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
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.
IDK what proxies you use but free ones really suck IMO and they aren’t very obfuscated so they can be easily blocked too. VPNs are trickier but there are methods to detect VPN traffic so that could be blocked too. If you wanted to go ballistic you could even set a whitelist of services and everything else gets blocked.
Right, so use them to your advantage? Don’t allow unfettered internet access on the device you give your child. Use MDM/Parental controls to lock its internet access to a proxy or VPN that blocks adult websites, as well as other anonymizers. Business have been doing this since forever.
It only takes one kid to figure out the bypass and it spreads all the kids. Some of those kids are talking to kids going to other schools.
every week my kids hear about a new game the school isn’t blocking while they are in class. Sometimes the teachers catch them, but kids are good at hiding what they are doing - and switching to what they should do when the teacher comes near.
As a parent I’m totally up for the cat and mouse game over the prospect of living in a world with only proprietary operating systems. This idea will get worse and worse until only Windows, Android, and Mac operating systems are in compliance with the law.