France targets Australia-style social media ban for children next year

12/31/2025 at 4:01:51 PM

Many of these "social" media websites increasingly just fling AI-generated disturbing videos at people. I am sure we could build a web that is actually pleasant to use for kids, but we are not building it. youtube for example: https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/2006013682472669589

by DalasNoin

12/31/2025 at 4:25:48 PM

From my experience as a kid

"Pleasant for kids to use is the polar opposite of kids finding it a pleasure to use"

by Workaccount2

12/31/2025 at 5:55:11 PM

I think that's provably untrue based on the fact Saturday morning cartoons were massively popular as a curated content feed on TVs through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Kids (including me at the time) loved them and sank many hours into watching them. They were wholly approved by my parents, to the point where sometimes my parents would watch with me. Unless kids have fundamentally changed (which seems unlikely) the differentiating factor is almost certainly that kids simply now have access to far more unsuitable content.

by onion2k

12/31/2025 at 8:00:41 PM

Yep. Kids still love engaging with decent content. As any parent knows. Bluey / Peppa pig / Paw patrol / etc do huge numbers.

Children haven’t changed.

by josephg

1/1/2026 at 1:07:42 PM

My parents didn't let me watch saturday morning cartoons because my mom felt that the ad breaks were harmful to children. In fact, the TV was set to PBS and there was a plastic cup glued over the channel knob.

by c22

1/1/2026 at 2:37:12 PM

Both things are true.

Liking carrots doesn't negate your taste for ice cream.

by Workaccount2

12/31/2025 at 4:41:39 PM

Video games from the 90s were actually pleasant as a kid, and I'm happy to see my kids enjoying them today rather than the slot machines that the industry makes for kids these days…

(Unfortunately I'm well aware that it won't last long, because social pressure is impossible to fight at individual scale)

by littlestymaar

12/31/2025 at 7:53:45 PM

Social pressure is much easier to fight than you think but it involves being an active parent and letting your kids invite friends over to play. Most parents are not willing or are unable to do take that active role for one reason or another.

by Ritewut

1/1/2026 at 1:17:37 AM

it would also be easier if, like, social media was banned for kids

by immibis

1/1/2026 at 7:38:53 PM

You could be a parent or let the state parent for you.

by Ritewut

1/1/2026 at 9:59:51 AM

Totally on-topic, because 20th century video games were mainly single-player or 2-4 players in the same room. Multiplayer games were "social" in a different way.

by astrobe_

12/31/2025 at 7:16:02 PM

Well, one part of a proper education of a child is to teach them that life isn't about gratification. Neil Postman made this point already in Amusing Ourselves to Death. By educating kids with Sesame street you didn't teach them to love education, you taught them to love television.

When you make learning synonymous with fun people start to believe that if they aren't having fun they aren't learning. Which accounts I think for something that a lot of teachers at all levels have observed, kids are increasingly unable to learn if there's no immediate reward.

by Barrin92

1/1/2026 at 2:45:12 AM

Sesame Street didn’t make Facebook, X or TikTok unbridled greed and a lack of regulation did.

by Teever

1/1/2026 at 3:07:14 AM

what does greed have to do with it? The issue at hand is that for many decades now visual mass media have taught children that constant stimulation and entertainment has to be omnipresent.

It's much worse than just greed, it's about attention. Fundamentally at this point, very few people, including adults are unable to accept boredom or lack of instant gratification. Commercial or non-commercial.

by Barrin92

1/1/2026 at 5:56:51 AM

Right, and the greed is preying on that attention. The users aren’t the greedy ones, the musks and the zucks and the tiks and the toks are.

by jakeydus

12/31/2025 at 6:15:07 PM

Not sure why you think this has anything to do with children other than in name.

It’s ID verification.

by aunty_helen

1/1/2026 at 5:22:41 AM

Totally agreed. Banning it for children also means mandating identification for all adults.

I don't want to be forced to doxx myself just because some parents can't control their children.

by wolvoleo

1/1/2026 at 10:49:31 AM

If it was to stop kids you’d have these sites set a header or similar and allow parents to use their existing parental controls to enforce it.

by hdgvhicv

1/1/2026 at 5:04:54 PM

Yes exactly. That would simply solve it.

In Holland there's even ISPs that filter porn and stuff, like https://kliksafe.nl . They're used by ultra-religious conservative communities (calvinists). Even adults use it there.

I view this as a much better solution. The people that want it can do their blocking and the rest of us aren't bothered with verifications and stuff.

Personally I belong to the sex-positive movement which thinks diametrically opposite about such matters :)

by wolvoleo

12/31/2025 at 8:22:52 PM

You will loose this argument because there is a real problem with children and AI slop. Especially because there is a problem with AI slop and handling it by people in general.

Provide a solution which doesn’t require that, like some other top commenter did. Otherwise, you have already lost.

by ruszki

1/1/2026 at 4:09:08 AM

Oh now its AI slop lol. Anyway the fact is that no children should be left unattended on the internet.

by petermcneeley

1/1/2026 at 10:50:22 AM

So 13 year olds have to have active parental helicoptering for every piece of homework they do?

by hdgvhicv

1/1/2026 at 1:08:53 PM

No, just education in media literacy and how to critically evaluate sources.

by razakel

1/1/2026 at 6:53:04 PM

That’s a problem that just a small portion of the population know these, so the average parent has the same problem.

by ruszki

1/1/2026 at 8:02:58 PM

One would figure a русский would be more wary of the nanny state.

by petermcneeley

1/1/2026 at 8:09:37 PM

And yet there's opposition to teaching it in schools!

"I love the poorly educated"

- Some Guy

by razakel

1/1/2026 at 4:33:40 PM

I mean the internet was a thing when I was 13. What is even your response to the fact that an entire generation has already gone through this?

The primary difference is that back then there was strong parental supervision and guidance.

by petermcneeley

12/31/2025 at 4:10:21 PM

This must kill that platform.

by piker

12/31/2025 at 4:09:19 PM

If we did build it and it became popular, it would quickly be taken over by the same forces that are destroying the current internet. To get good social media sites (and a better internet as well), you would first have to change the economics of the entire system driving these forces. But as is said "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism".

by Eddy_Viscosity2

12/31/2025 at 6:42:02 PM

It's really not that dramatic. Just build it like more classic media. Curated content the company takes responsibility for, closed platform, pay upfront. Or have public programming, that is the oldest model there is.

Ad driven online content is especially bad for kids. But let's not pretend the only way to find an alternative is to end the world.

The fact is the "bad" solution is popular because consumers say they care about these things but then in real life they act like they don't. If no one watched the problem would solve itself. Thus, I'm not sure the solution is even to be found in platforms, if parents are burned out or don't have ways to make better choices for their kids.

That's a reason for these laws, to essentially just take it out of people's hands.

by pear01

12/31/2025 at 7:54:43 PM

The consumer gets bait & switched. When ad-free pay upfront cable tv first started, people switched over. We showed that yes indeed we like ad-free shows and are willing to pay for them. They said, well that's great, but we can make more money if we show you ads so they did and we ended up paying up front and getting obnoxious ads. Then when online streaming started, we all switched over. We showed that yes indeed we like ad-free shows and are willing to pay upfront for them. They said, well that's great, but we can make more money if we show you ads so they did and we ended up paying up front and getting obnoxious ads. The moment it become sufficient popular and the people get sufficiently locked in, the ads come. Every time.

by Eddy_Viscosity2

12/31/2025 at 6:20:31 PM

it doesn't need to be social media, it could be an entirely closed system with some moderators curating content.

by IncreasePosts

1/1/2026 at 3:54:54 AM

Right? As a teenager on overclocking forums there was a strong mod presence and you knew them. They were quick to delete any shit and keep a lid on the drama - playing a very effective ‘big brother’ role for the rest of us to have a great time.

What makes this impossible is the scale that people assume you need to cater for. When you limit your population to a reasonable size then moderation is easy and everyone gets to know the expectations of the community.

by jackvalentine

1/1/2026 at 12:54:48 PM

Yep this is it. These social media companies don't want to moderate because it costs too much.

Unfortunately we have built a world in which people can live stream terrorist attacks or child rape.

by expedition32

12/31/2025 at 6:39:20 PM

Well, that's why we use HN. So far no ads, how long that lasts is anyone's guess.

by Eddy_Viscosity2

1/1/2026 at 12:11:42 AM

HN does have ads.

by throwaway85825

1/1/2026 at 5:24:10 AM

It has some job postings yes but they are really few and far between. And really inconspicuous. And don't try to track us across the internet.

If all ads were like this we wouldn't hate them.

And I don't think they will start. It's good advertising for Ycombinator (I'd never heard of them before) and it doesn't cost a fortune to run really. They have one employee (or maybe 2 now?) and it all runs on one physical server. It's not a meta with a huge workforce and offices and datacenters all over the world.

by wolvoleo

12/31/2025 at 7:01:44 PM

This has been going on since well before COVID:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate

by Der_Einzige

12/31/2025 at 10:40:29 PM

Any kind of social media ban would mean more people consuming "traditional" media, which is much worse.

I would rather have my kid watch nothing but AI slop then get even 30 seconds of FAUX news. Lost my father to actual brain rot, FUCK YOU NEWSCORP!

by casey2

1/1/2026 at 8:14:59 PM

Are your kids or father on social media shouting FUCK YOU THIS or FUCK YOU THAT?

by lazyeye

12/31/2025 at 7:15:11 PM

I'm going to restate my proposed age verification system here. I've posted it several times as a comment on this website. It works as follows:

1. A private company, let's call it AgeVerify, issues scratch-off cards with unique tokens on them. They are basically like gift cards.

2. AgeVerify's scratch-off cards are sold exclusively in IRL stores. Preferably liquor stores, adult stores, and/or tobacco/vape shops. Places that are licensed and check ID.

3. Anyone who wants to verify their age online can purchase a token at a store. The store must only demand ID if the buyer appears to be a minor (similar to alcohol or tobacco purchases). The store must never store the ID in any form whatsoever.

4. Giving or selling these tokens to a minor is a criminal offense. If a store does it, they lose their liquor or tobacco license. Treat it just like giving a minor alcohol or tobacco.

4a. Run public service announcement campaigns to communicate that giving an AgeVerify token to a child is like handing them a cigarette. There should be a clear social taboo associated with the legal ban.

5. The buyer of the AgeVerify token enters it into their account on whatever social media or adult website they want to use. The website validates the code with AgeVerify.

6. Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased.

7. A separate token is required for each website/each account.

8. The website is responsible for enforcing no account sharing.

No identifying information is stored anywhere. Kids find it very hard to access age-restricted materials online, just like the vast majority of kids don't easily have access to alcohol or cigarettes.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 8:12:18 PM

And I am going to restate how it’s an absolutely terrible idea, and will always fail with its perverse incentives. This does not solve any problems and creates many more.

Your idea will create a massive black market for “adult validation tokens”, handing billions of dollars to criminal groups reselling these things.

And then where such a system goes in 5-10y. Sure it’s sorta anonymous today, but then new government decides - “let’s make it mandatory to be sold with a binding identity and credit card.” Suddenly you need that token to log in to any public website. And Chinese, European and American authorities demand realtime access to the global logs.

Every censorship system you build, even if it seems “good”, will eventually censor you and the things you care about. Don't design or build oppression technology.

The very idea that you can realistically enforce Point of Sales age checks at scale is not sensible.

by nej24swei

12/31/2025 at 9:11:47 PM

> Your idea will create a massive black market for “adult validation tokens”,

No bigger than the current black market for beer and cigs for kids. Adults have no need to resort to black markets. They can buy this stuff legitimately.

> Sure it’s sorta anonymous today, but then new government decides - “let’s make it mandatory to be sold with a binding identity and credit card.”

They're already trying to do that right now! If we can head them off with a system that's as robust as age verification for alcohol we take away the moderate voter's support for making everyone upload passports to access FaceTok.

> Every censorship system you build, even if it seems “good”, will eventually censor you and the things you care about

Hasn't happened to cigs or booze so far. How long is "eventually"?

> The very idea that you can realistically enforce Point of Sales age checks at scale is not sensible.

This needs strong evidence. My evidence is that we already do it for many products.

> Suddenly you need that token to log in to any public website. And Chinese, European and American authorities demand realtime access to the global logs

If you treat everything as a potential slippery slope you won't get anything done. Right now the threat is governments mandating actual ID and destroying everyone's anonymity under the guise of protecting the children. I fear they have the votes to ram it through. Unless we find a good enough alternative that preserves privacy.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:23:04 PM

> No bigger than the current black market for beer and cigs for kids.

I don't think this part is true. Kids are currently used to having access to all of these services. And there is a lot more utility to having access to the whole internet, than having a a few packs.

To say nothing of the fact that these codes can be distributed digitally once they have been purchased. So it's harder to deter.

by _aavaa_

12/31/2025 at 9:25:20 PM

> these codes can be distributed digitally once they have been purchased

How do the kids pay for them?

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:28:00 PM

Crypto, dah. Are you living in the 90s?

A ten year old raised/scammed $10k in crypto meme tokens last week.

