamically (JavaScript), preventing extraction via WebFetch. The 2024 public disclosure copy on sixteenthirtyfund.org was also blocked.
> Tech Transparency Project report: The article "Inside Meta's Spin Machine on Kids and Social Media" at techtransparencyproject.org likely contains detailed ConnectSafely/Meta funding analysis but was blocked (403)
So the “research” isn’t some groundbreaking discoveries by a Redditor. It’s an afternoon worth of Claude Code slop where they couldn’t even take the time to get the real documents into the local workspace so Claude Code could access them. It’s now getting repeated by sites like Theo gadgetreview.com because the people posting to these sites aren’t reading the report either.
I'm 47, and I started using the internet in my early teens through BBS gateways. I've seen every age of the Internet, and there's always been widely available pornographic materials. Why all of a sudden is this a crisis?
Perhaps I'm missing something?
maybe since minors can't enter into a contract they can't agree to TOS and therefore their content is ineligible to be used as LLM training material? just guessing.
swores•2h ago
(But it's a big enough story that I'm glad to see it on front page again.)
pezgrande•2h ago
0: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-beh...
speefers•2h ago
ceejayoz•1h ago
chistev•1h ago
ceejayoz•1h ago
IncreasePosts•1h ago
QuantumNomad_•1h ago
hallway_monitor•1h ago
speefers•45m ago
shagie•13m ago
From the Guidelines link at the bottom - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
armchairhacker•1h ago
Personally I’d rather not see reposts of posts this recent, especially LLM posts.
codethief•39m ago