Does take a rather different tone when you consider the FB whistleblower: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48353965

But I think the conversation people aren't having is the reverse of this: when is it time to ban people over, say, 65 from social media? They're often victims of scams and propaganda bot farms.

What do we do about adult radicalization on the Internet?

I'm about as cynical and open to conspiracy as anybody, but I strongly disagree on this one. Social media is a cancer on society as a whole, let alone children who are still trying to figure out who they are. It serves absolutely no positive purpose that couldn't be done at least as well through private chat groups and the like.

I will absolutely be barring my children from social media. I fully expect them to use it or similar sorts of stuff behind my back, but that's okay. It will then be hidden and scarce, which limits the overall negative consequences it can have. Being in a country where this is enforced at a national level is extremely appealing to me.

In many countries, targeted ads aren’t allowed for kids. By forcing age verification, companies in the targeted ads business (like Meta) can shift liability away from themselves and rely on forced identity verification done by someone else. It means they get to advertise a whole lot more, since they can blindly trust the verification instead of having to be on the side of caution and advertise less.

This is why they have lobbied many states in America for age verification laws, and are the alleged main funding source for the campaigns trying to make this about child safety when it’s about their profits. And the governments support it because it means they can identify people online and suppress speech. It’s literally the fascist notion of merging corporate power and authoritarian government power.

I mean none of the big social networks have any privacy anyways, they can exactly pinpoint who you are. I'm ok with this additional verification since no privacy is being lost really. No real politically endangered group is going to communicate via these networks anyways.