Join us in the 21st century.

by nej24swei

1/2/2026 at 12:48:54 AM

Minors have been getting beer illicitly since the day we introduced drinking age laws. Perfection isn't the goal.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:28:22 PM

credit card, prepaid visas, gift cards, crypto atm, csam.

Hell, pay in cash and get the codes digitally separately.

by _aavaa_

1/2/2026 at 12:50:25 AM

> Hell, pay in cash and get the codes digitally separately

Good opportunity for an undercover bust.

It doesn't have to be perfect. Minors get beer and tobacco too, despite our laws and ID checks.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:26:28 PM

Everything is a slippery slope. Better nothing be done than keep inventing new ways to oppress humanity. Why does something need to be done anyway?

You can’t nerd harder and solve this problem. You have to fight these ideas at the root, and you my friend are being the so called “useful idiot” by raising and supporting such oppression and censorship.

by nej24swei

12/31/2025 at 11:29:35 PM

>Better nothing be done than keep inventing new ways to oppress humanity

Well, you are correct. But you see people want to have a sense of control, so they think that doing SOMETHING is better that nothing, not realizing that often in some situations,s inaction is the best course of action. Among other examples where I think inaction is good are free markets and many cancer treatments.

by dennis_jeeves2

12/31/2025 at 10:03:58 PM

It's coming either way. I prefer a future where I don't have to upload my passport for every website.

If you think you can fight it you're the "useful idiot" for the people who would prefer that we all upload our passports.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 8:52:06 PM

Some other near-term negatives of the planned idea:

- forces people to go to stores that primarily sell addictive substances

- prices out poor people, who can't afford adult websites, _or_

- even more money meant for bills / food is spent on addictions

- will have a stigma attached (why is that preacher in the liquor store? For porn or whisky?)

by noahjk

1/2/2026 at 1:01:05 AM

> why is that preacher in the liquor store? For porn or whisky?)

Or Instagram?

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 5:42:08 AM

I'm already going to the tobacco store on nearly a daily basis because they're also my main parcel point.

And I don't think these cards would have to be significantly expensive?

by wolvoleo

12/31/2025 at 11:11:42 PM

I think your objection regarding future governments is valid. The others I don't think are valid. For the record I agree with your conclusion that any effort like this is doomed to fail. But we already enforce point of sale age checks at scale across multiple domains. And as for perverse incentives, part of the proposal is more or less identical to how scratch cards for gambling work. There probably is a black market for these and there probably have been attempts at fraud. But they aren't very large, not enough to tank the system anyway.

by ccppurcell

12/31/2025 at 8:36:10 PM

> Every censorship system you build, even if it seems “good”, will eventually censor you and the things you care about

Nobody is being censored. We regulate who can buy alcohol or tobacco, gamble at casinos, or operate a motor vehicle without it turning into a slippery slope.

Politically, the free speech argument might have had a point if Silicon Valley’s most-visible “free speech” advocates hadn’t lined up behind an authoritarian who’s creating diplomatic tension (and thus domestic political capital) the world over.

by JumpCrisscross

12/31/2025 at 11:20:31 PM

Accessing information is not a harmful substance or a dangerous activity that requires training.

The problem is that you are drawing the parallels in the first place. These are not the same things. This is precisely what a totalitarian regime espouses: information so dangerous it must be selectively distributed and access must be accounted for. Today it's pornography. Tomorrow LGBTQ materials are labeled as pornography. And soon thereafter you're putting in age verification to access non-state sponsored news, wondering "why is this required? should I be looking at this?"

I have no doubt that these are well-intentioned attempts by concerned citizens and civil servants to preserve some semblance of a decent society. The problem is that it's _always_ coopted. _Always._ Yet we can't seem to help ourselves but clamber towards more consolidation of power in the face of some new hysteria.

Your final point... _these supposed free speech advocates have supported an authoritarian, therefore they have no credibility_, _the only free speech advocates are in silicon valley_, _this is the only defense of free speech_. I have no idea what your point is.

That a few capitalists used free speech as a shield to make more money, we should throw the baby out with the bathwater?

I refuse.

by potsandpans

12/31/2025 at 11:27:32 PM

You are putting forward a false equivalence between social networks and accessing information.

Meanwhile actual studies on the topic show that social network actually creates addiction - who could have guessed when they were literally engineered for engagement - and have deleterious effects on health especially for teenagers.

This is not a free speech issue. This is a public health issue. This is the digital equivalent of the tobacco industry we are talking about, not a library.

by StopDisinfo910

12/31/2025 at 11:44:04 PM

> This is a public health issue.

Sugary drinks are sold in France without any restrictions. Won't somebody think about kids?

by betaby

1/1/2026 at 10:10:22 PM

Great example, no, they are not.

There is a special tax on sugary drinks in France to curb sales and distributors have been banned from schools years ago precisely to limit the health impact.

by StopDisinfo910

1/1/2026 at 12:18:31 AM

What a terrible and entirely unconvincing argument.

"$unhealthy_thing is not subject to restrictions, therefore $other_unhealthy_thing should also not be"? lol. lmao, even.

Should we let children purchase cigarettes? Alcohol? Cannabis? Cocaine?

The BMI epidemic in America tells me maybe we should ban sugary drinks.

At some point, society draws a line between what it deems acceptable and what it does not. In two generations it is virtually assured that we/our grandchildren will look back on Facebook and TikTok the way we currently look at the tobacco industry. The way I know this is because the CEOs don't let their kids dogfood their products. Famously, Steve Jobs wouldn't let his kids have an iPhone. Mark and Cecilia didn't let their kids use socials.

These are bad products designed to be deliberately addictive, and it turns out they're really only good at making people feel shitty and giving teen girls eating disorders.

by stackghost

1/1/2026 at 12:21:13 AM

> Should we let children purchase cigarettes? Alcohol? Cannabis? Cocaine?

No. An that is illegal in France. Somewhere from 1960 if I recall corectly.

Sugary drinks on other are somehow OK with the french and Macron in particular.

by betaby

1/1/2026 at 12:24:20 AM

Goodness it's almost as if society is imperfect.

by stackghost

1/1/2026 at 12:33:47 AM

Righ! And the best place to start fixing it a cancerogen France is famous for, which is wine. I guess that will be the second thing the french parliament going to do - banning the sale of wine. Health is very important, I guess everybody is in agreement with that.

by betaby

1/1/2026 at 10:01:19 AM

Wine is a carcinogen? Does not look like it from this meta-analysis.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10507274/

by eagle2com

1/1/2026 at 5:45:11 AM

Yeah in France you can get wine for lunch in the company canteen even. Imagine sitting down with your boss for lunch, opening a bottle of wine lol. But there that flies.

by wolvoleo

1/1/2026 at 10:55:20 AM

In America you go out with your boss and shoot up the place. Different strokes for different folks.

by hdgvhicv

1/1/2026 at 1:48:06 PM

I'm not American :) And I wasn't looking down on the French practice, in fact I like the more relaxed attitude.

But I did want to point out that wine is kinda sacred there. I worked for a company where the CEO was a teetotaler and he tried to ban it from the canteen and caused a huge riot lol.

by wolvoleo

1/1/2026 at 3:20:32 AM

The sale of wine to minors is already illegal in the USA, bro.

I'm beginning to get the sense that the old adage about how it's difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on not understanding it is applicable to you.

Happy new year.

by stackghost

1/1/2026 at 1:03:11 PM

Nobody would accept that we let criminals and pedophiles run schools.

Meanwhile there is this digital world that children reside in that is a completely lawless anarchy...

Something will have to be done about it one way or another.

by expedition32

1/1/2026 at 7:57:31 PM

Online isn't school. The comparison is offensive.

Your kids don't need to be online like they need to be in school. To suggest that they do is utterly ludicrous.

It's a disgrace.

by potsandpans

1/1/2026 at 9:35:06 PM

When parents can't take care of their children the government takes over. Children are the greatest treasure of society and our entire system revolves around teaching and protecting them. The disgrace is giving tech companies one iota of power.

by expedition32

1/2/2026 at 1:42:32 AM

Yes yes, the specter of the boogeyman. Your outrage and arguments are tired.

Global capitalists are bad, governments that prop them up are worst. The only thing worst than that are the useful scared people pleading for these policies evoking this kind of fear and rhetoric.

by potsandpans

12/31/2025 at 11:52:19 PM

> You are putting forward a false equivalence...

> This is the digital equivalent of the tobacco industry we are talking about

I reject the counter-equivalence you've offered.

This is not mutually exclusive: I can acknowledge that social media is bad (for everyone) and also advocate for a non-gated free and open internet.

My argument is more sharp: do not pass laws for- and build a censorship infrastructure to- solve an institutional problem. If we must discuss this, then we should first discuss fining and breaking up the companies and criminally prosecuting the executives that did the harm knowingly. This takes more care to understand: how is it we want to shape our commons, and what are the steps that we'll take as citizens to enforce it.

But that can't be packaged into a short quip.

If this is a meaningful debate, then we should avoid sloganeering. Your last sentence is a nice soundbite, but it disregards all nuance. It's exactly the kind of content that creates harm on social networks: optimized for being being catchy and divisive. Something someone can go repeat and remain uninformed. Funnily enough, the construction is also a tell-tale marker of something written by an LLM. (To be clear: I'm not accusing you of writing this with an LLM, just noting how prevalent this rhetorical device is).

by potsandpans

1/1/2026 at 10:16:31 PM

That's neither an argument nor more sharp.

You are pretending that the moral value you place on unfettered access to any places on the internet trumps the provable deleterious effects social media as a product have.

The issue with my analogy - it is not a slogan - is not that it's unnuanced. It's that the framing - that social media is actually a product - completely dismantles your point.

I'm sorry but banning for an age category is a perfectly fine and workable solution. I don't see why France should artificially limit itself to suing foreign corporate executives to appease foreign absolutists.

by StopDisinfo910

1/2/2026 at 1:45:21 AM

Oh, the _no you_. Response.

You're not sorry. And your argument is not nuanced, it's a blunted half-clever framing. The propaganda has no effect on me. There's no point in arguing further. We are ideologically opposed. Your support for these policies in my mind are worst than the companies doing harm.

I do not respect people begging to be policed. I'll fight you more then I'll fight them, and I look forward to it!

by potsandpans

12/31/2025 at 9:38:26 PM

No disrespect but paying to verify age feels absurd, let alone putting a private company in charge of what should be an essential function of the government.

How about when you turn 18 or whatever the government gives you a signed JWT that contains your DOB? Anyone who needs to verify your age can check that and simply validate the signature via a public key published by the government.

Simply grab a new JWT when you need it, to ensure privacy.

And sure, sprinkle in some laws that make it illegal to store or share JWTs for clearly fraudulent intents.

> the vast majority of kids don't easily have access to alcohol or cigarettes

This feels like it comes from an affluent perspective, where I grew up it was trivial to acquire these things and much worse, there will always be someone’s older brother etc who will do this for $20 because he’s got nothing to lose.

by refibrillator

1/1/2026 at 6:59:45 AM

> where I grew up it was trivial to acquire these things and much worse

So you think we shouldn't card for cigarettes or alcohol either? I'm confused.

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 12:05:38 AM

If kids can get the card from the liquor store, then they can get physical pornography there as well.

by lokar

1/1/2026 at 5:32:06 AM

And they can get porn from all those sites that don't obey laws anyway, like a gazillion torrent sites. So yeah what's the point really. You're not preventing anything.

Also I'm pretty sure we all watched porn when we were under age and didn't get anything from it.

When I was young internet wasn't accessible for consumers yet but I built a pay TV decoder so I could watch their porn at night. It was easy enough. Only did black and white and no audio but it didn't really matter for that purpose :)

Still, I never got the idea that this was normal sex and I've always treated women with the utmost respect.

by wolvoleo

1/1/2026 at 6:42:03 AM

> So yeah what's the point really. You're not preventing anything

You're preventing public pressure being put on the legal sites to collect ID from their members to "save the children".

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 7:56:52 AM

I think you misunderstood. I mean the age restriction doesn't prevent anything.

I'm totally against age verification.

by wolvoleo

1/2/2026 at 12:12:15 AM

> I'm totally against age verification.

That's great. Are you going to convince everyone that is for it? Otherwise it's coming.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 10:39:40 PM

So they give you their jwt for 20 instead

by tbossanova

12/31/2025 at 8:21:07 PM

> The store must only demand ID if the buyer appears to be a minor (similar to alcohol or tobacco purchases). The store must never store the ID in any form whatsoever.

Your plan requires nuanced implementation details which the general public is ill equipped to understand let alone independently verify. In particular, it is already normalized (in America at least) that liquor and weed stores will ID even the elderly, and scan the barcode on the ID into their computer. Let's say you want to ban the computer part outright; the public won't understand why, because it's already normal to them. So maybe you permit scanning IDs but regulate the way businesses can store/use that data; the public can't see into the computer, they have no idea if the law is being followed or not. This leads to lax attitudes towards compliance and enforcement both, and furthermore, likely results in public cynicism aka low expectations, which will give way to complacency. This is why I don't think your plan will work well, it's doomed to degenerate into surveillance.

by mikkupikku

12/31/2025 at 8:36:50 PM

> it is already normalized (in America at least) that liquor and weed stores will ID even the elderly, and scan the barcode on the ID into their computer

Then why are y'all so against Digital ID? We don't make you do that in Canada, it's just the clerk eyeballing your ID if you don't look old enough. I can't believe people are letting their ID get scanned and associated with vice purchases. Is it mandatory? Land of the free, eh?

by mikestorrent

1/1/2026 at 12:36:21 AM

I dunno where the OP lives but in my part of the US I only get carded at the one store that cards literally everyone as a matter of policy, regardless of how obviously old they are.

