The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the US. Activists Are Fighting Back
Members of Congress on Tuesday considered 19 online safety bills that could soon have a major impact on the future of the Internet, as age verification laws expanded to half the United States and around the world.
In response, digital and human rights organization Fight for the Future is hosting a week of events – on Reddit, LinkedIn and various livestreams – to raise awareness about how it believes these bills set a dangerous precedent by making the internet more exploitative rather than safer. Many proposed bills include an identity or age verification clause, which requires people to upload an ID, allow a facial scan, or authenticate that they are not a minor before viewing adult content. Fight for the Future says these policies will lead to increased censorship and surveillance.
Among the 19 bills considered during the hearing conducted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee were the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which passed with broad bipartisan approval in the Senate last year, and the Reducing Teen Exposure to Exploitable Social Media Act, which would prohibit tech companies from allowing minors under 16 on their platforms. Besides age verification, the bills have raised concerns over issues of parental controls, underage consumer research, AI and data privacy.
“We’re seeing this massive wave of ID checks becoming the norm in tech policy, and we felt like we needed to capture the already enabled communities that don’t feel heard in Congress,” says Sarah Philips, an advocate for Fight for the Future. “If you look on YouTube, if you see people creating content about KOSA or reacting to a lot of this legislation, it’s very unpopular with people. But on the Hill, it’s seen as very logical.”
Missouri’s age-related law took effect earlier this week, meaning 25 U.S. states have adopted some form of age verification. The process usually involves third-party services, which can be particularly prone to data breaches. This year, the UK also passed an age verification mandate – the Online Safety Act – and Australia’s teen social media ban, which requires social media companies to disable the accounts of users under 16, comes into force on December 10. Instagram, YouTube, Snap and TikTok are complying with this historic ban.
Philips believes that these laws pose a direct threat to democratic freedom. “These are censorship laws,” she said. “In the South, where I live, these same proposals mimic many of the arguments we see behind book bans and behind laws that criminalize gender-affirming health care or abortion information. »
