SAN FRANCISCO—With ill-advised and dangerous age verification laws proliferating across the United States and around the world, creating surveillance and censorship regimes that will be used to harm both youth and adults, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a new resource hub that will sort through the mess and help people fight back. To mark the hub's launch, EFF will host a Reddit AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) next week and a free livestreamed panel discussion on January 15 highlighting the dangers of these misguided laws. “These restrictive mandates strike at the foundation of the free and open internet,” said EFF Activist Molly Buckley. “While they are wrapped in the legitimate concern about children's safety, they operate as tools of censorship, used to block people young and old from viewing or sharing information that the government deems ‘harmful’ or ‘offensive.’ They also create surveillance systems that critically undermine online privacy, and chill access to vital online communities and resources. Our new resource hub is a one-stop shop for information that people can use to fight back and redirect lawmakers to things that will actually help young people, like a comprehensive privacy law.” Half of U.S. states have enacted some sort of online age verification law. At the federal level, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee last week held a hearing on “Legislative Solutions to Protect Children and Teens Online.” While many of the 19 bills on that hearing’s agenda involve age verification, none would truly protect children and teens. Instead, they threaten to make it harder to access content that can be crucial, even lifesaving, for some kids. It’s not just in the U.S. Effective this week, a new Australian law requires social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or keeping an account. We all want young people to be safe online. However, age verification is not the panacea that regulators a...
First seen: 2025-12-10 21:35
Last seen: 2025-12-12 10:42