Other than that, I’m under 40 and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve been carded in the last 10 years on one hand. The fact my beard is mostly grey and I inherited male pattern baldness probably helps. Never had my driver’s license scanned, ever, for alcohol.

My wife on the other hand, who looks much younger than her age, gets carded all the time.

by nkrisc

1/1/2026 at 5:46:16 AM

Same here. I've never been carded in my life for alcohol. Neither in a bar nor store. Despite having lived in several countries (none the US though which is kinda weird about alcohol, where I am from we could drink from 16 not 21 like in the US)

When I was young nobody really cared about age verification yet and these days I'm clearly not a teen anymore.

If there would be a store here that cards everyone regardless of age then I will boycott them. It's ridiculous.

by wolvoleo

12/31/2025 at 9:05:46 PM

OP is wrong. Most places don’t do ID scans in my city. There was one place that did and I do not patronize them anymore.

I think there are some places where vendors have attempted to sell scanning systems as a way to identify fakes and banned patrons. It probably depends on the area how common it is.

by iamnothere

12/31/2025 at 8:38:09 PM

Federal IDs are a political landmine for reasons mostly unrelated to privacy. The American public doesn't understand privacy issues, unless maybe you frame it as "ThE NUmBer OF ThE BeASt" oooo-oo spooky! Otherwise, most Americans just get stupified and say they have nothing to hide.

My point in all of this is that we should not delude ourselves by theorizing about ways this could be implemented in a privacy preserving way, because even if that's technically possible, its unlikely for things to work out that way.

by mikkupikku

1/1/2026 at 12:10:19 AM

America doesnt have ID because big businesses and their lobbyists need cheap undocumented labor.

by throwaway85825

1/1/2026 at 1:19:54 PM

That's the biggest part of it. But there is also grassroots opposition to anything that could be made into or even just rhetorically support the feasibility of voter IDs. And the party which would want voter IDs is also the party which is most spooked about beast numbers and antichrists...

Either way you slice it, almost nobody in America is seriously pushing for a proper federal ID, which is why we're all still abusing SSN cards for this crap.

by mikkupikku

12/31/2025 at 11:03:31 PM

America and the "if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" / "police don't need body cameras" duality. You really cannot trust the typical person to be attempting cognition.

by plagiarist

12/31/2025 at 8:31:25 PM

I didn't even think about the ID scanning that already takes place. States that have legalized weed still have people who avoid the legal stores because of the scanning. You don't know who has access to that data and how it could implicate you because weed is still illegal on the federal level (e.g. gun owners may be wary of buying from these stores)

by hypeatei

12/31/2025 at 8:26:39 PM

In the three states I've lived in, nobody scanned IDs. They eye balled it and maybe enter birthday into a system.

by sethammons

12/31/2025 at 8:38:09 PM

This is how it should be. If you happen to be 16 and look 19, well, fuck's sake, your body's old enough to drink now. People get so hung up on this kind of think-of-the-children crap like as though every generation before now didn't have plenty of underage drinking and debauchery. I'm more worried about people being shutins and not having any fun than I am about some kid having a beer.

by mikestorrent

1/1/2026 at 12:09:35 AM

I don’t even get asked for mine

by lokar

12/31/2025 at 9:04:20 PM

I've bought alcohol in many countries, including the US. Never had my ID stored. I am not ID-ed anymore.

But in any case, my proposal would ban ID scanning altogether. There's no good reason to do it for any purchase.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 8:06:00 PM

You can do the same thing with online payments combined with a ZKP token system.

The issue is and will always remain reselling the age verification tokens. The entire system is pretty pointless. Kids will just have some hoops to jump through, and they will be very motivated to do so. Criminals will be eager to aid them for some change too.

Either you forget age verification, or you can forget about privacy. Because identity theft is the only hoop big enough for most kids not to make the jump - and even that may not hold, typically identity theft is carried out for financial returns, the age verification requirement will change the calculus on that and will likely expand that particular black market to both kids and people valuing their privacy.

In my opinion it should be the parent's job to police their kid's access to an internet terminal. It's not even that hard. Mitigating the mistakes of parents at the expense of everyone's privacy is a poor trade.

by coppsilgold

12/31/2025 at 9:22:10 PM

> The issue is and will always remain reselling the age verification tokens. The entire system is pretty pointless.

I forgot to mention in my original post. I'd also rate limit purchases. Maybe only allow purchasing one per visit.

> Kids will just have some hoops to jump through, and they will be very motivated to do so.

Maybe? Kids can just buy alcohol or cigs or drugs from criminals today. But most can't or don't. Some do, and we accept that as a society. And we punish the criminals who enable it.

This isn't like illegal drugs, where criminals have a massive market (adults with cash). A black market catering to only minors isn't very lucrative.

Moreover social media's network effects work in our favor. If most kids can't join, their friends are less motivated to get in.

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 4:18:21 PM

> "I forgot to mention in my original post. I'd also rate limit purchases. Maybe only allow purchasing one per visit."

I assume these scratch cards would be available everywhere Lotto scratchcards are - supermarkets, gas stations, convenience stores, tobacconists, newsagents - because it needs to be available and convenient for everyone to agree to it.

Since the ID is not recorded anywhere during purchase, some bored person can drive around and buy dozens of them on the same day for non-valid use cases.

But rate-limiting one per site means a valid use cases are blocked - adult kid wants their parents and grandparents to sign up to a new social network (Signal-style) and mom says she will get everyone a token while doing the shopping. She can't. Adult carer tries to buy a token for themselves and the person they care for in one visit. They can't. Small business employer wants employees to use a new WhatsApp style chat app and buy tokens for their employees. They can't.

None of the design stops mom-who-doesn't-care from buying a token and giving it to whiny-kid-who-wont-shut-up for their "FortnighTik thingy", or kid from asking grandma for a "scratch off token" for Christmas, or whatever.

by jodrellblank

1/2/2026 at 12:20:29 AM

You're correct. Rate-limiting has the potential to inconvenience some legit buyers.

> None of the design stops mom-who-doesn't-care from buying a token and giving it to whiny-kid-who-wont-shut-up for their "FortnighTik thingy", or kid from asking grandma for a "scratch off token" for Christmas, or whatever.

And nothing stops parents from giving their kids beer and cigarettes today, just to shut them up. But they mostly don't.

The point of my proposal is: do age verification as stringently (or loosely) and with as much privacy preservation as we currently do for alcohol and tobacco. The goal being to forestall more intrusive measures, which are really meant to expand the surveillance powers of states and corporations but are dressed up as "age verification to protect children". This proposal, or something like it, will satisfy the median voter that children are being protected without compromising anyone's privacy or anonymity.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 8:32:59 PM

Just because something can and will be circumvented doesn't make it useless.

People will continue to murder other people. That doesn't mean that criminalizing and punishing murder is pointless.

Now, whether the above scheme is prudent or workable, that's a separate question. But the counterargument to the scheme cannot be "It's all or nothing".

by lo_zamoyski

12/31/2025 at 8:42:57 PM

Murder is all but impossible to prevent, the reason the murder rate is kept low is because it's difficult to evade attribution after the fact.

In this instance we are talking about a technology that is impossible to attribute by design, the only way attribution will happen is if the reseller makes a serious mistake. There will be resellers that don't make serious mistakes. And unlike murder, very few successful resellers are sufficient to serve everyone.

by coppsilgold

12/31/2025 at 9:20:24 PM

> Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased.

That sounds fantastic, were just one step away from making social media entirely controlled by one single party

Perfect to push anyone you don't like into irrelevancy, politicians will love this

Journalists too, finally they can be rid of these pesky YouTubers that show how politically captured they're! Just need to get someone with admin permission in that company and you're golden

by ffsm8

12/31/2025 at 9:24:25 PM

> entirely controlled by one single party

Why? Multiple companies could compete in the market of age verification tokens.

Right now we have actual partisans buying actual social media companies (Twitter, TikTok) to control them. That's a much bigger threat vector.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:28:53 PM

> Multiple companies could compete in the market of age verification tokens

Why do we want this?

The entire proposal sounds designed to tank popularity for keeping kids off Instagram.

by JumpCrisscross

1/1/2026 at 6:44:33 AM

> Why do we want [multiple companies issuing tokens]?

To prevent a monopoly driving up prices. And to keep the government out of the business.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:37:10 PM

Politicians wouldn't know who has which "adult code", so they wouldn't be able to get a singular "adult code" banned/early expired by the (supposedly corrupt) code-keeping company. To know which code a particular Youtuber has, they'd need to be able to get that info from Youtube, and if they "have a man on the inside" of Youtube then they can just ask that person to ban the Youtuber in question.

by lelandbatey

12/31/2025 at 8:48:34 PM

Once you're selling them, put a bounty where kids can turn in the cards for money. Then you'll both set a price floor and know which stores are selling them and you can find out who's doing it. Nothing says that a token has to last for a constant amount of time. If kids turn in more than a certain percentage, then that location would have theirs expire early.

What I like here is that you've turned a digital problem into a physical one where we already have solutions and intuition for how to enforce rules.

by kurthr

12/31/2025 at 11:41:48 PM

A private monopoly sounds like a great idea. A profit incentive for access to social media definitely won't result in the price of these tokens skyrocketing to extract as much money as possible.

by ben-schaaf

1/1/2026 at 1:04:39 AM

It doesn't even have to be a private monopoly, it can be a public service.

For example in Quebec, liquor stores are managed by the government, called "Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ)" or legal cannabis is managed by "Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC)".

I don't see why other restrictions can't follow the same pattern?

by swat535

1/1/2026 at 2:49:25 AM

Other than the criminalization, I like the idea. I'm purely criticizing the privatization.

by ben-schaaf

12/31/2025 at 11:57:42 PM

Generally these kinds of private monopolies also have public-set prices.

Which is a huge disaster for expensive things (like your power bill), but is much less of one for a token that takes 50 cents of human labour and 0.5 cents of computing to produce.

by vkou

1/1/2026 at 6:45:15 AM

I never said "monopoly". There isn't just one alcohol company or one gift card company.

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 7:35:19 PM

Not only this but every age verification system will create an immense motive for the kids to obtain an "adult pass". Money, uncles, "family engineering" on parents or obscure paths will be used by the kid to become a hero to their peers. In a few months/years the system will degenerate and become abandoned.

by tsoukase

1/2/2026 at 1:06:47 AM

That (mostly) doesn't happen for booze or cigs today. You're alleging that kids will behave like heroin junkies in order to access social media. If that's true, social media is more dangerous than we thought, and we should be having a very different conversation.

by triceratops

1/2/2026 at 7:45:51 AM

Electronic screens are "audiovisual drugs" delivered in hour-dosages through the sensory organs. After any type of ban there will be a craze by spoiled kids and/or spoiling parents to get a pass. And these are the people that the ban targets in the first place. Results from Australia's expirement are coming mediocre.

by tsoukase

1/1/2026 at 3:59:15 PM

What happens with point 7 when you verify your age to Google Plus and then you go to Reddit and “sign in with Google?”. If your verification doesn’t transfer, that would be silly because you aren’t a different age.

Trying to start a new social network in your world either has “every new signup must go to a store and spend money” or every new social network becomes tied to “sign in with Google”.

Your plan locks us into the current social networking forever?

by jodrellblank

1/2/2026 at 1:10:06 AM

A good point that I hadn't thought about. You are correct that the choices are "accept lock-in" or "new site, new card". I lean to the latter.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 7:55:40 PM

Japan has a similar system for payments. If you prefer to buy things online with cash they give you a barcode you take to any convenience store. The store scans it and you pay with cash.

by Ritewut

1/1/2026 at 10:41:48 AM

I had a very similar idea with a few differences:

1. You can go to the mayor's house to get the token. No need to associate tobacco/alcohol to it.

2. It's free.

3. It's culturally enforced to exchange tokens with other people. This way users themselves help make sure it's truly impossible to trace their activity.

4. It's illegal to publish your or someone else's token. It's like a paper ID, with a QR code.

5. Can be reused. Expires after 5 years .

This way if you want 5 pornhub accounts you don't have to buy 5 stamps. You are also extra sure that the tokens cannot be linked to you because you can exchange it with anyone.

by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe

1/2/2026 at 1:12:04 AM

My proposal doesn't prohibit exchanges or buying tokens for other people. Just like it's legal to buy or give someone of legal age a beer.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:04:02 PM

No need for separate company. Banks know your age. I'd imagine CC companies know or at very least can get age data from the banks they trade.

