this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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I'm asking for public policy ideas here. A lot of countries are enacting age verification now. But of course this is a privacy nightmare and is ripe for abuse. At the same time though, I also understand why people are concerned with how kids are using social media. These products are designed to be addictive and are known to cause body image issues and so forth. So what's the middle ground? How can we protect kids from the harms of social media in a way that respects everyone's privacy?

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[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 22 minutes ago

You can't, however you frame this issue there's going to be a sacrifice. We have to all digest this.

The best kind of sacrifice you can make though for the best outcome is to limit your child's screen-time, AND ALSO YOUR OWN. Spend more time together, practice what you preach, you are also a child being harmed by social media.

Just normalize talking about those online irl abuse/exploitation stuff instead of yelling at em nor grounding. And stop victim blaming even some of the professionals do that.

Maybe we should do normalize about talking about other stuff too, to body images in head including "problematic" ones to in some anormal/atypical attraction types to possible self diagnosed but not so loud neurodiversities such as realizing you are might be plural or have too specific kinds of ocd.

Ive seen many abusers online are aiming kiddies online with those stuff and since there are not much help and many stigma surrounding mental health and bs kind of therapists that does victim blaming, they will have either to go online with predators watching em and prey on them for those vulnerabilities thrn thus preds will shift blame to those kids or smth.

Ive seen kids young as 12 or smth in some high risk mental health communities. You can tell someone did not wanted em but predators def do. Basically do not give birth to kids if you cant accept em in any way, if you think your kid becoming dangerous after some time, methinks you are also responsible for some aspects of it if they are under some of age.

[–] shaggyb@lemmy.world 15 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Stop. Giving. Them. Phones.

Stop whining. No they don't need one. NO THEY DON'T.

No.

No they're not special.

No they're not too busy. Neither are you.

No iPad either.

Stop. Shut up. No. Phones.

[–] ErevanDB@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 hours ago

I agree, if you limit "phones" to "smart phones and portable computers". There are reasons to give a kid a small, no internet dumbphone. But yes, don't give kids unrestricted access to the family PC, and DEFINITELY dont give them their own.

[–] YeahIgotskills2@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

That's the tack I'm taking. My eldest goes to high school next year and most of his peers are automatically getting a smartphone at that point. He'll be 13. He can forget it. A dumb phone at a push, for safety. That's it.

[–] moonshadow@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 hours ago

I like "if you want a phone you can buy one". If the kid's up to getting and keeping a job long enough to save for a phone and service, good for them, they just proved they should be treated that much more like an adult. If not, then hey. Something to work towards

I had a dumbphone at 14, but back then we just called them phones and I was definitely in the 1% for having it. Wasn't talking to my parents, bought it and a car to sleep in with drug money. Everyone grows up at a different pace

[–] Drasglaf@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 hours ago

A dumb phone at a push, for safety.

I think that's a good compromise.

[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 10 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (2 children)

The German passport allows services to verify age through you NFC reading your passport on your phone and confirmation of validity through intermediates state service. All they see is a confirmation of age requirement met. No name, no age, no address, no face.

Some other countries have similar systems. It's already a EU directive to be implemented on a broader European level.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 hours ago

How would that work online? How would they confirm it's your passport, and that it's a real passport that was really scanned (instead of a browser plugin)?

[–] ageedizzle@piefed.ca 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

This sounds like a much better strategy than the Australian model of simply scanning your face and using AI to guess your age

[–] Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

Burn it with fire?

Honestly there needs to be an honor system in place for the internet.

I think access needs to be granted through some branching moderation. Like one person vouches for two and they can then vouch for two each. If ever one person is found doing wrong, that whole branch gets skewered at the person who vouched for them.

Sure its not perfect but it's a system that doesn't immediately jeopardize your anonymity.

[–] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 7 points 6 hours ago

Lmao, now you've created a perfect relationship map for advertising/tracking who knows who.

