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
This is a good example for how democracy under capitalism tends to serve the interests of the Epstein class above the rest of us.
What states aren’t trying to pull this bullshit? There have to be at least a few.
Hell, let’s go one step further and force it on the user level:
Every time you want to access an online service, a government-appointed doctor comes to your house and does an X-ray of your clavicle to determine bone ossification, dental examinations, and a DNA methylation test to determine your biological age.Yay! More places where devs will just say you can’t run their stuff.
I’m pretty sure I don’t need to use anything built by a company so preoccupied with my birthday.
Yeah, because those devices have age-inappropriate content already pre-installed amirite???
Honestly though, how the fuck do they keep justifying the mental gymnastics behind this, from a judicial standpoint? If you were to never set a foot on the internet after buying the device, there’s no need for age verification; and even if you do, as long as you don’t visit any site that hosts inappropriate content, it still doesn’t warrant an age verification.
It’s up to the content platform to ensure that no child visits inappropriate content. Think about it: a store IDs a person when they try to buy alc/tobacco, NOT when they just enter the store.
I can’t believe this passes legislation just like that.
This is like mandating that bicycles require age verification, since someone could bike to the liquor store and lie about their age.
Kudos, that’s an even better metaphor.
Woah. Crazy how governments around the world are all doing this in lock-step.
It’s almost like we’re all being ruled by a handful of families haha.
Yep but point it out and you’re the crazy person 🙄
Christian fundie groups trying to get rid of porn on the web. Other groups seeking to eliminate anonymity from the web.
Meta is likely going along with it because it protects them from child vulnerability lawsuits.
If they succeed in getting rid of internet porn, there will be only website and it would be www.bringbacktheporn.com
… And based on usage, it’ll be run by a religious group. They consume the most porn, after all, and I bet this kind of bill is virtue-signaling or offloading of responsibility.
:D
Scammers and hackers around the world celebrated at getting their hands on your ID info.
Weren’t the red hats the ones bitching about “the nanny state”?
The same crowd that needs the second amendment to stand up to tyranny but are nowhere to be found when tyranny is actually happening?
You mean the hypocrite amendment?
Freedom for me, laws for thee
“Child advocacy groups”, funded by billionaires.
If you can’t see it, you need to peel back a few more layers.
Children aren’t purchasing their devices, adults are, so why would an adult need to prove that they’re over 18? They can just state that the individual receiving the device is under 18…. Oh so you’re saying it’s not actual about the safety of children?
They are infantilising people by making excuses that this is for the children. Teenagers may also be under 18, yet they don’t seem to care - they’re lumped right in with clueless children.
Teenagers are also people, and are closer to adults where they have their needs and wants. This goes against their safety, by duming them down. Its only a while since theyre going to consider under 25s as children as well - “for the peoples own good”.
Fuck these oligarchs trying to solve a parenting problem with technology and eroding everyone’s privacy.
trying to solve a parenting problem with technology
That was never the goal, just the excuse.
This is a clearly coordinated attack on the civilians to get more data to sell and spy on them.
This isn’t a coincidence that these bills pop around at the same time.
Agree. But it’s “citizens” not civilians. “Civilians” are those that aren’t military. Civilians are virtually everybody, police included. The USA started this double-speak ~15 years ago, where they pretend that police are military, and police aren’t civilians. Please stop rewiring your brain by using their language.
Here is the bill: https://docs.reclaimthenet.org/New-York-2025-S08102-Amended.pdf
Main points:
“Covered manufacturer” shall mean a manufacturer of an internet-enabled device, an operating system provider, or an application store.
Obligations for covered manufacturers.
- Upon activation of an internet-enabled device after the effective date of this article, a covered manufacturer shall conduct age assurance to determine a user’s age category at the point of such activation. For devices that were activated prior to the effective date of this article, however, such covered manufacturer shall conduct the age assurance described herein on or before such effective date.
Data security.
- A covered manufacturer or covered developer shall delete all information collected for the purposes of this article after such purpose has been achieved, except where necessary for compliance with applicable provisions of law or regulation.
So it would be any device that connects to the internet, regardless of the reason such as connecting to a VPN.
Wait… It just verifies the age of whoever initially activated the device? Which might predate the bill, implying a long activation time?
Do the authors of this bill even live with children? Cuz they sure aren’t actually dealing with their device usage
Gonna be weird to age verify yourself to use a smart thermostat.
Politicians who unwaveringly support The King of the Pedophiles and a serial rapist think want me to believe they’re “protecting the children.”