So it would be

1. Site let's you pick your "age provider"

2. You log to you bank/govt site

3. They only get age as response.

Even easier with CC, shops could just send payment request with minimal age, if it doesn't pass, no sell

by PunchyHamster

12/31/2025 at 9:05:15 PM

> Banks know your age

They also know who you are. This rules them out of a privacy-forward age verification system.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 10:59:12 PM

Can't it be implemented such that the banks give out the age information without knowing the ID of the person on the platform?

by amelius

12/31/2025 at 11:25:12 PM

Yes, browser can do that. A browser starts with GET and gets new HTTP 1xx or 3xx response with “Age-Verification: required <age>” header. Browser calls your AVP (defined once in preferences) and gets short-lived certificate of age (expires in 30 seconds), then passes it to website in “Age: <age> <certificate>” header. The website uses known public keys to verify “at least certain age” claim in certificate. AVP public keys can be published in some registry and cached by websites.

by ivan_gammel

1/2/2026 at 1:45:54 AM

Then, at a minimum, the platform knows where you bank. But in any case you're trusting the platform and bank to not collude to violate your privacy. They both have strong incentives to collect that info.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:27:53 PM

> Banks know your age

Why are we pretending Facebook and X don’t?

Start with liability. The age gates will erect themselves.

by JumpCrisscross

1/1/2026 at 2:04:40 PM

>6. Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased.

> 7. A separate token is required for each website/each account.

I propose instead:

A single code valid for 10 packets sent to a single IP address, or 30 seconds, whichever expires first.

by Jackson__

1/1/2026 at 5:29:09 AM

Sounds good. Except the reverify thing. The whole reverification is becoming a bit of a disease lately.

I've already had my bank AND my mobile provider demanding an updated scan of my ID. Which is completely BS, after all I'm still the same person. I didn't suddenly become someone else. It's ridiculous they demand it.

But these cards sound like a better solution than using government ID yes.

by wolvoleo

12/31/2025 at 10:13:29 PM

Perhaps we should drop age verification and just ban sites that use AI to scam attention for everyone? I would be happy enough if X and FB were banned outright.

by jimnotgym

1/1/2026 at 12:01:50 AM

I'm half convinced it's satire but I'll answer sincerely anyway.

As an adult I just couldn't be bothered buying this again year over year, let alone even once. I'm dropping the site instead of going to the store to buy this. Guess I'd just go fully offline.

by sureglymop

1/1/2026 at 4:36:24 PM

Why would you need to buy it over and over again? Your age verification isn't going to become invalid as if you magically aged backwards. The time limit is (presumably) so the tokens can't be stored and resold on the black market indefinitely.

by jodrellblank

1/2/2026 at 1:12:44 AM

> The time limit is (presumably) so the tokens can't be stored and resold on the black market indefinitely.

Correct.

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 6:46:59 AM

> I'm dropping the site instead of going to the store to buy this

Umm...good? You'll have better mental health.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 7:54:17 PM

So a kid just has to get their hands on a token then access is open to restricted websites for a year (or whatever time period) while adults are inconvenienced? The black markets for these things would pop up instantly and you'd deal with secondary effects of that (scams, fraud, etc.)

I think the whole idea of age verification on the internet is dystopian and should be tossed in the garbage.

by hypeatei

12/31/2025 at 8:37:03 PM

Why do you need a private monopoly or physical tokens?

This is trivially solved with national IDs and strict liability.

by JumpCrisscross

1/2/2026 at 1:20:25 AM

I didn't say "monopoly" anywhere in my post. Strangely you're the second commenter who assumed that. Probably a communication error on my part, because I only named AgeVerify in my example and didn't enumerate their competitors.

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 12:08:35 AM

I don't believe the goal of 'age verification' has anything to do with children. Politicians have been very explicit objecting to anonymous people online complaining about them including calling them 'fat'.

by throwaway85825

1/1/2026 at 6:48:05 AM

> I don't believe the goal of 'age verification' has anything to do with children.

Some people pushing for it are sincere. I believe keeping children away from social media or adult content online is good. But I also believe most of the existing proposals to do it dangerously erode adults' privacy. And that's the real end goal for many politicians.

Implementing a fully anonymous, pretty-good-but-not-perfect age verification system can cut the legs out from all the demands to upload ID to "protect the children". I've proposed a relatively simple one that doesn't rely on zero knowledge proofs or something else the general public can't understand.,

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 6:00:04 AM

Yeah like those politicians that are calling a slim female journalist "piggy". One rule for me and one for thee.

by wolvoleo

1/1/2026 at 7:48:53 AM

As long as there is an anonymous internet I could not care less what words are used by politicians.

by throwaway85825

1/1/2026 at 7:55:17 AM

Well this would bother me from anyone.

But leaders are supposed to set a good example.

Totally agree that the internet should remain anonymous though.

by wolvoleo

1/1/2026 at 8:55:56 AM

I care more about what they do than what they say.

by throwaway85825

12/31/2025 at 7:21:05 PM

Nah, EIDAS2 got you covered - you use your european identity wallet.

by postepowanieadm

1/1/2026 at 6:00:45 AM

I absolutely don't want to log in with an id everywhere I go online. Even when it's zero knowledge blah blah.

I'll just circumvent with a vpn which gives me more privacy not less.

by wolvoleo

1/2/2026 at 12:38:07 AM

Even with a VPN I assume you'll eventually run out of jurisdictions that don't have these laws.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 7:24:03 PM

The beauty of my proposal is you don't need that.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 7:46:11 PM

But instead, you need this other thing, which requires elaborate infrastructure and new standards and regulations

by 9dev

12/31/2025 at 8:57:10 PM

The other thing OP presents is very different from any eID scheme in terms of anonymity. You'd show an ID to a human at the counter and even if the seller stores your info somehow, it can't be linked to the token they sold to you. The required infrastructure is minimal and relatively simplistic. The only drawback is that being anonymous means it's easy to resell tokens.

An eID system links your real life identity to any use of the eID online. Anyone who thinks there's a math or technology that fixes this misses the fact that it's the trust in the humans (companies, institutions, governments) who operate these systems is misplaced. Math and technology are implemented by people so there are many opportunities to abuse these systems. And once in place I guarantee, without any shadow of doubt that sooner or later, fast or slow, it will be expanded to any online action.

I will take anonymity and the small minority of kids who will find a loophole to access some adult-only stuff over the inevitable overreach and abuse against the large majority of people whose every online move will be traced and logged.

by buran77

1/1/2026 at 8:55:59 AM

> The only drawback is that being anonymous means it's easy to resell tokens.

That’s a pretty major flaw. These tokens will be sold with markup on black markets, rendering the whole system unfit for its intended purpose.

Additionally, in line of drawbacks, buying porn scratch cards will be stigmatised, because everyone will (think they) know what you’ll use them for. Are you comfortable doing it in front of your teenage child, neighbor, crush, grandma, or spouse?

> Math and technology are implemented by people so there are many opportunities to abuse these systems.

And yet we have functioning asymmetric cryptography systems that enable secure encryption for billions of people, despite malevolent actors having a clear incentive to subvert that, much more so than age verification tokens.

> […] the inevitable overreach and abuse against the large majority of people whose every online move will be traced and logged.

This is happening right now already, in a scale hardly imaginable.

by 9dev

1/2/2026 at 12:45:11 AM

> These tokens will be sold with markup on black markets,

Black markets catering to minors aren't very large or profitable. No adult needs to buy from this black market. How big is the black market for beer for teenagers? Yes, some reselling will happen, just as minors sometimes get alcohol or tobacco from older friends and siblings. Prosecute anyone involved. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough without sacrificing privacy.

> buying porn scratch cards will be stigmatised

There was once a time, in living memory, when people had Playboy and Hustler mailed to their houses. You're overthinking it. And also why would the seller assume it's for adult content instead of social media?

> Are you comfortable doing it in front of your teenage child, neighbor, crush, grandma, or spouse?

So don't do it in front of them? You're allowed to go to stores alone.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 8:30:58 PM

And who is the biggest winner?

Triceratops Age Verification services, provided a state-sanctioned monopoly on issuing Porn Licenses. Awful, really.

by nej24swei

12/31/2025 at 9:14:28 PM

It doesn't have to be 1 company. Ideally it would be many companies competing on price, promotions, and other marketing.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:22:40 PM

Ok, so grifting for you and your friends?

It’s a really bad idea. It’s not a problem that needs to be solved by building a market for porn licenses.

by nej24swei

1/1/2026 at 6:52:16 AM

I have less than zero interest in this, or any, business. I don't have any interested friends either. Any other baseless accusations you want to throw at me?

> It’s not a problem that needs to be solved by building a market for porn licenses.

You're blind if you can't see the rising wave of legislation that will make us upload ID to use the internet to "protect the children". The problem being solved is "protect the children without uploading ID".

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 8:59:15 AM

You seem to stick on the idea that someone will make you upload your ID, while every initiative working on this issue is moving toward cryptographic proof of ownership without ever disclosing your identity to the age verification API nor the service you requested access to to the government.

by 9dev

1/2/2026 at 12:14:34 AM

I hope you're right.

> without ever disclosing your identity to the age verification API nor the service you requested access to to the government.

My proposal also does that.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:13:44 PM

> elaborate infrastructure

Gift cards are "elaborate infrastructure"? C'mon be serious please.

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 9:01:47 AM

The government API, the legislation around it all, the legal framework for the gift card issuers, the public education necessary, and on and on — there’s lots of complexity hidden in those "gift cards".

by 9dev

1/2/2026 at 12:14:04 AM

> The government API

There's no government API.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 10:31:46 PM

Instead you give control over chilren to a private company like a silly american.

by izacus

1/1/2026 at 11:13:40 AM

I was going to be mean, but here we are in 2026, so let me be nice.

Your idea is garbage.

by hackable_sand

1/2/2026 at 12:37:15 AM

It's ok to be mean if you're constructive. You aren't. Your comment violates site guidelines. But here we are in 2026 so instead of flagging you, let me be nice.

Give me a reason why my idea is "garbage" that hasn't already been covered in the comments. I'll summarize the current comments and my responses:

1. "Age verification is censorship and evil"/"This is the parents' job, not the state's" - That's a valid point of view, and I understand where it's coming from. But IMO it's increasingly a losing one.

2. "It's not perfect/it can be circumvented by ..." - All of the same circumventions also apply to tobacco and alcohol. Everyone accepts that and the world goes on. We prosecute people who break those laws. Whatever the harms of social media and adult content, they aren't worse than literal poisons that cause car accidents and cancer.

3. "It doesn't preserve privacy because they record ID where I live" - Fix the law. Ban scanning ID where you live. I can't believe you ever accepted that for tobacco or alcohol but now's your chance.

4. "Why do I have to pay? This should be provided by the government" - Then we're back to ZKPs (not comprehensible to laypeople) and paranoia that governments are tracking you anyway. But hey, I'm not a policy or crypto expert, so I'll defer to people who are. Maybe this aspect can be improved.

5. "This requires a lot of new legislation" - Yes. Governments are already at work writing legislation for age verification. Do you want to be proactive to make it privacy forward or sit passively while they decide for us?

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 11:22:18 AM

[dead]

by hopingtomuch

12/31/2025 at 7:32:02 PM

Or we have devices attest user age. On setup, the device has the option to store a root ("guardian"?) email address. Whenever "adult mode" is activated or the root email is changed, a notification must first be sent to the prior root email. That notification may optionally contain a code that must be used to proceed with the relevant action, though the user should be warned of the potential device-crippling consequences.

This setting is stored in a secure enclave and survives factory resets.

I will note that these two systems are not mutually exclusive. There are plenty of ways to "think of the children" that don't trample on everybody's freedom.

by AnIrishDuck

12/31/2025 at 7:54:44 PM

Yeah, not doing this on my Linux devices.

by iamnothere

1/1/2026 at 12:53:34 AM

You don't have to, that's the point.

EDIT: or to rephrase, this proposal is opt-in (device attests the user is a minor) not mandatory (device is required to attest the user is an adult)

by AnIrishDuck

1/1/2026 at 5:59:50 AM

I misunderstood then, I’m all in favor of that approach. If mainstream manufacturers include an optional child mode then that doesn’t affect adults. I do think it’s better if the child device simply blocks adult labeled content rather than attesting that the user is a child, just to avoid leaking any information about minors. But it’s still an OK solution.

by iamnothere

12/31/2025 at 9:18:13 PM

You underestimate the average American teenager’s shell-buying game (honed for decades by our asinine alcohol laws.) I’m sure kids elsewhere would pick it up pretty fast too.

Plus, this would spawn massive online black markets for the codes, fueled by crypto/gift cards/other shady means of money transmission.

by colonial

1/2/2026 at 1:24:41 AM

The comparison to alcohol is apt. Some motivated teenagers succeed in getting beer. Most don't. All the adults consider that enough of a success (which it is) that any proposed legislation to require internet-connected beer cans with facial verification is dead-on-arrival.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:26:18 PM

So who do you give the private monopoly to? The next lottery winner?

by globular-toast

1/2/2026 at 1:21:39 AM

I didn't say "monopoly" anywhere in my post. Weirdly a lot of people assumed that, which means I didn't communicate well.

