US Supreme Court Greenlights Age Verification of All Social Media Users

The age verification government surveillance and censorship is only getting worse thanks to a Supreme Court ruling.

One of the things that has been noticeably is the evolution of age verification. Once upon a time, it was about requiring explicitly pornographic websites to implement obviously faulty age verification technology. This evolved to age verification being required to view specific kinds of content on any given website – meaning that all sites could very easily be subjected to this age verification, though it was possible for unverified users to still enjoy some content and features if they refuse to divulge all of their personal information to the platform in question. More recently, however, we are witnessing a trend where all users must divulge their personal information regardless of the content that they are attempting to view. This is something we are witnessing in Australia right now.

Now, YouTube did make a push to simply use AI to determine the age of their users. The method is obviously heavily flawed and is a capitulation to the surveillance state, but when I think about it in retrospect, I realize that this was also an attempt on the platforms part to bridge the divide between the governments interests and the users interests. This isn’t to say that this is a good idea – in fact, I still consider it to be an awful idea considering it’s still throwing some users under the bus – but YouTube very likely knows that they face a major threat to their viewers by demanding all sorts of personal information from its users when they have never asked for it before.

Obviously, this concept is going to be short lived. Since governments want to know what users are doing at all times on the internet, this is, for them, an opportunity to enact unprecedented surveillance on its citizens and more effectively clamp down on criticism online. As with the Australian example, the laws are evolving to require all users to identify themselves completely, making them more vulnerable to malicious third parties in the process. As a result, this provides an opening for government to tell platforms like YouTube that the AI method is not good enough and that all users must be “verified” (which really means tracked).

Some might look at this situation right now and say, “Hey, I know it’s bad, but the Australian example is an isolated incident. Other jurisdictions aren’t as onerous and are taking a less hands on approach to controlling the internet.” The reality is that laws have a tendency to spread from jurisdiction like a global pandemic. One country has it, then other countries get it. The link tax is an excellent example of bad policy spreading. It is generally credited with starting in Australia before it expanded into other nations. The idea, of course, being that this is the new international “norm” even though all reasonable accounts conclude that this is bad policy. With respect to age verification, Australia is, once again, acting as a test bed to see what happens when you require everyone to fork over all of their personal information before using a major web service like YouTube.

If you don’t believe me on this point, a recent US Supreme Court ruling has added another chunk of evidence that I can add to the pile of evidence that this is the case. According to NPR, a Mississippi age verification law just got the green light to move ahead. The court ruled that because it’s for a cause they agree with, then free speech can simply take a back seat because only losers and perverts support free speech anyway, so human rights doesn’t matter any more. From the report:

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to intervene in a lower court decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring users to verify their ages before using social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

The Mississippi law is far broader than a Supreme Court ruling just weeks ago that upheld a Texas law mandating age verification to access websites with sexually explicit material. Writing for the court’s conservative supermajority in June, Justice Clarence Thomas held that requiring adults to verify their age prior to using sexually explicit sites did not violate the First Amendment’s free speech clause because it is important to shield “children from sexually explicit content.”

In contrast, the Mississippi law requires all users to verify their ages before using common social media sites ranging from Facebook to Nextdoor, a social media site that connects people to their nearby neighbors.

In addition to the age verification rule, the Mississippi law requires social media websites to work to prevent children from accessing “harmful materials” and prohibits minors from using social media websites, such as Instagram and YouTube, without parental consent.

This ruling ultimately greenlights the model set forth by Australia. Specifically, it doesn’t matter what content is on a given platform, all users must verify their ages. If anything, the size of the platforms matter much more than the content and if you happen to be operating a large platform, you are going to be subjected to these laws. The smaller the platform, the better the odds that you won’t be immediately be targeted by this law and your small size is buying you time.

Either way, this next level of government surveillance on the population is already reaching the US. It’s only going to escalate from here moving forward. It’s a bad ruling greenlighting a bad law that is bad for society. Even worse is that it’s only going to embolden governments elsewhere to adopt similar approaches or even worse laws moving forward.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.