New York just proposed the most invasive state-level age verification bill the US has seen. Senate Bill S08102 would extend age verification requirements down to the device itself: internet-connected devices, operating system providers, and app stores would all be required to implement what the bill calls “age assurance” before users can access their own hardware and software ecosystems.
Edit:
Meta is one of the lobbyists for the age verification bill.
Into the Metaverse: The Money and Motivations Behind Meta’s App Store Gambit
In May 2025, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative John James (R-MI) introduced the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA), a bill that would require app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for users under 18. Meta has bankrolled a wildly expensive lobbying campaign to enact ASAA and its state-level analogs, and instead of recoiling in horror at taking kid privacy advice from Meta, some lawmakers are credulously going along with it.
Confirmed by Bloomberg : Meta Clashes With Apple, Google Over Age Check Legislation
The struggle has pitted Meta Platforms Inc. and other app developers against Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, the world’s largest app stores. Lobbyists for both sides are moving from state to state, working to water down or redirect the legislation to minimize their clients’ risks.
This year alone, at least three states — Utah, Texas and Louisiana — passed legislation requiring tech companies to authenticate users’ ages, secure parental consent for anyone under 18 and ensure minors are protected from potentially harmful digital experiences. Now, lobbyists for all three companies are flooding into South Carolina and Ohio, the next possible states to consider such legislation.
in addition, there are Over 50 Child Advocacy Groups Unite to Demand App Store Accountability
No we can’t. We try, but kids are not 100% of the time in our sight. They are sitting in their chair “doing homework”, but when they see us coming they switch apps - who knows what they are doing. They are getting up at 3am when we are a sleep, again doing who knows what. Even if we put controls on, anytime there is a way to bypass the control (often a website that looks good enough to fool the automated approval system school has set up) that will spread to the entire school and all kids get access to that for a week in school before it is shutdown.
If you want age verification to work, you need a strong legal effort (international!) so that anyone who makes something online that gets kids (intentionally or not) faces a strong enough legal issue (read years in prison) that it is really stops this. Part of that is enough money for investigation so that it is a given you will be caught. I don’t think you can do this, and so the whole effort is pointless.
Network level content blockers are really easy to setup and they’d be even easier if bills targeted ISPs instead (requiring gateways have the tech built-in). It takes a pretty smart and determined kid to get around network controls and it can target specific devices so adults still have an unrestricted experience.
Proxies and VPNs exist for a reason. If the entire country of China can’t keep up with the number of VPNs and proxies poking holes in their Great Firewall, what makes you think individual parents have the time to do so? You never used a proxy site to access blocked content on a school computer? It doesn’t take a high degree of technical skill. You just google “proxy site” and paste whatever URL you wanted into the site.
And good luck for that kid to go online if I confiscate their device.
They are only easy to setup if you don’t care about getting them right. Either you block a lot of useful content (only approved, audited things allowed), or you block only things that are known evil (that is you audited it). Either way the vast majority of the internet is not audited and we have no idea which of that is good vs evil. (nevermind trying to get a consistent definition of good/evil). The name “onlyfans” makes me think of sports fans and thus something I’d allow kids to access - of course I know better, I’ll be there is someone out there who would be setting up the firewall who doesn’t know it is in fact adult content.