In case it wasn't clear: multiple companies can issue tokens. Sites can choose the issuers they accept.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 7:34:02 PM

While this can work I just don’t want any bans on speech for any age. These social media bans are going to next lead to porn restrictions and ultimately they will mainstream Christian theocratic values in public policy through an ever shifting morality goal post. That’s how it always goes. Enabling it through such solutions feels like a risk.

by SilverElfin

12/31/2025 at 8:07:22 PM

It's arguable, even if you're right, that the net loss to humanity is still far greater without these restrictions than with. Modern social media is leading to multiple generations of emotionally stunted, non-verbal children. Many of whom literally struggle to read.

If you haven't seen it in person, it is now incredibly common for children as young as 1 or 2 to be handed an iPad and driven down an algorithmic tunnel of AI generated content with multiple videos overlaid on top. I've seen multiple examples of children scrolling rapidly through videos of Disney characters getting their heads chopped off to Five Nights at Freddy's music while laughing hysterically. They do this for hours. Every day. It's truly horrifying.

Parents are just as poorly equipped at dealing with this as the children are, the difference being that at least their brains have already fully developed so that there is no lasting permanent damage.

by Greed

12/31/2025 at 8:00:14 PM

Anti Israel speech will be the first to be banned

by sampli

12/31/2025 at 9:56:56 PM

It already is. Comments are shadow banned across social media, videos across Tiktok are shadow banned if they include certain mix of words.

There are cases of UK police turning up to homes for anti-zionist comments.

We're already there.

by CommanderData

12/31/2025 at 8:33:03 PM

I am sure that they will not lead to “Christian theocratic values in public policy” in France. That value system is fringe in France, one of the most irreligious and historically anti-clerical cultures in the world.

Among people who identify as Christian in France, the ones who could be described as radical or fundamentalist are a very small minority.

by umanwizard

12/31/2025 at 8:53:21 PM

My observation is that there is a big resurgence in supremacist politics and the main identity involved is white Christian male. Maybe it’s not yet big in France but that’s what I see gaining momentum in many parts of Europe and North America.

by SilverElfin

12/31/2025 at 11:21:12 PM

You’re talking about a completely different thing, right-wing populist neo-nationalism based on an idea of European ethnicity and culture (which, of course, includes culturally identifying as “Christian”). This isn’t the same thing as being based on religious doctrine.

by umanwizard

12/31/2025 at 7:25:45 PM

I’m in my 40’s and I’d rather just use a VPN, I can’t imagine that young people will feel any differently. Governments should feel free to take performative measures, and we’re free to circumvent them.

Leave people to their fantasies of digital control and let them learn lessons the hard way. This is not a technical issue anyway.

by EA-3167

12/31/2025 at 10:19:25 PM

This is a typical technical solution to a sociopolitical problem. The powers-that-be are not comfortable with the free-for-all that exists on the internet. All these laws are meant to fix that squeaky wheel, one ball-bearing at a time.

"Children" gets the Right to march behind you unquestioningly. "Misinformation/Nazis" does the same for the Left. This is now a perfect recipe for a shit sandwich.

by sieve

1/2/2026 at 12:58:06 AM

I agree. But if you find a different way to protect the children, that normal people can understand and relate to ("It's like buying beer"), and still maintain privacy, you take away at least one leg of support for what a lot of states really want to do (remove anonymity).

It's better than the fatalism in your comment IMO.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 9:54:42 PM

Step 9 i buy my kids this card because this law is dumb

by bethekidyouwant

1/2/2026 at 12:58:57 AM

Some parents give their kids cigarettes and booze. I feel sorry for those children but what can I do?

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 8:33:04 PM

A very important part of the system is a nationwide program of sending homeless people to concentration camps so that teenagers wouldn't bribe them to buy TittyTokens.

Like seriously, do you really think that if currently minors can buy tobacco and alcohol using unlawful means, then your TittyTokens will somehow be magically immune to the same problem because you really really wish they would?

You can't patch this without creating some form of a central database of who exactly buys how many TittyTokens.

by anal_reactor

12/31/2025 at 9:17:05 PM

> do you really think that if currently minors can buy tobacco and alcohol using unlawful means, then your TittyTokens will somehow be magically immune

No I fully admit some minors will still get access to FaceTok. We accept this failure for alcohol and tobacco. We don't have internet connected beer cans phoning home when you open them, asking to scan your face.

But at least where I live, most kids aren't falling over drunk or puffing away at school bus stops. So if the system is good enough for selling actual poisons, it's good enough to limit most minors' access to online vices.

Moreover social media has network effects. If most kids aren't on it, the rest will likely not bother either.

by triceratops

1/1/2026 at 12:41:51 AM

So basically you've designed an expensive solution that is very complicated to roll out and has obvious cases where it doesn't work, but you still think it's a good idea, rather than explore alternatives.

Are you a politician?

by anal_reactor

1/2/2026 at 12:53:25 AM

I don't want to type it out again so here's my response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459959

I also have no issue with viable alternatives (read: have a chance of being passed as law) that preserve privacy. This is just my idea, take it or leave it. I couldn't care less.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 7:40:38 PM

[dead]

by altern8

12/31/2025 at 5:48:27 PM

This is just cop out legislation. I wanna see laws targeting addictive design systems and harmful content. Social media is only part of the problem.

There’s so much that falls out of the social media definition. And regardless, kids are not stupid… VPNs, proxies, etc are easy to circumvent with.

by herunan

12/31/2025 at 6:27:23 PM

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of good.

Who cares if many can get around it, if the majority can't or won't, then it kills the network effects.

by soperj

12/31/2025 at 7:54:41 PM

I don't think this is good though. It's a police state masquerading as "SAVE THE CHILDREN!"

by Ritewut

12/31/2025 at 8:07:51 PM

yes, the police state is preventing Mark Zuckerberg from being a trillionaire.

by soperj

12/31/2025 at 8:39:41 PM

I'm sorry. What?

This legislation is very much giving more power to the government over what its citizens cannot do. The real impetus is control by the powers that be. The ideal citizen for an authoritarian would be fully controllable via digital means. A digital id that is networked with services is a wet dream for authoritarians.

What does this have to do with limiting Zuck's net worth? Because less kids will see less ads? How much will this reduce his net worth? If we took licenses from kids and had them wait until 18, would you be claiming this is to prevent Musk from gaining more wealth?

by sethammons

12/31/2025 at 6:23:16 PM

Step 1 should be to kill the ad based monetization model.

by amelius

12/31/2025 at 11:23:53 PM

>I wanna see laws targeting addictive design systems and harmful content.

then you're going to see president Hegseth using those laws to ban video games and pornography.

by Alex2037

12/31/2025 at 4:12:20 PM

Devil's advocate: what is the difference between "social media" and a website very much like this one? When can I look forward to having to give a DNA test to read HN?

by AshamedCaptain

12/31/2025 at 4:14:02 PM

The main difference in my view is the personalized algorithm that determines what to feed you next.

HackerNews has an algorithm but it's not personalized—i.e. everyone sees the same thing.

by Pooge

12/31/2025 at 4:19:11 PM

My own website has a bulletin board that offers a personalized list of messages after you login: whatever threads you have not yet read. And so do many other websites of this style. So this cannot be a differentiating aspect.

by AshamedCaptain

12/31/2025 at 4:37:47 PM

Are you also harvesting teens data and selling it to the highest bidder or using it for target advertisements?

by andrewinardeer

12/31/2025 at 4:42:40 PM

Not intentionally - but in the past I did have advertisements to finance it , which I had to stop since that is enough under a lot of jurisprudence to qualify as running a for-profit, which usually means less leniency from judges.

So it is advertisements where we should draw the line -- websites with advertisements should require age checks?

by AshamedCaptain

12/31/2025 at 4:56:35 PM

Why did you cherry pick advertisments from my reply and run with that?

It clearly isn't just a singular data point that is a True or False that would include a site in the ban.

Perhaps it should be, "If I had a 12 year old daughter, do I want her to have easy access to pornography, self harm material and the ability to receive private messages from a 45 year old registered sex offender?"

I get your point - "Where is the line in the sand?" and it's a valid point but no need to argue in bad faith.

by andrewinardeer

12/31/2025 at 6:04:24 PM

> Perhaps it should be, "If I had a 12 year old daughter, do I want her to have easy access to pornography, self harm material and the ability to receive private messages from a 45 year old registered sex offender?"

If parents are concerned about this, why let them on the Internet? Why not use parental control systems? Why not teach your children healthy sex education, how to deal with their feelings, and to tell old creeps to fuck off?

by squigz

12/31/2025 at 10:44:15 PM

Because parents can't or won't monitor their kids internet usage 24/7.

by andrewinardeer

1/1/2026 at 9:39:27 PM

Then teach the parents.

by tsoukase

12/31/2025 at 5:57:24 PM

Because it is the ad network that I chose 30 years ago that was doing any of the types of tracking you mention. In fact, all of the ad networks from 30 years ago would be considered as doing "teen tracking" today. I do not know how you can do tracking without doing teen tracking, barring precisely I troducing age verification on every single website. And I also do not know if there is any network out there doing advertisements without tracking -- certainly none of the major local news websites use it.

I do think the "wont somebody think of the children" arguments are in bad faith though, and I say this as a father.

by AshamedCaptain

12/31/2025 at 4:21:09 PM

They are very different.

by adamnemecek

12/31/2025 at 4:23:30 PM

>So this cannot be a differentiating aspect.

Now explain that nuance to an 80 yr old law maker who hates the damn email.

by Workaccount2

12/31/2025 at 4:35:13 PM

Not to say that they are technically literate, but the average age of French lawmakers (which are just the members of parliament) is 50 years old.

It's actually the same as the average age of voting-age French citizens, so they are quite representative on this regard.

by seszett

12/31/2025 at 5:03:12 PM

These 80yo lawmakers have kids and grandkids and advisers. They know how social media works.

They hate social media because it gives people the power to talk in public about them with near impunity. They want to go back to the old days when if you wrote a letter to the newspaper about potential corruption or wrongdoing among the "more equal animals" you'd get pulled over for a light out whenever you went through that town for the next 20yr.

by potato3732842

12/31/2025 at 5:41:08 PM

> They hate social media because it gives people the power to talk in public about them with near impunity.

If you think you have even near impunity on social media, I have a bridge to sell you. Even a town to go with it.

by skydhash

12/31/2025 at 5:54:41 PM

>If you think you have even near impunity on social media, I have a bridge to sell you. Even a town to go with it.

I specifically said "near" impunity. If you do something bad enough they'll come after you but even then if your gripes are legitimate that's likely to amplify it.

Surely you're not honestly claiming that there is not a significant practical difference between modern internet criticism and the old ways when messaging that could reach the broad public was far thoroughly gated by people and things that had more stake in the power structure.

by potato3732842

12/31/2025 at 6:03:13 PM

I wouldn’t say it was gated. More like it was costly. And people having the means to do so was a very small set and prone to agree with the status quo.

But even now, a lot of messages are lost on the internet. And the internet is only decentralized for messages propagation, not for access.

by skydhash

12/31/2025 at 6:36:18 PM

Fractionally gated is still gated. At some point a difference in quantity is a difference in quality.

by potato3732842

12/31/2025 at 4:24:26 PM

For the record, that is exactly my point . I do not want yet another sword of Damocles for websites, even less if it depends on the mood of a clueless judge.

by AshamedCaptain

12/31/2025 at 5:03:03 PM

From a definition standpoint, hn is a social media site. From a legislation standpoint, it's not nearly popular (infamous?) enough to legislate (the mentioned sites have had enough negative coverage to manufacturer consent for this invasion of privacy: cyber bullying, destructive challenges, etc.)

When it is, and when your local government becomes sufficiently captured by the user surveillance industrial complex, you will need real world verification here.

by dfxm12

12/31/2025 at 7:00:47 PM

>hn is a social media site

Social media typically implies a website where users are sharing self-created content. If a website with comments counts a social media, than all web2.0 is social media and there's practically no distinction between the web and social media.

by grunder_advice

12/31/2025 at 11:11:09 PM

A blog that has a comments section is primarily still a blog, it just has a secondary social media feature attached.

In the case of HN, most people are here for the comments section and frequently don't even read the article, so it's primarily a social media site with a news aggregator feature.

by esperent

12/31/2025 at 4:16:20 PM

> what is the difference between "social media" and a website very much like this one?

Pretty much everything? Not the same intent, not the same usage, not the same business model, not the same users, &c.

by lm28469

12/31/2025 at 4:22:33 PM

Frel free to name something concrete. Remember that Reddit has already been targetted by this in Australia.

by AshamedCaptain

12/31/2025 at 5:23:06 PM

Reddit is a cesspool of bots reposting the best performing images and rage bait of the last 5 years ad nauseam, that and porn makes up the bulk of the traffic. So yes, again, there is nothing in common between reddit and hn

by lm28469

12/31/2025 at 6:46:44 PM

I read several subreddits and see nearly no images, nearly no rage bait (probably less than on Hacker News, in fact), and exactly no porn. My daily Reddit experience is so close to Hacker News that I've been known to forget which one I'm on.