[–] ageedizzle@piefed.ca 2 points 10 hours ago

Thats a unique idea

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

the age verification thing was "obviously" been associated with PALINITR trying to collect private info of potential politicla dissidents. besides DISCORD they almost all enacted the same policy at once. so palinitir is trying to get access to all the potential surveillance data, it has little to do with "privacy/protecting children"

[–] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 0 points 6 hours ago

I think this is a bit more conspiracy theorist than anything else. You're see coincidences and attributing it to a single bad actor. The reality is obviously much more nuanced. There is more and more research showing the psychological damage things like internet porn and social media have on childrens health, thanks to an entire generation being a live test subject. Social media companies have been running unregulated experiments on kids for decades now, and people are seriously noticing the negative impacts. This has resulted in law makers grasping at straws to find a solution. The less tech savvy ones are being ignorant about it and throwing privacy away for the sake of security. But age verification can be done securely with zero knowledge proofs if we spend the time to actually implement in correctly.

Palantir doesn't need our ID's to track us anyway. They get way more information without it already.

[–] curiousaur@reddthat.com 7 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Funny seeing this comment on a social media platform

[–] curiousaur@reddthat.com 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

This isn't a platform dunce.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 1 points 37 minutes ago* (last edited 31 minutes ago)

Lemmings are so dumb, I love you guys. The fediverse is literally a network of social media platforms, dunce. But hey, let's pretend you're right.

Oh no! I said the wrong word! I guess this is a social media network, not a platform, which completely destroys the point of my comment, right? God I wish you people could read

[–] epicshepich@programming.dev 10 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

The book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt had a really clever idea. Create a regulation for operating systems that requires that their parental controls include an option that labels a device as belonging to a kid. When that option is toggled, requests will include some sort of header that labels the request as originating from a kid. Then, place onus (probably through some sort of legislation) on web platforms to restrict what content is shown to kids.

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

consider though - politicians nowadays don't think. they think so little, in fact, that the last time i checked websites for self harm/sexual assault support or reporting were considered "too adult" for kids to have access to in the UK

if it was about kids' safety, this wouldn't have been omitted

[–] epicshepich@programming.dev 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that this tide of "think of the kids" is just a fascist dogwhistle (and one with a double-entendre at that).

[–] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

You should read the Anxious Generation. It goes into a lot of detail on research showing the damage social media has had on an entire generation. It's pretty undeniable that something needs to be done to stop/control social media's influence on children and teens in their crucial development years. There are some people that are definitely using it as a cover for control, but there are plenty of well educated people that see a real problem and are trying to do the best they can to find a solution.

[–] epicshepich@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

I mentioned it in my original comment! I thoroughly enjoyed it. As an older member of Gen Z, a lot of what's written there jives with my lived experience and the intuitions I've developed around social media. And as a relatively young father, I'm also invested in figuring out how to give my kids the healthiest relationship with the online world possible.

I'm also a strong proponent of digital freedom and privacy. A lot of the age verification technology that's being rolled is tied to companies like Palantir or organizations like DHS, which seem to have a rather unambiguous interest in neither the freedom nor the privacy (nor really the general wellbeing) of the populace.

I'm of the opinion that any system that could enable or facilitate mass surveillance is not an acceptable solution to the problem of protecting kids online.

The idea I laid out in my original comment was inspired by the idea Jonathan Haidt presents in Chapter 10 (What Governments and Tech Companies Can Do Now), Section 3 (Facilitate Age Verification), 6th paragraph:

There is not, at present, any perfect method of implementing a universal age check. There is no method that could be applied to everyone who comes to a site in a way that is perfectly reliable and raises no privacy or civil liberties objections.[26] But if we drop the need for a universal solution and restrict our focus to helping parents who want the internet to have age gates that apply to their children, then a third approach becomes possible: Parents should have a way of marking their child’s phones, tablets, and laptops as devices belonging to a minor. That mark, which could be written either into the hardware or the software, would act like a sign that tells companies with age restrictions, “This person is underage; do not admit without parental consent.”

[–] Kazel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 20 hours ago

Maybe its time for parents to parent their fucking kids...

[–] CovfefeKills@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

Probably don't treat social media as a last front for free speech and let it be curated and safe for children.

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