The Age Verification Debate

I would like to see more debate on age verification and the internet. How do you balance the free and open internet and the role anonymity plays in it versus protecting children? Does age verification protect children? Is age verification a form of censorship? What is it?

To understand this debate we need to make some key assumptions. The first assumption is that online pornography is easily accessible to children. This is unassailable. The second is that it’s been proven time and time again our personal information is not safe on the internet. How do you balance these two?

First off, should parents be responsible for policing their child’s internet activity? Yes, of course. Can they reasonably do it? No, children will find a way. For example, my children have Chromebooks from their schools that are supposed to be the most locked down, safest browsing device imaginable. It is anything but. One kid finds an unblocked site that plays Five Nights at Freddy and now they are playing Five Nights at Freddy. You are constantly chasing after them, like playing whack-a-mole. We try to counter this by not allowing their devices with them at night, or keeping their laptop screens open to us so we can see them when we walk by their room. But as we know, kids are smart, and they have more time on their hands. They also have friends who are also smart, and have time on their hands.

So, if it is a fool’s errand to police children’s online activities, then of course the government will step in. That is how democracy works right? But, what about online privacy? I am a proponent of it. I am a dreamer from the earliest internet days who thought it would change the world, democratizing the authoritarian regimes. Instead, it seems to have empowered them. Surveillance especially is more prevalent and easier to attain now more than ever. Your ISP knows everything about you. We know the NSA sniffs packet material.

Is the answer to this in technology? Should our computers or phones be creating anonymous tokens to prove our identity? Who maintains it? Who protects it? Obviously, it should be free, otherwise its gatekeeping the internet, which is kind of, you know, not very internetty?