Reddit still has the capacity to show you what you're actually looking for. It still lets you find content by interest, rather than by personalities. It still keeps replies together, still lets you order by time easily, and doesn't stick too much random crap in the middle (none if you use a decent ad blocker). It handles long form content well and doesn't try to force everything to be a sound bite that you have to click on to see more. It's still convenient to use it that way, and most users probably do use it that way.

Compare to, say, Youtube, which fight you ever step of the way if you try not to be drowned in a disordered flood of some combination of what a computer guesses you might want and what it's most profitable for the site for you to see (including what will keep you on the site), with your only control being which "influencers" you uprank by "subscribing" to them.

by Hizonner

12/31/2025 at 7:30:21 PM

> Reddit still has the capacity to show you what you're actually looking for.

Reddit has the capacity to manipulate minors and groom them into believing all kind of sick "fictions", endorsed by the admins. It should absolutely be banned for minors.

by throw_m239339

12/31/2025 at 5:49:08 PM

This lacks hindsight. Whatever you subjectively dislike about Reddit will certainly apply here, if not today then tomorrow. If you want proof, check out Slashdot.

Also, no porn on /r/haskell.

by AshamedCaptain

1/1/2026 at 4:06:44 PM

Open a new account on both platforms and tell me what you see. Let a 12 years old browse both platform and tell me how they behave, how long they browse, what they look at

Where are the ads on hackernews ? The fake posts which are onlyfan hooks ? The images/videos ? The infinite scroll? &c.

by lm28469

12/31/2025 at 5:34:12 PM

Eh, with user links, user commentary, profiles and votes HN is "basically the same" on several key aspects and there is quite a bit of demographic overlap. It's just reached a very different equilibrium as to what goes on here due to the 2nd and 3rd tier aspects that are different.

Take two cesspools (I'm not gonna pass up the chance to use the analogy, sorry not sorry). Assume they are both serving the same quantity and quality of people. Feed one a bunch of inorganic matter, laundry bleach and only the finest most heavy duty multi-ply shit tickets. Feed the other nothing that shouldn't go down a drain, no bleach and Scott 1-ply. The latter will perform way better and go way longer between needing service despite the only differences being minor differences that don't even matter in system design.

by potato3732842

1/1/2026 at 4:00:02 PM

> Eh, with user links, user commentary, profiles and votes HN is "basically the same"

Create a new account on both platform and check what you get by default... Another test you can do is let a 12 years old roam reddit and hackernews freely, I can guarantee you the results will not be "basically the same", they won't even be remotely similar in any way, shape or form

Where is the infinite scroll ?

Where are the images/videos ?

We don't even have notifications ? "rewards" ?

by lm28469

12/31/2025 at 4:35:11 PM

Why do you think Reddit is any better than Instagram or X or TikTok, such that it doesn't deserve to be targeted according to the same principles?

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 4:39:48 PM

I used it to follow some functional programming discussions that had chosen it as it's main bulletin board, as did many other software projects. (I am not a fan of Reddit, which is why it is of paramount importance to me to be able to continue to browse it without an account.)

But fine: if you think Reddit deserves the cut, please let me know why you think this site does not deserve it. Or why Discord (also used by a lot of software projects, to my annoyance ) does not deserve it. In a way that a "80 year old judge which hates computers" can understand.

We should have kept to mailing lists, as I said many times.

by AshamedCaptain

12/31/2025 at 7:40:25 PM

Reddit has pockets of sanity, but as a whole it is insane. The same is true of Instagram, TikTok, X, etc.

If Hacker News doesn't improve its moderation (especially of fascist propaganda) I do think it should go the same way. HN openly flaunts the fact that it only follows American law - e.g. the fact that it completely ignores GDPR. It wouldn't happen until HN got big enough to make some politician pay attention though, and HN is kept relatively small by design.

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 4:28:46 PM

Does HN spread Fake News? Facebook and Youtube do. Do you feel bad after using HN? Insta and Facebook it happens. Does HN collect data to specify marketing? Every other Social Media do.

This is hard to define in laws so e.g. the EU chooses to force concrete measures from the social media pages.

by snowpid

12/31/2025 at 4:38:04 PM

> Does HN spread Fake News?

Yes?

by tekla

12/31/2025 at 4:46:32 PM

Give me an example of websites on HN, which spread fake news by purpose and it was allowed by the mods even they knew the news / artice / website was spreading fake news.

by snowpid

12/31/2025 at 6:00:08 PM

You have quite an unatenable position (you really think there have never been outright wrong headlines on HN?). Even this very article is (being very generous) clickbait.

by AshamedCaptain

1/1/2026 at 10:13:32 AM

Dear American,

having a wrong headline is not Fake news (as I gave an adhoc definition). Give an better example.

by snowpid

1/1/2026 at 2:57:34 PM

Ah of course, the very important difference between wrong and fake. How could I forget?

And for the record, i am french...

by AshamedCaptain

1/1/2026 at 12:29:16 AM

The Guardian.

by zappb

12/31/2025 at 4:34:12 PM

> Does HN spread Fake News?

Yes? Even newspapers do that. You have never had Gell-Mann when reading something here outside mainstream topics of interest? (e.g. almost anything from outside the US, or health related).

Is this really the criteria you want to use to decide whether to require age checks for a website?

> the EU chooses to force concrete measures from the social media pages.

This just sidesteps the issue of how a website ends up in the list. Today, Reddit. Tomorrow, Discord. Then Github. Eventually, HN.

by AshamedCaptain

12/31/2025 at 4:37:43 PM

My news is almost outside of the US as I am not American. (wow this should be sent to r/USDefaultism). So let's say like this: I do read a lot outside of "American mainstream media".

Most good working journalist try to verify claim and statements. This is the opposite to Fake News, Clickbait and Russian state propaganda spread in Social Media because its their business model.

by snowpid

1/1/2026 at 12:02:58 AM

Social media has the power to ruin a child’s life by letting them publish self incriminating information. A normal website is a primarily read only interaction. Prohibit child generated content and let kids view websites.

by pokstad

12/31/2025 at 11:33:12 PM

Because there is real observable harm to kids from those websites that there isn’t from HN?

It’s like asking why you prevent kids from buying alcohol but don’t stop them from buying fruit juice.

There is a lot of writing on what makes “social media” particularly more harmful, and its addictive nature etc, but again, we don’t need to necessarily get into the cause and knowing it’s harmful should be sufficient.

by hshdhdhj4444

12/31/2025 at 5:03:32 PM

Proper moderation, and - how to say it without sounding elitist? - more mature users.

by astrobe_

12/31/2025 at 11:30:11 PM

To find out what the difference is under this specific draft legislation we'd have to look at its text. I have no idea how to find copies of draft French legislation and I don't read French.

To give an idea of how such laws might approach it, the recent New York Law requiring social media sites to display mental health warnings was written to cover sites with addictive feeds. Here's how it defined those:

> "Addictive feed" shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another:

> (a) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users;

> (b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device;

> (c) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;

> (d) the user expressly and unambiguously requested that specific media, media by a specified author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to pursuant to paragraph (c) of this subdivision, be blocked, prioritized or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;

> (e) the media are direct and private communications;

> (f) the media are recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user;

(> g) the media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a pre-existing sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or

> (h) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this article and any regulations promulgated pursuant to this article.

by tzs

12/31/2025 at 9:37:29 PM

HN is social media, and if you look at the implementation of the Australian law it's more political than anything else. They banned X but did not list BlueSky, which has an ongoing pedophilia problem. This has nothing to do with protecting kids from social media it's just political maneuvering, like banning children from reading the epoch times but not the NYT

by guywithahat

1/1/2026 at 1:19:37 AM

Or maybe, as new platforms spring up and start harming children in noticeable quantities, they'll be added to the list?

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 8:34:36 PM

This website is social media.

by astura

12/31/2025 at 4:32:52 PM

the services that comply with speech suppression and privacy violation orders will be deemed acceptable, and those who don't won't.

by Alex2037

12/31/2025 at 4:34:23 PM

With the caveat that by "speech suppression" you mean "spam suppression" and by "privacy violation orders" you mean "search warrants"

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 4:49:56 PM

[flagged]

by Alex2037

12/31/2025 at 6:29:13 PM

Pointing out your Russell conjugation does not make one a bootlicker.

by SauntSolaire

12/31/2025 at 6:50:46 PM

insisting, against an overwhelming amount of irrefutable evidence to the contrary, that states like Australia and France are benevolent toward their citizens, does indeed make one a bootlicker.

was persecuting COVID dissidents "russian spam suppression"? are government-mandated backdoors "search warrants"?

by Alex2037

12/31/2025 at 7:42:20 PM

Yeah pretty much. We know Russia was behind a whole lot of the pro-infection movement. Ostriching that fact doesn't make it stop being true. They've been doing stuff like this since the communist days, so they're very good at it now.

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 8:31:50 PM

>We know Russia was behind a whole lot of the pro-infection movement.

yes, yes, there was no vaccine skepticism in the West before COVID.

by Alex2037

12/31/2025 at 7:28:21 PM

None. HN is a social media since it's an online forum. In fact HN runs afoul of many EU regulations already, GDPR, cookie law, ...

by throw_m239339

12/31/2025 at 7:41:34 PM

I'm pretty sure it is going to pass.

Too much of a coordinated efforts between western countries, thus it cannot fail. The decisions have been made and your voice pretty much doesn't matter.

by egorfine

12/31/2025 at 8:39:06 PM

> The decisions have been made and your voice pretty much doesn't matter

Source for these bans being unpopular?

by JumpCrisscross

12/31/2025 at 9:25:45 PM

The confusion you are displaying is because you are not cognizant of whats going on throughout the world particularly in advanced economies that have opened their doors to all forms of migration legal and illegal.

The timing of this coincides with countries in particular have seen a major rise in anti-migration sentiments which have become very fashionable and popular among young men in particular as polls show a global trend of men under 30s are shifting towards right wing with women towards leftwing.

Suddenly, they decide NOW is the time to stop despite the fact that they've allowed young people to be exposed to all sorts of "dangerous content" and algorithms for decades, in the late 90s and early 2000s as teenagers we had uncensored access to the internet, warez, anarchy, shock as they have circumventions widely shared among each other today.

In short, these countries are so concerned about a civil unrest in particular between religious groups that are perceived to have "overstayed their welcome" that they are outright trying to shutdown online discourse both legitimate and exaggerated.

Europe, in particular UK, are on the brink of a major civil war as per intelligence reports and the ban for the young won't be the last but that the net would be cast even wider. It's a last ditched effort bandaid solution to keep the dam from bursting. With the backdrop of Keir Starmer's threats to extradite Americans and jail people for posting grievances against the demographic crisis, you can see where Europe and other advanced economies even in places like Korea mirror the trends, conflicts and draconian laws to buy time for the inevitable.

If we want to keep this debate going there has to be an understanding of the political context and direction that can only be realized through inference and intuition. They will never openly announce true motives as that would hinder the objective. The comments I am seeing are awfully similar to the confusion and fierce debate I see around wrestling control of TikTok, which have largely been blamed on China, but the concern around uncensored videos of atrocities committed in the middle east reaching hundreds of millions of young people that has shifted steadfast opinions of a certain country which for decades were positive, now show significant departure among age brackets within the same political camp which shocked a lot of old people from that same side.

Perception is everything and the question "asking for a source on if these bans popular" completely misses the mark and irrelevant, rather the more interesting question is,

"will these bans that limit freedom of information and speech escalate and proliferate in the near future and whether France, Australia, Korea is just the start?"

" will the countries reviewing ban like new zealand, greece, canada invite more countries to join the trend?"

" why are these bans being accelerated in countries that have seen a large wave of migrations that are causing major frictions?"

by agentifysh

1/1/2026 at 2:40:20 AM

> similar to the confusion and fierce debate I see around wrestling control of TikTok, which have largely been blamed on China, but the concern around uncensored videos of atrocities committed in the middle east

I worked on the TikTok bill. Middle East stuff never came up.

It might have had a role in New York and Michigan. But most of the debate, drafting and lobbying was in respect of national security, trade policy and a touch of Taiwan policy.

When you have a pet issue you tend to see everything through it. My pet war was Ukraine. For a time I had to fight the impulse to classify everything as a derivative of it.

by JumpCrisscross

12/31/2025 at 9:28:11 PM

You've written 6 paragraphs without answering what was asked.

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 9:33:39 PM

I've provided an answer which requires understanding because if you don't seek to connect the dots any response to whatever question is being asked will be immediately negated or denied making further debate impossible.

by agentifysh

1/1/2026 at 12:14:43 AM

I think your tinfoil hat may have a hole in it.

by lokar

1/1/2026 at 9:22:59 AM

[dead]

by getnewmaterial

1/1/2026 at 12:38:34 AM

To be fair, nobody said that this was unpopular

The parent said that your voice does not matter, nothing about the volume of such voices

by JackSlateur

12/31/2025 at 4:52:37 PM

I'm one of the weirdos that should be on board with this, but I'm against it. This will do harm to marginalized youth and push younger people to lie and find ways around the ban.

Plus, we saw that in Australia that the lobby behind the ban was in fact an ad agency that makes ads for gambling apps.

Here is France, the ban is probably just a way to avoid legislation against companies selling crap that isn't for kids like vape pens and sports gambling apps.

by bbbhltz

12/31/2025 at 4:48:07 PM

The question is how this is implemented, in particular age verification.

It's usual to say that MPs are old people that don't understand current technologies, but in law preparation committees they appear to be well aware; in particular, they mentioned a "double-anonymity" system where the site requesting your age wouldn't know your name, and the entity serving age requests wouldn't know which site it is for. They are also aware that people walk-around age verification checks with e.g. fake ID cards, possibly AI generated.

I'm not sure if it is actually doable reliabily, and I'm not sure either that the MPs that will have to vote the law will know the topic as well as the MPs participating in these committees.

I would personally consider other options like a one-button admin config for computers/smartphones/tablets that restricts access according to age (6-14, 15-18) and requiring online service providers to announce their "rating" in HTTP headers. Hackers will certainly object that young hackers could bypass this, but like copy-protection, the mission can be considered complete when the vast majority of people are prevented from doing what they should not do.

Alternatively one could consider the creation of a top-level domain with a "code of content" (which could include things like "chat control") enforced by controlling entity. Then again, an OS-level account config button could restrict all Internet accesses to this domain.

Perhaps an national agency could simply grant a "child safe" label to operating systems that comply to this.

This type of solutions would I think also be useful in schools (e.g. school-provided devices), although they are also talking about severely limiting screen-time at school.

For the french speakers, see:

[1] https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.17950525_6942684...

[2] https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.17952051_6942761...

by astrobe_

12/31/2025 at 6:17:59 PM

Yes, perhaps the most reasonable approach is to tie these restrictions to the specific device (and, where applicable, account).

The ban doesn’t need to catch every single case, it just needs to add enough friction to stop the most frequent and destroy network effects.

by felipeerias

1/1/2026 at 12:05:33 AM

Put the onus on the social media companies, then have a 3rd party investigate how much content is bypassing their own protections and then fine them. Give a kickback to those investigators to incentivize them to find more violations. Rinse and repeat.

by pokstad

1/1/2026 at 2:13:32 AM

The second video shows the head of the CNIL (~ the "regulator") mostly repeating platitudes about various topics, but nothing about age restriction for social networks. Did i miss anything?

by aprilfoo

12/31/2025 at 7:16:40 PM

Here's my proposal: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46447282

It protects privacy while being as robust as any other existing age restriction method.

by triceratops

12/31/2025 at 5:55:02 PM

The only way they could successfully implement it is with constant live video surveillance, otherwise parents who oppose the ban can easily get around it. Which is going to be at least a double digit percentage of the population. And the police don't even have the resources to investigate theft and robbery, let alone go after millions of parents for helping their children create social media accounts.

by logicchains

12/31/2025 at 8:43:47 PM

> parents who oppose the ban can easily get around it

Irresponsible parents are irresponsible parents, and they can do much worse than letting their children wander on the Net alone. IFAIK no law at least here forbids parents from giving alcohol or tobacco to their children, even though it is forbidden to sell those products to them. Toxic social media are mostly the same.

Although the topic is a ban, I think the idea is less about forbidding and punishing, and more about helping - albeit in questionably manner according to some - helping parents with "regulating" the access of their children to the Net. Of course, the easy answer is to recommend giving them dumb phones instead of smartphones, but really a smartphone is too useful to be ignored around high-school age.

by astrobe_

1/1/2026 at 3:44:41 AM

Give it a rest already, there aren't logically perfect solutions to be had because we don't live in a world of simply binaries, so people compromise on best-fit solutions rather than obsessing over the edge cases and ending up doing nothing at all.

by anigbrowl

12/31/2025 at 9:26:44 PM

That's fine. Adults can buy their kids beer, too.

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 3:56:51 PM

Good, social media should be considered a harmful substance. Even for adults it’s probably a bad thing.

by Insanity

12/31/2025 at 5:14:40 PM

It sounds like you don't like social media. With that in mind, why is it good to add a layer of user surveillance on the Internet? Where's the connection between "social media is harmful" and "it is good to add surveillance"?

If you think social media is harmful, wouldn't it be good to regulate social media? What does regulating French (or Australian, or wherever) citizens have to do with it?

by dfxm12

12/31/2025 at 9:26:01 PM

> Where's the connection between "social media is harmful" and "it is good to add surveillance"?

There doesn’t have to be one.

> If you think social media is harmful, wouldn't it be good to regulate social media?

Literally what a ban for under-15-year-olds is.

by JumpCrisscross

12/31/2025 at 10:00:44 PM

I'm not talking about theory, but what's happening in practice. In case you're unaware, Australian style ban is enforced via surveillance, such as a a mix of methods, such as facial age estimation, behavioural signals and an option to upload government-issued ID.

Literally what a ban for under-15-year-olds is.

If you're going to argue, please do so in good faith by taking my whole post into context. Thank you.

by dfxm12

12/31/2025 at 11:49:43 PM

In existing areas where France requires age checks, such as adult sites, they require sites to offer doubly anonymous verification. In doubly anonymous verification the site does not learn the user's identity, and the site that actually does the age check does not know which site the check is for.

Furthermore, France is in the EU. They expect to deploy their implementation of the EU Digital Identity Wallet by the end of 2026.

That allows users do age verification using protocol between the user's smart phone and the site with the age restriction. (Later they are expected to add support for smart cards and security tokens like YubiKey so a smart phone won't be required).

That system works by storing signed identity credentials tied to a hardware security device you provide, and using a zero-knowledge proof based protocol between your device and the site to prove to the site that your identity credentials show an acceptable age without providing any other information to the site.

The EU has been working on this for several years, and it is currently undergoing large scale field trials.

by tzs

1/1/2026 at 8:22:29 AM

> Furthermore, France is in the EU. They expect to deploy their implementation of the EU Digital Identity Wallet by the end of 2026.

> The EU has been working on this for several years, and it is currently undergoing large scale field trials.

Considering the recent track record from the EU regarding digital privacy, I would soon rather use a VPN than let the EU digital ID wallet verify my age and pinky promise not store any data about the sites that I browse.

by rdm_blackhole

1/2/2026 at 1:36:32 AM

How does Mark Zuckerberg triggering a genocide in Myanmar, among election interference, rank up with your disdain for EU digital policy?

Are politicians not supposed to do anything about Zuckerberg after watching Sarah Wynn Williams testify about Mark Zuckerberg selling out Americans for his fetish for kissing up to the CCP? Or hearing the current administration threaten the EU over impinging on Zuckerberg to engage in election interference in EU countries?

by favflam

12/31/2025 at 11:02:16 PM

> In case you're unaware, Australian style ban is enforced via surveillance, such as a a mix of methods, such as facial age estimation, behavioural signals and an option to upload government-issued ID

Sure. Australia opted for private compliance. Adults who choose to use social media are subject to more surveillance (because that’s how the social media companies chose to comply). In exchange, not only does that level of surveillance not apply to children, but the default state of surveillance they were under from social media companies (and being normalized towards) is gone.

by JumpCrisscross

12/31/2025 at 10:59:24 PM

Thanks for clarifying some of your points. I agree with you that the methods (like ID uploads and face recognition) aren’t the best. But I’m not sure if there are viable alternatives.

by Insanity

12/31/2025 at 4:55:42 PM

A ban on social media for children is a different way of saying ID Verification for the entire population.

They are implicitly the same thing.

You can't exclude children without first verifying _everyone_ and from there excluding people who match age < approved. This is basic logic.

If you were a cynical person you could imagine this is actually politicians wanting to bring in an ID law and using "think of the children" as the social justification for it.

If you're a conspiracy theorist you'd wonder why Apple and Google have now added the ability to upload and link your passport and other real id into their respective app wallets. How long before your phones browser is digitally signing all your social media posts with your ID...

by everfrustrated

1/1/2026 at 5:51:20 AM

>A ban on social media for children is a different way of saying ID Verification for the entire population.

ID verification was not required for adults in Australia. Age was inferred based on activity. In fact, blanket verification was disallowed by the legislation.

by deminature

12/31/2025 at 8:15:11 PM

I'm Australian and neither any Meta platform nor Reddit have asked to verify my ID, as I presume both just inferred that I was over 16 and that was adequate.

by someNameIG

1/1/2026 at 1:21:24 AM

In fact, the Australia law makes it illegal for a social media platform to require you to verify your ID.

It's like people here are arguing about a law they haven't even read.

by immibis

1/1/2026 at 5:52:51 AM

This whole thread is confidently wrong people arguing about legislation they have no understanding of. Social networks have already very accurately estimated your age for the purposes of selling advertising to you. The legislation expects them to use this estimate to restrict access to under 16s. So far it seems to be working pretty well in Australia, only children have been affected.

by deminature

1/1/2026 at 7:02:26 AM

The law forbids government ID as the sole age verification mechanism, but does not prevent it from being an option:

> As stated in the law passed late last year, platforms also cannot rely solely on using government-issued ID for age verification, even though the government-backed technology study found this to be the most effective screening method.

> Instead, the guidelines will direct platforms to take a "layered" approach to assessing age with multiple methods and to "minimise friction" for their users — such as by using AI-driven models that assess age with facial scans or by tracking user behaviour.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-15/social-media-ban-fina...

by naruhodo

12/31/2025 at 7:37:34 PM

> If you were a cynical person you could imagine this is actually politicians wanting to bring in an ID law

Sounds like a good theory, apart from the minor flaw that France already has ID cards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_card_(France)

by onraglanroad

12/31/2025 at 10:34:59 PM

Gaming platforms are already doing it.

by nephihaha

12/31/2025 at 6:43:32 PM

Yup the aim is to de-anonymise the Internet for increased policing/spying abilities

> How long before your phones browser is digitally signing all your social media posts with your ID...

Under 10 years I'd say at this rate

by hexbin010

1/1/2026 at 12:16:14 PM

We need to ban internet for humans under 18. There is nothing of value on the internet that can't be provided with a few cds worth of text and low resolution imagery, maybe a gig or so. Better yet, a decent set of old school encyclopedias is fine, and give the kids a dumb phone with parent white listed phone numbers and the kids have all they need.

by cowboylowrez

1/1/2026 at 1:26:45 PM

Agree. Same for adults.

by aziaziazi

12/31/2025 at 9:39:04 PM

I was going to write a comment about how stupid and harmful these bans are for multiple reasons (including being entirely ineffective at their stated goals anyways), but honestly, who cares at this point. It's clear to me that the internet is dying and will either look dramatically different in the next decade or cease to exist as it's overtaken by bots and AI. And I'm starting to think that's a good thing for humans and society. Perhaps we will return to the real world.

(We will still need the internet for communication, but hopefully far less for entertainment etc).

by llmslave2

12/31/2025 at 9:43:17 PM

Here's the thing though: they're not killing entertainment — at least not in general. They're killing communication.

by loup-vaillant

12/31/2025 at 9:50:15 PM

Are they? I don't see FaceTime, WhatsApp, Apple Messages etc being affected. The idiot politicians might in the future and will need to be fought, but I'm at the point where I want to see Facebook, Youtube, and X die.

by llmslave2

12/31/2025 at 9:45:18 PM

It’s all just AI and people slop. Real person to person communication won’t be effected.

by dyauspitr

12/31/2025 at 10:31:03 PM

I used to look things up on the internet, now it's looking me up.

by nephihaha

12/31/2025 at 9:44:09 PM

Yeah the internet is stupid at this point. I do get a lot of value from YouTube however.

by dyauspitr

12/31/2025 at 9:50:52 PM

Same - but I've also wasted so much time there I reckon it comes out as a wash (or worse).

by llmslave2

12/31/2025 at 4:05:45 PM

> If a child is in a Formula One car and they turn on the engine, I don’t want them to win the race, I just want them to get out of the car. I want them to learn the highway code first, and to ensure the car works, and to teach them to drive in a different car.

Yet computer education in France has been severely lacking for so long. From middle school to even universities (except the courses computer focused obviously) people aren't taught correctly. Teachers themselves are lost to computers and lectures are bad.

The goal is obviously to have tech illiterate people knowing just enough to use computers for the job but not worrying about the digital autoristarism currently being deployed.

by hollow-moe

12/31/2025 at 4:16:52 PM

> The goal is obviously to have tech illiterate people knowing just enough to use computers for the job but not worrying about the digital autoristarism currently being deployed.

If anything, without social media access, kids are more likely to play/hack around.

by tonfa

12/31/2025 at 4:56:29 PM

Its a weird analogy. Plenty of people have years of racing experience before they get their drivers license.

by tokai

12/31/2025 at 5:58:19 PM

So it means they got lectures and training beforehand. Which currently neither (the vast majority of) parents nor public education is properly providing for computer usage. Main difference being there's no licence required to access the internet, for the best and the worst.

by hollow-moe

12/31/2025 at 9:37:41 PM

Incredible. You absolutely eviscerated the argument your comment is founded on.

Either way, you should meet some rednecks.

by hackable_sand

12/31/2025 at 10:04:52 PM

What are you talking about? I keep saying people aren't correctly taught about computers. I don't care who provides the lectures.

by hollow-moe

12/31/2025 at 5:42:13 PM

Yeah. F1 drivers in particular start their training from the age of 4-5. By 6-7 they participate in competitions, at 12-13 they are already at the professional level in karting. Verstappen got his F1 license at 17, which technically qualifies as a "child" for the law.

by orbital-decay

12/31/2025 at 5:12:45 PM

I'd be very surprised if the overwhelming majority of F1 drivers weren't in some sort of go-kart racing league long before they held government licenses.

by potato3732842

12/31/2025 at 6:39:25 PM

I remember when I was a kid I listened to radio until very late in to the night.

Unless they want to remove all of technology from 10pm to 8am, this bill is going to be ridiculous. Teenager and kid will always find better things to do than sleep.

by aucisson_masque

1/1/2026 at 9:43:42 AM

Famously, there's no point banning kids from buying alcohol because sometimes adults buy it for them.

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 9:18:20 PM

If you want to know what is really driving this NOW, listen to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1RpYGJsp-A

by diaspora72

12/31/2025 at 11:15:12 PM

These laws are like requiring a license to watch R-rated movies on your cable TV. How is this even enforceable?

Block the sites at the country level - good luck with that - or stfu.

This is never going to work, and in 20 years we'll all be laughing at this omg get the genie back in the bottle legislation.

by brandonmenc

12/31/2025 at 10:37:56 PM

Any kind of government encroachment into the time of it's citizens is theft.

Many of their citizens chose American social media because they prefer American values. This offended the nationalists so they are simply going to ban American sites and try to make their own inferior ones.

Traditional media (Murdoch) and traditional gambling lobbied the hardest for these laws (of course these are anything but traditional). This is a billion dollar gimme to newscorp, but they will probably still fail to pick up the younger audience because they can't compete.

In America we have freedom of religion and freedom of association, we used to have the freedom to put whatever we please in our own bodies and minds.

by casey2

1/1/2026 at 9:44:32 AM

Absolute nonsense. American social media is used because it's designed to addict children and adults. Same reason people gamble, and buy advertised products.

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 9:43:14 PM

Every nation in the world needs this.

by dyauspitr

12/31/2025 at 6:28:39 PM

More!

by meroes

12/31/2025 at 6:17:42 PM

This is such a fools errand, there will always be services popping up faster than regulators can ban them. This won't stop a lot of the kids. So wasteful.

by Simulacra

12/31/2025 at 6:45:53 PM

That's not how they think. They will ban everything and only allow that which is explicitly permitted.

by fidotron

12/31/2025 at 9:05:54 PM

Look, I’m all for not letting children into social media apps. But that’s the job of the parents, not the state.

Besides, like many point out, this is just a way to deanonymize the web for everyone.

Why is the state always meddling with the citizens lives and personal responsibilities, and why do we let them? Do we really appreciate so much this nanny state?

by wtcactus

12/31/2025 at 9:40:54 PM

I don't think you've thought through the sentiment "But that’s the job of the parents, not the state" very well. Parents frequently want limited Internet access for their older preteen/early teen children, don't trust the private sector to implement this limited Internet access, and don't have the time to enforce this limited access themselves as they have to go to work and their children have to go to school anyway (and their parents want this limited access for them in school as well).

There are also easier options of no personal Internet access, and unrestricted access, but I suppose these are not very good for this stage of development.

As citizens we like to delegate aspects of our lives to the government; for example, I'm responsible for commuting to work on time, but we have delegated the maintenance of roads or public transport to the government, and this is something that could also be done by the private sector (private roads, private transportation), and ends up as a constant negotiation between citizen and government. Some polities like Germany and I think Sweden have subsidized education for children in exchange for mandatory public schooling by an institution either owned by the state or extremely highly regulated by the state.

by jhanschoo

12/31/2025 at 11:37:05 PM

>But that’s the job of the parents, not the state.

Agree with you. But you'd be surprised at the number of people who think that the state ought to do things for them, including raising their kids.

by dennis_jeeves2

1/1/2026 at 9:45:42 AM

What do you want to do with kids who happen to be born to incompetent parents? Do they deserve to just have fucked lives?

And the state is currently pushing social media onto kids and parents, should it maybe stop doing that, at least?

by immibis

1/1/2026 at 1:22:22 PM

>Do they deserve to just have fucked lives?

Yes. That's what nature does. You are of course free to help them with your personal resources.

> And the state is currently pushing social media onto kids and parents, should it maybe stop doing that, at least?

When did the state have the right to 'push' social media to start with? Do you need a law for everything that can potentially go wrong? How about a generic 'do no harm' law? (I must note that social media can be avoided by most people at this point but I digress.)

by dennis_jeeves2

1/1/2026 at 2:45:11 PM

Would you like to be robbed each week by someone with a fucked life?

by immibis

1/1/2026 at 2:05:05 PM

> What do you want to do with kids who happen to be born to incompetent parents? Do they deserve to just have fucked lives?

Yes. Unless you and other people that think like you go there and help them with your own time and your own personal resources.

My children shouldn’t have their parents time and money stolen by the state to give to children who’s parents don’t care enough to properly provide for them.

by wtcactus

12/31/2025 at 11:59:57 PM

> Besides, like many point out, this is just a way to deanonymize the web for everyone

Those people haven't bothered looking into the details. Some jurisdictions require age checks in a way that deanonymize people, and some require they be done in a way that do not deanonymize people.

The EU is strongly pushing for the later in the systems EU countries are adopting or considering.

by tzs

1/1/2026 at 11:15:19 AM

>But that’s the job of the parents, not the state.

How? I can't hover over the shoulders of my kids 24/7 - there's no world in which that's practical.

Maybe tech companies should start offering parents tools to make it easier? The same tools that people here might already use to keep that bullshit away from their kids.

by tjpnz

1/1/2026 at 2:43:28 PM

C’mon. We don’t need to go to extremes. I accept that sometimes my child will be able to access content not previously vouched by me. It’s ok, as long as it is a short amount of time.

You can control them at home and you can control their mobile phones. You can also expect the school to control their computers there. The remaining time will be a very short amount of interactions and I think we can healthily live with that.

by wtcactus

12/31/2025 at 7:20:48 PM

Ban for children, and mandatory deanonymiziation [1] for everyone else.

[1] At best with a "trust us we won't tattle" "privacy" architecture.

by like_any_other

12/31/2025 at 5:28:03 PM

Good for France!

I wish my country (USA) would adapt similar laws.

by RickJWagner

12/31/2025 at 10:34:14 PM

I love the way everything is forced online but you have to use state ID to chat with your friends now.

by nephihaha

12/31/2025 at 10:27:16 PM

What do you expect this law will to achieve?

by viktorcode

12/31/2025 at 11:18:41 PM

Fewer teen suicides

by ludston

1/1/2026 at 12:13:22 PM

"Children" (teens, actually) could just join their own social media sites. Or use proxies, or whatever.

Kids at 13 and 14 are pretty much on a different level. Back in the day we used to self host games, networks, kick pedos away (specially girls which made good laughs on them and dealing with them as dirty scum) and so on.

What _older_ kids need it's both accountability and tools to kick idiots away between their own group.

by anthk

12/31/2025 at 4:29:38 PM

I am convinced that the current world wide rise of (right wing ) populist movements is mainly caused by social media. By regulating like this my hope is we can reduce their spread.

by snowpid

12/31/2025 at 4:55:15 PM

I'm not convinced social media is to blame. Plenty of extremist movements have arisen throughout history without social media. Politics has been bad for a long long time before social media existed.

by Legend2440

12/31/2025 at 6:18:11 PM

They did exist, but you had to seek them out. You had to send them a letter and ask for their pamphlets to be mailed back to you.

Now you have right-wing extremists running the sites and deciding what you should view, just look at Twitter/X and Musk.

by galleywest200

12/31/2025 at 9:05:48 PM

So you want to silence your political opponents? Sounds draconian.

by llmslave2

12/31/2025 at 9:41:02 PM

It's disturbing how internalized their view of "silencing opposition is good" is that they just blurt it out publicly without further elaboration.

by GaryBluto

12/31/2025 at 9:53:22 PM

It's such a normalised sentiment that they feel completely comfortable expressing it publicly for everyone to hear.

I'm glad though, it lets me know who to avoid at all costs.

by llmslave2

1/1/2026 at 3:49:14 AM

Right wing extremists constantly fantasize about murdering their political opponents, perhaps you should go and talk them out of it.

by anigbrowl

1/1/2026 at 11:56:47 AM

Right wing populists =/= Right wing extremists.

by GaryBluto

1/2/2026 at 5:24:29 AM

How big of a difference is there? I see lots of 'populist' accounting lavishing praise on Augusto Pinochet (famous for perating death squads) they cheer when people sent to a ultra-security prison in El Salvador (likely illegally), and spam Nick Fuentes on social media. The administration is full of groypers and the DHS twitter handle is now a blatant propaganda account obviously run by a white nationalist.

by anigbrowl

1/1/2026 at 9:46:45 AM

I am in 1925. One of my political opponents is Adolf Hitler. I think Adolf Hitler shouldn't be allowed to give public speeches promoting Nazism. Is this draconian?

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 5:22:33 PM

Consolidation of all kinds of media (social, print, TV, radio, etc.) is a big ingredient in this. Another ingredient is the enshitification of the net, along with the value of unfettered collection of user data.

The problem isn't that people are consuming (social) media, it's that everything is owned by so few people. We shouldn't be punished for this by having to submit to even more surveillance.

by dfxm12

12/31/2025 at 4:40:44 PM

What's wrong with right wing populist movements? They come and go just like left wing populist movements. The pendulum swinging across both the political spectrums over election cycles is a thing of beauty.

by andrewinardeer

12/31/2025 at 4:49:35 PM

both are a threat to democracy like we see on Trump.

by snowpid

12/31/2025 at 9:16:10 PM

Because real democracy is using censorship and authoritarian measures to repress political dissent. Is your democracy textbook from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? What an absolute clown. I don't care where you stand on the political spectrum: what you are suggesting is the exact opposite of democracy.

by fhrhfbhdusx

12/31/2025 at 9:54:44 PM

You're being far too literal here. "Threat to democracy" can be directly translated to "Threat to our hegemony".

by llmslave2

1/1/2026 at 9:47:54 AM

When the people vote to abolish democracy that is a threat to democracy

by immibis

12/31/2025 at 5:49:54 PM

Populist movements are the opposite of a threat to democracy; they represent the actual views of the people, not the views of some cultured elite. Real democracy, not some republican elitism.

by logicchains

12/31/2025 at 7:12:31 PM

The flip side of that, is that the same sense of urgency that flings populists into power also compels them to start to bend the systems that got them there in order to maintain power.

After all, if the evil "elites" -- as if populists don't comprise their own elite class -- ever gain power again they could undo all of our "progress".

You can see this tendency in how some red states, like Texas, have tried to furiously redraw their maps to maintain control of the US house. They are doing this because they fear that "the people" will not choose to give them a majority again. They even admit to it openly. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/15/trump-five-seat-pic...

California had a state wide vote to do the same thing. But they were acting in kind. Tit-for-tat is a reasonable strategy what Texas did. Though it remains a shame that it came to it.

Cumulatively, these actions represent a breakdown of the machinery in our system that allows us to course correct. It's not healthy for anyone.

Planned markets lead to bad economic outcomes, why? Because when you fix prices you lose the ability to react appropriately to changing conditions. Managed democracies lead to bad social outcomes for the same reason. You need reasonably fair elections in order to sense the condition of the population and react to it.

Yet, populist rhetoric ups the emotional ante to the point where it starts to convince people that it's a good idea to subvert this. The old "Flight 93 Election" essay from 2016 is the perfect case study in this sort of absurd rhetorical escalation. Where they literally said, if Trump doesn't win America is doomed forever. We have to "charge the cockpit" before the plane crashes, so to speak.

Yet, when he lost in 2020, America didn't end forever. It's all been a farce and a grab for power.

by plaidthunder

12/31/2025 at 10:33:15 PM

So one variety of extremism is bad but another isn't?

by nephihaha

12/31/2025 at 5:48:05 PM

Social media is just decentralised information flow. Populist movements are rising because people are finally seeing how absolutely exploited they are by the elites, because the elites no longer have complete centralised control over the flow of information.

by logicchains

12/31/2025 at 6:36:04 PM

Content sourcing is decentralized, sure, content distribution is not. Through curation, one can craft a narrative without even needing to pay propagandists to write copy.

by SauntSolaire

12/31/2025 at 5:53:40 PM

[flagged]

by Hizonner

12/31/2025 at 9:07:36 PM

Besides breaking multiple HN rules, your comment also totally misses the point. It is decentralized with respect to governments and politicians. Which was their entire point.

Have you considered the opposite possibility?

by llmslave2

12/31/2025 at 7:15:32 PM

[dead]

by golemiprague

1/1/2026 at 10:15:51 AM

[dead]

by fleroviumna

12/31/2025 at 3:22:42 PM

What a coincidence.

by nephihaha

12/31/2025 at 3:35:51 PM

HN readers won't be able to find online partners if this accelerates.

by brewcejener

12/31/2025 at 3:47:37 PM

The trade war continues. We’ve known these shitty platforms were polluting kids for at least a decade.

by ta9000